A Diplomat’s Life
Mark Asquino
has written a memoir of his 40 year career working as an information officer
and ultimately as an ambassador. I admire him for having the fortitude to write
his memoir. I know all too well how hard it is
because I have 70 pages written for my own memoir that has been sitting
as a word file for a very long time, but I digress.
Mark Asquino is a child of the gritty Providence Rhode
Island of the 1950’s. According to stereotype an Italian kid there was not
supposed to grow up to become an ambassador. The choice then, in a cartoon
version, was for him to become either a priest, policeman/fireman or a member
of the Mob. Nevertheless Asquino overcame the stereotype and graduated with
honors from Brown University and went on to get a Ph.D. in literature there.
A teaching career was not for him and by a circuitous
path he ended up working for the U.S. Information Agency. In short, he worked
as public information officer for various embassies. Among his better postings were in Spain,
Venezuela, and Chile. However he served in post-Ceausescu Romania, Uzbekistan,
Kazakhstan, Sudan, and finally Equatorial Guinea. Those postings could hardly
be characterized garden spots and in
more than a few cases he faced imminent physical danger and he had to stand up
to ruthless dictators.
Asquino made his bones in Uzbekistan where he was
fortuitously stationed at the time of 9/11. After the 9/11 attacks Uzbekistan
became a major base of operation for U.S. forces and as result it became a
hotbed of political and journalistic activity. Of a sudden, Asquino became a
real player. Indeed he was involved in the construction of a bridge into
Afghanistan which he and his ambassador crossed over into that war torn
country.
From there he moves up in the State Department and I
learned that it takes quite a bit of lobbying for a career officer to gain an
ambassadorship. Because of his interest in all things Spanish he ends up in
Equatorial Guinea, which at one time was a Spanish colony. His description of
this despotic country of 1.5 million people and lots of oil, makes one think of
Donald Trump’s comments on certain African nations.
Asquino gets personal in writing about his parents,
girlfriends, meeting his first wife and getting divorced. Much later, in
Romania, he has middle-aged romance with Jane, a Peace Corps volunteer, who
would become his wife.
In reading this book I got a strong sense of what life
is like in the diplomatic trenches where nameless and faceless foreign service
officers serve America every day. The public knows little of what they do, but
their work is of the highest importance. I only wish the author had a better
editor, because details are great, but too much detail can overwhelm the
reader.
For the full Amazon URL see: A Diplomat's Life (amazon.com)
