Guilfoyle Flamed Out—Other Ambassadors Burned the Night Away

Boy oh boy, Ben Franklin must have turned over a bit—until she threw in the towel, that is. Ben was, after all, our first sort-of ambassador to France, and I say “sort-of” because we hadn’t as yet become a country, n’est-ce pas, as they say in the land of fromage. Kimberly Guilfoyle was our latest ambassador to Greece, though she hasn’t as yet become very diplomatic.

Our now ex-ambassador to the ancient country of Greece embarrassed both Uncle Sam as well as old Hellas. It would have been more appropriate had she been sent to, er—less sophisticated places like Liberia or somewhere nearby. But Athens, Greece? The ex-wife of Governor Gavin Newsom, and ex-girlfriend of Trump Junior, was named ambassador to Greece to get her out of the Trump family hair, but Stormy Daniels would have behaved more gracefully, or so some Greek wits think.  

“It’s not all her fault, we should never have accepted her,” is the opinion of the few proud Hellenes I contacted. An old friend of mine was a bit harsher: “She looks like a third-class Playboy bunny, and she was here representing Uncle Sam.” I have to agree, however harsh my fellow countryman was being on her. The Greek Foreign Ministry should have found some diplomatic excuse when Kimberly was named. After all, diplomacy is based on lying with good manners, and God knows Trump could use some of the latter.  

The worst-ever appointment was sending the ex-criminal Charles Kushner— father of the supposedly great diplomat and certainly great fundraiser for himself, Jared Kushner—to the city where Ben Franklin once reigned supreme with France’s intellectuals. Kushner harangued the French about antisemitism, forgetting that his job was to look out for America’s interests, not only those of his coreligionists. 

Kimberly arriving in Gstaad, Switzerland, at Christmas accompanied by a very recently rich Greek tycoon was not the most elegant thing for an American ambassador to do, but then, Kimberly was not exactly a Clare Booth Luce type of diplomat. Clare was a beauty, physically as well as where brainpower is concerned. She could argue, reason, and convince any male counterpart, and I used to play gin rummy with her because my father bought her old apartment at 993 5th Avenue. She was in her late sixties and still sexy as hell, and she flirted. As our ambassador to Italy during the ’50s, she got the job more than done as she was smarter and better informed than all the Italians and Americans involved put together. She charmed Italian communist politicians and had them drooling.

Henry Cabot Lodge was named our man in Saigon by JFK, and he warned Kennedy that the south’s leadership depended on corruption, whereas the north was geared for war. He resigned when LBJ decided to enlarge the war and send more and more American troops. 

Needless to say, even poor Kimberly did not do so much damage to America as David Milstein, a top official in the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, who is entrusted with much of the mission’s portfolio by Ambassador Mike Huckabee. Milstein altered reports and quashed others critical of Israel. He might as well have been an Israeli agent working for that country rather than Uncle Sam. He retains his position, instead of having been fired and prosecuted. Such are the joys of the U.S.-Israel relationship. 

What I don’t get is why we continue to have ambassadors. Modern communications made them redundant long ago, so now they’re simply paybacks to rich donors and nothing else. And, in a way, I feel sorry for Kimberly. Greek nightlife begins at 1 AM and goes on until 4 or 5. Americans were shocked to read their ambassador was out until 3 AM, whereas some Greeks thought her a sore sport for going home early. (If I sound misogynistic, I apologize and hope all future ambassadors to Athens are women.)

Never mind. Before I moved to my present address on Park Avenue, I lived in a townhouse three houses away from some African consulate. Never have I seen so many noisy drunks emerge nightly as from that establishment. I once exchanged words with one of my neighbors, an African diplomat who threatened me about something—he was drunk—but then settled down and bragged about how rich his country was. It was and remains one of the poorest in the world. 

But back to ambassadors and good-time Charlies. My very close friend and the former Dominican ambassador to Cuba, Porfirio Rubirosa, was married five times, and three of his wives were the three richest women in the world: Flor de Oro, daughter of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, strongman of the Dominican Republic; Doris Duke of the American tobacco fortune; and Barbara Hutton of the 5- and 10-cent stores. Rubi and I boxed every day before breakfast, worked the ponies, and pursued the high life in Paris. My father blamed Rubi for turning me into a playboy instead of a shipping tycoon. Rubi laughed it off. 

He died as a man should, driving very fast in his Ferrari at 5 AM returning home after a long night at Jimmy’s, a Paris nightclub, back in June 1965. Ambassadors should have been declared redundant after him.

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