00:00 – Jim Lawler
Hello, you’re listening to the Steady State Sentinel from the Steady State. I’m Jim Lawler, a former senior CIA operations officer. I’ve worked some of the most sensitive counterproliferation and espionage cases in the agency’s history. And today, I’m privileged to be joined by Ambassador Charles A. Ray.
He brings a rare dual perspective to national security affairs because he served 20 years, first as a U.S. Army officer, including two combat tours in Vietnam, before he embarked on a 30-year career in the Foreign Service. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia and to Zimbabwe and was the first U.S. Consul General to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. He also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel Affairs, which oversees efforts to account for Americans missing in action from World War II through the most recent conflicts.
00:56 – Jim Lawler
He is also a prolific author – and when I say prolific, I want to emphasize the word “prolific” – of more than 400 fiction and nonfiction works spanning leadership, history, and diplomacy, as well as a hell of a lot of good Westerns. He remains an active voice on foreign policy through the Foreign Policy Research Institute. I think it’s fair to say that Ambassador Ray is what I would fairly describe as a polymath – somebody equally talented in a number of very different areas.
01:27 – Jim Lawler
So, Charlie – if I can call you that.
01:31 – Ambassador Ray
Please do.
01:33 – Jim Lawler
I noticed you had a genuinely apolitical career. You served as an ambassador under both a Republican and a Democratic president. Which presidents were those, and what was that dual experience? How did that teach you about serving across party lines?
01:50 – Ambassador Ray
Well, actually, I can go back beyond that, because my tour as Consul General in Ho Chi Minh City – even though it wasn’t a political appointment – because of the nature of our relationship with Vietnam at the time, it had a lot of political attention and politics attached to it. But I served as ambassador to Cambodia under President George H.W. Bush. President Clinton was the president when I was consul general in Ho Chi Minh City. And when I went to Zimbabwe in 2009, Barack Obama was president.
But I like to tell people my army career started in 1962 under John F. Kennedy, and I left government service in 2012 under Barack Obama. So I went from, I like to say, a Democrat to a Democrat, and there was a whole lot of Republicans in between. And it really didn’t make a lot of difference in the work I had to do or the way I did it, because I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution. I took it seriously then, and I still take it seriously.
03:12 – Jim Lawler
I agree with you. Charlie, when I was in the CIA for 25 years, I never once knew or cared what the party affiliation or political beliefs of any of my colleagues were. I just didn’t think it was any of my business, nor did any of my colleagues think it was. Did you share that feeling?
03:28 – Ambassador Ray
Oh, yeah. I know looking back now that in the military and in my early time in the Foreign Service, I worked closely with people who I am sure were of a different political persuasion. But in the trenches, you really don’t have time to worry about how a guy voted. You want to know how he acts when the chips are down. That’s really all that ever mattered during my entire career – is do people get the job done? Is this person doing what they’re supposed to do in the way they’re supposed to do it? I never paid a lot of attention. In fact, I’ll be quite honest with you – I never really became political until 2016.
04:15 – Jim Lawler
That’s exactly my thing, too. I used to be – if I can say this – I used to be what is described as a moderate Republican, and they don’t exist anymore. So now I kind of call myself an independent leaning Democrat, most of the time. But I agree with you. We served the national security. We upheld the Constitution, and the particular political administration really didn’t enter into it.
04:42 – Ambassador Ray
Well, this will blow your head off. When I registered to vote for the first time when I turned 18 – I think they dropped the age to 18 when I was still 17 – but I actually voted for the first five elections I voted in as a Republican because I grew up in East Texas, where, when I was a kid growing up, the guys burning crosses and wearing hoods were all Democrats.
05:13 – Jim Lawler
That’s right.
05:13 – Ambassador Ray
It was only, I would say, probably around the mid‑90s that I saw things that were happening in my home state of Texas and just nationally with the Republican Party that I started to have some feelings of anxiety. So I became like you – I became an independent first. But then I decided that I really wanted to be able to participate in the whole process. In most states, if you’re an independent, you can’t vote in primaries. So I registered reluctantly as a Democrat.
