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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... perhaps Siad decided for him , that the major animal exporters , centered at Berbera in the north , were enemies of the regime . Perhaps it was so ; many or most of them were Isaqs . In any case , they had been enjoying a tax - free ...
... Perhaps a few had returned to live in the grasslands ; most had probably ended up in the capital . The fact was that most Somali nomads despised fish and fishermen and had no liking for farming . I supposed , I said to Ingram , that we ...
... perhaps we could also have some fun . Some might not call it that . The fun would be to make our way , by whatever means we could find , all the way out to Cape Guardafui and stand at the very tip of the Horn of Africa , as perhaps no ...
Contents
Scholar Soldier Someday Diplomat | 7 |
From Foggy Bottom to the Isthmus | 13 |
The Moscow Hand | 26 |
Copyright | |
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