Diplomacy in a time of terror

By MICHELE HEWITSON

Here's a hypothetical scenario which might feature as a question in a foreign service exam.

You're the American consul posted to Auckland, New Zealand. You're at a cocktail party. America is engaged in a war against terrorism and is dropping bombs on a drought-stricken country already impoverished after years of war. A chardonnay-swilling woman backs you into a corner and proceeds to harangue you about America's role. What is the appropriate response?

There will be one: both for drunken ladies and for members of the press. The American consul, Douglas Berry, says it will, depending on the context of the harangue and the situation in which it is delivered, go something like this.

That, essentially, the United States is not alone in acting in this matter. That world terrorism is a global concern. That the United States has worked hard to build a world coalition. That the United States appreciates the great outpouring of support from nations around the world.

As a diplomatic answer from a career diplomat that pretty much has it all. It says: Hey, we're all in this together and thanks for sending the troops.

It's an answer issued from a state department which authorises, the genial Berry says, "what we call press guidance, and you often draw on those kind of stock phrases".

In the days immediately after the terrorist acts in the United States, a consulate awash in flowers and messages of condolence didn't need to. There is still a great stack of cards and drawings from New Zealand schoolchildren piled on the mail bench in the middle of the consulate office.

Still, in the time since the attacks you might imagine that the experience of being an American abroad - even in New Zealand - might amount to wearing a slightly uncomfortable sort of skin. Since September 11, though, the American Consul says he really hasn't seen "a great deal of anti-American sentiment".

He has had a few people say, "Why are you bombing Afghanistan?" He could have rolled out the stock answer. He probably did. But to me he adds, with his rare wry grin, "as though I go home from work every night and jump in my bomber and fly over there".

It turns out the life of a career diplomat is a little more sedate, although you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise when you turn up unannounced at the consulate looking for the consul.

You could try ringing him but the reason for turning up unannounced is that getting through to his office is as difficult as finding Osama bin Laden.

This is a joke I'm unwilling to attempt, given that gaining access to this small third-floor piece of what is officially American soil is subject to the sort of security inspection you expect at passport control - the difference being that at passport control they don't check your perfume spray by making you aim at a patch of your own skin. (This is normal, every-day consulate security, the guards assure me, not linked to the events of September 11.)

But given the hothouse climate of anthrax-sown fear, Berry is perhaps surprisingly welcoming of a visitor who announces "I'm not really stalking you"- a reference to a series of voice-mails left on the only message system I managed to reach, the one that instructs you to leave a message if you've lost your green card.

When I arrive the next day, the consul is doing what he does when not flying in the bomber of some people's imaginations. He's in his shirtsleeves at one of the consulate counters.

This is a function he performs most days: conducting the final interviews in the process of gaining immigrant visas.

This one is with a couple with a young baby who are planning to migrate to the US permanently. She's an American. He's a New Zealander. He needs a visa; the child needs an American passport.

Each week the consul and his 10 staff process around 20 immigrant visas, 50 passport applications or renewals, around 1000 visas.

As exciting as it gets? Well, offers Berry, if an American citizen gets hurt, killed or arrested in New Zealand, he's on call. If they get arrested, the first thing the consul makes clear is that the consulate does not offer legal services.

"So many Americans have grown up watching detective shows on TV, and they think they know the procedures. They say, 'How come the officer didn't read me my rights?' or 'How come I wasn't allowed my one phone call'?"

His main purpose, he says deadpan, "is to ensure that citizens are not maltreated simply because they are American citizens."

After September 11 the consulate suspended issuing temporary visas for a day. The next day it resumed full services. "Passports still have to be issued, Americans still continue to land in trouble. We just carry on."

On the day the twin towers toppled, Berry, like most of us who got an early morning call, turned on CNN. He was in at the office by 3.30 am. By that time he'd already received instructions from Washington, via Wellington, to contact as many Americans as possible.

Citizens of the US in NZ were advised to take extra precautions: to vary routes to work, to vary start times, to avoid demonstrations and suspicious packages, to keep a low profile.

P ARADOXICALLY, the consul - and the consulate - almost simultaneously became more visible. There were those heaps of flowers outside to negotiate (potentially nervous tenants in the Citibank Centre got boxes of chocolates from consulate staff); the letters; the memorial services.

Americans who had no reason to visit the consulate turned up. "Just to see the American flag or to hear an American accent" is what Berry thinks people wanted. The return to life as usual, as per the instruction of the President, was going to take a little while.

There was a further paradox for Berry, a sense of relief at being safe, but alongside it that sense of anxiety that comes from being far from home when momentous events happen.

"This is an emotion I felt, I think lots of not just Americans but New Zealanders felt, too. That you felt like you wanted to have something more that you could do."

What has changed at the American Consulate since September 11 is invisible. Yes, says Berry, they have reviewed their security procedures. And no, "obviously I'm not going to tell you how".

What the consul and his staff do to counter that anxiety is what workplaces everywhere do in times of tension: they drag out the gallows humour.

Ask Berry for his favourite example of post-attack humour and he offers, after a bit of thought, this: a cartoon which shows a man on a stretcher being carried off by a couple of New York City firemen. The sub-caption is The NY Spirit. "And he's on his cellphone saying, 'Bob, I'm running late'."

This is a very diplomatic sort of joke. What would you expect. A bin Laden punch-line? A howler involving bombs?

The 50-year-old consul, who is on his first "non-hardship posting" after tours in Haiti, Senegal, Poland and Armenia, also has a diplomatic response to a question about how real the anthrax threat really is.

"I think the number of confirmed cases being so small, it is a good terrorist weapon in that it creates terror. It is not a very good terrorist weapon if your objective is to kill."

Is the consul opening his own mail? "Yes, I do." No gloves? "No."

The American spirit is alive and well at the consulate in Auckland.

Story archives:

Terror in America - the Sept 11 attacks

Bioterrorism

War against terrorism

Links: Terror in America - the Sept 11 attacks

Timeline: Major events since the Sept 11 attacks