# Ambassadorships
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambassadorships/61902
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 14, 2001, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambassadorships/61902 "2001-04-14T01:40:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@sethdallob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sethdallob)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2001, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambassadorships/61902/1 "2001-04-14T01:40:39Z")
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This article says that the ‘plum’ jobs (in countries that like the US) are given out to big campaign donors. What about the ‘uglier’ ones, like Algeria, Albania, etc? Are these generally people that work their way up through the state department, or can anyone be considered?
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### Author:  [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2001, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambassadorships/61902/2 "2001-04-14T02:15:32Z")
[Here](http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/po/index.cfm?id=1790) is a U.S. State Department web page with links to histories of all the Chiefs of Mission (Ambassadors, Ministers, or Charges d’Affaires) for each country. For appointments after 1915 it tells whether the ambassador in question is a “non-career appointee” or a “foreign service officer”. There are some really cushy-sounding spots to be found among some of the smaller countries–notice how the ambassador to [Antigua and Barbuda](http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/chiefs/antigua.html) (who tends also to be ambasador to Barbados, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Christopher and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines) has consistently been a non-career appointee. On the other hand, in recent times at least we’ve tended to send professional Foreign Service Officers to places like [Albania](http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/chiefs/albania.html). (Algeria’s page seems to be unavailabe.)
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### Author:  [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2001, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambassadorships/61902/3 "2001-04-14T05:04:10Z")
A political appointee is a lot more likely to run into opposition from a crochety senator (paging Mr. Helms, paging Mr. Helms) as William Weld did when Clinton tried to make him ambassador to Mexico.
A career Foreign Service officer already has a nice paper trail behind him/her.
Some countries expect that the U.S. will send a fairly respectable person to be ambassador. You can’t blow off a country like Japan with a career Foreign Service appointee.
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### Author:  [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2001, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambassadorships/61902/4 "2001-04-14T05:10:53Z")
Actually [Japan](http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/chiefs/japan.html) had an FSO as recently as 89-93.
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### Author:  [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2001, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambassadorships/61902/5 "2001-04-14T05:15:56Z")
But when Clinton became President, the Japanese made noises about wanting a “better” ambassador and eventually Walter Mondale was tabbed for the job and later, Tom Foley.
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### Author:  [@Yeah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeah)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2001, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambassadorships/61902/6 "2001-04-14T14:47:59Z")
“Some countries expect that the U.S. will send a fairly respectable person to be ambassador. You can’t blow off a country like Japan with a career Foreign Service appointee.”
This is an interesting idea.
AFAIK, pretty much all career FS people who reach ambassador level are intelligent and well educated polyglots of great integrity with diplomatic skill and experience. In contrast, political appointees seem to be a mixed bag. Correct me if I’m wrong but
Didn’t Joe Kennedy (ambassador to the UK in the 1930s) make his fortune as a bootlegger?
Didn’t Walter Annenberg (ambassador to the UK in the 1970s?) get his fortune from the running of wire services for bookies associated with the Purple Gang out of Detroit?
Didn’t Larry Lawrence (ambassador to Switzerland in the 80s) claim to be a decorated war hero when he he hadn’t even served?
Wasn’t some recent (1980s?) female ambassador to Switzerland(?) involved in some sort of scandal (employing her children or selling the State Department silverware or something)?
It seems to me that although some people who buy their ambassadorships may be sterling people, some of them are scumbags. And, in my experience, the career foreign service has fewer scumbags.