SIXThe Diplomat’s Wife

The wife of the Mauritanian ambassador gave a tea last Thursday for the diplomatic corps wives. The Red Chinese came—as usual there were three of them—and shook hands with me and found the Yugoslav. The Pakistani kissed the Red Chinese on the cheek, while the Indonesian, formerly the Chinese’s best friend, turned her back and sat down with the Swede and the South Vietnamese.1

As an unofficial representative of the American government and people, the ambassador’s wife has a full-time job helping her husband do his. Because she has no official role, she actually specializes in the more purely symbolic aspects of diplomatic life and in communicating political messages through nonofficial channels. She tunes an ear to a political Morse code woven into nearly every detail of her daily life.

She holds tea parties, which seem to most people like a public symbol of triviality. When Lenore Romney, the mother of the 2012 Republican candidate for U.S. president, ran for Senate herself, she told Time magazine that, as Michigan’s representative, she would not “expect to . . . [hold] a series of meaningless teas.”2 Later, Hillary Clinton, the nation’s First Lady from 1993 to 2001—and later the U.S. secretary of state—famously said, “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas.”³ Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was reputed to have joked that the only way a woman could make her foreign policy views felt was “by marrying a diplomat and then pouring tea on the offending ambassador’s lap.”⁴ Where others saw silliness, Albright saw the importance of indirection. The lift of a cup, the stir of a spoon, the half-bite of a cookie, an imagined spill—all such minor gestures offer hints about links between Washington and Karachi, China and the Czech Republic, Japan and South Vietnam.

Indeed, François de Callières, author of the 1716 book On the Manner of Negotiating with Princes: On the Uses of Diplomacy, the Choice of Ministers and Envoys, and the Personal Qualities Necessary for Success in Missions Abroad, wrote that “if the custom of the country in which he serves permits freedom of conversation with the ladies of the court, he must on no account neglect any opportunity of placing himself and his master in a favorable light in the eyes of these ladies, for it is well known that the power of feminine charm extends to cover the weightiest resolutions of state.”⁵ De Callières addressed his advice to a small eighteenth-century circle of European envoys, but much of his advice is astonishingly timely, for it tells us something about the influence of one person’s reputation upon another.

In my own study of diplomats’ wives, I began by taking systematic notes of my observations when I lived with an ambassador and his wife for a period of six months in the summer of 1963.I attended diplomatic luncheons, dinners, teas, and cocktail parties given by other diplomats and foreign officials, and observed preparations for similar functions in the home of my host.⁶I also sent open-ended questionnaires to wives at 116 chief of mission posts (ambassadors or their temporary representatives) in foreign capitals around the world.⁷ Of the thirty questionnaires returned, most were from wives stationed in Europe and Latin America; the rest were evenly distributed between wives at posts in the Far East, Near East, and Africa.8

But over time, the role of the diplomat’s wife—like that of most American women—has drastically changed. In 1969, diplomatic wives received no money for what informally constituted a full-time job. A decade later, women became eligible to receive stipends for work entertaining foreign guests, though not salaries. (At least one diplomat’s wife was offended at the idea of pay to do what she considered her patriotic duty.) In 1974, the State Department removed the rule against wives of diplomats holding their own jobs, so long as their position created no conflict of interest. Today, nearly one-third of all ambassadors are women.⁹

So what can we learn today from a mid-century diplomat’s wife? We can see in it, I believe, an extreme case of that which affects us all: reputational reach. In the culture of the 1950s, an ambassador’s wife was legally barred from holding a profession of her own and lived far from her family and community, so she saw herself and was seen by others mainly as her husband’s wife. She carried his reputation. And from that flowed two facts: she had a full-time job helping him build that reputation, and her life was deeply influenced by living under it. Indeed, her life provides an extreme example of a form of connection we all know.

Most of us do not work as hard at building the reputations of others, but we may be influenced by living under them more than we think. The action of a child reflects honor or shame on a parent, as does that of a parent reflect on the child. The same holds true with a spouse or partner. Similarly, a teacher reflects well on his school and a doctor on her hospital. In the realm of reputation, we are not free-standing individuals; we carry and lend reputations. Carrying—or struggling against carrying—someone else’s reputation becomes part of who we are. The less recognized by others we are, the more we borrow or carry the reputation of others.¹⁰ In its more elaborate form, reputational reach can form part of what Hannah Papanek calls a “two-person career.”¹¹ With diplomatic couples, two people work full-time every day under the reputational umbrella of one, and do the job of one—the husband. Many spouses of corporate executives, professionals, and church leaders fit this pattern, as do spouses of candidates for U.S. president, whose gestures, dress, and off-camera remarks are closely inspected for clues to the person from whom the reputation emanates. We can respond to a reputational reach in any number of ways—by trying to hide it, ignore it, defy it, sabotage it, minimize it or, as in the case of the ambassador’s wives I describe here, elaborate it.

