Dan: 0:00

In diplomacy, words matter, especially the wrong ones.

John: 0:06

So I was at NATO there for about two weeks, the ambassador had been there for a little bit longer, but we were doing her first major press conference. And one of the I forget who it was, the AP journalist or somebody said, hey, you know, Russia has these dual capable missiles parked on the border of NATO territory. Dual capable meaning that they can carry nuclear weapons or they can carry conventional weapons. You know, ambassador, what are gonna do about this? What's the United States going to do about this? And the ambassador said, well, we're gonna take them out. And in diplomatic parlance, that means you're calling for a preemptive strike on Russia. And so I understood that and I asked the journalist, I said, maybe we can rephrase that question. And he rephrased it slightly and the ambassador gave the same response.

Dan: 0:53

John Johnson is a retired diplomat. He was in the US Foreign Service for more than twenty years, mostly working in public affairs. So he has a strong Spidey sense for when news is being made in real time.

John: 1:07

Between the time I closed questioning for the press conference and that my foot stepped off the stage, there was already an AP / Reuters story running that the US was calling for a preemptive strike on Russia. And that's one of those moments that scares the life out of any diplomat.

Dan: 1:22

Where does your attention go first in a situation like that? Media contacts or Russian embassy contacts or what?

John: 1:29

The White House. And the secretary of state.

Dan: 1:32

Just to make sure that is not in fact our policy?

John: 1:36

"A" to make sure it's not our policy and "B" to have somebody really really senior come out and say that's not our policy because that's what you need to sort of stomp it out.

Dan: 1:44

There's a day in the life of a diplomat for you saving the world from World War III.

John: 1:49

Hey, look. There's a ton of smart people in the State Department and I bet you could plug, you know, most people in that situation, they would have done the same thing. But it was one of those moments where it could have turned this way, but it turned the other way and I was able to be a small part of that.

Dan: 2:13

I'm Dan Heath and this is What It's Like to Be. In every episode, we walk in the shoes of someone from a different profession. A city manager, a camera operator, a professional Santa Claus. We wanna know what they do all day at work. Today, we'll ask John Johnson what it's like to be a diplomat. We'll talk about whether diplomats still send cables, what he found the hardest language to master, and how it feels to be serving in a country that is collapsing around you. Stay with us. One thing we know about diplomats is that they travel a lot. John served in Bulgaria, Serbia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Afghanistan, and Belgium, the latter to serve NATO. And before he would go to each country, he'd spend months and months learning the language.

John: 3:12

So if it's French, I got French before I went to NATO because it's one of the two required languages. English being the other one. French is six months because it's... To be functionally fluent and to operate at sort of a meeting level, it's not terribly difficult. Slang would take you a lifetime, but formal French is not that bad. Khmer was tough because it was completely different from anything I'd ever experienced before, that was nine months.

Dan: 3:34

Nine months?

John: 3:35

Yeah.

Dan: 3:35

I mean, I'm just I'm kind of blown away by the timelines here. Like, I guess you must have a special aptitude for languages.

John: 3:43

I mean, I grew up sort of bilingual with Latvian. One of my parents was Latvian. But you have to consider how they do it. Right? From the very first day, you don't have another job. Your job is to learn the language. And so from the very first day you walk into class and they start speaking to you in that language, and you do it five to six hours a day, plus two to three hours of homework every day. So it's total and complete immersion for the six months, nine months, two years, whatever the language is. And I think you learn anybody would learn in that environment.

Dan: 4:11

And it's these are government programs or or private?

John: 4:15

Government. There's a foreign service institute. Where we teach the vast majority of our languages. And and for the super tough ones, the the super tough being Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Mandarin, or or Cantonese, you do a year in country and then you're set to the other country that you're going to, in most cases, to do a second year to try to figure it out. But those are hard. Those are very hard languages.

Dan: 4:38

Which language did you struggle with the most?

John: 4:41

I think Khmer was the toughest. I came in speaking Russian and so Serbian, Bulgarian were not hard. Indonesian is a fascinating language but very easy because it's a language of commerce. They have 77,000 islands in the country and they had to create a common language that that would bind together all of the islands commercially. And so they borrowed the basics from Javanese and a couple other languages, and they created something that traders could speak to each other on boats.