I guess I was probably a conservative Democrat for years until, like I said, 2016 when the rails came off. I just realized that being sort of a quasi‑anything doesn’t count anymore. You have to basically make a statement of what you are and be firm with it, or you’re really complicit in the things that go wrong.
06:17 – Jim Lawler
Well, speaking of 2016 – what specifically set your warning bells off after Trump’s first election?
06:30 – Ambassador Ray
I think I started to get worried before the election. Just some of the things that he was saying on the campaign trail bothered me. His bullying attitude that he took in debates and the way he basically just ignored all norms of civilized, civil behavior. That bothered me because – whether I agreed with the president or not, whether I voted for that president or not – all of our presidents, even Nixon, to a great degree, were presidential. They actually conducted themselves publicly in ways that reflected the majesty and the gravitas of the position. This guy just sounded more like a sideshow barker at a carnival than someone aspiring to the highest office in the land.
Then when he got elected and started actually acting on this and doing things that you just don’t do – as my grandmother would say, “that just ain’t the way you act in good company” – that was it. When he actually started delivering on some of the outrageous things he said on the campaign trail, I knew we were in trouble.
09:00 – Jim Lawler
I’ve heard you describe some of President Trump’s first‑term cabinet members as “guardrails.” Which officials do you have in mind when you used that description? And do you think that kind of guardrail exists in the second term?
09:17 – Ambassador Ray
Well, guardrails – I would say, honestly, while I totally disagree with his politics, Mike Pence, his vice president, was a guardrail. Here was a guy – I don’t agree with his politics – but he took his oath seriously. When he was asked to do something that was blatantly illegal, he put his foot down and said no. Each of his secretaries of defense, I felt, were people who would go in directions I would disagree with, but when it reached that line in the sand, they put their feet down. Even his attorneys general were people who – they were a little on the bent side in terms of where I would like to see that position go, but they drew the line at outright outrageous illegal behavior.
I think he learned his lesson. I saw this when the first list of people he was planning to appoint came out this time. He was making sure that wasn’t going to be a problem in his second administration. He basically has appointed people who do what he says, the way he says do it, regardless of how ridiculous it makes them look and regardless of how obviously blatantly illegal, immoral, and just plain wrong it is. He’s basically stocked his cabinet with yes‑people, sycophants. Somebody gave him – somebody defined or explained to him what a kakistocrat was – and he made darn sure that’s all he interviewed for jobs. He has a complete confederacy of dunces this time.
11:13 – Jim Lawler
That’s a good term – Confederacy of Dunces. I understand you have heard some overtly partisan statements from some active‑duty military during your consulting work. That’s rather provocative and an important observation. Can you elaborate on that?
11:31 – Ambassador Ray
Yeah. After I retired, I did consulting for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and for the Department of the Army on training extensively. One of the training contracts, I was a subject matter expert for pre‑deployment training for units that were going overseas in non‑Title 10 assignments where they would have to work with embassies. My job was to play the role of the ambassador or some other senior civilian official in scenarios, to try and school them on the proper way to conduct themselves as military, to get their job done, but at the same time to recognize that they were under the ultimate authority of a civilian who was not part of the DoD chain of command.
There was this one colonel. He’s retired now, and I don’t even remember his name, but this guy was like a B‑movie villain from Central Casting. Tobacco chewer. He would do briefings with a little tin can in his hand. He’d chew tobacco and literally pause in briefings to spit tobacco juice into the tin can. When I first met him, I try not to stereotype people, but I just looked at him and thought, “Oh, I have a feeling… I’ve known people like him when I was in uniform. This guy is going to be trouble.”
Well, he turned out to be trouble. It culminated in him making overtly political partisan statements from the podium during briefings. He would knock – he didn’t like Obama, he didn’t like Biden, he hated Hillary Clinton – and he let that be known in briefings in front of a room full of military officers and civilians, including all of us contractors.
