The Pink Embassy: The Foreign Service Goes Limp

In September 2001, Michael Guest, an openly gay man, was appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to Romania. Guest's presence made Bucharest a more attractive assignment for other gays in the Foreign Service, exporting not democracy or free markets but the sexual revolution.

Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies (GLIFAA), lists "increasing opportunities for same-sex partners accompanying personnel on assignment overseas" and securing taxpayer-funded health insurance and benefits for the "partners and children of lesbian and gay employees" in its mission statement. As the gay marriage debate raged at home, taxpayers began to foot the bill for defacto union[s] in Bucharest.

Advertisements for the annual Christmas parties invited not just spouses but partners. "Suddenly it was like there was a club running things," said one Foreign Service veteran who had been stationed there. "If you weren’t part of the gay clique, you did not belong." After Guest began his mission, the persistent recognition and endorsement of same-sex partners prevented a devout Evenglical Christian and father of five, who had been accustomed to his post being a family-friendly environment, from participating in certain events to avoid having to explain homosexuality to his young children.

Others who have worked in Bucharest claim that the cultural shift at the embassy was not limited to the formal approval of same-sex relationships and make graver charges. These witnesses claim that promiscuity among some Americans stationed in Romania increased to levels that threatened to jeopardize the mission?s reputation and subject U.S. government employees to blackmail. They stated that some diplomats were engaging in homosexual relations with Romanian citizens and other foreign nationals.

Such dalliances led some to ridicule the U.S. diplomatic presence in Romania as the "pink embassy" and the "Bucharest bathhouse." A letter sent by a group of Romanian NGOs and individuals to President Bush and Secretary Powell in January named high-level appointees responsible for having "transformed the U.S. diplomatic addresses in to havens of debauchery", and further alleges that "ased on reports and pornographic photos circulating around newspapers" they.. use their privileged positions to corrupt young Romanians, paying them for sexual relations, by both cash and visas to the U.S." The signatories of this letter include the Union of War Veterans, the National League of December 1989 Combatants, and three former Romanian parliament members.

An erstwhile gay lover of a former high-ranking official at the USAID mission in Bucharest has described such conduct in a sworn statement. He says that he lived with this official for four years in his government housing under the guise of serving as household help. There he claims to have witnessed U.S. government employees engaged in lewd acts and entering into other compromising positions.

According to his deposition, these acts included multiple sexual encounters with young Romanian men, some of whom may have been minors. The high-ranking USAID official?s taxpayer-provided residence was said to be the site of wild sexually charged parties where participants allegedly used drugs and viewed pornography. He states that this official has made sexually explicit photographs of himself available on the Internet. He accuses other officials of paying for sexual favors as well as offering foreign nationals visas in exchange for money or sex. Asked for comment, the USAID press office said it was unaware of any such allegations. Calls to the Inspector General's office were not returned.

This goes beyond moral and cultural tensions over homosexuality. If true, these serious betrayals of diplomatic responsibility are incompatible with the professional climate required to represent this country abroad effectively. Contrary to a firm U.S. policy against illicit sexual liaisons and the corruption of minors, they would constitute illegal acts using taxpayers' property and money with the potential to harm national security.

In addition, our national reputation has suffered enough recent damage in Romania due to the case of Kurt Treptow, a prominent historian the U.S. embassy in Bucharest placed on the Fulbright Commission. Yet Treptow was a convicted sex offender. He videotaped himself engaging in sexual acts with children as young as seven, some of whom were allegedly orphans, and was sentenced to seven years in Romanian prison for pedophilia and child abuse.

In addition to the allegations about Guest’s role in Treptow appointment, newspaper articles accused Guest of “poor leadership” in presiding over an embassy that the paper says is plagued by “mismanagement.” Several of the articles accuse embassy officials, including Guest, of engaging in “influence-peddling” in the appointment of outsiders to embassy posts. One article accuses the embassy of assisting U.S. citizens in obtaining legal assistance in Romania to adopt children in what it calls a multi-million dollar adoption effort in which U.S.-owned adoption agencies allegedly charge $10,000 or more to facilitate adoptions for Americans.

In July 2004, Guest was recalled to the U.S. Department of State following a yearlong onslaught of articles in an English language newspaper in Bucharest accusing Guest of corruption and mismanagement. Whoever is posted as U.S. ambassador to Romania will be responsible for maintaining acceptable standards of conduct.

The Pink Embassy