Nearly 20 professionals in international relations are invited to spend a year at the Center for International Affairs (CFIA), conducting advanced research at Harvard's expense. CFIA fellows include senior diplomats, military officers and journalists from all around the world, and have been an integral part of the center since its founding in 1958.

"The fellows can't do without the CFIA and the CFIA can't do without the fellows; there's a symbiotic relationship," says Dr. Leslie H. Brown '49, director of the fellows program.

CFIA fellows Kai Falkman and Prem Singh, featured in this week's SNAPSHOTS, are two of the four senior diplomats visiting the University this year:

Kai Falkman

If he could begin his education all over again, Kai Falkman says he would start at Harvard.

Instead, he studied at Stockholm University, but his Harvard dream has almost come true. He is spending this year in Cambridge as a CFIA fellow.

Always interested in diplomacy and travel, Falkman was Sweden's first ambassador to Angola and has served in Tokyo, Geneva, and Lisbon as well.

Because of his life-long interest in foreign service, the Harvard CFIA fellowship program had been in the back of his mind for a long time. Many of his professional acquaintances were also CFIA affiliates and encouraged him to follow their lead.

For Falkman, inquisitiveness has been the key to good diplomacy. "The ideal diplomat is the person who is curious about foreign countries and who is attentive to the world around him and at the same time represents his own country's interests."

Using the failure of diplomacy during the Vietnam War as an example, Falkman says, "The diplomat needs to look deeply into the situation--not from above, but from within."

While at Harvard, the Swedish scholar plans to collect material for his book on the relationship between the diplomat, the politician and the journalist. The triangular drama, as Falkman calls it, plays itself out in the interaction between these three professionals in their search for power and influence.

"When I started to study diplomacy," he says, "I found that in the background, the politician and the journalist are always involved in the formulation of foreign policy."

Falkman says the U.S.--especially Harvard--is an ideal place to research this relationship, particularly the part the journalist plays. "Media is important in Europe, but the role of the journalist is more prevalent in America than it is in Europe," he explains.

During the past three years, Falkman has withdrawn from active diplomatic life in order to write about his involvement in foreign service.

Falkman has written essays comparing Japanese and Western values, various philosophical books on creativity and the mind, and an in-depth study of Picasso's psychology. He has also recently finished the production of the documentary "Japan Dream, Japan Reality," which aired on Swedish television.