I want to just tell you a couple of things. government and they were illegal and I couldn’t do it.… He wanted all kinds of things to be paid for by the U.S. He was the cheapest man I’ve ever run into. My relationship with him was strained, very strained and I thought that frankly he was going to bring an end to my career. He certainly had the access that he needed as an ambassador. A little bit, but not too much….The Dutch frankly didn’t have much high regard for him. He was in his 60s at that point….Could have been early ‘70s as well, but he was an elderly gentleman.…He didn’t really want much to do with substance. Oh, he fell asleep at the head table.” That was the kind of start we were off to. I’ll never forget my next door neighbor who was a Frenchman said to me one evening, “Oh, I just met your ambassador at the Chamber of Commerce meeting. He would fall asleep in the embassy meetings, but he would fall asleep in public meetings. He would fall asleep at meetings, public meetings, I don’t mean just in the embassy. Shad was quite a character, to say the least. That this was someone who would require a lot of handholding, a lot of direction if he was going to be seen in a positive light. We got him settled in his new house and it became very clear to us right away that this was no skilled diplomat. At the time he was considered to be the richest man in the Reagan administration. Embassy relationship with the various companies and organizations listed in the stocks and bonds that he owned. It was my job to check to see if there was any conflict of interest in his holdings and the U.S. Before he arrived, we received a 25-section message with all of his holdings. In the end he decided that the Netherlands was his post of choice. I made all the arrangements to receive him and take care of him and he looked all around and asked lots of questions. He visited Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands. He would be coming out with his wife who was ill and confined to a wheelchair. YOUNG: We finally got word that John Shad, who had been the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, would be visiting several European posts in order to find out which one he liked the best in order to be assigned as ambassador. “We can’t have the Ambassador down in the arcade playing Pac-Man with these kids” Go here for other Moments on Diplomats Behaving Badly. You can read more about Ambassador Young’s career. Johnny Young served in The Hague, Netherlands as Counselor for Administration from 1985-1988 he was interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy beginning October 2005. (If you really do believe they are in front of you and not just on your smartphone, please seek medical attention immediately.) While many welcome this as a fun way to get out off the couch and others see it as another Sign of the Approaching Apocalypse, truth be told obsession with video games has been around at least since the 1980s and has even affected high-ranking government officials who ought to know better. July 2016 saw the explosion of the global phenomenon Pokémon Go, where people walk around town (and often into traffic or ditches) trying to catch various animated creatures that look like they are actually sitting there in front of you.
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