Madam Ambassador

February 15, 2015
A memoir of Kounalakis' three-and-a-half years as ambassador to Hungary under President Barack Obama.Conscious about her relative youth (age 43 in 2010), female sex within a male-dominated, hand-kissing Hungarian political elite, and lack of foreign service bona fides, the author accepted the top diplomatic spot to Hungary after her first choice, Singapore, became unavailable. So how does one become a U.S. ambassador? Indeed, much of this step-by-step chronicle to power serves to answer this question. In short, you get chosen after cultivating friendships with the most powerful Democratic women of your home state, California, namely Nancy Pelosi, and proving yourself a devoted party operative and fundraiser. Having worked with her Greek-American father as a land developer for 15 years, while fostering deep ties to the Democratic Party and rainmaking for its candidates, Kounalakis was rewarded-despite having fiercely supported Hillary Clinton in her presidential campaign-with the ambassadorship to one of the more successful and elegant former Soviet satellites, now a full-fledged NATO and European Union member. While there were not any major crises between 2010 and 2013, Viktor Orban's center-right party had swept the socialists from power, putting in place some troubling authoritarian restrictions, such as a stifling media law. There had also been gains as well in political extremism and anti-Semitism. Kounalakis briefly delineates Hungarian history-stopping well before the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 with nary a mention-but mostly plunges into the tasks she undertook: moving her family into the large, gloomy residence, keeping Hungary committed to providing troops to aid the U.S. war in Afghanistan, planning the yearly Fourth of July celebration and trips by American luminaries-e.g., Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and then-Secretary of State Clinton. A flat-footed and mostly self-serving account.

March 1, 2015
Kounalakis and her father, Greek American real-estate developers in Sacramento, were major contributors to the Democratic Party. Kounalakis developed close ties to Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, who became her mentor and encouraged her to pursue an interest in foreign service. When the opportunity came for an ambassadorship in Hungary, Kounalakis and her husband, a former Newsweek reporter stationed for a while in Budapest, jumped at it. She served from 2010 to 2013, during a period when the U.S. sought to maintain a balanced relationship with a former totalitarian regime now part of the European free market but facing rising nationalism and anti-Semitism. Kounalakis describes the subtleties of foreign service, the combination of charm and steeliness needed to maintain balance in a former key strategic ally during the collapse of the former Soviet Union. During her tenure, she traveled to Afghanistan to visit U.S. troops, stared down a recently elected prime minister, dealt with an embassy construction project that unearthed a long-buried Soviet-era bomb, and bagged a wild boar in a hunting challenge.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)