Diplomatic corps, worldwide watchers await State of the Union

By Julian Pecquet - 02/12/13 01:46 PM ET

When President Obama delivers his State of the Union Tuesday night, the world's eyes and ears will be in the House chamber with him — literally.

The annual speech is a can't-miss event for the Capitol's ambassadors and other heads of mission, dating back to when Woodrow Wilson restarted the tradition — discontinued under Thomas Jefferson — of having the president come to Congress and deliver the speech in person in 1913. The number of independent nations has grown exponentially since then, and almost 150 nations are expected to be represented Tuesday.

“145 chiefs of mission representing nations on six continents are expected to be in attendance tonight,” said Amb. Capricia Penavic Marshall, the Chief of Protocol of the United States. “It’s a wonderful tradition, and it’s an honor to accompany these esteemed diplomats to the Capitol for this moment of great significance for our nation.”

As is custom, Marshall will be escorting the dean of the Diplomatic Corps, Djibouti Ambassador Roble Olhaye, onto the House floor. The diplomats won't get to greet the president — lawmakers hoping for five seconds of face time have to wait in aisle seats for hours — but they'll have a chance to be part of what's become a Washington “spectacle.”

“By December of 1913, when [Wilson] gave his State of the Union message ... everybody wanted to be in the room for the event,” said Senate historian Donald Ritchie, and Congress “had their accommodations for the diplomatic corps in particular.”

The diplomatic corps began participating in the Capitol's political life long before that, attending presidential inaugurations since the early days of the Republic and George Washington's funeral in 1799. When the House and Senate chambers were built in the 1850s, special diplomatic galleries were set aside that still bear that name today.

“Congress is the most open branch of government, and it wants people to see what it's doing,” Ritchie said. “It built galleries specifically for this purpose, and right from the very start they felt that the diplomatic corps was an important part of the Washington community.”

Ritchie said diplomats once made good use of the galleries, which aren't reserved for them anymore.

“Diplomats came to watch what was going on in Congress, especially when it was an issue relating to trade or to tariffs or something else,” he said. “Before there was C-SPAN, the only way to know what was going on was either to be there to watch it or to wait until the Congressional Record came out the next day.

“Of course, their governments were very anxious to know what the Congress was doing, so diplomats attended regularly. And of course it was a good show; in the days before television, a lot of people spent time in the galleries watching [Massachusetts Sen.] Daniel Webster speak or other great moments. So Congress has tried to accommodate the diplomatic corps as best it could.”

Today, he said, people around the world will also be watching from their living rooms now that the event is streamed online.

“Other nations are very interested in both the foreign policy aspects of the speech but even domestic issues,” he said. “Climate change is really an international issue. So they're going to want to see what the priorities are and to judge what the likelihood is that he'll get what he's asking for.”