Embassies, from landmark to bulwark

AMERICAN travelers may not know it, but they own a magnificent 18th century palace on the Place de la Concorde in Paris. After World War II, the U.S. government bought the building at this enviable address, and it now serves as the consular services division of the U.S. Embassy, a proud postage stamp of America and symbol of our long, complicated relationship with France.

The neoclassical Hotel de Talleyrand, as it is called, is one of the grandest of about 270 U.S. embassies and consulates around the world dedicated to promoting U.S. foreign policy and serving as the face of America abroad.

Some are as distinguished as the Hotel de Talleyrand in historic and architectural terms. But since the 1998 Al Qaeda bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, many more have been deemed a security risk and will soon be replaced in an unprecedented wave of embassy building. The construction, estimated to cost $17 billion, is aimed, above all, at safeguarding the people who work in American diplomatic installations abroad.

More than 200 people died as a result of the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, including 12 U.S. diplomats. The two attacks were hardly isolated incidents; embassies have become prime terrorist targets.

"Every year on Foreign Service Day in May, more names are added to the plaque at the U.S. State Department in Washington, commemorating members of the foreign service who have died in the line of duty," John M. Evans, U.S. ambassador to Armenia, said in a telephone interview.

His mission has just moved into one of the new embassies mandated by the 1999 Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act. The State Department's Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations, led by retired Maj. Gen. Charles E. Williams, recently completed 15 new embassy compounds in such countries as Turkey and Bulgaria; 39 others are being designed or constructed around the world; and contracts will soon be awarded for 13 more State Department facilities in foreign lands, which include embassies, consulates, office buildings and ambassadorial residences.

New or old, embassies generally are places of business, not museums or cultural centers open to casual inspection. Besides serving as the headquarters of U.S. diplomatic missions, they often house a variety of federal agencies such as the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service. Consular services, however -- which can be at an embassy or in a separate building -- are available to American citizens in case of such emergencies as a lost passport.