One day, after I had just finished an exercise with my team, we were doing a casual debrief outside. I don’t remember what I said, but he happened to be walking by, and it apparently set him off. He came in and just took over the briefing, lambasting the current administration – at that time, the Obama administration – just venting. I had enough. As a contractor, I had no control over anything, but I just shut it down. I said, “You know, you’re talking nonsense, and you really should stop this. This is not the way you, as a U.S. Army Colonel, should be conducting yourself in the presence of enlisted people and other folks.”
He went red in the face. I didn’t raise my voice or use profanity – I just said it in the same tone as I’m talking now. He stormed off. I was informed by the head of the company that I wouldn’t be deployed there anymore.
15:01 – Jim Lawler
I bet that didn’t bother you.
15:04 – Ambassador Ray
Not really. I was only doing it because it was interesting work and I enjoyed it. It wasn’t like I was being economically deprived. But the idea that this colonel, who was overtly partisan and breaking every rule in the book – when I was in the military, even if there were people like that, they would never dare get up in a briefing in front of a room full of military people and talk like that because they would be on the carpet. This guy didn’t seem to think it was any problem at all. Interesting story – he retired shortly after that and came to work for the same company. He lasted one deployment before they fired him.
15:51 – Jim Lawler
I imagine you were horrified a few months ago when our Secretary of Defense – I won’t call him a Secretary of War; I refuse to use that term – called back every flag‑ranked officer for that mass meeting at the Pentagon. That must have horrified you.
16:11 – Ambassador Ray
Well, I just have to tell you, honestly, I found it hard to believe that they were actually doing that. When I saw the news clips of it, it was depressing. And then, of course, you see the outcome of that. People in the military – I’m not all that surprised at what they have done to the State Department. The State Department’s always been the whipping boy. When you were in the agency, you worked with State Department people. They are conflict‑avoidance types.
But when I saw the way they were reassigning and firing and forcing into retirement senior military people, it worried me. When they started the Caribbean boat strikes and some of the things I see happening, it really is depressing. As a former military person, I find it absolutely gut‑wrenching that you have people who are following these orders and then, if the news is correct, some of them are going in front of Congress and trying to defend this. I have no words to describe it that would be polite words. The way I feel when I see things like that, I cannot express in polite company.
17:43 – Jim Lawler
Turning to another sensitive subject – I believe you witnessed or watched January 6th live. What was that experience like for someone like yourself who spent decades representing American democracy abroad?
18:03 – Ambassador Ray
You know, I’m sort of a weirdo in a way. I don’t watch war movies anymore because sometimes I actually am brought to tears when I watch a really well‑made war movie. I don’t cry on rom‑coms or all those other soapy, soppy TV offerings. But I found myself in tears watching that. I couldn’t tear myself away from the screen. Even to this day, I have a hard time finding the words to describe how that felt – watching something happen in this country at the U.S. Capitol that I have seen so many times in other countries that – to use the phrase of our president – we would call shithole dictatorships. It was just unbelievable.
But you know what? What galls me more about that than the event itself is what’s been done afterwards. This latest one – the 1776 Fund – that’s like rubbing salt in the wounds. To me, if there was ever a sign that we are not just sliding into autocracy but we’ve already walked through that door – the question is how far in the room we’ve gotten – that’s just horrendous to even think about, to contemplate that something like that could happen in this country. And then the aftermath – the pardoning of all those people and talking about paying them – that’s like, “Here’s your rewards, guys, for doing what I wanted you to do.”
20:05 – Jim Lawler
A reward for committing sedition. I don’t think there’s been anything that bad since the Civil War. You had people trying to overthrow the government.
20:15 – Ambassador Ray
Yeah. At least the Civil War – you could argue we were a young country, we hadn’t been united that long. At least all the Confederates were traitors, but they were traitors who went with their state. As opposed to just a mob attacking because some idiot told them that something was stolen from him and they were too dumb to realize he was using them.
20:50 – Jim Lawler
You’ve used a phrase talking about the second term of the president: “worst nightmare starting on day one.” Can you elaborate? What policies or actions concern you the most from a national security or diplomatic standpoint?