The reputational carryover of a diplomat to his wife is greater than that of a dentist, lawyer, or shopkeeper. This is partly because the role of the diplomat is more diffuse; what does and does not contribute to good relations between countries is not as clearly defined as what does and does not contribute to a well-executed root canal or expertly kept shop inventory. Official life blurs into nonofficial life and public life into private.

A logic of power is often at work. In the case of the ambassador’s wife, this logic begins with the U.S. president, who wields the most power. The ambassador is his “royal messenger,” wielding the power attached to that task and carrying his portion of reputational reach. In turn, the ambassador’s wife helps with the task assigned him. So just as people glean clues from an ambassador as to what the president “really thinks,” they glean clues from the ambassador’s wife as to what her husband really thinks. Each is dealing with a different link in the chain of reputational reach.

The ambassador’s wife of the 1960s held frequent lunches, teas, and dinners that were not optional. One wife reported, “At this small post I average 14 ‘must’ social functions a week, not counting entertaining an average of 40 people a week, large receptions excluded.” Eighty percent of the ambassadors’ wives reported either giving or going to ten or more dinners, luncheons, or receptions a week, and the average wife attended at least one function a day in someone else’s home.

Officially, the role of the ambassador’s wife is not a job. It is not mentioned in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, and she receives no pay. She has no direct say in diplomatic negotiations. Indeed, she is instructed not to discuss official diplomatic business because she is not supposed to be told diplomatic secrets and her word could be mistakenly taken as official. At the same time, she deals continually with politics indirectly. Were she married to a poet or carpenter, she would not be holding innumerable receptions, riding in a diplomatic car, living in an embassy residence, or carrying a diplomatic passport.12

In addition to his wife, the ambassador’s secretary, chauffeur, and maid reflect on the country the ambassador represents. In general, the closer the association and the more equal to him in status, the more carryover of the ambassador’s representative function to them. For example, if his personal secretary has an illicit affair, this indirectly affects his reputation, but if his wife has the affair it affects it far more. Similarly, if his chauffeur is unfriendly to the chauffeurs of other diplomats, the ambassador’s reputation is affected, but if his wife refuses invitations from the wives of other ambassadors, it is affected far more. This is the shape, then, of what we could call reputational reach—or sometimes glow—which varies by occupation, gender, and national culture.

The wife’s training seemed to become more important with the decline of nineteenth-century “secret diplomacy” and the rise in “grassroots”—or people-to-people—diplomacy.¹³ Accordingly, in the 1960s, the Foreign Service Institute began to offer briefing sessions for wives, including lectures on American culture, history, and foreign policy, guided tours to art museums, and language courses in both major languages such as Russian and local dialects such as the Ghanaian Twi. A bibliography was given out which included Emily Post’s Etiquette: The Blue Book of Social Usage, Sir Ernest Satow’s A Guide to Diplomatic Practice—now in its sixth edition—and the U.S. State Department’s Social Usage Abroad: A Guide for American Officials and Their Families.¹⁴ Included, too—this in the 1960s—were three books on communism, including J. Edgar Hoover’s A Study of Communism, two books on American history, and only two on the nature of the non-Western world.¹⁵ Some knowledge of the local language, American history and culture, and international etiquette were considered a minimal requirement. But many wives went beyond their husbands in representing America. The wife of the head of the Foreign Service Institute advocated that ambassadors’ wives hold classes on “the American way of life” for local officials, conducting them to different rooms in her home, explaining different objects in each room, and serving American-style food while teaching their guests about U.S. eating habits and customs.¹⁶

Indeed, a wife was advised to think of her publicly visible life as a “class” for others on America. As a writer in the Department of State Newsletter noted, “We begin by remembering what all Foreign Service wives learn early in their careers: that the behavior of any American living abroad will invariably be considered typical of most Americans—our attitudes, our cultural values, our personalities and sensitivities.”17 Her sensitivity should extend to local customs as well: “Scrupulous observance of local laws . . . and careful attention not to offend local customs are urged. [But] ‘going native’ is as unwelcome in most countries as aggressive Americanism.”¹⁸

