Diplomacy: Information for Writers with William Shepard

Fiona - 
Good morning, Mr. Shepard. 

Thank you so much for visiting with ThrillWriting today. 

     Readers, Mr. Shepard has
     served our country

     overseas for decades in

     the diplomatic corp. Sir, what
     would

     you like the readers to know
     about you?

Mr. Shepard - My career was in

     diplomacy. I am a lawyer by

     training, and a writer by preference. I am herded
     about by two enchanting rescued cats, and we live on the
     Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Fiona - I very much enjoyed reading your memoirs - you are

     Harvard educated and decided to use your expertise in

     language and diplomacy to further the American cause in

     many countries. Can you give a brief taste of the countries

     in which you served and what your roles included?

Mr. Shepard - First, Singapore, fascinating and ultra-modern. When

     we were there, the island was being kicked out of Malaysia. As

     an Embassy officer and lecturer at the University of Singapore, 

     I had a ringside seat. We returned a year ago, and enjoyed

     seeing how magnificently the nation has progressed.

     A model for progress and keeping an expert eye on the

     environment. I was Consul at the Embassy in

     Singapore, then was transferred directly to Saigon during the
     war, and my family stayed in Singapore. In Saigon, I was Aide to

     Ambassadors Henry Cabot Lodge, then Ellsworth Bunker. It

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     was a ringside seat in the war.

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?

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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?

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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?

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    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.

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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.

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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.

Fiona - Thank you, Mr. Shepard. 

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