Window Seat on the World Read online

  Instead, Kerry walked down the steps alone, greeted by a lone airport official. The two went across the tarmac to a small building on the outskirts of the otherwise busy airport.

  The secretary was already filled with sadness and disbelief, but as his plane crossed Canada, I knocked on the door of his cabin and told him to turn the TV to CNN. When he did, he saw the news of the twin bombings back home at the Boston Marathon.

  Now the secretary was walking into a building in Illinois where Tom and Mary Beth Smedinghoff were waiting with their surviving children.

  The secretary wanted to see them to personally offer his condolences on their loss.

  After nearly an hour with the family, he called for me to join the group inside the building. The Smedinghoffs had accepted his offer to take a group picture, which he asked me to snap with a family camera.

  When I entered the room, I felt like an intruder. All I could say was “Sorry.”

  After his goodbyes, Kerry walked back to his plane, climbed the steps under a dark gray sky, and took off for his flight home.

  He’d later tell us staffers the Smedinghoffs were “just a regular, good ol’ hard-core American family with solid values.”47

  I was reminded of our visit more than a year later, as I walked down a hall inside the Harry S Truman Building.

  There, coming in the opposite direction, was a woman with wavy black hair, dark eyebrows, and a face I remembered from that moment in Chicago.

  The woman was Regina Smedinghoff, Anne’s younger sister. She’d followed in her sibling’s footsteps and now worked at the State Department.

  Her focus? Advancing women’s issues around the globe.

  It was the same goal of that job fair in Kabul the secretary so loved, held the day he and we on his team said goodbye to Anne Smedinghoff, flew out of Afghanistan, and left our control officer behind to resume her normal duties at the embassy—and across those crucial last three feet.

  IF YOU WOULD LIKE to perpetuate Anne’s work, you can make a donation in her memory to four causes endorsed by her parents, Tom and Mary Beth Smedinghoff:

  Anne Smedinghoff

  The Anne Smedinghoff Scholarship

  Fenwick High School, 505 Washington Blvd., Oak Park, IL 60302

  Coordinated by Fenwick High School, her alma mater, it provides $2,000 in tuition assistance for a rising senior “with an interest in international relations and/or public service.”

  The Anne Smedinghoff Memorial Fund

  krieger.jhu.edu/giving

  Coordinated by her college, Johns Hopkins University, it “provides financial support to students wishing to pursue activities in the area of international development or diplomacy.”

  The Afghan Girls Financial Assistance Fund

  www.agfaf.org

  Established within the Community Foundation of New Jersey, AGFAF “helps young Afghan women, who are committed to working for gender equality and improving life in Afghanistan, pursue and finance educational opportunities in the United States.”

  The School of Leadership Afghanistan

  www.sola-afghanistan.org

  SOLA provides a safe boarding school in Kabul for middle- and high-school women from around Afghanistan as they pursue the national curriculum. The Smedinghoffs added this to their list of favored causes after meeting its founder.

  2

  WELCOME

  TO BLAIR HOUSE

  SECRETARY KERRY TOOK ON his fair share of challenges during his four years in office, but he used to tell a joke about one of the vexing aspects of diplomacy.

  “What’s the difference between a protocol person and a terrorist?” he’d say.

  While an audience grasped for the answer, the secretary would smile and explain, “You can occasionally negotiate with a terrorist.”

  If there’s a lifeblood to formal diplomacy, it’s protocol: the set of rules and procedures structuring matters of governance and diplomacy. If those rules aren’t ironclad, as Kerry suggested, they’re certainly rigid—as are the people who enforce them.

  And as obnoxious as that may be for people who just want to get something done, it also has its benefits.

  That’s why protocol is crucial to diplomacy.

  Protocol provides the structure for conducting a negotiation. It lets participants avoid land mines preventing a conversation from even starting. And its rigidity gives a ready-made excuse when you have to resolve a problem.

  If someone doesn’t want to sit next to someone else, the host can explain the seating arrangement is alphabetical or is based on the length of their countries’ diplomatic relationship.

  Making decisions through objective criteria or a set of traditions avoids accusations of subjectivity or favoritism.

  “Protocol is not an end in and of itself. Rather, it is a means by which people of all cultures can relate to each other,” says the Foreign Service Institute’s “Protocol for the Modern Diplomat.” “Protocol is, in effect, the frame for the picture rather than the content of it.”48

  The dictates of protocol are vast. They cover elements of basic manners: how to properly greet someone, when to arrive and depart a party, and how and when to convey your thanks. They also encompass everything from who hosts a meeting to where it’s held and who sits at what spot along a table.

  The people about to be posted abroad as a US ambassador go to a special finishing school in Virginia where one major focus is protocol.

  Because protocol underpins diplomacy, the chief enforcer in the United States—the Office of the Chief of Protocol—is located within the Department of State. And in a nod to its importance, the person who serves as chief of Protocol is given the rank of ambassador.

  During most of John Kerry’s term as secretary of State, the job was held by Pete Selfridge. He learned the trade as a campaign advance man for both Kerry’s 2004 presidential bid and President Obama’s 2008 White House campaign. He went on to serve as White House deputy director of advance during Obama’s first term.