Her husband’s role also impacts what a diplomatic wife should do and not do. As mentioned, before 1974, diplomatic wives could not hold a paid job. As one wife explained, “A profession such as a lawyer, doctor, or work in any commercial field would be well nigh impossible, for your official position would prejudice any action and would cause resentment and criticism.”¹⁹ Only those professions removed from public life—those of an artist or musician, for example—were exempt. The same held for joining any group. As one official warned, “Caution is urged when joining new organizations; sometimes groups seek both the prestige and the cover afforded by participation of wives of American officials, so it is suggested that Embassy officials be consulted before joining unknown groups, signing petitions, or taking part in programs which involve innocent Americans in international political activities.”²⁰

When inviting people over, a wife was also advised to “confine the guest list to those whom your husband should know and with whom he works.” She could pick people she wanted to see, but that wasn’t the main purpose of her socializing.²¹ As the wife of the ambassador to a small European country noted, “Naturally it is difficult to be closer to the wife of the French ambassador than to the wife of the British ambassador—or to spend more time with the Russian wife than the Italian wife; we must be ‘diplomatic.’” As she also noted, “Remember . . . when you are invited to a party given by other than Americans, it is usually because of your husband’s position in the embassy and his work. Therefore look upon yourselves as representatives of the United States even when your hosts are good friends.”²²

If her obligations were vicarious, so too were her honors—being given a seat of honor at dinner parties, having the American wives of lower ranking officials stand when she entered a room, and receiving near unanimous acceptance of invitations from embassy personnel. She enjoyed diplomatic immunity from legal prosecution, parking tickets, and travel-related customs inspections. Her house, servants, and chauf-feured car also reflected a lavish standard of living through which she got to, and had to, express what Thorstein Veblen in Theory of the Leisure Class called “vicarious conspicuous consumption.”23 Her furs and limousine were symbols of the reputational reach of her husband, even as his work upheld the reputation of the U.S. president.²⁴

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: A MORSE CODE

According to Harold Nicolson, “the expression ‘diplomatic language’ is used to describe that guarded understatement which enables diplomatists and ministers to say sharp things to each other without becoming provocative or impolite.”²⁵ Diplomatic terms describing breaches of understanding rise, like keys on a piano, from “unfortunate” to “regrettable” to “troubling” on up to “inexcusable.” On both sides of a communication, a statement can be understood as an understatement. So, like the ambassador, his wife tunes a keen ear to mild statements and small gestures without becoming—or seeming—oversensitive. As de Callières pointed out, “The negotiator must possess that penetration which enables him to discover the thoughts of men and to know by the least movement of their countenances what passions are stirring within, for such movements are often betrayed even by the most practiced negotiator.”²⁶

There are two main covert message systems—a political message system links to her capacity as unofficial government representative, and a social message system attaches to her role as chief of the embassy wives. She sends and receives messages in both.²⁷

Did the Yugoslav ambassador come to our Fourth of July party or not? If he was a no-show, was that because he had received a recent communiqué from his government to take a harder line against the war in Vietnam? Or did he leave early without having another function to attend?28 Or, then again, did he send a junior officer instead of showing up himself? Was he unusually friendly tonight, and did he snub the Russian official? Such minor moves might mean “Thanks for stepping up aid to Yugoslavia.”

Why does not the Yugoslav diplomat or his wife just say, “I don’t like your policy in Vietnam, and I am expressing this by not showing up at your party tomorrow night?” Or why not say, “My government opposes your government’s policy in Vietnam, but I like you as a friend and will come to your party"? Because ambiguity is useful: it leaves room for multiple interpretations, and so for doubt. Should the political winds shift, it leaves a way out. The diplomat who shakes loose of such ambiguity is viewed as naïve, devious, or ill-suited to this line of work.

