Out of Africa: Tinseltown diplomat with roots in Senegal

Tinseltown mogul turned Obama fundraiser, feted diplomat and now rising star in the US State Department, Rivkin was just five when he left, his world upended by the death of his father, the US ambassador to Dakar.

Willam R. Rivkin would no doubt have swelled with pride to see his son today, Washington's assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs, and a chip off the old block.

After 20 years at the helm of Hollywood entertainment corporations including the Jim Henson Company, however, Rivkin Jnr has taken a more circuitous route than his father into public service.

"It's true, going from working for Miss Piggy to the president of the United States is an unusual path," he told AFP on a recent official trip turned homecoming.

"But when you think about it, it isn't that unusual because I spent my entire life dreaming of following in my father's footsteps."

Rivkin, 53, grew up around political royalty. His godfather was Hubert Humphrey, the vice-president under Lyndon Johnson, and the Rivkins counted the Kennedy clan as family friends.

His father, a lieutenant-colonel in the US army during World War II, was made envoy to Senegal under Lyndon Johnson in October 1966 but he was just months into the posting when he suffered a fatal heart attack.

"He wasn't meant to die at 48. He was one of these unstoppable balls of energy that just stopped," Rivkin says on his first journey back to Dakar's sandy coastline in almost half a century.

Rivkin knew from a young age he wanted to emulate his father. When he applied to read political science and international relations at Yale, his essay was on becoming an ambassador.

- Lifelong dream -

He aced college, and then Harvard Business School, and started out as a financial analyst before joining Henson's TV empire in 1988, and eventually masterminding its sale in 2000 for nearly $1 billion as chief executive.

Rivkin learnt an early lesson about communication when he cornered Henson one day to ask why the puppeteer had been visiting the janitor late at night to bounce around TV ideas, and was scolded by the great man for being narrow-minded.

"In Hollywood, if someone has 'Creative' in their title it doesn't necessarily mean they are creative, but there are really creative people if you know how to find them," he says.

"And in government I've reached down in the hierarchy, not always relying on the senior executives, and find great ideas -- and I learned that from (Henson)."

With a BAFTA television award and an address book full of powerful contacts in his pocket, Rivkin went into politics to work on John Kerry's tilt at the presidency in 2004 and then Barack Obama's campaign in 2008.

Raising a reported $500,000 towards Obama's victory, Rivkin was made the youngest American ambassador to France in 56 years.

But before even moving to Paris he found himself the latest case study in a long-standing debate over US appointments of political favourites, rather than diplomatic lifers, to prestigious embassies.

A White House reporter even asked spokesman Robert Gibbs whether Rivkin knew French, a language he has spoken fluently from an early age.

"If you want to take an unknown senator called Barack Hussein Obama and make him president of the United States, it requires introducing him to the American people, which requires money," Rivkin told AFP.

"You don't join these things with any expectations, and I certainly never asked for it, but when I was offered Paris it was a lifelong dream to be an ambassador."

- Visionary -

He went on to become one of Washington's most popular envoys to France in decades, receiving the "Legion d'honneur" from President Francois Hollande.

A 2012 State Department report called him a "dynamic and visionary" ambassador, highlighting his pioneering use of social media to engage French citizens.

He also gained plaudits for persuading a host of showbiz grandees, from Sam Jackson, Will Smith and Woody Allen to Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am, to visit and help him reach out to disenfranchised young Parisians.

Brought back to the State Department last year, Rivkin's job is to uphold the Kerry doctrine that "economic policy is foreign policy" -- a role that has already seen him clock up 220,000 air miles visiting 35 countries.

Rivkin, who is married and has two children in their 20s, has never made any secret of his friendship with Kerry or Obama but he is very clear about his neutrality when it comes to the job.

If he has an opinion on whether a Clinton, a Bush or even a reality TV billionaire with an eccentric haircut should be the next occupant of the White House, it is not one he cares to share.

"I've never once in six years of government service asked a single employee whether they are a Democrat or a Republican. So I don't have an opinion about who's next," he says.

Over a drink at a seafront restaurant on Dakar's picturesque Ngor island, a former family weekend getaway, Rivkin reflects on a powerful homecoming.

"Whether I have specific memories of the smells and sounds of Dakar, symbolically, having a chance to walk in my father's footsteps... is very satisfying, very fulfilling."

Source: AFP