Telegram never dies?

For most of us, telegram is history. Yet heads of state still send ceremonial notes by telegram to each other.

But do diplomats use telegrams (or cables) as well? In my days of working in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in the early 90s, reading inches of cables (all caps, in Courier font, all printed out) seemed to be the most important part of my daily work. But according to Do Diplomats Still Use Telegrams? (Brendan Koerner, Slate, 5/11/04), overseas employees of the US State Department now send 66 million official e-mails annually, and just 1 million cables. The department is even planning to phase out cables altogether by end-2006.

Goodbye cables.