In the diplomatic world, as well as outside it, actions function as words. Just as there is a standard of grammatical correctness in language, so too is there a standard for behavior through diplomatic protocol. Much of this standard was originally set down in the Congress of Vienna in 1815, was revised in 1961 by a meeting of plenipotentiaries from eighty countries convened under the auspices of the United Nations, and was last updated in 2009.²⁹ Other books based on it became user guides. As one ambassador’s wife explained in a speech,

“Protocol” is a set of rules of the game—the game of diplomatic life where you meet people of different cultures, backgrounds and so on. If we all acted the way we did in our home towns, it might not be completely understood in Bangkok or Leopoldville or Lima or Paris. So there is “protocol” which tells us the right international way for an ambassador to present his credentials, to meet a visiting Royalty or a President, to arrange conferences and in what order to rank officials of countries, big or little.³⁰

Large embassies have protocol officers whose job it is to ensure that “everything goes according to protocol.” Who should precede whom into the dining room? (The guest of honor goes first.) What is the place of honor for male guests? (The right of the hostess.) The highest ranking lady at the dinner table? (The right of the host.) Protocol spells out the seating on down to the middle of the table.³¹

Social Usage, the official State Department document of protocol, instructs junior diplomats’ spouses, for example, on how to pay a call on the ambassador’s spouse:

One stays for approximately 20 minutes, unless strongly urged by the hostess to stay longer . . . or if refreshments are served, and on leaving one shakes hands with and thanks the hostess. If no appointment has been made, one asks at the door if Mrs. X is “at home” or “receiving.” . . . If not, upon departure, leave the proper number of cards to the individual who answers the door. . . . Cards must not be handed to the person on whom one is calling. Turning down either upper corner of cards indicates a personal call.32

If the hostess says, “Must you go now?” she does not mean “please stay.” She is being polite. Because the boundaries of behavior are so clearly marked, even to the permissible deviation, “there is never any doubt in anybody’s mind,” Edward Hall writes, “that, as long as he does what is expected, he knows what to expect from others.”³³

So protocol provides a behavioral Esperanto. It sets out the correct way to greet a person, take a coat, or assign a seat. It gives diplomats a way to understand the breaking of protocol as a way to send and receive messages.³⁴ Was the newly arrived envoy from China not seated to the right of the hostess? Why might that be? Omissions from and additions to guest lists, accepting, rejecting or giving gifts, dressing up or down, turning music on or off, staying late or leaving early—all such details are a form of talk between states.³⁵

Paradoxically, those living in highly formal cultures, Hall suggests, are more relaxed. That may be because they do not have to figure out what things mean; all they have to do is know the Morse code.³⁶ Protocol does it for them, and so reduces anxiety. Still, the continual premium on avoiding unintentional offense means that diplomats and their wives become good, as firemen are, at maintaining the strange state of being relaxed while also staying on the alert.

Can a diplomat’s wife make real friends? Yes, but carefully. As the wife of a Consul-General remarked, “The moment one’s husband is in charge, both Americans and local residents do not feel so free to drop in or to invite one for informal activities on the spur of the moment.” Another obstacle to making real friends is the sheer number of people it is her job to know. This could become both a source of friends and a protection against intimacy. “You have so many friends and acquaintances that you find yourself spread too thin,” one woman observed, “even if you enjoy people.” Or, as yet another put it, “Your husband’s position, and responsibilities connected [to it], don’t leave you much time to cultivate close friends.”

Of the ambassadors’ wives I sampled, a third spent “most of their time” with other Americans (of that, 23 percent with other American embassy wives), 12 percent with foreigners not from the assigned country (mostly diplomats from other embassies), and 52 percent with locals.37 Most diplomatic families are on two- to four-year tours of duty, so a wife might arrive at a post just as someone she likes is leaving. According to one wife, “It depends on the post. In one post I made extremely close friends. In Paris it was harder for the social life was so extremely active and Americans were passing through all the time.” In addition to the continual stream of foreign visitors, local government officials get promoted, demoted, transferred, and replaced. A third of the time, the person at the front door is a new face.

Then there is age. The ambassador’s wife and her husband are at the pinnacle of a small hierarchy, and, as one wife explained, “Ambassadors’ wives, having gone up the ladder, are usually older and find few at the same stage of life.” Also, in a young, developing nation where the political elite are young, many top officials and their wives will be twenty or thirty years younger.³⁸

The number of people and their transience, age, and social position all tend to inhibit the development of personal bonds—even during so-called personal time. But personal time blends into work time. The weekend is not set off from Monday to Friday, and in going to church, playing golf, tennis, or—in countries such as England, Australia, or New Zealand—going to the races, one is also on the job.

