F OCUS - American Foreign Service Association

aircraft was an American flag carrier.
Then I noted that I was an
American diplomatic official and
declared that the passengers could
not be interrogated without my permission.
He said, “Oui, Monsieur
Secretaire,” and rushed off to telephone
his superiors. I took that as a
good sign and, sure enough, after
some more phone calls and a day and
a half of confusion, everyone got out
in one piece.
FSJ: Your first ambassadorship
was to Upper Volta, now Burkina
Faso (1978-1980), followed by Colombia
(1980-1983). What were
some of the challenges you faced as
chief of mission in each country, and
how did you handle them?
TDB: The main reason we had an
embassy in Ouagadougou was economic
development. At that time, 30
years ago now, the Sahara Desert was
moving south, so USAID had an $18
million development program in this
tiny country to help the government
cope. We must have had 15 USAID
officers there. Being an activist and a
believer in ambassadorial authority, I
duly asserted my authority over the
mission. There was a certain amount
of friction at first, mainly because
they’d never had an ambassador who
took that view, but we got that worked
out. And I learned a lot about economic
development in the process.
Keeping morale high was another
priority, of course. We had a theater
group, the “Way Off Broadway Players,”
and a softball team called “Sahel’s
Angels,” among other things. Every
weekend we could, the team would go
play our counterparts in Niamey or
Bamako or Dakar, which was great for
us because it was R&R. We’d play
two games on Saturday and two on
Sunday, with parties Friday night and
Saturday night. It was just fun.
FSJ: Bogota was a much more
demanding posting, I imagine.
20 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2008
“Being an activist
and a believer in
ambassadorial authority,
I duly asserted my
authority over
the mission.”
TDB: The drug problem was the
main challenge there, of course. In
fact, we were one of the first
embassies to have a huge influx of
FBI and DEA agents, who were making
cases in Colombia to try to head
off drug trafficking at the source. I
didn’t just coordinate all these agencies,
either — I tried to direct them.
As you know, when you’re ambassador,
you represent the president,
not just the State Department.
And, of course, just surviving the
multiple death threats was a challenge.
Bogota was a very violent place at that
time, so I had my own little army of
bodyguards on top of embassy security.
My car was armored, and I always
traveled with an armored lead car and
follow-on vehicle. I had an armed
guard with me at all times, and I was
armed. The last line of defense was
me! So I practiced with a .38, an Uzi
and a 12-gauge shotgun.
Keep in mind that my predecessor,
Diego Ascencio, had been at an
embassy reception when the M-19
took it over. So he, in effect, had
been taken hostage. My security officer
had been the security officer
when that happened, and before that
was in Kabul when Adolph “Spike”
Dubbs was assassinated while serving
as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan in
1979. So when he was introduced to
me, he grabbed me by the lapels and
exclaimed, “Sir, I’m not going to lose
you!” And he meant it.
FSJ: Fortunately, he lived up to
his word!
TDB: Yes, he did. I felt sorry for
him because he’d had a really traumatic
career, but he was a really good
guy.
FSJ: As a former ambassador to
Bogota, what do you think about the
current difficulties of winning congressional
approval for the U.S.-
Colombia Free Trade Agreement?
TDB: It’s very sad. First of all,
President Alvaro Uribe is doing a
great job for his country, both in
terms of reducing crime and helping
the economy, for which he’s enormously
popular, with something like a
75-percent approval rating among
Colombians. Second, if anything, the
agreement is more in our interest
than theirs from a commercial point
of view. Colombia already has dutyfree
entry to the U.S. for its goods, so
what this would do is give our businesses
access to its market.
It’s just crazy what we’re doing —
it’s all about trade-union symbolism,
not economic factors or sensible
diplomatic reasons. Colombia has
done everything right, on the human
rights front, the economic front and
the political front, so we should be
encouraging them, not punishing
them.
FSJ: In 1983 you were promoted
to the personal rank of career minister
before retiring from the Service. Tell
us about the transition to post-
Foreign Service life.
TDB: I think the most important
thing for retiring Foreign Service personnel
to realize is that entering the
business world is like being assigned
to a new foreign country. The business
world has its own way of looking
at things, its own objectives, language,
traditions and so forth. If you keep