Dan: 5:07

Mhmm.

John: 5:07

So there's no genders, there's no plural, there's none of that. And if you wanna make a plural of any Indonesian word, you just say it twice.

Dan: 5:13

Is that true? I love this.

John: 5:16

So anak is child, and if you have, oh, here are my children, you say, oh, anak anak. It's hilarious.

Dan: 5:22

That's amazing. That should be the international language.

John: 5:24

It should be. But Khmer is really tough just because it's filled with Sanskrit words that are, you know, 10 miles long and and also a lot of the difficult cultural histories embedded in the language. And so it's challenging, but also amazing to learn and speak.

Dan: 5:38

Are there situations you can remember where your fluency let you catch something or observe something in an interaction that others would have missed?

John: 5:47

The times it was most useful is when the ambassador and their counterpart was using a an interpreter, and the interpreter was softening what they were saying back to their... Counterpart.

Dan: 6:00

Okay.

John: 6:00

And sometimes, you know, when we're delivering a demarche, which is like an official diplomatic message.

Dan: 6:07

What did you call it?

John: 6:08

It's called a demarche. We use a lot of those French words. So sometimes we're very purposeful about the strength of the language that we put in those. Sometimes you want to send a difficult message. And if you catch the interpreter softening it because they don't want to get their principal upset, sometimes you know, I'd have to interrupt and say, no, that's not what we said.

Dan: 6:27

Right.

John: 6:27

You know, this is what we said. Or I'd pull the ambassador aside later and sort of explain, after the conversation, how it was softened and why it was softened and how we might have to follow-up, you know, with something a little more strongly worded.

Dan: 6:42

I asked John about the stereotype of diplomats that they're always hobnobbing at parties and drinking martinis with their counterparts, and I expected him to debunk that. But actually, he said

John: 6:55

Look, that's true. Right? That that is an important part of the job. It's not what we do, you know, every day, But everything we do as diplomats is based on relationships from the ambassador on down to, you know, the lowly junior officer. Everything we do is based on creating and and establishing trust with our counterparts in foreign countries for multiple reasons. But primary one is if we have to deliver bad news, would you rather deliver bad news to somebody you don't know and which might prompt a negative reaction? Or would you rather deliver it to somebody who you've established a trusting relationship with over time at these cocktail parties, at other meetings, so that you can keep the tensions down and create an understanding.

Dan: 7:35

That's really interesting because it's a special kind of relationship. I mean, you're not just becoming chums, you know? Both of you know that your first job is to represent your respective country, so so there's kind of an absolute loyalty there. But it's like within that frame, you're trying to be as civil and humane and personal and responsive as possible. Yeah?

John: 7:59

Absolutely. I think I know I remember I was driving back with the ambassador when I worked in Cambodia. I was the public affairs officer there, and we had a meeting with a particularly odious member of the government who was, you know, known for being incredibly corrupt and human rights violations and all these other things. And I asked the ambassador, said, how could you be so pleasant to this individual? Right? And she responded, look, this is the job. Right? It's my job to represent the United States, but it's also my job to forge a relationship and to forge trust with my counterparts. And then this person happened to be a counterpart. That's the work, and sometimes it's uncomfortable. And sometimes you have to sit across the table from some really difficult interlocutors. I sat across from the Taliban a couple times, but you have to find that shared kernel of understanding, you know, whether it's talking about families or or or something else, so that you can establish a foundation of trust and build from there.

Dan: 8:49

What does that trust look like? Like what does it mean to trust someone who you know has different interests than you and would frankly prefer their way to win out over your way?

John: 9:02

It's the art of the possible. It's a starting point for negotiation, I think. Certainly as a mid or even senior level diplomat, unless you're the ambassador, you're not actively involved in those negotiations. But you're certainly advising the negotiations.

Dan: 9:14

Mhmm.

John: 9:15

And if you have that that trust at a starting point and an understanding of where the other side is coming from, you can find those gaps to fill with either our policy choices or really understand what they have to mirror back to their population, so to their leadership. And once you have that, you can forge some sort of agreement that, you know, both sides generally walk away a little bit unhappy and a little bit happy, and that's the sign of a good negotiation unfortunately. But you can't do that without that understanding.

Dan: 9:42

One thing that I'm not totally clear on is is I realize a lot of what you were asked to do was kind of fundamentally out of your control. Like, some new administration came in, policy changed, and you've gotta, you know, be a good soldier. In those local negotiations, like, what is your span of control? Like, what pieces can you positively influence? Like maybe give us an example of something that's not confidential, if if it would help.

John: 10:10

I think you can shape the edges. I mean, at the end of the day, regardless of the administration, the foreign policy comes from the president and the national security strategy. But what you do with that policy at the local level is maybe soften the edges a little bit. You know, an example might be like, we are going to do something you're not gonna like. Right? We are going to put troops in your country, but let me explain why. Right? Let me tell you what the reasoning is. Let me tell you what the White House is thinking about that. Let's put this in the broader context of, you know, what China is doing in the region and and how this might be a part of, you know, pushing back against their influence. Because you can imagine how that news would land, you know, US troops are are landing in in country x. People would freak out, including the government. But that's why we're there is to explain that context to give it shape so that we can reduce the negative reaction and hopefully find an understanding between the two countries.

Dan: 11:03

And what is your job after those meetings? Like, as part of what you're responsible for to kind of report back and take the temperature of what the extremity of the flip out factor was for a particular audience? Or like, what what do you report back to Washington?

John: 11:18

I think that's actually what you said is the simplest description and explanation of what diplomats do. And certainly what people do in in the intelligence arena too, is our job is to have conversations and better understand what's happening on the ground of that country, report that back to Washington so that it can go up the chain, and that our policymakers, whether in Congress or in the White House, can form policy based on that with the full picture.

Dan: 11:44

I feel like one word that has a strong association with a diplomat in my mind is cables, sending cables. Is is that a thing or is that like a 50 old term that's archaic now? Or did you send cables?

John: 11:56

I sent cables and we still do.

Dan: 11:59

What is a cable?

John: 12:00

It's what I just said. It's generally a report back to Washington on a particular issue in that country. So like you said, we go out, we have these conversations, or we do an analysis of a particular economic sector of an economy and put together a report, which we cable, it's a verb too, back to Washington. You know, when I joined in 2001, it was a pretty archaic system and I think we still had Wang computers, know, the black screen with the green lettering on our desks.

Dan: 12:27

In 2001.

John: 12:29

Yeah. If you can believe that.

Dan: 12:30

So give me a little more here, like when I picture a cable, is it a fax? Is it an email? Is it a word doc? How long is it? Who's reading it?

John: 12:38

I mean, back in the day, it looked like a fax. I mean, I can't get too too much into the details, but I it is email based now. I mean, it's certainly...

Dan: 12:46

Wait. Why is that protected turf? Like, the the actual way you send the cable is, like, confidential or what?

John: 12:51

Oh, oh, yeah. Definitely. Communication in general and how we communicate is confidential. But I what I can say is that it's email now. We're not, like, using a printing press and using carrier pigeons to send it back to Washington anymore.

Dan: 13:07

And is a cable like a paragraph or a page or 10 pages?

John: 13:11

It can be any number of things. Certainly, back in the day, there were cables that were declassified, which were twenty thirty pages. There's one that sort of predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, a famous cable that was declassified, which is very very long.

Dan: 13:26

And do you come to have a reputation for your cables? Like, do do people have different styles or personalities?

John: 13:33

Well, certain people do try to. I've met senior officials and certainly some famous and influential ambassadors who actually speak in cable-ese.

Dan: 13:42

What does that mean?

John: 13:44

It's just everything is like a bullet point, and it has a conclusion, and then it includes context and an implication for future foreign policy. That's when you know, think you've been in too long. But it's very useful when you're still a diplomat. But honestly, if you're in, you know, a small island country, is the secretary of state going to read your your cables? Probably not, unless there's some sort of major conflagration. But if you're in the middle of a difficult time in a in a place like the fall of Kabul, or like the aftermath, or like during a terrorist attack when I was in Indonesia, then yes, that cable is seen by senior people and it can influence policy. Just like when you're when you're doing, you know, again public affairs, you know, oftentimes you send back considerations for inclusion into the president's speech or the secretary's speech, and that's a great moment too when you see the paragraph that you drafted come out of the president's mouth. That's pretty exciting. It's kind of nerdy, but it's pretty exciting.

Dan: 14:42

John mentioned public affairs, which is one of five different career lanes you can follow in the Foreign Service.

John: 14:49

There's consulars, so those are the people that do the visa work and help American citizens who are in trouble. There is political and economic who, as the name implies, report on the political and economic situation in the country. So they have relationships with senior officials in both of those arenas in those governments. Management, which manages the internal work of the embassy and then public affairs, which is what I did quite a bit of the time. So you end up being both the spokesperson, the speech writer, but also manage a lot of the exchange programs like the Fulbright program and cultural outreach.

Dan: 15:24

John spent maybe half his time in the embassy and half outside, and he liked that variety.

John: 15:30

That's the wonderful thing about the job is for for those of us who are ADD, no day is the same. You know, every day is different. And I would remember waking up in Cambodia and I would pop my two kids. I had a a one year old and a three year old on the front of my motorcycle and I would drop them off at the day care slash preschool. And sometimes I'd be hit by elephant traffic. There was an elephant that moved from from the South Side Of Phnom Penh to the North Side by the embassy every day, and sometimes I'd have to sit there and wait for the elephant to pass.

Dan: 16:02

Man, that is a great reason to be late.

John: 16:05

Right? It's that one always flies.

Dan: 16:08

It's so interesting. And and do you report to the ambassador?

John: 16:12

Yes. Virtually everybody at the embassy reports directly to the ambassador. And so, you know, every morning you have depending on the ambassador, some ambassadors like regular meetings, some ambassadors hate meetings. But, you know, depending on the size of the embassy, there's usually a quick check-in every morning. And and I was usually the press guy, so I would always show up and sort of give an overview of what's happening in the media and make sure that there are no surprises. That's one of the key phrases in the State Department regardless of what area you work in. Everybody hates surprises. That's what scares diplomats more than anything else.

Dan: 16:42

Mm.

John: 16:43

The worst thing you could possibly say to a diplomat is, oh, did you see what the president said in The Washington Post about your embassy? And not knowing it ahead of time.

Dan: 16:50

Oh, man. What was one of those unfortunate surprises that you lived through?

John: 16:56

Well, I'll say during the previous administration when I was at NATO, a lot of diplomacy was done via Twitter. And I remember I was prepping a very senior official to do a press conference at NATO headquarters with a couple 100 journalists in the audience, you know, all the big ones. And the president had tweeted something very negative about the alliance. And so I was standing next to the senior official, and I showed him my phone and I said, this is what the president just said, you're gonna have to answer questions about this. And then the senior official looked at me and said, I didn't see that. And then walked to the stage and the press conference. That's one way around it.

Dan: 17:33

Yeah. That seems like the rational strategy there. After the break, we'll hear about John's tour of duty in Afghanistan during the mass exit from Kabul as the Taliban regained control.

1440 : 17:57

On 1440 Explores, we talk to the world's experts to unpack the fascinating knowledge behind everyday topics that shape our world. It's really easy to influence dream content. We can turn you into a drunk. The credit card has massive negative social consequences and also it's magic. The ancient Greeks idea of what a ghost was is very different from modern western idea of what a ghost is. Listen to 1440 Explores wherever you get your podcasts.

Dan: 18:27

It seems like a lot of diplomats hop around a fair amount like you did. Is that a strategy? Like, does the country feel like you get better at the work by seeing different places, or is it more a product of necessity? Like, because your experience, we need you in this new place quick?

John: 18:43

At a senior level, and if you have a specific expertise, yes. There will be the senior officials who say, hey, look, this person has this language and this background in this country, especially in crises. I wish we could say that applied to the rest of the foreign service, but it doesn't. It's super random. When you just come into the State Department, they're called assigned tours.

Dan: 19:02

Mhmm.

John: 19:02

You're given a list of like 20 places and you say, hey, I wanna go to Brussels. And then they send you to Ouagadougou. Or you come in with like excellent Russian, I came in with relatively fluent Russian and I never served in Russia.

Dan: 19:14

Really?

John: 19:15

Yeah.

Dan: 19:16

I would think that would be a pretty uncommon fluency for an American.

John: 19:20

It is relatively uncommon, but it's also just shows you the randomness of the career path sometimes. After the first two tours, it's really as it is in the rest of the world, it's who you know. And leveraging your connections to find a job in a place that you're interested in.

Dan: 19:33

You mentioned the word tour, so it it is the idea that you go to serve for like a specified number of years in a certain place?

John: 19:40

It is. So we do two to three years depending on how tough the place is. A lot of European nations do five years. I think the philosophy behind our shorter tours is that we were very conscious of getting... diplomats getting clientitis. We don't want people going native, right? So you have a restricted tour...

Dan: 20:01

I see.

John: 20:01

And you're good at that. I mean, you know, you've learned the language before usually before each tour and you go out. But we still want people out there sort of defending and promoting American foreign policy and not siding with our client or our our the country that we're based in.

Dan: 20:17

That is I did not see that coming. That's so interesting that you want them to build roots in the community but not too deep because then it becomes a threat to the mission.

John: 20:26

That's just my personal opinion, but yes. I think that's it.

Dan: 20:29

One of John's final tours was in Kabul, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the embassy there in 2021. When he arrived, the Taliban, which had controlled the country before the US invasion, had started to go on the offensive, gaining control of more and more territory.

John: 20:48

The Afghan defense units that were defending certain towns, major towns like Mazar and some of these other places were just throwing their weapons down and leaving and melting back in other tribes. It's a very tribal society. I think the initial thinking was, oh, this will be fine. This is just a handful of people. But I will tell you that it took less than forty eight hours to go from thinking this is just a handful of people to the Taliban are moving on Kabul and we have to all evacuate to the airport. It was that fast. Everybody knew this was coming in some form, but I think the difference between what happened and what we were planning for is we were planning for a methodical and deliberate evacuation.

Dan: 21:26

Yeah.

John: 21:27

And what happened was hair-on-fire, everybody has to go now evacuation.

Dan: 21:31

Oh, man.

John: 21:33

And that's why you saw what you saw.

Reporter: 21:34

Taliban fighters marching through the streets, dressed in all white, the color of the Taliban's flag, and a symbol they're ready for martyrdom. While outside the last remaining US base at Kabul Airport, chaos continues.

Dan: 21:51

For the tens of thousands of Afghans who had worked with the American government as translators, embassy staff, NGO workers, soldiers, the Taliban's arrival brought a very real fear of retaliation. Many believed that their lives were in danger. The rush to get out was immediate and desperate. Crowds gathered at the airport.

John: 22:15

When I got off the Black Hawk at Hamid Karzai Airport, two hours later is when people were falling off of C-17s because they were trying to hold onto the wheel bases to get out. I was assigned to the special projects and so I was in in a communication with a situation room at the White House and some other folks who were looking specifically to rescue women who had led NGOs because they would be most under threat by the Taliban. And so I was out with a lieutenant colonel, a special forces guy out at Abbey Gate, the one that was bombed among other gates. And we were in communication with people back in Washington who were then in communication with the women on the ground. And we would say, okay, show up at this gate at this time and you should all wear white scarves so we know who you are. And so we would go to the gate. At that time, unfortunately, at the gates they had cell phone blockers out because they were so worried about suicide bombers. So they were blocking all cell phone signals. So once you're out there, you couldn't communicate. So we would see two or three women who had white scarves on and we would physically go out and grab them and pull them over the edge or the barricade and hand them off to marines where they would be led to safety.

Dan: 23:24

Wow.

John: 23:24

But within twenty minutes to half an hour everybody had a white scarf because they saw what was happening.

Dan: 23:28

Right. They figured it out. Right. And and what do you do then?

John: 23:32

We drove past back in like ten minutes to beyond the cell phone blockers. We'd call back to Washington and say, hey, they need to wear red scarves now. And then we'd drive back in, you'd rescue a couple people with red scarves, all of a sudden everybody has red scarves and you'd just do it over and over again for like two or three days.

Dan: 23:49

During that time were you ever afraid for your personal safety?

