The Kissinger Memcon
A Day in the Life of a Career Diplomat at Main State Circa 1976
Note: My friend and former colleague on the Editorial Board of the Foreign Service Journal, Harry Kopp, sent along the anecdote below, which I'm confident readers will find worthy of their time. Harry is the author of Commercial Diplomacy and the National Interest; Voice of the Foreign Service: A History of the American Foreign Service Association; and (with John Naland) Career Diplomacy—a superb overview of life and work in the Foreign Service. He was a Foreign Service Officer from 1967-1985.
Top Secret (Not)
Sometime in 1976 or thereabouts, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had a meeting with a European leader, ostensibly to discuss economic affairs. The European bureau sent my friend J., then deputy director of its economic policy coordination office, up to the Secretary’s suites on the 7th floor of the State Department to take notes.
Notorious for keeping his cards close to his chest (and career diplomats out of the loop), Kissinger sent him away.
The next day the Secretary's executive office began hounding J. for the memcon1. He tried to explain what had happened, that he had not been privy to the conversation because the Secretary had sent him away, but to no avail. After several more phone calls, he came to realize that he faced an irrational yet indefatigable machine, a bureaucracy on automatic pilot that could not be swayed.
So J. sent the Secretary’s executive office a memcon, in proper format, the entire substance of which follows:
The Secretary: Who is this?
Notetaker: Notetaker, sir.
The Secretary: We don’t need a notetaker.
*****
My friend was not bothered further.
Note: The word memcon is an abbreviation for Memorandum of Conversation: a written document summarizing the main points of a longer verbal exchange. A term of art in diplomacy, memcons are written in a variety of circumstances. These can range from informal conversations deemed worthy of writing up for the benefit of colleagues, to formal diplomatic meetings between “principals”. In the latter case, diplomats serve as “note-takers” tasked with memorializing the main points of the meeting in a written report for the record—a memcon.