YET THEY NEVER HAD RICHARD HERTZ SPEAK TO US:

Zambian ambassador speaks at West Orange High School after calling student by accident (Halley Bondy, 4/22/10 The Star-Ledger)

WEST ORANGE -- Logan Svitzer was sitting in his U.S. history class here when his cell phone rang. He answered, but didn’t understand the person on the other end and hung up. He subsequently received a text message, which he ignored. Then the phone rang two more times.

Annoyed by the disruption, Svitzer’s teacher, Robbin Sweeney, grabbed the cell and called back the number. On the other end was a man saying he was Lazarous Kapambwe, the Zambian ambassador to the United Nations. Sweeney was certain it was a prank or a con.

But after 10 minutes on the phone, Sweeney became convinced Kapambwe was telling the truth. Kapambwe was urgently trying to get a hold of a fellow diplomat from Sierra Leone to discuss a proposed reform of the UN Security Council. But the phone number he had stored in his phone was one digit off.

"He was eloquent and apologetic, and he had a vast knowledge of Zambia," Sweeney said. "I made a deal with him. I said, ‘Since you’ve taken up so much of my class time, why don’t you come speak to my school?’"

That was in the fall. Today, Kapambwe went to the school to make amends. He spoke to about 300 students, encouraging them to consider careers in diplomacy.