John: 23:53

Yes. The Taliban at that time had actually been asked to come in and help provide security. So I remember very distinctly pulling like a 70 year old woman over one of these barriers and there was a truck with a Taliban in the back with a RPG, a rocket propelled grenade and and a machine gun sort of looking over the crowd. And it was I just thought of a dichotomy of that moment. It's here's I'm trying to rescue somebody who would be under threat by this individual who was in theory helping to provide protection. So it was an interesting moment.

Dan: 24:23

More than a 120,000 people were evacuated out of Afghanistan. But in the chaos

John: 24:29

You know, people were killed, you know, marines were killed during the bombing and and a huge number of Afghans lost their lives because of the bombing and because of everything else that was happening around the airport. I've never seen that kind of desperation in in anybody's eyes or that fear of people, the thousands and thousands of people that are waiting outside the gate. Or the guilt honestly for not being able to like help more people.

Dan: 24:50

Ugh. What was it like to have to be the face of a tragic policy where we just literally couldn't take everyone that wanted to go?

John: 24:59

It was tough and it's still tough. I still get messages from Afghans that we couldn't get out. You know, the true face of that was our ambassador at the time, Ambassador Wilson. But he was the public face. But you're right, every every single one of us were sort of a a standard bearer for that policy. And it was it was incredibly difficult. We we are, know, you're thankful for the people you could help. I know for a fact that there are employees at the embassy that are living in the States right now, Afghan employees who are there because I was able to help. And then certainly some of those women who we rescued are have, you know, are leading full lives and and have their families in the in the United States as well because we pulled them over these barriers. But as you know, you know, it's it's tough to think that we couldn't help everybody and and there's a lot of people who are being threatened or killed or or having very difficult lives because we couldn't get them out of Afghanistan.

Dan: 25:50

What was the biggest whiplash you experienced from one administration to the next?

John: 25:57

There's multiple. I was so I started during the George W administration in Bulgaria, and I spent most of my time trying to explain to the Bulgarian population why we were wanting to invade Iraq. And that was during you know Colin Powell's time and his speech at the UN and all that. And then President Obama was elected and we did a 180 on most of the issues. And I think it's jarring for a lot of people who aren't in the business to wake up one day and have a meeting with somebody who just yesterday was talking about prosecuting in the war in Iraq, and the next day saying, no, we're not doing that anymore. Now we're talking about troop withdrawals. But that's the job. And amongst diplomats, that's just the way we go about things. I think the problem for a lot of people is how personally involved you are with the policy. And whether you agree with it or not. And I think that there's a lot of struggle when it when it comes to that for some people. I think recently with the shift from the Biden administration to the latest Trump administration, I think there's been a 180 on any number of issues. Whether it's our attitude towards NATO, our attitude towards trade, tariffs, all of those things. But diplomats still wake up in the morning and they come to work and they, you know, understand the national security strategy, and then they go out and have meetings, and it's probably in the first couple weeks, it was a 100% opposite of what they were saying the week before. But that's the job, and I think I've always told more junior officers and younger officers and and students actually, now I'm doing a lot with students, who are interested in joining the State Department, they ask me that question. They say what do you do? I say, well, you do your job or you quit. Those are the only two options.

Dan: 27:32

But it's gotta be demoralizing to have to advocate for a policy that you think is taking the US in the wrong direction.

John: 27:41

It is. And and I think what you do is you try to find nuggets of security strategy or foreign policy writ large that you feel good about, and that you feel like that this particular aspect of our overall foreign policy is actually moving in the right direction. And then also broader contextual understanding that this isn't forever. Right? That these changes happen all the time, and there are elections every four years, and there might be another 180 turn in in in the other direction. But at the end of the day, you swore it off to the constitution, and that's really the core of of the job.

Dan: 28:18

So John, we always end our episodes with a quick lightning round of questions. Here we go. What is a word or phrase that only someone from your profession would be likely to know? And what does it mean?

John: 28:30

I think one of the ones that people in the State Department would recognize and be infuriated by is this construction that we've used for years and years and years, and it's "not/not". And so when you really want to emphasize that you don't want something to happen, or you don't want somebody to do something in a cable back to Washington, you would write, this should not slash not be considered x y and z. It's the most infuriating thing that anybody could ever write for a diplomat and most annoying, but it's something that's still used and anybody in our profession would immediately recognize it and be angry.

