If you know anyone who works in the State Department's Office of Protocol, this is a week to be especially polite to them. The 46 international delegations converging on Washington D.C. for President Obama's nuclear summit today and tomorrow present a unique challenge for the State Department -- and not just due to the pressing questions of high diplomacy. Someone, after all, has to coordinate the world leaders' arrival, ensure their security, organize dinner seating charts at dinners, and make sure that the delegations go home with culturally-appropriate gifts.
Donald Ensenat, the State Department's Chief of Protocol during the George W. Bush Administration from 2001 to 2007, said that this summit involved more world leaders than he ever had to handle at one time. Bilateral meetings are a particular sticking point: Every foreign leader wants face time with President Obama, or his top aides. The Protocol Office is charged with breaking the bad news to visiting delegations if the administration's principals don't deign to sit down for a one-on-one meeting -- a job, Ensenat stated, they undertook with "the utmost sensitivity." It is also their responsibility to make sure that outgoing delegations do not cross paths with those entering for a meeting, to avoid giving them a hint of who the administration is meeting with.
The Protocol Office employs only around 15 people, but calls on the embassies for help with cultural norms and dietary restrictions. When it comes to meals, the default choice is generally American cuisine. Delegations "can request specific foods, if that is [their] preference -- although most don't," noted Ensenat.
And, inevitably, there are the idiosyncratic world leaders whose whims the chief of protocol must try to accommodate.
"One
leader requested total pitch black darkness in the principal suite bedroom," remembered Ensenat. "We
had to go in and blacken out the windows for zero light, take out clocks and
radios that had lights on them." Another rumor has it that the Secret Service was once alerted to a man stumbling down the fire escape at Blair House, where the Russian delegation was staying -- only to find that it was Russian President Boris Yeltsin, a notorious vodka lover, who claimed he was in search of the bathroom.
Passport, FP’s flagship blog, brings you news and hidden angles on the biggest stories of the day, as well as insights and under-the-radar gems from around the world.
Read More
(0)
HIDE COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE