Читать книгу An Affair of State - Harry Hart Frank - Страница 5

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When Jeff Baker got out of the Army he knew it was time for him to try to become a Foreign Service Officer. The War Manpower Act was a godsend. It saved him a written examination. Two years as a line private, and three as a company grade officer, and then two more on occupation duty didn’t fit a man for passing written examinations.

He mailed his application after he returned from Vienna, and while still on terminal leave, and then tried to forget about it.

He was offered jobs by a New York import house anxious to start a flow of Florentine and Austrian hand-tooled leather goods into the United States; by an ambitious tourist bureau impressed with his service record and wartime travels; and by a brigadier general on whose staff he had once served, and who was now public relations vice president for a group of distillers.

He could have stalled them, on the grounds that he had to settle his father’s estate, but he turned them all down. Ever since he could remember, he’d wanted only one job.

Early in 1949 the Department sent him a letter regretting the delay in passing on his application. There were thousands ahead of him. In addition, he must realize that delays and bottlenecks had developed in conducting the necessary investigations. That was easy to understand. With things as they were, practically everybody was being investigated.

He went to Canada and Mexico because he had never been to Canada and Mexico. His friend, Stud Beecham, said the war had given him a chronic case of itchy foot. But he just felt restless. When his savings ran out he returned to Washington.