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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... police forces ( the Polizia Na- zionale and the Carabinieri ) , obviously were incapable of finding and res- cuing our man . I said that there were six or eight police forces in the District of Columbia , the last time I had counted ...
... Police . In contrast to the hated National Security Service , or NSS , which was the Somali equivalent of the Soviet KGB , the national police continued to enjoy a generally good reputation throughout the country . Several of its top ...
... police had talked to an American pilot who had landed in Bosaso on a charter flight ; the pilot would be happy to fly us east as far as Alula . We suspected that the police had leaned on the pilot , who turned out to be a pleasant ...
Contents
Scholar Soldier Someday Diplomat | 7 |
From Foggy Bottom to the Isthmus | 13 |
The Moscow Hand | 26 |
Copyright | |
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