Safirka: An American EnvoyKent State University Press, 2000 - 241 pages Peter S. Bridges's service as an American ambassador to Somalia capped his three decades as a career officer in the American Foreign Service. Safirka, a frank description of his experiences in Somalia and elsewhere, offers pointed assessments of American foreign policy and policymakers. Bridges recounts his service in Panama during a time of turmoil over the Canal; in Moscow during the Cuban missile crisis; in Prague for bleak years after the Soviet invasion; in Rome when Italian terrorists first began to target Americans; and in key positions in three Washington agencies. In Somalia Bridges managed the largest American aid program in sub-Sahara Africa. He dealt with a postcolonial regime, hobbled both by traditional clan rivalries and by a leader who cared far less about Somalia's people and progress than about maintaining his control over that poverty-stricken, strategic - which soon erupted in civil war. |
From inside the book
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... South Africa's apartheid re- gime , which we too opposed but which we imagined we could pressure into reform . Our successes were rare . Almost no one sided with us in votes on Israel , except Israel . In the case of South Africa , the ...
... South Africa's apartheid regime , in late 1984 the South African press revealed ( after what looked like a deliberate leak from Pretoria ) that South Africa's foreign minister , Pik Botha , had visited Somalia and met with Siad Barre ...
... South Africa . President Reagan had just signed an exec- utive order tightening up American sanctions against South Africa . This had been done principally to fight off bills introduced in Congress that would have carried sanctions much ...
Contents
Scholar Soldier Someday Diplomat | 7 |
From Foggy Bottom to the Isthmus | 13 |
The Moscow Hand | 26 |
Copyright | |
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