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
Results 1-5 of 37
... began my second year of graduate work at Columbia , I could not abide the thought of spending more than two years in New York . The city was too big and noisy , even for a Chicagoan like me . My main sub- ject of study was Soviet ...
... began with B. My immediate bunk mates were Prince Bentley , Bob Branham , and Ellis Brown . Bentley and Brown were black Southerners , Branham and I white Mid- westerners . I had until now lived in a white world . I had had no black ...
... began ringing slowly , and another church began to answer , with a lighter bell . All was fresh and fascinating . I had no thought for now of being in the cloddish army , a private en route to an unknown battalion . I was abroad , for ...
... began . My boss , the first secretary , explained what I already knew , that there were normally three officers in our section but for now there were just the two of us . So what was I supposed to do ? Reporting and representation , the ...
... began commuting across a continent , perhaps the only member of the American Foreign Service ever to do so . The Panama Rail- road train left Panama City at 7 A.m. , four old coaches and a diesel locomo- tive , and after a pleasant ...
Contents
1 | |
7 | |
13 | |
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 |
bibliography | 223 |