The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2022 97 actually happened. While hunting in the forest, one of the Libyans had been car- rying his loaded rifle with the butt down, the barrel pointing up and the safety off. The rifle butt struck a rock and the rifle discharged, propelling a bullet upward through the jaw of the unfortu- nate Libyan and out the top of his head. He never had a chance. Mr. Neacsu had little sympathy for anyone who ignored the most basic rules of firearms safety. At some point during one of our conversations, I referred to the bear cubs’ future life at the Bucharest zoo. Mr. Neacsu appeared confused. The cubs would not be going to a zoo, he said. They would be bred with local bears to produce even bigger ursine targets for President Nicolae Ceausescu to shoot. During one of our conversations I referred to the bear cubs’ future life at the Bucharest zoo. Mr. Neacsu appeared confused. That was news to me—and to my Alaskan colleagues when I told them. Though they were unhappy, there was nothing they could do about it. I never learned how the misunderstanding, if that it was, had arisen. Trying to mollify the Alaskans, I told them it was not their bear cubs who would be at risk but their eventual offspring. My Alaskan friends maintained the zoo story at least in public; local press reports on the bears referred only to the zoo as their eventual destination. Lufthansa provided complimentary transport for the bear cubs as far as Germany, where the Romanians were to pick them up and take them the rest of the way on their national carrier, TAROM. I watched the Lufthansa flight leave Anchorage but never heard about the fate of the Alaskan brown bear cubs. I hope in this case, no news is good news. n