Robert F. Godec
Quick Facts
Biography
Robert Frank Godec (born 1956) is an American career diplomat. He is a Career Minister in the Senior Foreign Service and from 2012 to 2019 served as the United States Ambassador to Kenya. From 2006 to 2009 he was the United States Ambassador to Tunisia.
Wikileaks
In December 2010 a number of classified diplomatic cables written by Godec from Tunisia in 2008 and 2009 were released by WikiLeaks and published by Al Akhbar in Beirut. Many of them were highly critical of the public and personal life of the Tunisian president, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, and his family. Godec mentioned high-level corruption, a "sclerotic" regime, and deep dislike or even hatred for the president's wife, Leila Trabelsi, and her family. There were later suggestions in the press that his comments could have fuelled the Tunisian Revolution, which began in December 2010 and led to the flight of Ben Ali to Saudi Arabia in January 2011.