Wife’s Photos Pose Problems for Swiss Ambassador in Berlin

A diplomat’s spouse can be a vital asset. But the Swiss ambassador to Germany has lately discovered that the value of the American beauty queen he married two years ago is as volatile as a dot-com stock in a bear market.

Thomas Borer barely escaped formal recall to Bern ahead of Friday’s gala opening of the newly renovated Swiss Embassy here after his wife, Shawne Fielding, was featured in a provocative photo spread in the latest issue of the German magazine Max.

The Swiss government expressed shock and embarrassment over Fielding’s suggestive poses and use of embassy backdrops in the photo session. The six-page spread on “The Cowgirl from the Alps” includes a shot of her atop the new embassy in a platinum wig and red miniskirt matching the Swiss flag visible over her shoulder. Another features her in a strapless evening gown on horseback at the embassy entrance; she wears American flag motifs as skimpy clothing in two other pictures.

Borer was called on the carpet in the Swiss capital this week and warned by Foreign Minister Joseph Deiss that he and his splashy spouse, who at 31 is a dozen years his junior, “must make a clear distinction between private and public activities.”

Fielding, who has off and on pursued a career as an actress and model since her 1995 reign as Mrs. Texas America, had earlier defended her decolletage poses as “neither inappropriate nor unusual” for her line of work.

Noting that she is not an employee of the Swiss government, the outspoken Fielding also dismissed the pique stirred up by Switzerland’s more conservative media as overreaction in a society that has yet to learn to have fun.

But as flocks of affronted countrymen appealed for Borer’s recall or transfer last week, Fielding struck a more contrite pose, sending a note of apology to Deiss for the “confusion and misjudgment” involved in her decision to be photographed for the gossipy publication.

She also offered to skip Friday’s embassy inaugural reception and other events this weekend to avoid drawing further media attention from the elegant state affairs.

Deiss accepted her apology and cautioned the couple to be more discriminating in their behavior. Told to accompany her husband to the celebrations that are expected to draw 7,000 people this weekend to the refurbished embassy, Fielding showed up at the first reception in a backless red silk sundress and cocked, wide-brimmed straw hat, smiling for the horde of photographers that swarmed the event.

Fielding has drawled to friends that she finds the reconstructed embassy “soooo ugly,” an opinion likely unwelcome in Bern but shared by many here. A modern pink granite wing has been grafted onto the original 19th century building, which was damaged during World War II bombing. The embassy stands on territory the Swiss government has owned since 1920 and is jarringly incongruous among new German government buildings nearby.

During a tour of the embassy before opening ceremonies, Borer defended his wife, saying she “loves Switzerland, loves this building and is glad to realize her obligations.”

Fielding didn’t pick up what she calls her private “pink line” despite repeated calls Friday, although her husband answered it while home for lunch and said she probably would not return calls.

“My wife is very busy today,” Borer said. “She has 400 guests coming in a few hours and has other things to do.”

But he said Fielding has received hundreds of letters and e-mails from Swiss supporting her career aspirations and the more easygoing image she has created.

The Swiss daily Blick last week carried letters and commentaries condemning Fielding’s behavior, but most of the mail received since Deiss’ scolding has praised the couple for, as one letter noted, bolting from the pack of “gray, prudish politicians.”

“She is the most irresistible Swiss export since the discovery of chocolate,” declared Swiss magazine Schweizer Illustrierte.

Fielding, who played a minor role in “Dr. T and the Women,” a film last year starring Richard Gere as a gynecologist trying to keep all the women in his life happy, has run afoul before of the Swiss reserve. She was photographed on the Berlin party circuit last year nuzzling celebrities, prompting the affable Borer to brush aside suggestions that she was misbehaving by saying she only did that with gay men. The comment stirred angry reaction from at least one heterosexual who had drawn Fielding’s attention.

With the jury of public opinion still deliberating on the couple’s conduct, Switzerland’s most controversial diplomatic duo appears to be on probation. It’s clear that Bern authorities expect the Alpine Cowgirl to rein herself in.

Said Yves Morath, an official with the Swiss government’s promotional bureau: “An ambassador’s wife in the pose of Pamela Anderson is on the limit even in swinging Berlin.”