Insider Quote: There are no bad missions, just bad ambassadors

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Every previous reorganization of the Foreign Service and the State Department has involved at least some such straitjacketing of operations in the field. The hope this time, one which I fully share, is that we can achieve major improvements without suffering much of this kind of damage, because this reorganization is being done from within, by the professionals themselves. Even professionals, however, can mesmerize themselves with their own generalizations, particularly if they have been steeped for a while in the hothouse atmosphere of Washington; so even the present effort requires constant attention from its leaders to keep it honest and pragmatic rather than theological. In the final analysis, there are no bad missions, just bad ambassadors. No set of rules is a substitute for executive talent.

Letter From the Ambassador to Nepal (Laise) to the Deputy Under Secretary of State for Administration (Macomber) Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume II Carol Laise served as Ambassador to Nepal from 1966 to 1973