One of my tasks as an employee of Vanity Fair back in the mid-1990s was to compose weekly memos to my boss, Graydon Carter. These were supposed to be ‘intelligence briefings’ on the topics dominating the headlines, but I quickly discovered that he had no interest in news and current affairs. The only thing that interested him was gossip. I became the author of a weekly gossip column with a readership of one.
I didn’t realise it at the time, but I could easily have parlayed this skill into a career in the State Department. Judging from the latest batch of WikiLeaks, American diplomats spend most of their time gathering tittle-tattle that they can then pass on to their superiors back in Washington.
For instance, Tatiana Gfoeller, America’s ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, dispatched a secret cable in which she provided a detailed report of Prince Andrew’s remarks to a group of Canadian and British businessmen at a breakfast meeting in the capital.
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