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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... Washington . Bob Oakley was our ambas- sador to Somalia ; he was in Washington , I knew , for a few days ' consultation . We had agreed by cable that on his way eastward back to Mogadishu he would stop in Rome for lunch with people from ...
... Washington.9 In September 1964 I began working as a midlevel Soviet expert in the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in Washington . This agency was separate from the State Department , though housed in the same build- ing ...
... Washington , D.C. Books and Articles Abdalla , Raqiya Haji Dualeh . Sisters in Affliction . London : Zed Press , 1982 . Achtner , Wolfgang . " The Italian Connection : How Rome Helped Ruin Somalia . " Washington Post , January 24 , 1993 ...
Contents
Scholar Soldier Someday Diplomat | 7 |
From Foggy Bottom to the Isthmus | 13 |
The Moscow Hand | 26 |
Copyright | |
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