AH Vignette by Daltonia: Mr Ambassador

Note: I'm posting this because Daltonia has gone fishing, as he is a clever young man who knows he needs to do well in this exams.





The diplomat walked out of the rain into the safety of the American Embassy, with copies of newspapers tucked safely under his raincoat. It was his routine as the Chief of Staff to United States Ambassador to Germany to get the day’s newspapers every evening. It meant that he got outside at least once a day. The headlines for Berlin’s newspapers on the morning of January 20th, 1981 all concerned the imminent inauguration of America’s first female president, and what that would mean for Germany. The embassy was busy, staffers rushing around to make preparations for the new President’s imminent visit to Germany.

He made it to the top floor and entered the Ambassador’s office without knocking. The Ambassador was watching the inauguration live on television that had been mounted to the wall. From the enthusiastic cheers of the crowd in Washington, George guessed that she had just been inaugurated. It was common knowledge in the embassy that the Ambassador was not so enthusiastic about her.

He looked up from the TV set.

“Oh, uh, good evening George,” he said.

“Good morning, Ambassador Kennedy”, George replied. “Should I, uh, just leave the papers on the desk?”

“Yes, thanks.” George put down the papers. As he left the Ambassador’s office, he paused to look that the TV.

“Remember when Russell Long couldn’t not be elected President?” the Ambassador said, half smiling. The new President was now working her way through her inaugural address, announcing the visit to Germany that the Embassy had been preparing for the previous two weeks. She talked about peace and multilateral nuclear disarmament, and much more diplomatic jargon. She didn’t mention the Long family, who had dominated American politics since the thirties, Sharing the Wealth for nearly fifty years now. Russell Long was meant to be the third President Long, after Huey and Earl. All this suited Ambassador Kennedy just fine; the Kennedys and the Longs had gone way back in American politics.

The Ambassador had recounted all this history at George during multiple drinking sessions. Secretary Long’s dad, President Huey Long, had eventually become good friends with his dad, Joe Kennedy Senior, who rarely tolerated a bad word against him. The first President Long had gotten America out of the Depression the moment he stepped into the White House in 1933, even if it had meant pushing the constitution to its limits. But Papa Kennedy, according to the ambassador, respected him more for keeping America out of the war. Because this kept his sons, Joe, Bobby and Ambassador Jack, out of the way of fighting. Anyway, Britain and France were meant more than capable of fighting the Nazis. But the when the first two nations had gotten tired of Hitler’s bravado in 1938 it had quickly became a stalemate. This had, at least, forced out the fascists in favour of some more reasonable and less ideological strongmen.

These strongmen, who had ruled Germany ever since, were of little concern to America. They kept the Soviets busy at least and their occasional wars in Eastern Europe never looked like they would spill over anywhere else. But they hadn’t warred properly since both sides had acquired atomic weaponry, along with most of the world’s Great Powers. Things had gotten really tense since the 1970s, and the thought of any of these atom bombs actually going off over cities was a bit too much for anyone to think. It was why the new President was coming to Berlin. It was partially why she had gotten elected. George recognized that this difficult climate needed top minds, top people; but Secretary of State Russell Long had made John F. Kennedy the ambassador to Germany instead. Everyone knew that this was a political move, not much more than a return of a favour to the Kennedys. Chancellor Strauss had felt personally snubbed by Secretary Long. But even the Germans thought that he thought that he would be President by now.

The Presidential Election had been extraordinary. Russell Long was meant to have long been a lock on the Democratic nomination for 1980 it had seemed – he was a Long after all – and then all of a sudden he wasn’t. Somehow, as the economy just kept refusing to grow, he’d been beaten by an outsider, the very opposite of a machine politician. Everyone who mattered was assuring everyone else who mattered that the new Democratic nominee couldn’t possibly win the general election. George thought she didn’t stand a chance. She was anti-establishment. She was a Jew. She was a woman.

And yet there was Janet Rosenberg on the television, giving her inaugural address.

“I can’t imagine that our new boss is going to want to keep someone like me around,” Kennedy said. “As soon as the summit is over, I imagine that I’ll be going back to Washington. To be replaced by some commie stooge or bra-burner or whoever she wants.“

The Ambassador was right, in a way. All the backscratchers, the Ambassador Kennedys the world over, who had got where they got through shaking the right hands, were probably going to lose their jobs. President Rosenberg owed none of them anything.

As George walked back to his own office, he noticed two young typists enter Ambassador Kennedy’s office. That was another perk of the job, the sort that the new President probably wanted to do away with. George was the sort who kept his morals to himself and he probably wouldn’t have minded the Ambassador’s indulgences. At least if their offices were separated by a thicker wall. He heard a distinctly feminine voice through the wall.

“Mr Ambassador, you’re really spoiling us”.

George rolled his eyes. Rosenberg wouldn’t have gotten his vote, but maybe there was something to her brand of open government.

____
Note: The new President Janet Rosenberg is the ATL version of Janet Jagan the OTL American-born president of Guyana.

George is a completely fictional character.

 
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