65° - 01.09.1967, Side 9

Officially Speaking
Thoughts of a New Ambassador
KARL F. ROLYAAG
U.S. Ambassador to Iceland
It was hot, heavy, sticky May 3 evening at John
F. Kennedy airport in New York. As my wife,
Florence, and I unloaded in the Pan American
lounge, the air-conditioning was a refresher. (Just
two days earlier I had been stranded by a violent
late spring blizard of traffic-stopping proportions
away out in Bismarck, North Dakota!) — We
had a four hour lay-over in New York — and
with the heat and smog pressing in we made no
effort to leave the relative comfort of the airport
lounge. We whiled away the time in letter writing,
reading the daily New York Times, the news
magazines scattered about and making last minute
telephone calls to friends — and sitting in quiet
discussion between ourselves. Idly speculating on
what was our new life to be like? What was the
caliber of the staff at the Embassy? How long
would we call Iceland our home? What might
be our successes — or, for that matter our failures?
Who, what, when, where and why?
These and many, many more questions. We
don’t know all the answers yet — but many we do.
Perhaps, first, I should go back a bit into my
own background.
I was born and educated in Minnesota. My
father was an immigrant fisherman from Norway
who had sailed many times to the Lofoten Islands
and had become a Professor in Norwegian lan-
guage and literature. One can scarcely be a scholar
in those fields and not have some knowledge of,
or interest in, the great literary tradition of Ice-
land. I learned at an early age the familiar names
of the old sagas and eddas — especially Snorri
Sturluson.
After graduation from St. Olaf College, almost
six years in the army during World War II,
graduate studies at the University of Minnesota
and a year at the University of Oslo on a fellow-
ship from the American-Scandinavian Founda-
tion, I became active in Minnesota politics (some-
times on the winning side; sometimes on the
losing side!)
After four years as chairman of my party, eight
years as Lieutenant Governor and four years as
Governor I awakened one Wednesday morning
last November to discover (as so many of my
predecessors had) that I had gone to the well
once too often!
Those years were difficult and hard -— but also
rewarding and stimulating in many ways -— not
least for the education they provided. A fine post
graduate course in human relations, public rela-
tions, political science and history.
I do not lay any claim to be a trained diplomat
in the formal and usual sense of the term, but in
a few short months in this assignment I have dis-
covered that my training and active political back-
ground have been invaluable as a means of pre-
paration.
There is an old American saying, used by
Governors, to the effect that there is no training
available for a Governor, except that of having
been a Governor. This, incidentally, is used most
often when the Lieutenant Governor seeks to un-
seat the incumbent Governor. I know!
Perhaps, the same can be said for, about, and:
by Ambassadors — I refer, of course, to the train-
ing — not the unseating. I’m still much too new
in my present position to pass judgement on that
score.
Seriously, however, a maturing background in
American politics can be of immense help in pre-
paring an American Ambassador for his assign-
ment. Particularly, is this so when one comes
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