Our Man in Kingston

During his four years as U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica, Millionaire Businessman Vincent de Roulet did not exactly keep a low diplomatic profile. He kept his 90-ft. luxury yacht Patrina docked in sunny Kingston harbor. He had 17 race horses and ran them at the local Cayman track. In his gray Checker limousine lay a cushion with the inscription: "This is my car and I sit where I please."

A Nixon appointee who contributed $29,000 to Republicans last year, De Roulet, 47, was no stickler for diplomatic decorum. He liked to vent his conservative views in pithy asides, and several times was overheard referring to islanders as niggers. "He loved dogs more than humans," a Jamaican official said, recalling that for the return of one of his lost pets (a mongrel dog) the ambassador once offered $500, which is more than many Jamaicans earn in a year. De Roulet rattled Jamaicans even more by telling a Rotary Club lunch gathering that the visa section of his embassy had no rest rooms because "Jamaicans take pleasure in flooding our toilets."

All this perhaps might have been forgiven if De Roulet had displayed even modest talents of discretion. But that seemed beyond him, as he made all too clear to a Senate foreign relations subcommittee on multinational corporations a fortnight ago. De Roulet claimed in a public hearing that he had made a "deal" with Jamaica's new and progressive Prime Minister Michael Manley, 49, before last year's election. In exchange for a personal guarantee that Manley would not nationalize the U.S.-owned bauxite industry, De Roulet said, he had promised not to intervene in the elections. Manley promptly denied the tale, pointing out that at no time during his campaign had he threatened to nationalize foreign companies. Then he declared De Roulet persona non grata--the first time any U.S. diplomat has been so chastised in Jamaica's ten-year independent history. An editorial titled "No Tears" in the Jamaican Daily News pointedly commented: "What the public needs to know is why the ambassador was allowed to remain as long as he did."

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