YOUR DIPLOMATS AT WORK:
A Comedy in Seven Acts

by Franklin E. Huffman
Washington, DC, 2011, Paperback, 280 pages

Frank Huffman resigned as Professor of Linguistics and Asian Studies at Cornell University in 1985 at age 51 and joined the U.S. Foreign Service. He served tours in London, Burma, Morocco, Paris, Washington, Cambodia and New Zealand before mandatory retirement at age 65, and then accepted post-retirement assignments in Chad and Cambodia.

Your Diplomats At Work is an account of the author's sometimes comical, sometimes frustrating, but always enlightening adventures as a diplomat in seven countries. As a former academic who had worked and traveled in some sixty countries of the world before joining the Foreign Service, Huffman provides trenchant commentary on the history, culture, and political situation in each country.

Written with a light touch, the book critiques some of the stifling bureaucracy and resultant inefficiency of the U.S. Department of State, along with practical recommendations for improvement. In the Prologue he describes the circuitous route by which a Virginia farm boy became a professor and diplomat. This brief introductory account of the first fifty years of the author's life establishes his credentials. Your Diplomats at Work is a richly detailed memoir of the author's varied experiences across two careers.