Corpo Diplomatico
I am again watching a Ben Kingsley movie made in 2018 called Operation Finale about the seizure and extraction from Argentina of Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the final solution deployed by the Germans against the Jews of the Holocaust. Part of the snatch and grab process of getting Eichmann from the point of seizure near his suburban home to the commandos safe house. They transport Eichmann, drugged to near unconsciousness, thin the backseat of a car on which they place a placard that simply says CD on it. This is so they can proceed through the Argentine roadblocks unmolested and unsearched. The Argentine government in those days had not yet been completely overwhelmed and taken over by the military junta that would control it for a decade later in the 60s. But Argentina was clearly a very legalistic society that continued to be sympathetic and heavily influenced by the Fascist imports from Europe after WWII. But in the 60’s there was also a high degree of respect for the United Nations and its efforts towards world peace.
In 1968, my mother took a job at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. FAO was one of fifteen agencies of the UN, the other most notable ones being the World Bank, The World Health Organization (WHO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). These agencies are located all around the world with Geneva, Washington D.C. and Rome being the most common headquarter cities. FAO was located in Rome and was housed in a building at the edge of the Aventine Hill across from the Circo Massimo. Strangely enough, that building was the product of the fascist Mussolini regime when he barreled ahead trying to remake Italy into a modern country, ignoring the pleas of the archeologists and historians who wanted to be more cautious about construction projects of large buildings in the center of Rome and other cities. In those days my mother would talk with me often about her career decisions and I recall when she was considering taking the job at FAO. She had just finished a three year stint as the Deputy Director of the first women’s Job Corps Center, working under the aegis of the prime contractor, AVCO Corporation. AVCO was quite keen on hiring her to work for them in Washington to help on other big government contract jobs. They knew that she was a very effective leader and a very pragmatic manager and as a senior woman, they knew she would be helpful in the new age of Washington in securing other OEO (Office of Economic Opportunity) contracts, which were a mainstay of the Great Society programs still underway. She also was under consideration at Cornell University for a professorship in the School of Human Ecology.
As she weighed the pros and cons of all of her options, I recall her telling me that the AVCO job was the one that was most financially lucrative, the Cornell job was the one that had the best benefits since she had three college age kids who would have potentially received free tuition, and the FAO job, which was the most interesting to her and the one with the most external prestige. When she learned that the posting was the highest level in the organization that did not carry diplomatic status, she played the negotiating card that the job would only be interesting to her if it came with diplomatic status, making her the only woman at any UN agency that carried that level of seniority. I imagine it was a hotly debated issue at FAO, but it was also a time when women’s rights were starting to enter the dialogue and a liberal-minded organization like the UN was a likely early adopter of such liberalizing policies.
What we didn’t know until we got to Rome in the late summer was what the diplomatic status meant to us as a family. My mother had been issued her Laissez Passé or UN Passport and we understood that there was some element of immunity that was entailed with that, but then on her first day in the office, as part of her orientation and onboarding process, she was told to bring all three of us, her kids, in for our CD Card photos. We were each given a Corpo Diplomatico ID card that we were instructed to always carry on our person whenever we were outside the United States. This was issued in Italian, but we were assured that it was an international ID card that would be honored anywhere in the world. That all sounded important enough, but I’m not entirely sure I understood what it really all meant.
Luckily for me, I had friends from my new school who understood everything about CD cards and what they could be used for. To begin with, gasoline in Italy (and Europe in general) in those days, was tremendously expensive. Gas in the U.S. costs $0.34 per gallon ($2.86 in 2023 dollars) and gas in Italy was about 600 Lira per liter or about $4.00 per gallon ($33.64 per gallon in 2023 dollars). Members of the FAO diplomatic corps got extra access to gas coupons and for those of us getting started in activities like motorcycling, getting access to those gas coupons was a very big deal. It was an even bigger deal for me since my mother didn’t own a car in Rome at that time, which meant that I got all gas coupons I needed and had extra to spare. The other big benefit of the CD card was that the Italian authorities were required to leave us alone, which is to say not just not arrest us, but also not give us traffic or parking tickets. There were also special CD parking areas where diplomatic vehicles were allowed to conveniently park in easy access places at major venues like the airport and the embassy (right in the heart of Rome on the Via Veneto).
I learned about all of these CD advantages long before my mother did. Presumably she had more important things to do with her time like doing internal battle with all the non-diplomatic men at FAO who were loaded for bear about this new wench who was coming in with “special” privileges. When she did catch up on these details she was none too pleased that I was potentially able to take advantage of her diplomatic status to advance my own adolescent agenda. Generally, my mother and I had a strong rapport and I think it was fair to say that she trusted me and my judgement, but she was also a pragmatist who understood what sort of things might be irresistible to a young man of a certain age. She basically laid down the law with me and told me that if she ever heard or saw me abusing my CD card privileges wantonly, she would take said card from me and let me figure things out for myself with the Italian authorities. I knew it was likely an empty threat, but I also knew that my mother did not throw around idle threats without feeling very strongly about the issue.
I still have that CD card in a cigar box somewhere in my office. I saw it recently and I thought about how it was my most valuable possession for three years, fifty-four years ago. I never really had to use it for anything serious, but I will admit that it did feel like a magic force field around me that could keep me safe. I only think about it when I see it come up in movies like Operation Finale or like the movie I’m watching right now, Thirteen Hours, about the attack by Islamic militants against the Consulate and CIA Annex in Benghazi. The world is a dangerous place and unfortunately, it hasn’t gotten any less dangerous in the last 54 years. I just wish my Corpo Diplomatico card still worked to protect me and mine.