clipped from the NYTimes...
It's true that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Could this also work with foreign diplomacy?
... Last week, the State Department informed its embassies and consulates that they could now invite officials from Iran to their Fourth of July receptions, all in keeping with the Obama administration's policy of openness to communication. Iranian diplomats have been off the invite list ever since a certain faux pas, the 1979 seizure by protesters of the American Embassy in Tehran.
But now, finally, representatives of the Iranian government are welcome to annual Independence Day parties, which, as The Times's Mark Landler reported, usually include "hot dogs, red-white-and-blue bunting and some perfunctory remarks about the founding fathers."
There is no record of the founding fathers ever eating hot dogs, no trace, for example, of mustard on the Declaration of Independence. But the hot dog has played a role in American foreign relations since at least June 1939, when the king and queen of England attended a picnic at President Franklin D. Roosevelt's estate in Hyde Park, N.Y., while soliciting American support for England in the war about to consume Europe...
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