I have covered 212 international summits, and in that time I have been seated at a head table, a side table, a kitchen table, and, once, a card table that had to be unfolded during the opening statement. I have never before been seated facing a wall. I am now on my third day.
The summit, which I will not name, because the host nation has asked that it be “referred to as the summit,” is being held at the Hotel Marchmont in a ballroom of great beauty. The delegations sit at a round table. The Continental delegation, of which I am an observer, was assigned seats at the table’s northern edge, which faces a wall.
I raised the matter with a protocol officer on Monday morning. She was courteous and well dressed and had a clipboard she held against her chest like a shield. “The wall,” she said, “is a mark of high regard.”
I asked whether it was a high regard for the delegation or for the wall. She said, “It would not be appropriate to separate them.”
I have since learned that in the protocol of the host nation, a delegation is seated facing a wall only if it is regarded as “so well known that it does not need to see the room.” The delegations facing the center, I am told, are being observed. We are not. We are being trusted.
On Tuesday, I was invited to sit in the center, which I understand to have been an oversight. I was seated for 14 minutes before a second protocol officer asked politely whether I might “return to the honor.” I returned to the honor. It faces a wall, and it is painted a pale green that the hotel describes as “reassuring.”
In diplomacy, you do not ask what a wall means. You ask which wall. There are, at this summit, four, and each has a different significance. The east wall, I am told, signals neutrality. The south wall signals a pending proposal. The west wall, which has a window, signals “optimism, but with a view.” The north wall, ours, signals respect, and that is the wall we have.
Dr. Marjorie Teller, director of the Center for Measured Outcomes, has studied the seating arrangements of summits since 2007. “In 212 summits, a delegation has been seated facing a wall 11 times,” Teller said. “In nine of those cases, the delegation was later told it was a compliment. In the other two, the wall was a door, and the delegation left.” I asked which our wall was. She said the Center would need to examine it, and asked whether it had a window.
The coffee, I should say, has been excellent. I have had 31 cups, which I believe to be a record for the observers’ section. A man from another delegation told me yesterday that it was the best coffee at any summit, and then told me that in a week he would say the same thing about another summit. I admired his consistency.
I do not know what the wall will be asked to approve. The summit’s agenda has not been shared with those seated facing it, which, I am told, is the highest form of confidence. Whatever we decide, we will decide it in a quiet and orderly manner, with our backs to the room, and to everyone in it.
Tomorrow, I am to be moved to the east wall. I am told it is a promotion. I have asked what the east wall means. I am told that it means I will no longer need to ask.