Dan: 29:07

And and the idea is that it's just a way of adding emphasis, sort of like bolding and underlining something?

John: 29:12

Exactly.

Dan: 29:13

And why that? Is it because you can't bold and underline in whatever software you're using or something?

John: 29:20

We can now, we didn't used to be able to and sort of it's this artifact of these old communication systems that we used to have.

Dan: 29:26

Yeah.

John: 29:26

And so in order to really double down, you'd write the not/not, but the artifact has survived to this day completely unnecessarily. And for those of us who enjoy writing and expressing ourselves, it's just deeply deeply infuriating.

Dan: 29:41

What's a tool specific to your profession that you really like using?

John: 29:45

Well, unfortunately, you know, unlike the military, we don't have weapons or things that we could call a tool. But I would say that the best physical tool we have is our diplomatic passport. Depending on where you are, it conveys certain benefits. I think when you show up certainly in Europe, you can skip all the lines, the passport control lines and the custom lines, you go straight to the front.

Dan: 30:06

Oh, man. Now you're speaking my language.

John: 30:10

It can be very very beneficial. So but it's as far as physical tools are concerned, a black, i.e. Diplomatic passport is one of the best ones we have.

Dan: 30:19

I mean, were you ever tempted to just park like right in front of the Eiffel Tower or something like just to flaunt your your privilege?

John: 30:26

Tempted but never did. But a 100% tempted, yes.

Dan: 30:30

What phrase or sentence strikes fear in the heart of a diplomat?

John: 30:35

Anything that that's a surprise. But I think the biggest one is POTUS visit. When the president comes, it's all hands on deck. Everybody's working around the clock for weeks until the president is on the ground. So when when you hear POTUS visit or you see POTUS visit in an announcement or a cable, everybody gets a sinking feeling in their stomach.

Dan: 30:59

What was an aspect of your work that you consistently savored?

John: 31:03

This is a a great question too, and I could come up with, you know, a 100 things. But the simplest thing for me was that moment when you walk out of an airport after you arrive in a country for the first time and the smell and the sense you have of that country that just lodges itself in your brain and you remember it for the rest of your life. I can remember every single one when I arrived in Bulgaria, Serbia, Cambodia, each one is unique and it's different and it was so full of promise and things to come that you couldn't possibly expect. It was that just a really exciting sense of what's going to happen in the future about, you know, looking over the horizon and saying, I wonder what's over there, but not knowing what it is. So that that first five minutes of being in a country when you land after spending all this time learning the language and learning the culture and learning what their foreign policy is, when the boots are on the ground, I really missed that and I savored it every time it happened.

Dan: 32:10

John Johnson is a retired diplomat from the US Foreign Service. After this conversation, I kept thinking about the relationships that diplomats have to cultivate. Are they real? Are they fake? And then I realized that's kind of a naive way to think about it. In any role where you're acting on behalf of an organization or in this case a country, the relationships that you form will be a blend of real and fake, sometimes hard to disentangle. Is a salesperson playing golf with a client real or fake? Is an exhausted nurse in the eleventh hour of a long shift trying to comfort a patient, is that real compassion or simulated? Part of it's a role you must play and part of it's your own genuine humanity being expressed through the work you chose. And this tension feels particularly acute for a diplomat. It's a tightrope. If you can't fake it, if you can't smile at that loathsome person across the table from you, you won't be able to deliver what your country needs. But if you're too good at it, if you authentically come to love the foreign community you're part of and you speak their language and you make friends and you start to empathize with their challenges, then your supervisors will worry about you going native. They'll ship you off to Bosnia or Ivory Coast or somewhere else. It's a strange profession where both too little humanity and too much can get you in trouble. Learning languages as a full time job, trying to live the mantra, no surprises, drafting insightful cables, and building relationships that serve your country even as you're far away from home. Folks, that's what it's like to be a diplomat. Thanks to Carter Truesdale for connecting us with John. This episode was produced by Matt Purdy. I'm Dan Heath. See you next time.