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A character skilled in verbal strategy and other rhetorical contortions who appears throughout Gary’s work, the diplomat is first and foremost concerned about how his activities are viewed by others; he is preoccupied less with changing reality than with changing how reality is perceived. Although the “bell jar” of diplomatic immunity protects him, it also makes him a powerless spectator of a world headed for ruin, forcing him to give up on his ideals and incriminate himself with torturers or collude with a world built on lies and hypocrisy. The succession of disavowals and the detachment his position requires wear him down; they end up changing his relationship to reality and damaging his psychological integrity.