21:10 – Ambassador Ray
Oh, God. You know, it might be easier if you ask me which policies don’t bother me – because that’s a shorter list. Just from day one, the very idea of not staffing our embassies. Right now, we have over 100 embassies that don’t have ambassadors. And the ones that do – what’s this, 10% or less are career diplomats and the rest are political appointees. I don’t have anything against political appointees as such, but I have a hard time looking at all the political appointees this administration has sent out to be ambassador and finding one of them who is even marginally qualified to do the job. They’re a bunch of political hacks who are doing more damage to our national security than the Russians. Actually, some of them are doing Russia’s job for them quite nicely.
22:23 – Jim Lawler
As a former ambassador, what do you think the world is seeing in America right now? How is our credibility being affected?
22:34 – Ambassador Ray
In many cases – in some countries – our credibility is zero. In certain parts of the world, the U.S. has always had to fight something of an uphill battle, because during the liberation period of the 1950s, when a lot of former colonies were gaining independence, the U.S. was in the corner of the European colonial powers. A lot of people in these countries – even people who weren’t born at the time – are aware of this. That’s something they always sort of held against us in parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
The thing we had going for ourselves before was that we tried. We always stood for what was right. Sometimes we didn’t do it as well as we probably should, and we’re occasionally somewhat ham‑fisted because we’re a young country – like a teenager who just got his driver’s license, we don’t know all the rules of the road so we drive a little aggressively. But we always – I’ve had people say to me, and they say to me now – “your hearts were in the right place, even if sometimes your head didn’t catch up.” What they’re feeling now is that our heart and our head have caught up with each other and they’re both in the wrong place.
Just to give you an example. Yesterday, I was in a conversation with a friend who lives in Zimbabwe, which is having some real big issues right now with a president who decided he wants to stay in power longer than the Constitution allows.
24:26 – Jim Lawler
That sounds familiar.
24:27 – Ambassador Ray
Well, this is the funny thing. As he and I were discussing this, he sort of said, “Sort of like what you guys have going on in the U.S. right now.” That was said in a jocular tone, but it’s on a lot of people’s minds right now. We are no longer able to walk into a room and say something that people might disagree with but will respect for being well‑meaning, because they can point to us and say, “You go home and do the laundry and clean your own skirts before you come and tell me how to do mine.” That’s what’s happening. And four years of that is not going to be undone even by the next two or three elections. We’re creating a world where the U.S. is no longer respected, no longer trusted. And those are the two essential qualities of a diplomat. If you’re not respected and you’re not trusted, you can’t do your job.
25:54 – Jim Lawler
I’m sure, as a former ambassador and a former military officer, you share my deep concern about how we have alienated so many of our allies and tried to suck up to so many of our adversaries. Can you comment on that?
26:10 – Ambassador Ray
On alienating allies – I’m almost at the point of saying we have alienated so many of our former allies because I can’t believe any of them will ever trust us again in my lifetime. And the sucking up to dictators and our adversaries – I saw that in the first administration, it was sickening. It’s just now, it just makes me angry when I see the way we literally kowtow to people who I wouldn’t want to live in the same zip code with – and they are the people that our leadership looks up to.
If you take that in conjunction with all the other things you’re seeing – the gold plating all over everything, the biggest of this and the largest of that, the triumphal arches, UFC fighting on the White House lawn – it’s all part of the same thing. We are in the midst of an attempt to transition us from a democratic republic to a unitary monarchy with an uncrowned king.
27:40 – Jim Lawler
That’s a great description. I know you and myself and a lot of Americans are banking on the midterms this year, as well as the 2028 election. What do you think needs to happen for this country to course‑correct and get back to the principles we cherish?
27:57 – Ambassador Ray
Well, you hit it – the two most immediate things that need to happen: we need to have a change in legislative leadership in the midterms. That won’t stop what’s happening, but it can slow it down a little and make things a little more complicated. And then, in 2028, the American electorate needs to come to its senses, shake itself out of its apathy, and get out and vote in record numbers to ensure we get a national leadership and an executive that is an executive for the entire country.
