CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS ENTERED THE WORLD OF AMERICAN DIPLOMACY WHEN HE WAS 2 YEARS OLD. The first assignment of this son of John Quincy Adams, then serving as minister plenipotentiary to Russia, was opening a fancy dress ball for a member of Tsar Alexander's court at St. Petersburg in 1809. "To gratify the taste for Savages" among the Russian nobility, the young Adams wore an Indian chief costume, his mother, Louisa, wrote in her diary, and his entrance was greeted with a "general burst of applause." It would not be his last.

A century later, in 1907, John Foster Dulles, whose grandfather John W. Foster and uncle Robert Lansing both served as secretary of State, in 1892-93 and 1915-20, respectively, embarked on his maiden diplomatic mission when he was still a college student at Princeton. Grandfather Foster was then an adviser to the Chinese government in Washington and had hired Dulles to act as the Chinese delegation's secretary at the Second Hague Conference in 1907. Little was accomplished at the conference, but Dulles was enchanted by the proceedings. Throughout his life, the future secretary of State fondly recalled solving a thorny protocol problem having to do with which delegates should be received first. Dulles liked to brag that his ingenuity got the conference off to a quick start, averting world war for at least seven years.

Given these extraordinary childhoods, it's not surprising that men like Charles Francis Adams and John Foster Dulles followed their forefathers' footsteps into foreign service. After all, their elders reared them to believe that they were members of the nation's ruling elite and were obligated to serve their country. Their families ensured their education included all the knowledge and skills believed to be essential for a diplomat. These included mastery of several languages and extensive study of ancient and modern history and literature.

Having the right character was also important. The ideal American statesman, according to John Adams, Charles Francis' grandfather, should be "active, attentive and industrious, and, above all, he should possess an upright heart and an independent spirit, and should be one who decidedly makes the interest of his country, not the policy of any other nation nor his own private ambition or interest, or those of his family, friends and connections, the rule of his conduct."

John W. Foster, President Benjamin Harrison's secretary of State, cited the importance of "gentlemanly accomplishments," and warned that a "boor in manners or one disagreeable instead of affable in his demeanor" could not hope to serve his nation successfully. When the son or grandson of a secretary of State or ambassador was ready to embark on a diplomatic career, family reputation, connections and unique exposure to public service abroad permitted them easy entry to a post in the diplomatic service.

Although political dynasties receive much public attention, it appears that diplomatic dynasties have not been uncommon in American history. A casual search turned up a dozen names of families with at least two generations of fathers and sons -- and the occasional daughter -- serving in the U.S. diplomatic corps. During the era before the 1924 creation of the career Foreign Service, when the spoils system generally guided diplomatic appointments, nepotism certainly wasn't the obstacle that it is today in pursuing a career in the State Department.

The McVeaghs produced three generations of diplomats. Wayne McVeagh was a late-19th-century U.S. ambassador to Italy and minister to Turkey. His son, Charles, was ambassador to Japan from 1925-29 and was honored by the Japanese government for his relief work for Japanese orphans. Grandson Lincoln McVeagh, a famous publisher in the 1920s, began his two-decades-long Foreign Service career when appointed minister to Greece by President Franklin Roosevelt. During World War II, he was elevated to ambassador to Greece and Yugoslavia and reports he filed on the Balkans helped form the basis for the 1947 Truman Doctrine, which expressed America's Cold War containment policy.

A rare example of a daughter following in her father's footsteps is Ruth Bryan Owen Rohde, the daughter of Woodrow Wilson's first secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan. Although Bryan resigned over Wilson's belligerent stance towards Germany after the Lusitania incident, his daughter nursed wounded soldiers overseas during World War I. After Rohde served one term in Congress and lost re-election, Roosevelt appointed her minister to Denmark in 1933. She was the first woman to hold such a high diplomatic post.

The three most prominent diplomatic dynasties were the Adams, the Sewards and the Foster-Lansing-Dulles families. In all three cases, the elder statesmen in the families gave their offspring opportunities that sparked their interest in international relations and made their careers possible.

In the case of the Adams, the children were consciously groomed to assume the mantle of leadership, including service abroad. The child-rearing methods paid off as the family is not only America's original political dynasty; it is also America's first diplomatic dynasty, having produced two U.S. presidents, two secretaries of State and a distinguished diplomat and congressman.

