The Art of Diplomacy: Lessons from a Lifetime at the Negotiating Table

Stuart E. Eizenstat’s book, The Art of Diplomacy, chronicles the major American diplomatic initiatives of the last half-century through the perspectives of those who shaped them. In this interview, Eizenstat draws on decades of experience and more than 130 interviews to reflect on the essential traits of a successful diplomat, the pitfalls to avoid and the lasting impact of moral clarity and perseverance — while also sharing stories from his work on Holocaust restitution and his early impressions of a young Jimmy Carter.

The Fletcher School: What characteristics make a good diplomat?

Ambassador Eizenstat: I interviewed over 130 diplomats for this book, and I found several common skills that are necessary for diplomacy.

The first is the ability to seize a historical moment when it comes, like George H.W. Bush and Jim Baker did after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Second is courage. Not the courage of a soldier on a battlefield, but the courage that Anwar Sadat showed in working with Israel and that the leaders of Northern Ireland’s Catholic and Protestant communities showed in seeking peace. This means the courage to break from established patterns, sometimes disappointing your own political base.

Third is a high degree of intelligence. Not just test scores or grades, but wisdom and understanding of people. Henry Kissinger showed this when working with Zhou Enlai on the opening to China.

Next is preparation. Jimmy Carter showed this at Camp David. Because he thoroughly read the CIA reports on Menachem Begin, he knew that Begin had great love for his eight grandchildren. Carter created signed notes for each grandchild at a crucial moment in the negotiations, which led to a breakthrough.

A good diplomat also needs to listen to the other side. Put yourself in their shoes and look at things from their standpoint. For diplomacy to be successful, it must be a win-win situation. Your counterpart needs to sell the agreement to their capital and their public. Larry Summers, who was Secretary of the Treasury when I was deputy secretary in the Clinton administration, called this ‘unsympathetic empathy’ for the other side.

There are times in negotiations when you hit a stone wall, which requires imagination and creativity. When Catholic and Protestant militias in Northern Ireland refused to disarm, it appeared to be an impasse, but George Mitchell developed the Mitchell Principles, a creative path forward that was agreeable to both sides.

Finally, diplomacy takes great stamina. Negotiations are like marathons, but with a sprint at the end. The press coined the term ‘shuttle diplomacy’ for Kissinger’s negotiations after the 1973 Yom Kippur War by spending two weeks with almost no sleep, flying between Syria, Egypt and Israel. Carter got two or three hours of sleep over 13 days at Camp David. I got three or four hours of sleep over five  days negotiating the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

What common pitfalls should diplomats avoid?

Diplomats should be wary of going for home runs. Don’t try to get too much, because a big swing means you'll often strike out. Instead, go for singles and doubles.

Carter initially tried to get all 22 Arab countries and Israel together at a Geneva Conference co-sponsored by the Soviet Union to solve everything at once: the Golan Heights, the Egyptian Sinai, the Palestinian territory, the future Jerusalem. It was too much. In the end, the Camp David Accords and the Egypt-Israel Treaty were only a pair of bilateral agreements between Egypt and Israel.

However, they laid the foundation for what later became the Jordan Treaty in 1994, and then the Abraham Accords under President Trump with the U.A.E., Bahrain and Morocco. Future administrations can build on the singles and doubles of their predecessors.

What happens when leaders don’t build on previous agreements?

This is a real problem with the U.S. and with our current incumbent.

There is a tendency for a president to feel he is better than the person he defeated or replaced, and therefore to forge his own path to negotiations and abandon what his predecessors have done. I’ll give you two opposite examples.

When Ronald Reagan defeated President Carter in 1980, he criticized the SALT nuclear agreement we’d negotiated with the Soviet Union. However, when he became president, he followed every single term of that treaty, even though it was not ratified by the Senate. He realized that if he departed from it, his and his successors’ ability to build on the treaty with deeper cuts in nuclear weapons would be compromised. The Soviet negotiators would say, ‘we can't trust you.’

The opposite occurred with President Trump. He withdrew in 2018 from the  2015 nuclear agreement with Iran. He withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement. These create  a discontinuity and undermines the credibility of the United States,  which makes it very difficult for diplomats to bargain.

You were the ambassador to the European Communities when they became the European Union. How did the nature of that job change?

