No Fixed Address: Life in the Foreign Service

D.M.L. Farr is professor emeritus of history at Carleton University in
Ottawa and the co-author of Life and Letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

This book represents the first systematic account of life in the
Canadian foreign service. It does not confine itself to the tasks of
official representatives abroad but reaches out to examine the impact of
“international rotationality” (the diplomat’s assignments in
foreign countries) on his wife and family. The author, a German woman
married to a Canadian diplomat for 25 years, is well qualified for her
task. She holds a doctorate from Bonn University and possesses a
knowledgeable interest in the workings of personnel management. For her
study she interviewed 200 members of the Canadian foreign service coming
from a variety of backgrounds and holding a range of positions in the
Department of External Affairs and International Trade. She brings both
credibility and a certain detachment to her project.

No Fixed Address is remarkably comprehensive in it scope. The positions
at Canadian missions abroad, from military guard to electronic
technician to foreign-service officer, are described. The author has
some clever comments on the types of persons who are attracted to
service abroad: the migratory birds, the joiners, the public servants,
the status seekers. She examines the daily realities of foreign-service
life, whether they relate to housing, hospitality, climate, or security.
She is especially interesting on the subjects of friendship, marriage,
and family life for diplomatic personnel, illustrating her account with
human examples (cited anonymously) taken from her interviews and
observations. She concludes with a brief look at the foreign services of
19 countries, showing how they have coped with the common problems
arising from the rotational basis of a diplomat’s work.

Although the scope of No Fixed Address is extensive, it approach is not
formidable. The writing is lively, with no trace of the pomposity of
some diplomatic treatises. The author has a knack for drawing people out
and sketching vivid portraits. While the book may have a limited appeal
to the general reader, it is full of good advice to persons within or
planning a career in the foreign service and to managers of corporations
engaged in international business. It breaks new ground in a subject
that has been mainly treated through an occasional anecdote in a
diplomatic memoir or biography.