![\"imrs.php\"](\"http:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/imrs.php_1-217x300.jpg\")
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The cocktail party at ornate Meridian House on Thursday was hardly the stuff of Skull and Bones, but make no mistake about it \u2014\u00a0this was an initiation rite. With champagne.<\/p>\n
The social secretaries from embassies of countries from Kenya to Monaco had gathered to toast Deesha Dyer<\/a>, the new White House social secretary, to their unofficial ranks. Clinton-era White House social secretary Ann Stock was there, and chatter was about the heave wave in Europe and the annual near-shuttering of Embassy Row in August.<\/p>\n These are the men and women (though mostly women) who draw up guest lists and seating charts that carry international\u00a0consequences, the ones who grease the wheels of diplomacy with well-timed canapes.\u00a0As Meridian International Center President\u00a0Stuart Holliday put it, \u201cthese are the people who really run Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n Dyer\u2019s CV\u00a0(she was once a freelance journalist covering hip-hop music and came to the White House as a 31-year-old intern) made her an unconventional pick for the job. But she\u2019s perfected a humbled-to-be-here speech on the welcome-to-the-job tour of the Washington cocktail circuit she\u2019s made this summer. And of this particular group, she seemed happy to fit right in: \u201cIt\u2019s an awesome club to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n Story by Emily Heil, Washington Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former White House social secretary Ann Stock, left, and current social secretary Deesha Dyer. (Joyce Boghosian.) The cocktail party at ornate Meridian House on Thursday was hardly the stuff of Skull and Bones, but make no mistake about it \u2014\u00a0this was an initiation rite. With champagne. The social secretaries from embassies of countries from Kenya… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-white-house-wednesdays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1095"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1103,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1095\/revisions\/1103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"2imrs.php\"](\"http:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/2imrs.php_-300x200.jpg\")
<\/p>\nFrom left, Francesca Craig, social secretary at the French embassy; Kyomi Buker, social secretary at the Japanese embassy; former White House social secretary Ann Stock; Donatella Verrone, social secretary at the Italian embassy; Amanda Downes, social secretary at the British embassy; and Meridian International Center vice president Lee Satterfield. (Joyce Boghosian)<\/span><\/em><\/h6>\n