CHIEF OF EMBASSY WIVES

When the ambassador’s wife is alone with other officers’ wives, the political symbolism of her role tends to disappear even as the social message system comes into play. In the company of foreign guests, the social distance between wives of differently ranked husbands tends to fade as does the salience of its Morse code. For example, Social Usage suggests that Americans in the company of foreign dinner guests “should forget precedence among themselves and be prepared to be seated in any way which will make conversation easier and which will take into account language qualifications.”39

In the world of the 1960s, American officials and their wives often stood in receiving lines at diplomatic functions: the ambassador and his wife first, the political counselor and his wife next, then the economic counselor, the administrative counselor, and the junior officers and their wives.⁴⁰ Wives stood in the order of their husband’s importance. Most embassies set up an American women’s club to which all embassy wives were required to belong, and the ambassador’s wife was its automatic—functioning or honorary—chair.⁴¹

In most embassies, wives referred to themselves as a “team” or as “one big family.” “To be in a foreign post is to be a member of a large family, and the differences of interests between me and my old friends [in the United States] who do not belong to it,” one wife reflected, “make a large gap in our relationship.” The smaller the embassy, generally, the greater the team spirit.⁴²

But given the hierarchical relations between the ambassador—whose evaluation matters in getting a promotion—and his subordinates, some social distance is required not only between an ambassador and a man working for him, but between their wives. The wife of a junior officer might be tempted to befriend the ambassador’s wife in order to praise her husband to his boss’s wife, but the other junior wives would bitterly resent and censure such a wife for “currying favor.”⁴³ Three-fourths of the wives surveyed mentioned barriers between themselves and junior wives.⁴⁴ Of the half who said that most of their best friends were in the American diplomatic service, only 5 percent said their best American friend was at the same post.

Friendships, when they developed, were with foreign nationals or among social equals. As one ambassador’s wife put it, “One’s position of authority with other Americans precludes closeness. One shouldn’t have ‘favorites’ although inevitably they exist. The incentive to having friends . . . among the locals is higher. It is your profession to develop friends. If you fail, you’re sent home.”45 Another wife noted, “In general, one makes friends but not close ones.” It is, much of the time, a lonely job.⁴⁶

HOSTESS TO FOREIGN NATIONALS

The ambassador’s wife entertains many people. One recommended keeping a file on all guests: “A card file, with a thumbnail sketch of the person being documented, his language abilities and general interests on one side, and on the other side, the dates and functions at the Embassy to which he has been invited, as well as the invitations accepted from him, has been of the greatest use to me.”⁴⁷ Another official suggested notes on whom each had been invited with “in order to avoid duplication.”⁴⁸ Conversely, the ambassador’s wife is on comparable lists kept for the same reason by those who invited her to their occasions. One wife reported difficulty getting on the right list: “There is a problem in this country, since they are neutralist, and do not want to be tagged as Pro-American.”

Because the ambassador’s wife is either on her “turf” or on someone else’s, there is not much time for walking around in public.⁴⁹ Rather, at home she is in public. She entertains at “the residence,” a large house that looks like a public building and is literally owned, as it were, by the role, not the occupant. Furnishings such as chairs, rugs, and curtains are provided by the State Department, and the United States seal appears on all the glasses and plates.⁵⁰ Often one or two rooms in the mansion are “home rooms,” furnished with familiar personal objects and pictures, and kept out of public view. The rest of the house is explicitly designed for formal entertaining, with large hallways for overflow crowds, closets large enough to hold dozens of coats, and large doorways and quarters to house servants who often come with the house.

Entertaining is mostly formal, and the higher one’s husband’s rank the more so.⁵¹ It takes place at designated times and is tightly scheduled. One woman commented, “Local residents . . . feel that a diplomat’s wife is always busy, and [they] are embarrassed if they drop in and find guests at the residence.” Servants add to the air of formality since, unless they are known to speak no English, they can overhear.

