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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... Soon afterward , the question arose of renewing the principal American aid program in Poland , credit guarantees for Polish purchase of American grain , which amounted to a third of a billion dollars annually . I was told that the ...
... soon as possible I met with Jim Bishop , a thin , dour Africanist who was the deputy assistant secretary responsible for Somalia , among other countries , in AF , the Department's Bureau of African Affairs . ( There were roughly fifty ...
... Soon after the First World War , the Italians realized that this shallow bay , which had a long , low beach along the mainland side , was a perfect place for a large salt works . In 1922 a Milan company began construction . In 1922 the ...
Contents
Scholar Soldier Someday Diplomat | 7 |
From Foggy Bottom to the Isthmus | 13 |
The Moscow Hand | 26 |
Copyright | |
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