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. |
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... forces in the District of Columbia , the last time I had counted , and that the Italians had much more antiterrorism experience than we did . Still , a month after General Dozier was kidnapped , the embassy agreed to have a small Delta ...
... Force Base . There a little T - 39 jet was waiting to fly David Newton , who was going out to head our embassy in Baghdad , and me down to MacDill Air Force Base near Tampa . This was the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command , or ...
... force , UNOSOM II , to pro- vide security in Somalia and promote political rebirth . Increasing American casualties ... forces . The UN Security Council decides that all UNOSOM II forces will be withdrawn by March 1995 . Mohamed Siad ...
Contents
Scholar Soldier Someday Diplomat | 7 |
From Foggy Bottom to the Isthmus | 13 |
The Moscow Hand | 26 |
Copyright | |
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