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. |
From inside the book
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... told my Arab colleagues : the Ethiopians seemed to be grouping for further , more massive attacks , and Somalia needed new help from its friends . From what he had just told us , so far at least , the attacks had not been massive . I ...
... told Adan that I wanted to be kept informed . I reported all this to the State Department , as I had done after my earlier discussion with Siad Barre . Each time I was told in reply that the Department agreed I had done right . I was ...
... told the State Department that if the ambassador did not back down , the secretary of defense would take the matter straight to the president . Perhaps it was only a threat , but State had told Ambassador Sherer that it would not ...
Contents
Scholar Soldier Someday Diplomat | 7 |
From Foggy Bottom to the Isthmus | 13 |
The Moscow Hand | 26 |
Copyright | |
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