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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... authorities had been pleased to see our senators ; they pulled out all the stops for Mr. Rogers . The foreign minister hosted a pleas- ant , informal dinner for the secretary in a restaurant in the Old Town . After- ward our ambassador ...
... authorities had been talking about the need to convince refugees to settle on the coast and become fishermen . I had , how- ever , looked into what had happened after the previous drought , in 1974–75 , when many Somali nomads had been ...
... authorities were exagger- ating the number of refugees in the country , after seeing Bixin Duul I would think twice before recommending that the international community cut back on food deliveries . But Bixin Duul was not the worst ...
Contents
Scholar Soldier Someday Diplomat | 7 |
From Foggy Bottom to the Isthmus | 13 |
The Moscow Hand | 26 |
Copyright | |
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