Word: ambassador
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Silverman, Ambassador-designate to Barbados and seven other Caribbean islands, has no college degree and no job history. In the statement of qualifications she submitted to the Senate, she cited her experience "planning and hosting corporate functions" for her husband, a New York City industrialist. In 1987-88 she donated more than $180,000 to Republican candidates...
...Former Nevada Senator Chic Hecht, 60, who has been nominated as Ambassador to the Bahamas, was more noted for his malapropisms than for any legislative accomplishment during his single term on Capitol Hill. Hecht once declared that he opposed a "nuclear-waste suppository" in his state. In his list of qualifications, he noted that the "life-style of the Bahamas is similar to the life-style of Las Vegas...
...Peter Secchia, 52, a former Republican national committeeman from Michigan, was narrowly confirmed last month as Ambassador to Italy despite press reports alleging frequent profanity and crude behavior toward women. Before arriving in Rome, he endeared himself to his future hosts by joking that the new Italian navy boasts glass-bottom boats "so they can see the old Italian navy...
...many foreign capitals, official reaction to Bush's new ambassadors is diplomatically neutral. But privately, there is plenty of hand wringing and even some scorn. Secchia, says a senior Italian official, is "a very nice man, but he doesn't know anything." The Bahamas, says a source close to the government, tried to dissuade the U.S. from naming Hecht as Ambassador, but now that he has been selected "there ain't nothing much you can do, just grin and bear it." And although Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke went out of his way to praise nominee Sembler, his choice...
Sensing political advantage, Senate Democrats are holding up the confirmations of several Bush nominees. Republicans argue that the Democratic objections are hypocritical. "Every four years the out party says the ambassadors aren't qualified," comments a Bush foreign policy aide. During confirmation hearings last week on the nomination of Joseph Gildenhorn as Ambassador to Switzerland, Minnesota Republican Rudy Boschwitz huffed that being rich enough to make hefty political contributions should not disqualify a candidate but should be regarded as "a sign of considerable achievement." By that standard, Gildenhorn is well suited for an embassy job. Though the American Academy...