Barbara Cummings’ car was bombed, she had a run-in with the Dalai Lama and she “faked” language skills during her 27 years with the U.S. Foreign Service.
Cummings spoke about internships, careers and life in the Foreign Service to an audience of 20 or so students Thursday, Oct. 29, in the Mary Graydon Center. The Kennedy Political Union and Delta Phi Epsilon, AU’s recently revived foreign-service fraternity, sponsored the event.
When she was 27 years old, Cummings worked for the Foreign Service in Athens. It was a time of tag-team assassinations by the Greek terrorist group Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17N). In their mode of operation, one person would steal a motorbike and ride in front of a target’s car, while the other would follow in a car and shoot the target, Cummings said.
One day, someone on a motorbike and someone in a gold Mercedes trapped her, 17 N-style, while she was driving. Cummings was nervous when they continued to follow her convertible after multiple turns, she said. She drove toward the Marine house and they stopped following her, she said. Cummings reported the event, but the security officer just said, “Well, you’re a pretty girl.”
Soon after, she saw the reflection of flames in the window across the street from her Athens home. Her building was on fire.
Cummings said her brain split in two: one side thought quickly and the other thought slowly and rationally. She did not put her hand to the door or get low on the ground, as elementary fire drill code would dictate.
“I didn’t have time for that,” she said.
Thick, black, sooty smoke greeted her. It was not like the white smoke in the movies where characters just put a towel over their head and walk through, Cummings said. She went back into the room and called the Marines. They are young, sometimes 19 years old, but they will help you, she said.
“These guys read comic books, but they will save you,” Cummings said.
She walked onto the balcony and closed the door to breathe better. On the concrete five stories below, people on the street were saying, “Don’t jump!” to deter her from escaping from such a height.
“I’m not going to jump,” she said to the AU audience. “I get that.”
Eventually, a fireman looking “just like Darth Vader” arrived and escorted her out of the building, Cummings said. He asked her “DID someone have a car?” and “WAS it a convertible?”
Cummings was confused by his use of the past tense. It wasn’t until they walked onto the street that she realized why he used ‘did’ and ‘was.’
Her car had been bombed, starting the fire in the building. The car looked like a big briquette, she said.
The officers asked her if she smoked, she said.
“What could I smoke that would do that?” she thought.
The next morning, Cummings was in the newspaper with soot on her face and her hair wild.
“It made me realize you can pretty much get through anything,” she said.
Cummings also spoke to the AU students about internship possibilities with the Foreign Service and the job application process.
“We won’t send you [as interns] any place that they’re blowing up cars because your parents will hunt us down,” she said.
To enter the Foreign Service, an applicant must pass the Foreign Service exam. Cummings said her department offers exam prep courses.
For the next two fiscal years, there is funding for about 750 Foreign Service officers, a significant increase from past years, Cummings said.
“So good timing, well done, well done, if you’re interested in going to Foreign Service,” she said.
Cummings was in her third year of law school — even though she did not want to be a lawyer — when she took the exam.
“I discovered if I didn’t do something quick — Eek! Eek! — I was going to be a lawyer,” she said.
The exams are in February, June and October and cover math, history, English and personal questions, Cummings said.
She did not realize the Foreign Service was competitive until she began applying, she said.
“I call myself the ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ of the Foreign Service,” she said. “I just happened to know the questions they asked.”
After the exam, applicants answer personal narrative questions about themselves, then are selected for a full day of oral assessments.
“I said ‘if it’s not fun I’m leaving halfway through so I don’t have to pay for a full day of parking,’” Cummings said.
But she was surprised with the interview, discussion and exercise where applicants presented projects and tried to encourage other applicants to fund them.
Applicants find out that day if they pass. And Cummings did.
But she declined her first job offer to attend a performance by former host of ‘The Tonight Show’ Johnny Carson. She had tickets to see Carson perform in a few weeks, and she could not pass up the opportunity.
“It means nothing to you — you’re a generation behind me — but it was like nirvana,” Cummings said. “And after that I felt like a complete American and I could join the Foreign Service.”
She took the next job offer that she was offered. Cummings worked in Albania after the end of the Cold War, then in Peru and Rome. In each country she learned to speak each language, but was not fluent and generally “faked it.”
One day in Peru, Cummings had to attend a meeting. She walked around the embassy all day practicing a difficult sentence: “It would be better if the prisoners were located in ...”
One of the men in the meeting dominated the entire session, but once, he turned to her and she perfectly said, “It would be better if the prisoners were located in ...”
“Right,” he said, and continued on. Cummings did not care — her sentence had been flawless.
While she was in Rome, George Clooney owned a house there, she said. A fan of his, Cummings would talk of jumping over Clooney’s wall to see him.
“Where am I going to be in a situation where I am this close and have diplomatic immunity?” she would say. “I’m going over the wall.”
Though she never did take the chance, another opportunity to see Clooney arose.
Clooney, Lech Walesa, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Dalai Lama and other famous figures were gathering for an annual event held Nobel Peace Prize recipients in Rome. But Cummings only cared about Clooney.
After the ceremony, she tried to approach him to tell him her staff wanted to meet him — when really she wanted to meet him — but paparazzi blocked her way.
The Dalai Lama walked by right as she made her approach. He could not go to the luncheon after the ceremony, since China would be angry if he met with leaders from some of the countries. As he walked by, he accidentally bumped into her.
“He put his hand right on my breast and he looks at me like he’s 5 years old and goes ‘Sorry,’” she said, with a devious smile.
“I went for the actor and I bagged the monk.”
Cummings is currently the State Department diplomat-in-residence for the Mid-Atlantic region at Howard University for 2009-2010.
You can reach this staff writer at landerson@theeagleonline.com.
