The ‘honorary white’ diplomat.

Ambassador Joseph Segar’s posting to South Africa was unusual. As he told the Oral History Project, there was apparently some understanding between the US and South Africa that only white Americans could be assigned to South Africa to respect the country’s racial sensitivities. This was, however, tantamount to importing apartheid into the State’s hiring and posting system. Ambassador Ballard, the US ambassador to South Africa in 1976, felt that in order to make a dent in apartheid, the US had to demonstrate to the South Africans that people from diverse backgrounds can indeed live in harmony and that the best way to do so was to have a diverse mission.

When he arrived in South Africa in June 1976 with his wife, however, they ran into the most basic and demeaning racist problem: separate toilets for the races. As the Consul, he was technically not allowed to use a toilet that his white messenger was entitled to use. Fortunately, he pushed back successfully against this imported discrimination.

However, his most famous case of discrimination made global headlines when he was denied admission to Chez Andre’s, a five-star restaurant, despite informing them that he was from the American Embassy. Segars observed: I would not want to be considered an honorary white. I was very happy with who I was. Yet by being exempt from petty apartheid laws like ‘going into a store and trying on a dress or a pair of shoes without having to buy it’ or ‘going into a decent restaurant and sitting down to have a meal’ or ‘going to a theatre and using the same entrance that everyone else used,’ he was being treated as an honorary white.

NIGERIA: BY WAY OF DECEPTION

Many people view the consular section as mainly responsible for issuing visas. However, its more important duty is to protect Americans, which can sometimes take on unusual and secretive aspects. One notable case Segars managed involved helping an American woman escape Nigeria with her daughter after her ex-husband, a Nigerian, lured her back with the promise of wanting to see their child. Shortly after her arrival, he kidnapped their daughter. Although she later convinced him to let her see them, she remained under his close surveillance, as he confiscated her passport and informed immigration authorities.

So the embassy devised a plot for them to escape from the house to the embassy and then get smuggled by road across the border to Benin, where they were issued passports and flown back to the States.

Needless to say, her ex-spouse, the State and the media were irate. But Segars was unapologetic. He told the Oral History Project:

This person is an American citizen. They requested passport services, and that is why we are there. The fact that she has a Nigerian father is of no consequence to us.

They successfully evacuated her, as the Mossad might put it, through deception. However, Segars raises numerous questions. How precisely did they get her out, considering that the Nigerians were watching all their exit points—or were they? How did they leave the embassy without being detected by the Nigerians? Was it in a concealed van? Do typical Americans have diplomatic immunity? If not, what stopped the Nigerians from detaining her and her daughter at the border? It’s evident that the Americans managed to outsmart the Nigerians. The late Ambassador Joseph Monroe Segars was the first person in his family to go to college. He graduated in 1961 from Cheyney University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Science in Education. He joined the US Foreign Service in 1970 and served in Austria, South Africa, Jamaica and Nigeria. From 1992 until 1996, he was promoted to Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Cape V