  During the second term, Ambassador Selfridge’s hand was often the first a foreign leader shook when he or she stepped off the plane at Andrews Air Force Base. Even before that greeting, his team would have worked with the visitor’s staff to settle on accommodations, a schedule, entertainment, and how to address any personal needs, such as food allergies or pillow preferences.

  The Protocol Office oversees a dignitary’s arrival at the White House and State Department, escorts guests to meetings with the president and secretary of State, seats and feeds those who accompany them, and leads the visitors back to their cars and on to their next event.

  In between, the Protocol Office addresses myriad details, including whether and how to exchange gifts, and precisely which one should be given by the US government. The president and secretary of State travel with a trunk filled with spare gifts of all sizes and costs to prevent being caught empty-handed if a host surprises them.

  Protocol staffers also serve as bouncers at the door of a meeting room, and select what food should be served to security guards and staff members left waiting in a holding room.

  The Office and its impeccably dressed, exceptionally well-mannered staff also accompany the president and vice president on their own foreign trips, ensuring everything goes off without issue.

  Selfridge could often be seen backstage, briefing President Obama with a diagram of a room or pointing him down a red carpet and toward his seat. When an event was under way, he’d stand in a corner, scanning the room and looking for problems or guests in need of something. And when he wasn’t at work, Selfridge and his wife, Parita Shah, spent many nights attending functions at embassies on behalf of the US government.

  On one level, he was a professional party-thrower and partygoer.

  As with the Diplomatic Security Service, the Protocol Office’s Super Bowl takes place every September, when diplomats from around the world converge on New York City for the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting.

  Sel
fridge and the staff would handle arrangements not only for all of President Obama’s events during his two or three days in the city but also for those involving Vice President Biden and Secretary Kerry.

  The secretary used to label the flurry of meetings—sometimes more than sixty-five of his own in just five or six days—as “speed-dating.” In that construct, Protocol staffers were the matchmakers.

  When one meeting ended, Kerry would step into a waiting room to make a call or speak with his aides. The Protocol team would step in and swap out the flags, name cards, water glasses, and snack trays.

  They’d then readmit the press, lead the secretary to his designated greeting spot, and introduce the next guest and his team, one by one.

  Once everyone was seated, Protocol would lead the media out and supervise the waitstaff as they poured fresh coffee or other beverages.

  Only after the participants were settled would the Protocol staff leave the room and close the doors behind them. They’d enter only if someone needed to pass a note to one of the meeting participants or if the waiters had to refresh the drinks.

  When the time allotted expired, a Protocol staffer would softly knock on the doors and open them, indicating it was time to move on to the next meeting.

  _________

  IF THE WHITE HOUSE is the ultimate venue the Protocol staff has at its disposal, Blair House is a close second option.

  Located across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, Blair House is the president’s official guesthouse. It’s overseen, though, by the chief of Protocol and the State Department.

  “House” is a misnomer, because four adjoining buildings actually make up Blair House: Blair House, Lee House, Peter Parker House, and 704 Jackson Place. They’re connected internally and run from Lee House—immediately to the left of the pale yellow Blair House—around the corner to the east, before ending at 704 Jackson Place.49 It overlooks Lafayette Park.

  All told, Blair House measures 70,000 square feet—bigger than the White House—and has 119 rooms. They include fourteen bedrooms and thirty-five bathrooms. The house even includes a beauty salon that’s staffed when a guest is in residence.

  President Truman largely lived and worked out of Blair House while the White House was renovated from 1948 to 1952.

  The Lincoln Room just off the front door is a tribute to President Abraham Lincoln. It includes a portrait over the fireplace that the sixteenth president sat for just weeks before his assassination.50 Randy Bumgardner, the Tennessean who long managed Blair House, would say the detail in the Edward Dalton Marchant painting provides a near-photograph of President Lincoln just before his death.

  The Treaty Room in the Peter Parker House—named for the physician who originally owned it—has a twenty-two-seat mahogany table.51

  Incoming presidents move into the house five days before their inauguration, and the families of deceased presidents usually stay there while they are in Washington for funeral or memorial services.

  Heads of state are allowed to stay in Blair House during official visits to the United States. If two visitors of equal rank are in Washington at the same time, neither is invited to stay in Blair House to avoid favoring one over the other.

  The rule is rooted in—what else?—protocol.

  Secretary Kerry used Blair House for several large meetings related to the Middle East peace process, and several one-on-one conversations with visiting leaders.

  Unbeknown to many Americans, the stodgy State Department also has its own version of Blair House. Called the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, they’re spread across the eighth floor of the Harry S Truman Building. They represent the country’s effort to provide an awe-inspiring setting for formal diplomatic events.

  The forty-two rooms house portions of a five-thousand-item collection of American paintings and furnishings, and each is designed to evoke a period or place in US history from 1750 to 1825.52

  The collection is worth an estimated $150 million. It includes antique silver shaped by Paul Revere for John Adams, the original Spirit of America painting, and an architectural desk used by Thomas Jefferson.

