Here is Kennan, re our Ambassadors, and also, I think, our diplomats, in general, here:
'FLASHBACKS'
"...ambassador to Moscow. The assignment has nothing to do with Soviet - American relations. The present ambassador, it seems, is leaving. It is the election year of 1952. For purely domestic political reasons, the administration is afraid to leave the post vacant. Foreign policy -- policy toward the Soviet Union -- plays no part in the decision. It never occurs to people in the administration that the position of American ambassador to Moscow has anything to do with policy. They don't really know, to tell the truth, what an ambassador is for...."
"They don't really know, to tell the truth, what an
ambassador is for...."
Appointments, from what I can see, have most often
been bones thrown to important presidential campaign
contributors. That is not what even someone like David
Brooks would call, in a sober moment, a meritocratic
system.
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