"We are a global force. The men and women who do this are not faint-hearted. Wherever the United States is threatened, you will find a Diplomatic Security person at work," said Ambassador Francis X. Taylor, assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security and director of the Office of Foreign Missions.
The bureau, which has doubled its number of special agents over the past dozen years as its duties have grown, also has a domestic mandate to protect visiting dignitaries. Those notables have included the Dalai Lama; Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, when he visited the United Nations in the days when he was considered the leader of a terrorist group; and the Chinese table tennis team during its diplomatic icebreaking tour in the early 1970s, bureau officials said.
Although the Secret Service protects visiting heads of state, Diplomatic Security protects all other officials, including envoys from countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Washington, such as the Iranian foreign minister when he visits the United Nations.
"We analyze the threat and develop a security package and then work with his [security] people," a Diplomatic Security agent said.
Hundreds of agents will again be deployed in New York this month when foreign ministers and top officials of dozens of countries visit for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, bureau officials said.
As a pivotal player in the war on terrorism since the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Beirut in 1983 and 1984, Diplomatic Security now runs the Anti-Terrorism Training Assistance program, which has trained more than 36,000 officials in 130 countries, according to the bureau. Its annual budget has grown from $5 million to $200 million.
It also administers the Rewards for Justice program -- which has paid out more than $57 million to about three dozen people since 1984 -- for information to "prevent, frustrate or resolve acts of terrorism against U.S. interests," according to State Department documents. That has included rewards for al Qaeda operatives as well as for the capture of Saddam Hussein's sons.
Diplomatic Security has an eclectic staff: Many have no background in the military, intelligence or law enforcement. The staff includes a genetic engineer, an astrophysicist, lawyers, a photojournalist and even a former herpetologist with the Philadelphia Zoo. All go through specialized courses that cover such things as intelligence, counterterrorism, languages and "sensitivity training" about foreign cultures.
"We are part of the foreign service and represent the U.S. across the board, so we try to recruit people with diverse backgrounds," said a senior Diplomatic Security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because many do not want to be identified publicly. "We have one of the most highly educated forces in government."
