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
Results 1-3 of 31
... dollars for additional foreign aid . It was decided to spend most of this on Italy's former colonies . About a billion dollars was allocated for projects in Soma- lia . Other Italian parties got involved . The Radicals were outside the ...
... dollars and to be ready in 1985. Samantar and I finally held a groundbreaking ceremony in 1986 , with some expectation the project might be completed in 1987 at a cost of six million dollars . I did not care about providing the defense ...
... dollars had now become sixty million — and much of this sum had nothing whatever to do with drought . The Ministry of Health , for example , wanted millions of dollars for cholera vaccine and rehydration equipment for cholera victims ...
Contents
Scholar Soldier Someday Diplomat | 7 |
From Foggy Bottom to the Isthmus | 13 |
The Moscow Hand | 26 |
Copyright | |
13 other sections not shown