Q&A > Dan Fried

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What inspired or motivated you to become a diplomat?

In 1973, I spent 6 months in Moscow as a “nanny” for a US Embassy family. I thought that any job that would pay me to live in Moscow and figure out what was going on there was the best job ever.

Who was your best boss and why?

Tom Simons, my boss in EUR/SOV, EUR/EE (Eastern Europe), and Embassy Warsaw. Tom was a foreign service intellectual: good on the operational stuff and good on the big picture. And a wonderful writer. He taught me how to be above politics but grounded in deeper values. In his debt.

What would you tell your a-100 self?

Things will work out just fine...

Describe a day you felt you made a difference.

That would be the day in 1989 that I gave NSC Director Condi Rice a bootleg draft of a POTUS speech welcoming the agreement between Poland’s Solidarity and the Communists that resulted in the fall of Communism in Central Europe.

What has a colleague done for you that made you wish all of us had a colleague like that?

Nick Burns who, in 1989, didn’t throw me out of his office (working for Bob Zoellick) when I told him that the Iron Curtain could fall that year.

What was the mistake you learned the most from?

I made too many mistakes to count!

What was your best and worst experience working with the interagency?

The best was working on NATO enlargement in the 1990s. The worst was watching the Administration dither over Russian election interference in 2016.

What is the one tour you would recommend FSOs consider?

In a country in transition.

If the state department had a mascot, what animal should it be?

Coyote. Not perfect but adaptable.

What was the biggest challenge of FS life for your family, and how did you manage it?

The FS is hard on families. Period. We loved where we lived, which was a saving grace.

What is your leadership philosophy?

Do the right thing and remember: intolerance of error means intolerance of action.

What tips would you give a first-time manager?

See above.

What would you change about the State Department?

The current atmosphere seems...worse than usual.

What were your pet peeves?

The culture of process-as-meaningful. Process is necessary. But it isn’t the most important.

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