Former ambassador to Norway chronicles his adventures in international diplomacy

Former Ambassador to Norway and Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Tom Loftus spent years going through his old papers to craft the expansive memoir, “Mission to Oslo: Dancing with the Queen, Dealmaking with the Russians, Shaping History.” The book, published in 2024 by Little Creek Press, brims with some of the 20th Century’s biggest figures, and the tidal wave of effects from that era of history are still being felt today, both in the United States and abroad.

Loftus, who will visit Blue Mounds on Sunday, October 5, recently took the time to answer our questions about his life, his 1,460 days as ambassador, and the book that chronicles his travels, conversations and more.

It’s a new book, but it’s full of warm and witty anecdotes that Loftus said he knows are at the heart of all effective communication.

“I started as a speechwriter for the Democrats in the Assembly in 1973 — all 60 of them,” he said. “I listened to the floor debate and the best of them told stories to make their point in their vernacular.”

“I had never written a speech before being hired,” he continued. “Since then, I have written and delivered a thousand or more. I can trace this back further than the Assembly. In Military Police school a retired high school English teacher had us for four days teaching us how to write up an accident report or crime scene. Many in this group had not finished high school. This was the what, where, why, etc. We had to defend these reports in military court. This teacher was a genius.”

“Mission to Oslo: Dancing with the Queen, Dealmaking with the Russians, Shaping History” is an assiduously researched and carefully crafted retelling of a career spent talking to, and listening to, interesting people from all over the world and all walks of life.

First, tell us a bit about yourself. Where/how did you grow up? Did you play “diplomacy” games as a kid? What other interests did you have? 

Loftus: My grandfather was a young boy when his family immigrated to America. They left on July 4, 1885 on the steam and sail ship “Katie” operated by a German Line that specialized in bringing Norwegians to New York City. They found their way to Brooklyn, Wisconsin in Dane County where they were dairy farmers.  My mother and father, after they were married a short time, started to farm just outside Stoughton. I was born in the very small Stoughton Hospital. After a good tobacco crop, my dad bought into Brooks Implement, a farm machinery dealership in Sun Prairie. We moved there when I was five years old. 

In my high school yearbook, it says I wanted to be a history professor. (I think I had to say this as my aunt was the history teacher.)

Reading is the key to lifelong learning, and I read then and now, a lot of history. My favorite period is WWI and the 10 years after. In 1918, when she was only 15 months old my mother’s mother died of the Spanish Flu. Her older sister went to live with her father and my mother was raised by his brother. His name was Axel and he was drafted into WWI and was in the two battles in France where the US troops fought — Château-Thierry and Belleau Wood. So, I had two grandfathers on my mother’s side! Axel brought home with him a large chest of his WWI gear including a gas mask, helmet, uniform and a rifle from the German army. As a boy I rummaged through this chest all the time. Alex was a military policeman and so was I. 

“Mission to Oslo” is brimming with big stories and big characters. The Table of Contents alone includes some of the most fascinating figures in modern history.  Henry Kissinger. Jimmy Carter. Yassir Arafat. Nelson Madela. Princesses, kings, queens, presidents. The scope of these adventures and topics is difficult to even fathom. How did you manage to weave so many “big” people and moments into a personal narrative? 

Loftus: To write a memoir 30 years after the time covered requires a good memory and luck. 

I returned from Norway in 1998 after four years. My personal papers were boxed and shipped home. My assistant at the embassy was Sue Meyer. She had been my assistant in the Legislature when I was first elected and continued as I became Majority Leader and then Speaker for eight years. (The longest serving Democratic speaker in Wisconsin history.) This was from 1977 through 1990. She had been the one who organized my papers as Speaker for the Wisconsin Historical Society. 

When I opened the boxes Sue had packed after 22 years, there were my daily schedules for all of the 1,460 days I was the ambassador. Filed with the schedules, which are hour by hour, are the meetings, dinners and lunches including guests, seating arrangements and menu with wine pairings. By plane, train, car or ship my travels throughout Norway, Russia, Europe and to the White House. Added to this were my notes of meetings, diary entrees and letters, faxes and jottings of phone calls of importance. This was before email!

This is what prompted me to write, over four years, a memoir that is arranged day-by-day for each year. This was for me the most important goal and kept me going: an accurate history of a most eventful time in American and European (including Russian) history. Told as lived. 

This organization of the book is what every reviewer and reader has pointed to and was mentioned in the decision by the Midwest Independent Publishers Association to award it a silver as best memoir of 2024. Oh, and Lynn Danielson, the retired style editor of the Capitol Times was with me all four years. I wrote [and] she edited for style and collated. We did not take it to the publisher until there was a complete draft. 

Perhaps an unfair question, but what’s your favorite story (or passage) in the book? 

Loftus: Favorite story is “Tea with Nelson Mandela.” Chapter 3.

Without sounding too dystopian, the very idea of “diplomacy” at this point in human history sounds almost quixotic. How do you feel about the art/craft/science of talking to (and listening to) other peoples, other nations, other ideas, other leaders? Why is it important, and how can it be done effectively? 

Loftus: Diplomacy for an ambassador means being sent by the president to a foreign country to be a professional friend of all segments of that society, all political parties — not just the government in power. And spending four years without a faux pax. The latter is helped by a protocol officer.

Diplomats listen and deliver messages of the utmost importance by not telling but informing. American diplomats are not going away. Soon, very soon, they will be called on to tidy up the mess we are in and it will be done by talking to the diplomats of other countries, including our enemies of the moment. 

Obviously, Norway plays a large role in the book. Many of our readers live in a community that was founded largely by Norwegian immigrants, but they themselves have never been there. Can you talk about Norway as it is today (and when you were ambassador)? What makes it interesting and/or important to you? 

Loftus: Norway of my time is that of a people exhaling after 50 years of the Cold War where they were the front line with the Soviet Union as a NATO country (a founding member). Norway today is a confident nation with an important role to play in a new Cold War with Russia. They are a major supporter of Ukraine. 

There is a renaissance of connection between the descendants of immigrants to the “home country.” The travel to Norway by Americans is in the tens of thousands each year. Yes, they are tourist but really longing to know where their great grandparents or grandparents came from and go there and stand with their feet on that ground.  Go to Norway, I tell all these people and as the Norwegians say: “You will meet yourself coming through the door.”

Tell us a bit about your political career, in addition to your time as Ambassador? 

Loftus: Mount Horeb played an important role in my political career. I first ran for the state assembly in 1976. The district included Mount Horeb and Blue Mounds. Shirley Thompson from Mount Horeb was the Republican nominee. There was a local issue and that was the road. Should an 18/151 bypass around Mount Horeb be built. If so, where? Whatever position Shirley took it had fervent opponents. That helped me. Although this had been a Democratic district and in 1976 Carter won handily. I won the village of Blue Mounds and the Town of Blue Mounds by 52 votes. For a short history of my political career see chapter 1: “Perhaps it was Prophetic.”