Fiona - Before you tell me about
your next stint, may I ask
how that was for you and
your family? You were both
in foreign countries with very
different cultures to our own
and on your own without the
daily support. How did you
cope?
Mr. Shepard - Some would say,
after New England, everyplace
is a foreign country! I am from New Hampshire and Lois is
from Connecticut. So, of course, we met while students at the
University of Vienna. Living in foreign parts comes fairly
naturally. Lois is very good at adapting to foreign cultures - and
representing our own. I must say, a high point of sorts was
reached when she heard that I was coming home to Singapore
from Saigon for Thanksgiving, and there was no turkey
available. So she talked a visiting US Admiral out of a turkey
for our Thanksgiving dinner.
Fiona - I love that! Your wife, Lois Shepard, is very versatile.
Would you share the story about when her quick actions saved
a little boy's life and protected your family as a result?
Mr. Shepard - We lived near a
kampong, or native area, in
Singapore. One day the amah
(house servant) came running
in, to say that a baby had
fallen into a water cistern and
drowned. Lois went flying out
of the house, took the child
from the arms of a relative,
and started artificial
respiration. She was relieved
when, after what seemed an eternity, the child
threw up all over her and started breathing! After that, oddly
enough, we were the only Embassy family that never had a
problem with thievery. By the way, that rescue hit UPI quickly,
and Lois' parents read about it in Hartford the same time it
appeared in the Singapore press.
Fiona - What a fabulous story. I interrupted you, sir. Where did you
go after Singapore?
Mr. Shepard - Saigon. Actually I had
two tours there, once for a
year directly from Singapore, and
then a few years later, I
returned from Budapest to help
monitor the Paris Peace Agreement.
The Hungarians were part of the
peacekeeping team, and I was there
to monitor their performance -
which was lousy.
Fiona - That was during
the communist reign. What did you
find most difficult from a western
perspective in dealing with this very different governmental
philosophy? What personal challenges did you have to work
through?
Mr. Shepard - Communism in
Hungary was a hated imposition.
The Russians were viewed
as backward in every way, and their
system a dreaded imposition. The
heroic Hungarian Revolution of 1956
proved that. I was trained in the
Hungarian language and was the first
Political Officer at our Embassy in
Budapest, and then held
the Hungarian Desk
at the Department of State. We
knew His Eminence Cardinal
Mindszenty, who was in refuge at the
Embassy then. And Lois was the only eyewitness to his
departure. My novel, Murder On The Danube, is set in
modern Budapest, with flashbacks to the 1956 Revolution.
Fiona - Did you feel great
relief when you were sent
to France?
How fun that you wrote a
book about French wines.
Was it all red wine and
cassoulet? Or did your stay
in France offer up its
own challenges?
Mr. Shepard - My responsibility as Consul General in Bordeaux
covered one-quarter of the entire nation. I had the usual
gamut of American citizen issues (including getting people
out of jail, or locating people who were lost), understanding
the local culture and politics (I called nearly every election
right), and making friends for the USA. The fact that my father
had been an American soldier in France during the First World
War helped ensure my welcome. The wines of course were
world class, but that was on my own time. One of my chief
responsibilities was keeping watch on Basque terrorism.
That formed the basis for
my first diplomatic mystery novel, Vintage Murder.
Fiona - Can you quickly go over
some of the roles that
diplomats play in foreign
service and the ranks?
Mr. Shepard - Diplomats
represent their own nation in
another one. An Embassy is
the official mission in the
receiving state's capitol city.
With us, it is a career
service, and various
specialties (political, economic/commercial, consular,
administrative, cultural/press) to follow as a career track.
You start by taking a tough written and oral exam, and then get
promoted, ever so slowly. The variations of assignment along
the way are fascinating. The problem for a writer is that they
change over time, and what you remember quite distinctly may
no longer be there!
Fiona - What types of personalities work best for foreign service?
And which kind of personalities might feel the most challenged
- this will help writers set up their characters for success or
failure when plotting.
Mr. Shepard - I think that the folks who do well on the Foreign
Service exam are readers, and compulsively curious. My oral
exam, for example, had a panel member asking me to trace the
attempts in the US Senate to forestall the Civil War. I had
always been interested in that period, so apparently did well.
Another question was to name, in my view, the five best
American symphonies and their conductors. What seems
needed is curiosity, a desire to see beyond the obvious, and a
self-starter mentality.
Fiona - You referred to the changing conditions included in the life
of a diplomat not only imposed by place but time and
circumstance, what do you feel are important aspects of the job
for a writer to understand in order to write authentically. Are
there resources for writers that you are aware of where research
could be conducted on diplomatic realities of a given time or
place?
Mr. Shepard - Well, now there are an increasing number of
memoirs, such as my own, Sunsets In Singapore. There are
probably too many thrillers about, and the Foreign Service isn't
really like that. A lot of it is slow going, and building some
confidence with your opposite numbers in a Foreign Ministry.
For example, I helped negotiate a consular convention with
communist Hungary, our first treaty with that nation in some
thirty years. What made it work was that the other side, when I
disagreed with them, understood that I was giving an honest
point of view. Had there not been that understanding, there
would have been no treaty.
Fiona - Now that you have retired, you have become a prolific
writer - and many of your books are under the sub-genre
diplomatic mysteries. Obviously, your work is a great resource
to you - can you speak to this genre and what readers might
hope to experience through your writing.
Mr. Shepard - First, I hope the reading is enjoyable. Tell a story,
that's the first thing. I had an uncle who was a farmer in New
Hampshire and a born storyteller. He and my aunt had no
children, but they took in foster children from the state. Uncle
Irvin told me that if the children were bad, the worst thing would
be to tell them, "No story tonight!" Something like that is
needed. Then comes the context, and the believablity of detail.
But remember, it is a story that is being told.
Fiona - Mr. Shepard, it has been an honor to interview you, thank
you so much for sharing your time and expertise with us. One
final question that I ask of everyone who visits ThrillWriting:
Could you please tell us the story behind your favorite scar? And
if you are without scars, could you please tell us a harrowing
story?
Mr. Shepard - No scars, I'm afraid. In my last days in Saigon during
my second tour, I went out for a trip towards the Cambodian
border. The helicopter pilot told us that there would be no
intelligence briefing - the last briefer had left for the USA the
day before! So off we went. We flew near the Parrot's Beak of
Cambodia, and before we landed, the small arms fire began.
(We were a peacekeeping mission.) The children who were to
have met us left their sad traces on the ground. It still gives me
nightmares.
On the more pleasant side, we had a huge
Christmas tree in Budapest, and invited some Hungarian friends
(who weren't afraid to be seen with us) to the house to see it.
One said that they had always had small trees - the reason being
that Christmas trees were illegal to have, so people would chop
down small trees and hide them behind their overcoats. "But we
really like the big trees," he said. I'm sure that is what they have
now.
Thank you so much for visiting with ThrillWriting today. 
