The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2023

AFSA NEWS 66 JULY-AUGUST 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Book Notes The Secret Gate with Mitchell Zuckoff On May 3, AFSA was pleased to host author Mitchell Zuck- off for a virtual discussion of his newly released book, The Secret Gate: A True Story of Courage and Sacrifice During the Collapse of Afghanistan (Random House, 2023). The book examines the final days of the U.S. evacua- tion from Kabul through the experiences of U.S. Foreign Service Officer Sam Aronson, who volunteered to join the skeleton team at Kabul Inter- national Airport in August 2021, and Homeira Qaderi, an Afghan woman who sought his help to flee the Taliban. Hosted by AFSA President Eric Rubin and moderated by Ambassador (ret.) P. Michael McKinley, who served as ambassador to Afghani- stan from 2014 to 2016, the conversation began with commentary on the book’s focus: the hands-on work of the Foreign Service. “Few narratives give a real flavor for what the Foreign Service does, especially when we’re overseas and working in extreme circumstances,” Amb. McKinley pointed out. “Your book brings to life the challenges of FSOs respond- ing in crisis. It’s often not a question of bureaucracy, but of an urgent human response to the crisis underway.” Zuckoff responded that he favors featuring the individu- als who create history: “As a narrative writer, I believe a policy book would not hit you in the gut because you can’t attach to it quite so much.” “Any person who cares about humanity was tuned in during August of 2021 to what was happening in Kabul,” Zuckoff said, “and fearful that the Taliban’s return meant death or disas- ter for tens of thousands of people. I really appreciated something that [Senior Foreign Service Officer] Jim DeHart told me. He talked about how the outpouring of people who were trying to help others get out was the product of 20 years of rela- tionships between Americans and Afghans.” That rapport, he con- tinued, was a result of the work of U.S. diplomats and servicemembers. Zuckoff also discussed his method for describing distant settings realistically, his rigorous fact-checking process, and his commit- ment to earnestly untangling the motivations of the real people he writes about—par- ticularly Aronson, who bends U.S. protocol in his efforts to assist Qadari and a dozen other families who were not autho- rized to enter the airport. “Very few people, I’m going to guess, join the State Department to get rich,” Zuckoff noted. “These are mission-driven people who are determined to do what’s right wherever they can. Those people also often find themselves frustrated by larger systems, bureaucracies, forces beyond their control. The people in Washington dictating these shifting rules—they weren’t trying to be difficult for the people on the ground. They were trying to do the best they could to fill planes quickly and efficiently with a priority list [of evacuees]. “So how do we reconcile that on the ground? I start from a place of believing that these are people of goodwill trying to do what’s right. When I come across actions that deviate from that, it helps me ask, what could have been his or her motive? Certainly, people who were on the ground in Kabul had this mission-centric approach and if they deviated from it, there may have been a good reason. I need to respect that, honor that, and reflect that in my work.” Mitchell Zuckoff is a pro- fessor of journalism at Bos- ton University and the author of eight previous works of nonfiction, including the New York Times bestseller, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi , which became the basis of the Paramount Pictures movie of the same name. As a member of the Boston Globe ’s Spotlight team, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting and is the recipient of numerous other writing awards. AFSA members can view the entire book talk at https://afsa.org/video. n Author Mitchell Zuckoff. C/OMITCHELLZUCKOFF These are mission-driven people who are determined to do what’s right wherever they can. —Mitchell Zuckoff