"Beverly Hills Diplomat" Actually A Qualified Veteran

Lewis Bollard’s piece on “America’s Shaky Ambassadors” (op-ed, Apr. 26) rightly identifies the problem of underqualified U.S. representatives. But Robert Tuttle—America’s ambassador to the United Kingdom—is wrongly included among them.

To call Tuttle a Beverly Hills car dealer is to call Averell Harriman (one of his predecessors) a Manhattan day trader. Before becoming one of the most successful business leaders in the country, Tuttle served in President Reagan’s White House for seven years—four of them as director of presidential personnel, which put him at the very center of national decision-making on the full range of foreign and domestic issues.

Since then, Tuttle has added to his “inexperience” by playing critical behind-the-scenes roles at such minor American institutions as The Woodrow Wilson International Center, The University of Southern California Annenberg School of Communication, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation, and The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, which he chaired for four years.

If one is going to criticize the Bush administration for distorting the issues, the solution is not to respond in kind.


BRIAN M. GOLDSMITH ’05

Los Angeles, Calif.

April 27, 2006