One of the dirty little secrets at the State Department -- at least when I had the privilege of being part of this organization until 2003 -- is that no one reads cables (telegrams from overseas US embassies) any more. Indeed, the only readers of dispatches from the field -- and a countless number of them reach Foggy Bottom every day -- often turn out to be the persons writing them.
Back at DC headquarters, an overworked staff doesn't have time to read lengthy and even not-so-lengthy missives, as their working day is consumed by answering phone calls from everyone under the sun, reacting to emails, and coordinating activities within a confused bureaucracy (they also have to each lunch; classified materials are not allowed in the cafeteria).
With Twitter, Facebook, and other attention-grabbing social media, "cables" are doubtless going, even more than before, the way the mainstream media is going: straight into the IOW, my acronym for the information-overload wastebasket. Even hardworking State Department country "desk officers" simply are physically and mentally unable, in this age of instant communications and contant interruptions, to examine thoroughly all the written stuff that comes in from their fellow diplomats posted overseas. I urge them, as a former desk officer myself (for France, Spain and Portugal, in the early 80s at the United States Information Agency, consolidated into the State Department in 1999) to correct me if I'm wrong.
But now, quite suddenly, thanks to WikiLeaks, this arguably anachronistic method of communication, cables -- valuable documents, not only about what is occurring throughout the world, but also as historical records -- are, despite their lack of "coolness," actually being read and discussed worldwide! (Even, I venture to say, on the Seventh Floor of the State Department, where its leadership sits). So the authors of these often memorable but neglected missives, while doubtless concerned about their work being revealed to America's mortal enemies and offended friends, must have a certain sense of (well-hidden?) satisfaction that their carefully written communications have at last found an audience.
I recall George Kennan noting, in his memoirs, how enthused he was that his famous Long Telegram actually caught the attention of Washington, which had not been the case, he notes, with his previous messages.
Perhaps this great but reclusive diplomat/intellectual -- who was, at heart, a somewhat Germanic littérateur aspiring (as a person well acquainted with him once pointed out to me) to be like the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, another Princetonian -- would have been delighted that his Complete Cables, hitherto classified, and largely unread, even (especially?) by his colleagues, were at last there for all the world to see.
--Long Telegram image from; Kennan image from
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