The Unsung Profession: Married to Diplomacy

Alice Stover had been a U.S. Foreign Service officer in The Hague in 1955, on her first posting abroad, when she was abruptly asked to resign.


She had not been remiss in her duties or made some grave error, she had simply done the one thing that was guaranteed to get a woman kicked out of the Foreign Service in those years: She married her college sweetheart, Thomas Pickering, now the U.S. ambassador to Russia.


Almost 40 years later, Alice Pickering is a professional in the art of diplomatic protocol and entertaining. She takes great pains to foster a sense of community within the embassy and keeps a full schedule of public appearances, although she is not considered to be employed by the U.S. government.


"I do this out of loyalty to my country and I do this out of loyalty to my husband," she said, within the library of the sprawling Spaso House mansion she manages.


In the conservative world of diplomacy, the traditional role of women is slowly, glacially, evolving with prevailing social mores. But as expectations change for career women entering this elite club as diplomats and spouses, the genteel nature of embassy life is itself slowly giving way to a more business-like atmosphere.


Benedicte Berner, the wife of Swedish Ambassador Orjan Berner, represents, perhaps, the newer style of diplomatic spouse. At the time of her marriage 12 years ago she was a financial analyst at Bank Nationale de Paris, and her husband was Sweden's No. 2 in the Paris embassy.


Upon marrying, she simply continued with her job; she has worked outside the embassy in every post they have had since.


Here in Moscow she handles public affairs and other matters for the International Organization for Migration. In India, where her husband was also ambassador, she worked on development projects for rural women, and in Poland she lectured at the University of Warsaw.


While she joins diplomatic lunches and cocktail parties on occasion and supervises the upkeep of the residence, she is not heavily involved in the traveling and entertaining that many of her contemporaries are. And she does not always accompany the ambassador.


"I don't feel that it is part of my obligation to go to all of the places that he goes because of his job," Berner said. "We're two different people, and he supports me a lot in my job."


Pickering recalls a time when an American diplomat's wife would be graded on how well she represented her nation abroad; Her observance of protocol and decorum, her involvement in charitable and other community activities could affect her husband's career.


A U.S. State Department directive in 1972 eliminated those rules and many of the constraints that went with them, stating unequivocally that "a wife is a private individual, not a Foreign Service employee."


While on the face of it the directive sounded like a victory for women's rights, Pickering is quick to note that it cost spouses something as well, and that was official recognition for their service.


"If you had your husband's senior officer over for dinner you were very concerned," she said. "But it was a way that a wife who was doing a great job could be recognized."


Other countries handle the roles differently. In Japan, a stipend is paid to the spouses of senior diplomats for their representative roles. In several Scandinavian countries, spouses get full pension benefits for the time they spend away from their own careers on a foreign posting.


In the United States, however, spouses accrue nothing toward retirement.


The role they used to play has now been taken over by what U.S. embassies call a Community Liaison Office. It is predominantly staffed by the wives of less senior diplomats, who are paid for their efforts, and provides services like coordinating children's holiday activities.


Such offices, as well as embassy schools, now provide job opportunities for spouses. In most cases it is difficult or illegal for them to work outside the embassy. But for wives of senior diplomats, it is simply unfeasible for them to work in such a subordinate, clerical role.


Olga Morel, wife of France's ambassador to Russia, says that despite the changing times, it is still nearly impossible for spouses in her position to work in the same city as the ambassador.


"Certainly in Moscow it is a very heavy post, and there is not a day without a function," said Morel, herself a senior diplomat in France's foreign service.


"Here, where we have endless delegations, it is really a full-time job."


Indeed, Berner believes she is the only ambassador's wife in Moscow who has a full-time job outside the embassy, and that is because she works in an non-controversial sector.


"Working for humanitarian organizations, which are not supposed to get involved in the political debate, makes it easier," she said. "This all depends on how much you want to get involved in your husband's job."


As spouses play a lesser role in embassy life, however, Pickering thinks the sense of teamwork may suffer.


"I am not an old stick-in-the-mud or traditionalist, but I have seen a loss of the sense of community when a leadership role was not taken by a senior wife," she said. "Nobody is going to notice it until it's gone."