So, what accounts for this competent drafting?
Did State start passing out the Elements of Style, which once upon a time was a routine handout for new college students? That would be good.
Better yet, it could stock all offices and annexes with collections of Hemingway novels! Now there was some good plain writing.
"You must face the white bull that is a screen with no text on it" were his exact words of advice to writers, I think I recall from one or another of his stories.
All you have to do is write one real bullet point. Make your action memo a clean, well-lighted place. Write the truest Ambassador Briefing Checklist you know.
That's some good stuff, even if we no longer drink grappa all day long and write with pencils in little French notebooks.