The general purpose of the diplomatic function, as de Callières put it, is to help “to conduct the affairs of [the diplomat’s] master to a prosperous issue, and to spare no pains to discover the designs of others.”52 Indeed, “if people of this kind [deputies in a democratic state] have a freedom of entree to the ambassador, a good table will greatly assist in the discovery of all that is going on.”⁵³

Conversation takes a certain form. Usually the hostess’ conversation steers a middle course between serious and light,⁵⁴ but either way it is seldom carefree. As one ambassador’s wife remarked, “Most of my friends are among the local wives, but there too I must be extremely careful of carefree conversation which can always be misinterpreted. An innocent remark can be carried (equally innocently) by my friend to her husband—and therein hangs many a diplomatic blunder.” Thus, the ambassador’s wife often talks to politically relevant people on politically nonsignificant subjects. Even if the wife of a local official is not consciously scouring the conversation for information useful to her husband, the result is often the same as if she were. One wife reported:

You must avoid politically sensitive areas as your words will be taken as government policy in spite of the fact you never see the telegrams or are privy to secret information. If you slip once, or god forbid, twice on secret information your husband has confided in you, his job is at stake, and worse—he watches every word he says to you thereafter.

Ironically, formal entertaining often calls for the hostess to “take off” some of the formality. If a guest arrives at the front door, for example, she might open the door and greet the guest herself. In this way, she silently conveys the idea that “My servant answers the door for others, but you are special, so I answered it myself.” She might make light of protocol but usually without deviating too much from it. At one dinner party, the ambassador’s wife playfully complained, “I don’t know where people sit here,” although neatly printed name cards stood by each guest’s plate; she thus ensured that guests would sit where they should, but in a genuine and friendly spirit—the ideal diplomatic combination.

The formal setting itself offers an ambassador’s wife the choice as to whether to be as formal as her surroundings (keeping the ice) or informal (breaking the ice). As de Callières recommended to eighteenth-century diplomats, “The diplomatist will readily understand that at certain times he can win the good grace of those around him by living in an easy, affable and familiar manner among his friends. To wrap oneself in official dignity at all times is mere preposterous arrogance, and the diplomatists who behave thus will repel rather than attract.”55

Because most entertaining involves feeding large numbers of people, a hostess shares many techniques in common with a restaurant manager, such as appreciating the foibles of one’s staff.⁵⁶ One diplomat’s wife posted in India noted an understanding she had come to with her servant:

It was a different matter if guests were present. A plate of food might be spilled on the floor. The bearer would see it, might put a stool in front of it so that guests wouldn’t stumble onto it but he would walk with dignity out of the room to get the sweeper to come and clear it away. He wouldn’t embarrass me in front of my guests by behaving as if he didn’t know the proper way for a respectful Hindu man to act. If there were guests, I wouldn’t embarrass the butler by doing the job myself as any American housewife would be inclined to do.⁵⁷

Many tire of the impersonality of diplomatic protocol, but at the same time, it helps them guard their inner selves from the encroachment of a highly impersonal order. Within the rule-based, message-conveying cocoons in which they live, diplomats’ wives often develop close bonds with their husbands and a few friends with whom they draw very near. As one wife put it, “One makes hundreds of ‘friends’ and few close friends, but my close friends mean a lot to me.”⁵⁸ Divorce seemed exceedingly rare.⁵⁹

When asked what they felt about their role, most wives said they enjoyed it. Less than one out of ten said that if they could have chosen their husband’s profession, they would have chosen a different one. All things considered—the travel, the variety, the style of life—most wives liked it, and that despite a certain “pinch.” That is, the husband picked a role that fit his personality, so the one did not pinch the other; but his wife picked the man, not the role, so she was more likely to feel that pinch.60

In the daily life of the diplomat’s wife, we glimpse an extreme case of something that affects us all. For other people’s reputations often stick to us like burs, as ours do to the identity of others. Cultures set up different rules of reputational reach. The Taliban father gauges his honor by his daughter’s sexual conduct and obedience to him, while the Western father gauges his honor more by the college she enters and profession she pursues. Honor goes beyond family too. The abusive priest dishonors his church, the pilfering businessman discredits his firm, while the heroic policewoman brings glory to her department, and the spelling bee winner bestows honor on his school and state.

Good reputations radiate an enjoyable glow and bad ones break hearts. We blissfully bask in the glory of another or anxiously fend off dishonor others cast upon us. And we stand vulnerable to being linked, in the minds of bystanders, to stereotyped ideas about some characteristic—such as creed, race, or nationality—that we may share as next-of-kin, neighbor, or friend to scoundrel or saint. Whether we whirl in the orbit of a fine reputation or knock about in the orbit of a bad one, we are managing our feelings about it. For in the end, we may think of jobs as clearly bounded and people as “individuals,” but much of the time, we represent others and others represent us. And, without title, role, badge, or crown, we quietly act as diplomats of everyday life.