Moreover, many diplomatic historians consider John Quincy Adams the nation's greatest secretary of State for negotiating treaties ending hostilities between Great Britain and America in the years following the War of 1812 and cementing U.S. claims to a huge swath of northwestern territory. Adams was also the author of the Monroe Doctrine, which remains a cornerstone of American foreign policy.

John Quincy Adams, the first-born son of the ultimate 18th-century power couple, John and Abigail Adams, was the "empty crucible into which they poured and ground their ideas and morality," according to Jack Shephard, author of a John Quincy Adams biography. Abigail told John Quincy when he was a child that he must "[sacrifice] ease, pleasure, wealth and life itself for [his country's] defense and security." So, at the age of 10, John Quincy sailed with his father to France for the first of many European missions on behalf of the cause of American independence. Father and son spent most of the next eight years overseas.

While his father was off meeting with French foreign ministers to negotiate a commercial treaty on that first trip to Paris, little John Quincy studied at school and with tutors from the crack of dawn until 8:30 p.m. Breaks often involved accompanying his father to receptions and dinners at the homes of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, also serving in Paris.

When John Adams was later posted to the Netherlands to request a loan and trading assistance to the struggling republic, 14-year-old John Quincy attended the University of Leyden. By that age, he had already mastered French, Latin and Dutch.

John Adams felt that his son was now ready to handle his first official diplomatic assignment. He took the adolescent out of school and sent him to St. Petersburg, to serve as secretary to U.S. minister without portfolio, Francis Dana. Dana's mission was to secure financial aid from Catherine the Great. John Quincy's mission, his father instructed him, was to learn about Russian customs, religion and education. Dana's work was for naught and John Quincy's diary entries at the time were short and monotonous; he found life in St. Petersburg cold and dull. But his experience in the Russian capital must have been good preparation for his successful assignment three decades later as the first U.S. minister plenipotentiary to Russia.

The time in Russia certainly didn't kill John Quincy's taste for life abroad. Unlike his dour father, the young John Quincy appreciated the perquisites of diplomatic life. Later, he would emulate his father and scorn the opulence associated with diplomatic festivities but as a young man, John Quincy Adams enjoyed the theater, fine wines, parties, traveling and European women. In fact, he was having such a good time abroad that he was reluctant to return to the States to attend Harvard.

John Quincy would not remain in the United States for long. After just a few years practicing law, his father, now George Washington's vice president, appointed him minister resident to the Netherlands, his first official diplomatic post. He was a mere 20 years old.

John Quincy Adams' peripatetic career took its toll on his family. The diplomat's wife, Louisa Johnson, whom John Quincy met in England while negotiating Jay's Treaty on behalf of President Washington, suffered eight miscarriages. Moreover, her eldest sons were left behind in the Adams compound at Quincy, Mass., while she spent a decade on the continent with her husband in various diplomatic residences. One son committed suicide; another died a few years later, probably of alcoholism. The only child of John Quincy and Louisa that was raised overseas was their third son, Charles Francis. And so, it was Charles Francis who was groomed as the next in the line of Adams statesmen.

Charles Francis spent his earliest years in St. Petersburg, where his father served as minister plenipotentiary. During that period, his father was his only teacher. And the most important thing he learned was how to speak English, as French was the language of the Russian court. By the end of the family's stay, he had also learned German from his nanny and, after two years at a Russian school, he acquired that language as well. It was an eventful time to be in Russia; the Adams family was there when Napoleon's troops invaded Moscow and burned the city. After Russia, Charles lived with his parents in England, where his father negotiated the Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812. The rest of Charles' childhood was spent in the States as his father was appointed secretary of State when he turned 10.

Charles eventually became an attorney, writer and anti-slavery advocate as a U.S. legislator. By the time he was appointed minister in 1861, his father, John Quincy Adams, America's sixth president and eighth secretary of State, was already dead.

But John Quincy's legacy played an important role in Charles' first official foreign posting, which he received through his association with William Henry Seward, a New York governor, prominent abolitionist politician and leader in the Whig and original Republican Party. Most importantly for Charles Adams, Seward, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 1860, considered Charles' father, John Quincy Adams, to be his personal hero.

When President Abraham Lincoln asked Seward to be his secretary of State, Seward sought advice from Charles Adams. Adams urged Seward to take the job and Seward, in return, asked Lincoln if he would name Charles Francis Adams his ambassador to England, then the most important U.S. diplomatic post. Lincoln preferred another man -- as he later made clear to Adams -- but acceded to Seward's request. When Adams visited Lincoln to thank him for his appointment, Lincoln responded: "Very kind of you to say so, Mr. Adams, but you are not my choice. You are Seward's man."

