cover image Foreign Intrigue: The Making and Unmaking of a Foreign Service Officer

Foreign Intrigue: The Making and Unmaking of a Foreign Service Officer

Eric Kocher. New Horizon Press, $20.95 (291pp) ISBN 978-0-88282-054-5

From 1947 to his retirement in '68, U.S. diplomat Kocher served as labor attache in Belgium, consul in Malaya, deputy chief of mission in Jordan and charge d'affaires in Yugoslavia. His memoir, essentially a collection of sketches and anecdotes, has no ax to grind other than to gripe about how gracelessly he was fired as director of the State Department's outplacement service. He recalls escorting Vice President Nixon in Kuala Lumpur and enduring his unkind remarks about the natives, and ``handling'' producer Sam Spiegel during the filming of Lawrence of Arabia in Jordan. In the one episode that might interest the general reader, Kocher describes his adventures during a leave in '64 when, seeking renewal in manual labor, he followed the fruit harvest among migrant workers. That he found his co-laborers in Florida ``as empty and likable'' as the ones in Virginia is typical of his superficial reaction to his experiences as a whole. Photos. (Aug.)