Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering honored
Thomas R. Pickering has achieved the highest rank as career ambassador of the U.S. Foreign Service. His stellar career spans five decades in which he served as the United States ambassador to Russia, India, the United Nations, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria and Jordan. He is currently co-chairman of the Board of Directors of the United Nations Association, USA. The Sarasota-Manatee Chapter of the UNA-USA held a reception and dinner in his honor at Michael’s on East.
Many of Sarasota’s luminaries were in attendance, including Ambassador Kenneth Hill who served in Bulgaria, Ambassador Kent Brown who served in Georgia, and anthropologist Dr. Mary Elmendorf, who participated in all of the United Nations Conferences on Women.
(L. to r.) Kenney DeCamp with ambassadors Thomas R. Pickering and Kenneth Hill. Photos by Frank Colson.
After cocktails, we sat at round tables for dinner. To my pleasure, I found myself at the head table which included Thomas Pickering and Kenneth Hill. The conversation was more than lively, filled as it was with anecdotes from ambassadorial experiences. Pickering spoke of the time in the early 1970s when the FSU Marching Band came to Jordan, where they played in the Damascus Stadium in front of King Hussein. He then launched into what might well have been a setting for James Bond:
While serving in Moscow as ambassador to Russia in 1991, Pickering watched as the coup against Gorbachev was launched in the parliament building across the street. Fighting broke out, and police with aluminum shields were literally pushed away by demonstrators.
(L. to r.) Jo Watson, Ambassador Kent Brown and Margaret D’Albert.
Pickering ordered all people at the embassy go into the underground gymnasium. "We even had to take in our Russian police guards to keep them safe from the shooting," he said.
Pickering used an old Cadillac – which was partially armored – to survey the situation. He witnessed rebels shooting people on the street and two Russian tanks firing cannons at the parliament building.
"In the end the military chased the rebels out. It was a very interesting and difficult period." When asked by Washington whether or not the U.S. should support Yeltsin, Pickering replied: "You have no other choice. There is no other way to go."
Ambassador Kenneth Hill regaled our table with stories of bringing the Blue Angels to Bulgaria, while Kenney DeCamp spoke of his five missions to Russia in 1990-94 as a guest of the Gorbachev Foundation. (Hill is 2010 president of UNA USA, Sarasota-Manatee Chapter, while DeCamp serves with Pattie Lanier as vice president.)
From the podium, Pickering said that much of the way in which the world operates today would not function if it were not for the UN, international mail being but one example, and the remarkable efforts of UN Peacekeepers being another.
"The U.S. has for the first time in many years paid its full contribution to the UN. The number of UN Peacekeepers in the world today now exceeds 100,000, so we get a real bargain. It’s up to us to find ways to streamline and improve. We must look for issues where we have common interest, and build that into the diplomatic equation."
UNA-USA is a center for innovative programs engaging Americans in issues of global concern. For more information, contact the Sarasota-Manatee Chapter at 366-5433.
February 5th 2010 - 6:53AM