Moving from a more loosely integrated European community to a more tightly integrated E.U. meant that I could negotiate more easily with the leadership of the E.U., on trade issues, for example. They still had a complicated decision-making process, often needing the approval of member states, but there was a stronger core in Brussels. The transformation made my job somewhat easier, and it was a very exciting time. I was also there when the Euro currency was being created. It was a time of great maturity in the E.U., becoming more integrated as a trade bloc and a political community.

You worked on Holocaust issues on behalf of the U.S. How does that work reverberate today?

I grew up in Atlanta and, to my knowledge, had never met a Holocaust survivor. My epiphany came in 1968, when I was working as the research director for Vice President Hubert Humphrey's presidential campaign against Richard Nixon. I met Arthur Morse, who  had just written a book called While Six Million Died. It told the story of what President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration knew about the genocide of Jews and failed to act on. It was a shock to me, because Roosevelt was an icon in my house. I pledged to myself as a young 25-year-old, that if I ever had a chance to remove that cloud from the otherwise glorious history of the U.S. in World War II, I would do it.

 The first opportunity came during the Carter administration, when  I recommended that the president create a presidential commission on the Holocaust, headed by Elie Wiesel. That commission later recommended the creation of the Holocaust Museum, which President Carter accepted; I am now its chairman — life coming full circle. 

Another chance came when I was asked by President Clinton and Richard Holbrooke to take on Holocaust restitution negotiations, at the same time as I was U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. My staff at the U.S. Mission to the E.U. in Brussels all opposed me taking on another  assignment when I had a demanding job as Ambassador. But my wife, Fran, reminded me of the personal pledge I made in the Humphrey campaign, and I agreed to a dual role. They were very difficult, very emotional, but also very satisfying. I felt I was helping survivors live with dignity in their remaining years, after five decades without government support for their cause.

I negotiated with Swiss and French banks, with Austrian and German slave labor companies and with European insurers who refused to pay victims after the war, on the basis that people hadn't kept their premiums up when they were in Auschwitz. We developed something that remains  relevant to this day: the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, which have led to the return or compensation of thousands of paintings.

You worked with Jimmy Carter not only as president, but prior to his run for governor. What do you remember of him as a young man?

After Humphrey’s defeat in 1968, I went back to my hometown of Atlanta. A high school friend of mine, Henry Bauer said, “Stu, you must go see a young state senator named Jimmy Carter. He ran for governor in 1966 and was not elected, but he's running again.’  I had already committed to support Carl Sanders, a former governor with a big plush law office. But Henry  bugged me so much that I reluctantly agreed.

I went to see Carter at his office. It was bare bones with one folding table and two metal folding chairs. Carter came in with work boots and a khaki outfit.

It only took me an hour to understand that he was the real thing. He was a farmer, but also a nuclear engineer and a Navy officer  submariner. Although he was an enormous underdog, I felt he was someone with potential for greatness.

Of course, I didn't know he was going to run for president at the time. Years later, we worked together to develop a series of 25 policy papers for Democratic congressional candidates. I took Carter out to lunch to celebrate that campaign.

We were sitting at an underground restaurant in Atlanta, and I said, ‘Governor, I have a wild idea: I think you should run for president because you’re  term-limited as governor. I reminded him that he had gotten some visibility as chairman of the 1974 Democratic National Committee’s Congressional Campaign Committee. And at his direction, I had developed a series of policy papers on every major issue, domestic and foreign, using some of the best young experts in Washington, which went out under his name to all Democratic congressional candidates around the world. I argued that if he won a few southern primaries, he had  a chance of being the vice presidential candidate with somebody from the Northeast or Midwest.’ 

With his big toothy grin, he said, ‘Stu, I am running for president, but I'm not going to be the vice-presidential nominee. I’m going to be the presidential nominee. Why don't you join my campaign?’ 

I became his campaign policy director. And after the campaign, I became his Chief White House Domestic Policy Adviser.

Carter had great insights. He loved the environment and science. On the campaign, he promised he would never lie. He wanted a government as good as its people. This resonated with the American public, rocked by the Watergate scandal and the misuse of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and wanted a candidate from outside Washington, who had a sterling record for honesty and integrity.

I wrote a book called President Carter: the White House Years and gave a eulogy at Carter’s state funeral. But Carter’s legacy is best summed up in the famous quote by Vice President Walter Mondale: ‘We told the truth, we obeyed the law, and we kept the peace.’ His presidency is not viewed much more favorably by the American public and historians than when he left office, following a landslide loss in 1980 to Ronald Reagan.