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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... officer , with the possibility ( but no promise ) of becoming a political officer in my second year . The assistant GSO supervised the embassy motor pool , our Soviet workmen and charwomen , our supply link with West Ger- many and ...
... officers ever became ambas- sadors , but I showed my fairly successful officer ending his career after being named ambassador to a small country at the age of fifty - two . A decade later , at fifty - two , I became ambassador to ...
... officer - level position in Mogadishu . The officer was to have duties that , I satisfied myself , others on our staff were already doing well . So I said No , and after a further exchange of messages it appeared that that was the end ...
Contents
Scholar Soldier Someday Diplomat | 7 |
From Foggy Bottom to the Isthmus | 13 |
The Moscow Hand | 26 |
Copyright | |
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