Ever since my time in Bosnia, I had believed that I could best learn about a situation by being where events were unfolding. As the Hungarian war photographer Robert Capa once said, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.” I tried to bring this “get close” spirit to diplomacy. As a writer and an activist, seeking out people’s firsthand experiences was of course common practice. But as a government official, it proved much more difficult. The briefing papers and diplomatic cables I consumed rarely offered raw, unfiltered points of view.