  Perhaps its most famous piece is another desk, the one on which the Treaty of Paris was signed to end the Revolutionary War. Secretary Kerry regularly ended tours of the rooms at the desk, explaining to his foreign guests its importance in US history.

  The rooms were privately financed and are privately endowed with the goal of matching the spectacular settings Old World governments offer for diplomatic events. Without the gilding of the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, the Truman Building would be little more than a sterile block of offices.

  When people enter the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, they’re often stunned. That was the case for us original members of the Kerry staff who, shortly after taking our oath in February 2013, were given a tour of the eighth floor by curator Marcee Craighill.

  With a theatrical flair, she spoke of the rooms and their accompanying art collections, spinning around to point out objects of note while raising and lowering her voice to hold her audience.

  Like Kerry, Craighill finished at the Treaty of Paris desk. When she revealed its history, it overwhelmed me and reinforced the weight of the responsibility I’d just assumed on behalf of the country.

  The biggest of the Diplomatic Reception Rooms is named for Benjamin Franklin, who first lobbied within Europe for an independent United States and then was the new country’s first diplomat as ambassador to France.

  With its floor-to-ceiling columns, banks of windows, and massive scale, the Ben Franklin Room gives off a stately air. In the center of its ceiling is the Great Seal of the United States, a badge with an eagle holding arrows in one talon and an olive branch in the other. That crest is stamped on certain official US documents to prove their authenticity.53

  It’s displayed so prominently in the room because, like Blair House, it’s administered by the secretary of State.

  Kerry would regularly point to Franklin’s portrait, hanging on the room’s eastern wall, as he regaled his audiences with a recap of the Founding Father’s colorful life—filled with wine and song.

  “He liked to have a really good time, folks,” the secretary said in May 2015 as he hosted a reception in the room for members of the Arctic Council. “And he didn’t spare the booze, and while he was in Paris he led a life that clearly meant that had he lived today and been nominated, he would never have been confirmed for office.”54

  The BFR is the venue for larger gatherings, such as the biennial Strategic Dialogues that take place between the United States and select governments. It’s also the scene for larger ambassadorial swearings-in. And it’s the site of the Department’s annual string of Christmas parties for staff, diplomats, and the press corps, as well as its annual Fourth of July party for foreign ambassadors to the United States.

  The guests at that party relish the chance to eat all types of American food and then to head outside to a balcony, where they get an unobstructed view of the National Mall during the annual Washington fireworks display.

  In addition, the Ben Franklin Room is the place for State Lunches, hosted by the State Department for visiting heads of state. They’re typically on the afternoon before the evening the guest of honor attends a State Dinner at the White House.

  The room is also the venue for the annual Kennedy Center Honors Dinner.

  That gathering is held each December to recognize artists from across the American entertainment spectrum. During Secretary Kerry’s tenure, they included guitarist Carlos Santana, actor Tom Hanks, and singers Mavis Staples and James Taylor.55

  _________

  FOR JOHN KERRY, ONE of the most important events to occur in the room during his four years was his own swearing-in ceremony.

  Although he’d already been officially sworn in behind closed doors at the US Capitol on February 1, 2013, the secretary invited his family and friends for a public celebration in the Ben Franklin Room on February 6, 2013. Vice President Joe Biden ceremonially
administered the oath while Teresa Heinz Kerry held the Bible for her husband.

  “You know, it’s not the first time John has taken an oath,” the vice president said. “The first time John took the oath to his country was in 1966, as a young naval officer. On that day in ’66, he swore an oath to his nation, an oath that has animated his entire life, from the Mekong Delta to the Foreign Relations Committee to be standing here with all of you in this room today.”56

  As I stood and listened to the vice president, he put into words what I’d instinctively felt when Kerry called me in a newsroom in January 2013 and offered me the career-changing experience of a job on his State Department staff.

  John Kerry had enjoyed a life of personal privilege, attending private grade schools and then one of the finest colleges in the world, Yale University. He spent part of summers at his mother’s family home on the Brittany Coast in France and others at a family reserve on Naushon Island, near Martha’s Vineyard.

  His life also had an unmistakable “Forrest Gump” quality to it, inevitably putting him in proximity to momentous events.

  He once went sailing off Newport, Rhode Island, with President John F. Kennedy. He was in San Francisco for Navy training during the “Summer of Love” in 1967. His ship returned to Los Angeles the night Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot after winning the 1968 Democratic primary. A picture that later hung in his office showed him with former Beatle John Lennon at an antiwar rally in Central Park. The president at the time, Richard Nixon, was heard on one of his infamous White House tapes remarking about his charisma and how to undermine him.

  When it came down to the choices he made in his professional life, though, John Kerry chose public service.

  A year before graduating from Yale in 1966, he decided to join the US Navy and serve in the Vietnam War. After his first stint aboard the USS Gridley, a guided-missile cruiser, he sought a more harrowing assignment as the skipper of a Patrol Craft Fast, the so-called Swift Boats.