And then thirdly – and this is the part that’s probably going to be hardest – people are going to have to realize that even if we get all that – even if the midterms give control of Congress to a new party that will push back, and we get a new executive branch in 2028 dedicated to defending the Constitution and moving us back in a direction of being on the right side of history – that is not going to change things overnight.
After four years of this, I tell my students – I do two classes in geopolitics for Arizona State University – I always tell them: the thing you have to remember about political movements is that what takes a year or two or three or four years to achieve can take ten times that long to get rid of. If you think about four years of indoctrination of students in our military academies and new hires at all the national security civilian agencies – in 2028, you get a new administration. The idea that the new administration comes in and fires all these people and starts with a clean slate is a non‑starter. That would just make matters worse because, first of all, it would be us being just like them. But two, it’s practically impossible. You can’t start the government over with a clean slate every four years.
So this whole process of slowly un‑indoctrinating people will take years – maybe even decades – because the rot is not just at the top. We’re not talking just about political appointees. We’re talking about lower‑level employees, career employees of all agencies at all levels who will have spent four years either in agreement with what’s being done or pretending in order to protect their jobs – which is in some ways just as bad. If you don’t have the strength of your convictions to push back against what’s wrong, then you’re not really a very good candidate for Freedom Supporter of the Year.
The most essential thing – starting in 2028 if we start with a new cast of characters – is that people in this country are going to have to recognize that we’re not going to turn the ship around in a four‑year administration. We’re looking at several years, two to three administrations, of trying to get things back on track. And it’s also important that we shouldn’t be looking to rebuild it to what it was – we should be looking to build it back better.
32:13 – Jim Lawler
That’s a great statement, Charlie. I know you’ve said that most Americans, regardless of party, are decent and freedom‑loving people. Does that mean you’re genuinely an optimist or a cautious optimist? How would you describe yourself?
32:31 – Ambassador Ray
I’m a pessimistic optimist. I always wish for the better, and I do think that most people in this country are decent people. But I’m realistic enough to know that they’re also not what you call daredevils. Most people are like spectators at a tennis match – they sit there watching the ball go back and forth to see who’s going to be the winner at the end, and then they will accommodate to whoever wins. That’s a sorry and regretful thing to say about the vast majority of our public, but that’s my observation from 50 years of government work and all the years since.
Most people just want to live their lives and be left alone. So I am pessimistically optimistic that we will try to start doing the right thing. But I’m realistic enough to know that there’s going to be some real tough times ahead. If a new administration comes in and tries to get things done right, they’re going to run right away into the impatience of people upset because things haven’t changed already overnight. That’s going to be a big job.
33:59 – Jim Lawler
One thing I see a lot in your life is that tension between oath‑bound silence and the obligation to speak out. You lived basically on the silent side for about 50 years – the military and the Foreign Service. And now you’re becoming much more vocal. Tell me what finally prompted you to speak out now – participate in this podcast, for example, and the articles you write for the Steady State, which are all so compelling and so well written. What is the legacy that Ambassador Charles Ray would like to leave for America?
34:43 – Ambassador Ray
Well, I think what motivates me is realizing that silence is consent. When you see something wrong and you do nothing about it, you’re as guilty as the person who’s perpetrating the wrong. And in my when I was one of the silent ones in the bureaucracy, I have to be honest with you – I was not always completely silent. I was in trouble frequently when I was in the Army and during my time in the Foreign Service, because when I saw something I thought was wrong, I would speak out. But I spoke out within the system. I would go to my boss or my commander or people in positions of authority and express my opinion. I had a reputation in the State Department – by the time I retired, my corridor reputation was: here’s a guy who’ll get the job done, but he will drive you crazy in the process, because if you do something he disagrees with, he will come up and tell you.
I was taught as a young officer in the Army that your job as a staff officer is to go to your commander and express your opinion on what your commander is planning to do. Now, if he decides to go ahead and do it, then you salute and execute, or you retire – or resign. I was always, from day one, prepared to submit my resume, especially in the State Department – since I’d already had a 20‑year career, the State Department was almost a side gig. I was prepared at any time, if it reached my red line, to walk out the door.
