What They Want To Hear

In the early 1970s, during the petroleum crunch that caused long gasoline lines around service stations throughout the United States, I happened to be serving as Administrative Officer at the American Embassy in, well, let’s call it Gazinga.

One day during those weeks, the Embassy received a telegram from the Department of State in Washington concerning the crisis, instructing us to report on the efforts we were taking to cut back on the amount of gasoline and other petroleum products being used by the Embassy and the staff, including their families.

I drafted a reply for the Ambassador’s signature. In it, I explained our situation, which was that Gazinga received no petroleum products, including gasoline, from OPEC members, and therefore Gazinga was not feeling any of the pinch being experienced in the United States. I wrote that, considering those circumstances, no steps were considered necessary, and none had been taken, by the Embassy in Gazinga to reduce the use of petroleum products by the American staff or their families.

On reading my draft, the Ambassador said simply, “That’s not what they want to hear”. A career diplomat, who had served many years and learned very well the ways of Washington, the Ambassador explained to me that this message from Washington had undoubtedly been generated by a demand from one of the foreign affairs committees in Congress, for a demonstration that the Department of State was sharing in the nation’s pain, and was taking appropriate steps to alleviate it. Therefore, he continued, our response must be an affirmation that the American Embassy in Gazinga was joining Americans at home and around the world in meeting the challenge posed by the OPEC cartel, and in that effort, we had reduced the use of all petroleum products by all members of the Embassy community. “That’s the message,” he told me, “that the Department of State wants to hear from us and from every other American Embassy around the globe, so that it can go to the Hill, and proclaim, We’re doing our part.”

And so the Embassy's response was rewritten to reflect the Ambassador's observation.

Is that any way to run a government? The question did not arise, but I suppose the answer depends on who's asking.