Nevertheless, Lincoln was fortunate that he chose Adams because his diplomacy was critical in helping maintain British neutrality during the American Civil War. Seward, considered by diplomatic historians to be America's second greatest secretary of State, after John Quincy Adams, was nevertheless rather brusque and heavy-handed in his dealings with foreign dignitaries. Charles Francis, on the other hand, was more patient and calm. According to Adams' biographer, Martin Duberman, Adams would tone down Seward's angry messages to the British during numerous occasions when it appeared that England was leaning toward recognition of the Confederacy. Duberman wrote that the "picture of moderation" Adams presented to the British helped keep peace with England during the early years of the war.

When Adams resigned in 1868, British newspapers lauded his service, and he was widely praised by British members of Parliament for his good judgment and discretion. None of Charles' children entered diplomacy, but his son, Brooks, became a prominent foreign policy theorist and an advocate for American imperialism.

William Henry Seward also spawned a diplomatic dynasty. When he served as secretary of State under Lincoln and Johnson, by his side was Frederick William Seward, his youngest son. Frederick, an attorney and editor of the Albany Evening Journal, was appointed his father's assistant secretary of State. It was the second-highest ranking position at State's headquarters in Washington at a time when it employed no more than 100 people. Frederick's wife, Anna, often served as her father-in-law's hostess at diplomatic receptions because Secretary of State Seward's wife Frances suffered from mental health problems and spent much of her time at their home in Auburn, N.Y. The junior Seward was a great admirer of his father and seemed to share his views on foreign policy, especially the idea that the United States should have an aggressive foreign policy and seek expansion abroad.

Frederick Seward's memoirs, Reminiscences of a War-Time Statesman and Diplomat, describe his father's term as secretary of State and his role as his father's right-hand man. Their first four years at State were filled with tension as the secretary was constantly putting out fires that could have jeopardized the Union war effort. Seward's main mission was to ensure that foreign governments would not aid the Confederacy and maintain confidence in Lincoln's ability to restore the union. The secretary of State performed masterfully, averting several crises that might have led to war with England.

During the war years, Frederick performed administrative duties for his father. He was responsible for conveying messages and briefs between his father and President Lincoln. He handled job requests and various overseas claims and served as a sort-of spokesman for the department. In his memoirs, he writes about handling news reporters' queries about foreign policy. It was not a particularly difficult task, according to Frederick, because his father ran the department ably. For example, Secretary Seward initiated publication of regular weekly briefings tracking military developments to ward off misinformation in overseas capitals about the war. The circular was sent to all U.S. ministers abroad.

At the end of the war, Secretary Seward was severely disabled in a carriage accident and Frederick became acting secretary of state for a short period. The timing was such that Frederick had the honor of writing the department's last circular announcing the Confederacy's surrender. Frederick also stood in for his father at Lincoln's last Cabinet meeting before his assassination. Frederick was living with his father in 1865 when, on the night that John Wilkes Booth killed Lincoln, Lewis Payne, a deranged Confederate soldier, entered the Seward residence pretending to be a messenger for the physician of the convalescing secretary of State.

Payne shot Frederick in the head as he tried to prevent the man from entering his father's bedroom and then brutally stabbed the elder Seward in the face and throat. The secretary of State's wife became so depressed caring for her husband and son in spring 1865, that she fell ill herself and died that summer. Fortunately, both father and son recovered fully and resumed their duties at State. And during Seward's last years as secretary, he accomplished the purchase of Alaska from the Russians for $7.2 million. The transaction, which added 586,000 square miles to U.S. territory, was ridiculed at the time and called everything from "Seward's Folly" and "Walrussia" to "Johnson's Polar Bear Garden," Frederick recalled in his memoirs. But subsequently, the Alaska purchase would be considered a diplomatic coup.

When William Henry Seward died in 1872, Frederick left the State Department, too, and spent eight years compiling his father's papers and memoirs. But President Rutherford Hayes' secretary of State, William Evarts, asked Frederick Seward to return to government service and take back his old job as assistant secretary. These weren't Frederick's most rewarding years. Having inherited his father's belief in America's "Manifest Destiny" abroad, he was at odds with a Congress opposed to such expansion. He worked on plans for the United States to acquire naval bases in the Pacific and the Caribbean, but these were all rejected.

