Follows the further decline of American trade in the Mediterranean and the physical decline and death of the three consuls, all of whom become somewhat disillusioned with the United States and the State Department while unsuccessfully trying to insure that their families can continue to prosper in the Mediterranean.

Examines the growth of the early US consular system, why individuals became consuls, and how they were appointed.

Examines the dispersion of the Mediterranean community into Latin America and other areas and the reconfiguration of the consular service away from the former Mediterranean focus and toward a more professional organization.

Chapter Six looks at the role of international law in the Trump administration State Department. Former policymakers gave their opinion on the extent of the effect of the Trump administration on State Department policymaking and discussed potential long-term effects. The Trump administration generally displayed a negative view toward international law, institutions, and agreements, as evidenced by its words and in its actions, a view at odds with the prevailing State Department culture. More significantly, the Trump administration took unusual steps to stifle dissent within the State Department. Former officials expressed a range of perceptions regarding the Trump administration’s effect on the State Department. A minority believed that the administration’s views and actions significantly affected attitudes and practices within the Department regarding international law and institutions. The majority believed that effects on attitudes were more likely to be felt at the policy-decision level, rather than at the lower, policy development level. That is, attitudes among rank-and-file and career State Department officials probably remained unchanged and were likely to “bounce back” after the 2020 election. Nevertheless, a reprise of the Trump administration, or a similar administration, could ultimately affect not only practices at the State Department but attitudes among officials as well.

Chapter Five examines the role of international law in State Department policymaking. It describes the formal and informal decision-making processes within the State Department, focusing on the influential role of the Legal Adviser and the Legal Adviser’s Office. The chapter then examines closely the weight given by policymakers to legal advice and the nature of the interaction between policymakers and lawyers. Policymakers, at least at higher levels, generally have final decision-making authority, but the views of the Legal Adviser’s Office can be determinative in the relatively rare instances when the lawyers deem a course of action conclusively illegal. Otherwise, the lawyers’ advice is influential, but its weight may vary depending on the circumstances, including the nature of the national interest involved. Many former officials indicated that the development of policy was often a collaborative and constructive process. The lawyers were usually willing to work with policymakers, and they were often willing to find alternative courses of action within the law, though they would not usually budge on an interpretation of the law. Some former officials indicated that their relationship involved greater contestation, resembling a negotiation. When international law conflicted with significant policy interests, policymakers could sometimes seek to overcome those obstacles.

Diplomats work in large and complex bureaucracies, in which structures, duties, responsibilities and authorities should be clearly defined–the alternative is a recipe for chaos at best and disaster at worst. A good officer should be able to work in any bureaucratic situation and be effective. To achieve that, one must have solid knowledge and understanding of policy structures, as well as the parallel, informal policymaking culture that each administration develops. That should be the backdrop against which diplomats inform and influence decision-making and implementation. The U.S. government uses the term “interagency” to describe both a structure and a mechanism through which policies are supposed to be developed, debated and presented to relevant Cabinet members, who head executive departments, and ultimately to the president for decision.

Chapter 5 concentrates on Streit’s efforts as a political lobbyist, primarily with the Atlantic Union Committee (AUC), a Washington lobby group and vocal proponent of Atlanticism during the 1950s and into the 1960s. If Streit’s federal union project represented one version of Atlanticism, the AUC’s extended give-and-take with Congress acted as a midwife to the emergence in the early 1960s of an opposing version. Imagined as a community of transatlantic elites centered in and on the United States, this Atlanticism continues to dominate Washington politics today.

The introduction sets forth the central claim of the book - that the United States has a record of ambassadors, ministers, envoys, and other diplomatic agents disobeying orders that no other country can match - and explains why this is: i.e. Americans' singular conception of the role of diplomacy in national life and how that conception has been translated into the organizational apparatus through which statecraft is conducted. I also contend that, for the most part, this perennial insubordination has been good for the United States, that America would be weaker, smaller, and less prosperous today had diplomats like Robert Livingston and Walter Hines Page not defied Washington and decided to chart thier own courses. In addition, I explain why I have chosen to employ a case-study approach to the subject, identifying several U.S. rogue diplomats who failed to make the "final cut" either because their disobedience did not rise to the level of my nine protagonists or because the consequences of that disobedience were not as momentous as, say, the Louisiana Purchase. Finally, I situate the book within the existing historiography, which, I note, has largely ignored America's uniqueness in this vital dimension of geopolitics.