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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... things , but our analysis was that the clipboards mainly served as symbols of authority . One day , when our company was to build a bridge , our noncom friend issued a clipboard to each of the three of us . And it worked ! Suddenly we ...
... things to be done about the situation . The first I hoped had been accomplished in my cable prohibiting further staff increases ; morale would certainly tend to go down if the place was overstaffed better to be lean and busy . But the ...
... things right for Somalia . Perhaps , someday , they can at least help to do so . But by the time I returned briefly to Mogadishu in 1988 , things were turning more and more wrong . Two well - known scholars in America had already warned ...
Contents
Scholar Soldier Someday Diplomat | 7 |
From Foggy Bottom to the Isthmus | 13 |
The Moscow Hand | 26 |
Copyright | |
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