As a civilian, once I was no longer in government, it just dawned on me – and it really hit, as I said, in 2016 – that those of us who understand how the system works, who are seeing that system being manipulated, distorted, and misused, who sit quietly and say nothing, are just as guilty as the ones doing it. That was all it took for me to just say, “Enough!”
I’m sitting at home, comfortable. I don’t really face a lot of the trials and tribulations that the average American faces. I don’t have any problems paying my bills or doing whatever. But what affects those people out there in the end also affects me. If I can do anything to make it better for them and I refuse to do it, then I’m as guilty as the person who is actually trying to destroy their lives. That’s a roundabout, convoluted way of saying: people who see something wrong and are silent about it are as guilty as the people who are doing the wrong.
37:53 – Jim Lawler
I agree with you completely. I think that’s beautifully put.
One last question, Ambassador Ray. I know you’re teaching courses out in Arizona. Do you still encourage young people to go into government service?
38:10 – Ambassador Ray
Since last January – January 2025 – that’s been difficult. I find it hard to say, “Yes, go ahead, put your application in.” A lot of the students in my classes are adult students coming back after other careers. I find it’s not as easy to unhesitatingly recommend government service. What I do say to people is that I think government service is honorable service. People who want to work for the country have my vote – that’s an honorable pursuit. But they have to be realistic about it.
I tell young people – especially the ones thinking about putting an application in right away: keep this in mind. Depending on the government agency you decide to work with, you could be faced with a crucial choice. Your choice is either you agree with the direction they’re going – and if that’s the case, more power to you, have a good career – or pretending to agree just to get the job and keep it. And what kind of corrosive effect does that have on your character, doing that for who knows how many years? How do you look at yourself in the mirror if you know you’re going to work every day under false pretenses?
So I don’t say you shouldn’t. I say to them: this is what I think you could be facing. Consider that before you make a decision. My career advice to my students nowadays is: just think about what you are going into. Go into it with eyes wide open, and make the decision that you can live with.
40:15 – Jim Lawler
I think that’s beautifully put. I also try to encourage young people interested in careers in the intelligence community or in foreign service. I say there’s a lot of chaos going on, but it’s usually at a much higher level than you’re going into – this too shall pass.
40:30 – Ambassador Ray
This is the thing: nowadays, in the previous administration, that was the case – the chaos was at the top levels and the people at the bottom were impacted. But I still have a few friends who are working‑level people in the State Department. And I hate to say this, but the chaos, the manipulation, the indoctrination has filtered down. I was told by someone who was a witness to this that at the State Department’s training facility in Arlington, a political appointee sits in on classes to make sure that instructors do not veer from the administration’s accepted rhetoric.
I myself – from the time I retired in 2012 until last March, March 2025 – was a guest lecturer often at the Foreign Service Institute for the State Department. Last year, I was informed that my presence was no longer needed.
41:40 – Jim Lawler
I would count that as an honor if I were you, Ambassador Ray.
41:42 – Ambassador Ray
I’ll put those on my board as another merit badge. But my point is that the reason I changed what I say to people is because the indoctrination – this whole changing the character of the workforce – has now gone down to the very bottom. I don’t know if you’re aware, but the Foreign Service exam – the entrance exam for foreign service officers – has been changed, and a lot of partisan‑type requirements have been included in the hiring process.
42:16 – Jim Lawler
That’s horrifying.
42:18 – Ambassador Ray
It is. It’s frightening.
42:21 – Jim Lawler
Well, thank you so much, Ambassador Ray. Today we’ve had the privilege of having Ambassador Charles A. Ray on our Steady State Sentinel program. If you liked today’s conversation, please subscribe to the Steady State Sentinel, leave us a five‑star review, and join us again next week.
For the Steady State Sentinel, I’m Jim Lawler – still standing watch.
This transcript is AI Generated