The most recent diplomatic dynasty extends from the 1890s during the Harrison administration and continued to the 1950s and the Eisenhower administration. When John W. Foster became secretary of State in 1892, America's rapidly growing population and industrial output made the country a rising world power; there were many more influential Americans calling for the aggressive foreign policy that Seward had sought. Foster himself, an attorney, Indiana newspaper editor and Republican Party stalwart, favored American expansion abroad -- through trade and military bases -- but was not sold on the idea of territorial acquisition. However, one of his accomplishments during his two years as secretary of State was negotiating a treaty annexing Hawaii. Foster won his first diplomatic appointment after helping President Ullyses S. Grant secure Indiana's electoral votes in the 1872 election. He served as U.S. minister to Mexico, minister to Russia and minister to Spain.

While working as a diplomat, Foster established an international law practice in Washington. He was a pioneer in revolving-door government service, going back and forth from the State Department to a thriving legal career representing American companies with overseas interests and advising foreign governments. He also devoted much of his energies to international organizations and was a founder of the Carnegie Endowment and the American Red Cross. This is the legacy he passed down to his grandson, John Foster Dulles, one of America's most successful international lawyer-diplomats.

John Foster Dulles' parents, Edith Foster and the Rev. Allen Dulles, expected their son to become a Presbyterian minister like his father. But from an early age Foster, as he was called, was enamored with his grandfather's career. President Dwight Eisenhower, who appointed Dulles secretary of State, once remarked that Dulles had studied to be secretary of State since he was 5 years old. And it seems all the Dulles children were taken with their grandfather. Younger brother Allen headed the CIA under Eisenhower. Younger sister Eleanor became an international finance expert and began working for the State Department in the 1940s.

Their grandfather, in turn, was incredibly devoted to his grandchildren and their careers. The Dulles children spent many childhood summers at the family retreat on Lake Ontario, during which they were regaled with stories about their grandfather's overseas experiences. They also frequently visited their grandparents' home on I Street in Washington. There they were introduced to prominent American officials, missionaries and foreign emissaries. Foster paid his grandchildren's college tuitions, sponsored their trips abroad and spent his retirement years monitoring their careers and using his influence to secure them professional opportunities. John Foster Dulles was closest to his grandfather and patterned his career after John Foster's. When he was ready to attend law school, he chose The George Washington University so he could live with his grandfather. When Dulles graduated, Foster secured a job for him at the prestigious Wall Street firm of Sullivan and Cromwell. According to Dulles' biographer, Michael J. Devine, Dulles was bored by legal work but his grandfather encouraged him to stick with it, assuring him that he would eventually find the challenges he sought in government service.

Foster also assisted his son-in-law, Robert Lansing, husband of his daughter, Eleanor. Lansing, a small-town lawyer from upstate New York, got his start in international law and diplomacy under John Foster's tutelage. Foster saw that Lansing was appointed to Woodrow Wilson's State Department, which led to his elevation to secretary of State as the country considered involvement in World War I.

Secretary of State Lansing, Dulles' uncle, gave him his first official government assignment. He was sent as a spy to find out if various Latin American governments would support the United States in declaring war against Germany. When that assignment was over, he served as a lawyer for the War Trade Board, which led to his appointment as an adviser to the Versailles Peace Conference. Brother Allen, a young FSO, also was assigned to Versailles. When his conference work was complete, Dulles returned to New York, where he continued practicing international law.

Again, following in his grandfather's footsteps, Dulles enhanced his public profile through work in international peace organizations. And like his grandfather, who had served on the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, Dulles was attracted to religious organizations. In the 1940s, Dulles was head of the Federal Council of Churches' Commission to Study the Basis of a Just and Durable Peace. Dulles was reluctant to see the United States enter World War II and his group supported efforts for international cooperation. His position made him a public figure and led to his appointment to numerous government foreign policy positions, and like his grandfather, he was sought after as a negotiator. Dulles made his mark negotiating the Japanese peace treaties. In 1953, Eisenhower named him secretary of State.

The State Department was truly a family affair under Dulles. Dulles himself occupied the same office his grandfather once did in the State Department. And he was famous for interrupting State Department meetings with the phrase, "My grandfather would have something to say on that subject," according to Dulles biographer Ronald Pruessen. Meanwhile, Eleanor, an expert in international economics, worked for the agency in German affairs. Allen Dulles, head of the CIA, carried out counter-insurgency operations for his elder brother. The Dulleses had three children, but none of them embarked on a Foreign Service career. According to Pruessen, Dulles and his wife devoted so much of their energies to his career, that there was little effort to groom the children the way his parents and grandparents had groomed him.