In his Letter in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, Peter Chaveas identifies himself as a foreign service  officer [including a couple of ambassadorships]…in Africa and Western Europe between 1970 and 2004. With that credential, he argued in favor of the Biden State Department’s permission for American embassies and consulates to fly BLM and gay-pride flags.

It would be hard for Mr Chaveas to be more wrong.

American embassies and consulates are there to represent America and American interests. The American flag, our stars and stripes, is the symbol of our nation, and it is the only flag appropriately flown at those facilities.

All other flags represent only our individual States and a variety of ideologies espoused by a variety of groups of Americans; they do not represent our nation as a whole. Those other symbols have no place at our embassies and consulates.

Chaveas is correct to point out our capacity for openly acknowledging our failures and shortcomings as well as our efforts to address them. No American was more admired than Martin Luther King Jr. Chaveas neglected to mention, though, that no BLM or gay-pride flag—or any other flag—was necessary “between 1970 and 2004” for embassy/consulate staff to teach that or for the citizens of the host nations to understand that.

Nor are they necessary now.