Diplomat, or not?
Not everyone who works in an embassy is a diplomat. Most embassies are staffed by what is known as “locally-recruited staff” (LRS), meaning that the individual lives in that country and applied for a job at that particular embassy. The LRS holds no diplomatic rank, and do not get assigned to another embassy in another country. I often say that it is the LRS that provide the institutional memory of an embassy; while diplomats come and go, the LRS remain…
