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. |
Contents
1 | |
7 | |
From Foggy Bottom to the Isthmus | 13 |
The Moscow Hand | 26 |
Rome and Prague | 40 |
Long Years at Home | 49 |
The Way to Africa | 57 |
Big Embassy Poor Country | 69 |
From Siad to Canal Street | 128 |
Anxieties Artifacts and Bases | 149 |
Disasters and Arcadias | 167 |
To the Horn and Home Again | 183 |
Departure Return Destruction | 199 |
What Comes Next? | 210 |
Somalia through the Ages | 217 |
223 | |