Last Call: Diplomatic Immunity
Stevenson, Matthew
LAST CALL by Matthew Stevenson Diplomatic Immunity A S AN AMERICAN RAISING CHILDREN in a Swiss village near Geneva, I often worry about their sentimental education. They go to Swiss schools,...
...A photograph in the residence shows the two of them traveling on Air Force One...
...THE CEREMONY ENDED WITH THE SINGING of the national anthem, the diplomats scurried for the main gates, and the Americans returned to the tent for more hamburgers and coleslaw...
...We waited our turn with an Internet executive ("you can start with twenty free hours...
...That America temporized with Hitler between 1939 and 1941, traded with the enemy, restricted news of a Holocaust, sold the Swiss twice as much gold as did the Nazis, and after the war swept up the savings of death camp victims into state treasuries was not a theme that mixed with either the boy scouts on hand or even the pitch the Ambassador made for the Chevys...
...Without a reply, Helen and I passed into a large tent, which even on foreign soil wonderfully evoked a village green on the Fourth of July...
...Where are you from...
...Helen was elbow-deep in her first ear of corn in two years when the ambassador approached our little group...
...the aide asked me...
...But there were also overseas Americans, there, in small part, as Henry James wrote, "fighting the superstitious valuation of Europe...
...zip code, like a mail order house...
...So with alacrity I accepted an invitation to take my oldest daughter, Helen, age 9, to a 4th of July celebration at the residence of the American ambassador...
...Politically correct, Helen shook hands, and I followed...
...There were no fireworks, but Helen and I, having briefly touched American soil and clutching our samples of maple syrup, walked to the station as if in their reflected glow...
...Laconnex," I replied...
...Marine guards marched in the colors and the ambassador, who read a Hillary-and-I letter from the president...
...and wondered which important guests had been allowed to park their cars all over the ambassador's front lawn...
...Bern, the Swiss capital, is two hours by train from Geneva, and I used the time to review Helen's curtsey until a call home to my wife linked such obeisance to court practice that, I was told bluntly, had departed with Cardinal Richelieu...
...As if a still life of Leslie Nielson, the president is positioned behind a mile-high desk while, seated opposite, the Ambassador has the tentative posture of a job applicant...
...Winding down as was the party, she teased my daughter about the size of her corn and then continued to drift to the Pizza Hut stand...
...HALF OF THOSE UNDER THE TENT WERE diplomatic types...
...WHEN IT CAME TIME TO INTRODUCE us to Ambassador Kunin, who lived until age 8 in Switzerland and emigrated during the war, the aide-de-camp got it all wrong...
...Then flanking the ambassador, we turned for the ceremonial picture, the kind they take with the captain on the QE2...
...Don't you work for a corporation or something...
...In American foreign policy, it's the small countries that absorb the sticker shock...
...In Switzerland, the village is all...
...THE RECEIVING LINE TO MEET THE Ambassador Madeline Kunin stretched past the main gates of the residence...
...No," she said, getting flustered...
...The grounds of the residence had the look of a Vermont trade show...
...As the camera whirred, I delivered my diplomatic credentials: "Both Helen's grandmother and aunt graduated from the University of Vermont," I said, near bended knee but avoiding the regal curtsey...
...They go to Swiss schools, speak French, but grow hazy when the conversation turns to Paul Revere or Benjamin Franklin...
...She followed with remarks that started eloquently—"I want to quote from the actual Declaration" — but ended by hectoring the Swiss on the subject of Nazi gold and the need to settle dormant accounts, including, as it turned out, one with the ambassador, whose mother (not a Holocaust victim) left behind a nest egg when the family emigrated...
...86 September 1997 • The American Spectator...
...AN ACCOMPLISHED WRITER AND POLITICAL theorist, Ambassador Kunin, a Democrat, was governor of Vermont during part of the time that Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas...
...I delivered a short discourse on the American experiment, which I ended by saying: "Listen, kid...
...But Ambassador Kunin has little of the small talk of her once fellow governor from Arkansas...
...Men dressed as Paul Revere, if not Samuel Adams, passed out bottles of beer, hamburgers, hot dogs, and potato salad, and Helen learned the important lesson, from Ben & Jerry, that not all ice cream is created equal...
...No," said the aide-in-panic...
...Ambassador, may I present the Stevens," was how we were finally passed along...
...We moved to Switzerland from New York in 1991...
...Closer inspection revealed the parked cars to be Chevys, so my first July 4th lesson for Helen was to explain that because both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were citizen-statesmen, each kept a dealership on the side...
...If you want snow tires, go to the German embassy...
...But then to clarify, I added: "Geneva...
...And both have described your eloquence as a speaker...
...Where are you from...
...PRESENTLY WE WERE UPON THE AMBASSADOR...
...Oh," I said, confused, figuring she wanted a U.S...
Vol. 30 • September 1997 • No. 9
