11 Jul Chinese Ambassador – 2

To Americans brought up in the Fifties and Sixties, being invited to dine with the ambassador from Red China was like being invited to Mons Olympus to sup with the Man from Mars. We landed that invite because the United Nations High Commission for Refugees ran a camp in the Kgalagadi filled with revolutionaries from all over southern Africa whose causes never quite took hold.

From time to time Botswana would fly a military transport loaded with foreign dignitaries up to the camp to check out what was going on. Peggy, being as dignified as any other foreigner, got onto the plane and found herself sitting on a webbed seat facing across the fuselage toward the Chinese ambassador.

A few years earlier he’d served in Washington where his job had been to observe our political system. Then he’d gone home and written a book about how Congress actually works. That book would have been a bestseller in America, if he’d wanted to give up Communism and become a famous author and talk show guest. Americans have been wondering how Congress actually works for years.

Peggy told him that I’d written a couple of books, common ground was struck, and next morning she got a call from the Chinese embassy inviting us to dinner. Which presented a problem.

The problem was that the Chinese ambassador might be one of the people we weren’t supposed to have dinner with if we didn’t tell somebody first. The Regional Security Officer had been very specific about that. It was okay to hang out with anybody we wanted, but if the person we wanted to hang out with came from “certain” countries, we’d be better off if we let his office know ahead of time. That way, as he delicately put it, when word came from Washington about whom we’d hung out with, it would be old news and there wouldn’t be any “complications.” Which raised some questions in our minds.

“When word came from Washington?” That was the first question

He gave a little nod as if that were a perfectly natural thing to happen, and we took the opportunity to not inquire more deeply into the matter. Still, somebody in Washington would know whom we’d had dinner with in Botswana?”

The second question was, Complications?

He didn’t mention what the complications might be and that was something else we didn’t inquire into, but I came away with the impression that “complications” might involve long stretches of busting Federal rocks in Kansas. Maybe at Ft Leavenworth.

The third question was, Which countries? That, we did ask.

He seemed to know which countries, but he was vague about naming names. Just that they were countries, and they were on a list. So if we planned to hang out with somebody from one of those countries, we’d be better off telling him about it ahead of time.

Patriot that she is, Peggy trooped down to the regional security office and asked, “Do we need to fill out some kind of form if we’re going to have dinner with the ambassador from Mainland China?” Peggy is much too multicultural to call it Red China.

“It’s on the website,” the Regional Security Officer told her. Problem solved. Now he could go back to doing whatever it is regional security officers do when they’re alone in their offices.

“The State Department’s internal website?”

He nodded.

“I’m don’t work for the State Department,” Peggy said. “I’m with the Peace Corps.”

“Well just call it up and . . . .”

“I’m not authorized to call it up. It’s a secure website.”

This was starting to take more time away from securing the security of the Southern Africa Region than the Regional Security Officer had allowed for. “Just do what the three paragraphs in this letter say.” He pulled a sheet of paper from his drawer and shoved it across his desk.

There were five paragraphs in the letter, none of which said what to do if you were invited to dinner with the ambassador from Mainland China. None of the paragraphs even said that Mainland China was on the list of countries you had to do anything about. The letter didn’t list any countries at all.

“Maybe you could just tell me if we need to tell you if we’re going to dinner with the ambassador from China,” Peggy tried again.

“I’m not allowed to tell you that,” the Regional Security Officer said. This was definitely taking too much time out of his day. “You have to look at the list.”

“Well, give me the list.”

“Can’t,” he said. “That list is classified.”

In the end we did the obvious thing and went to dinner with the Chinese ambassador.