The Foreign Service Journal, April 2003

I also think there may be link- ages to explore between my work and the interests of other AFSA retirees, including many with sig- nificant insights to share about the challenges of doing business in other countries. After all, a lot of very talented FSOs were pushed into retirement over the years even though they still have very valuable knowledge to share. So I would like to make it easier for executives to find such unique talent, and for my retired colleagues to apply their knowledge. Bruce Donnelly FSO, retired Fox River Grove, Ill. How Times Change My, how times change. Or per- haps, as the French saying goes, they don’t. While I was NATO Ambassador Harlan Cleveland’s executive officer in 1964 — before DeGaulle kicked NATO out of Paris — Amb. Cleveland decided to call his latest book about the American role in NATO Policeman to the World . The department demurred, saying this unrealistical- ly exaggerated the U.S. role in the world and was contrary to the Kennedy administration’s view of U.S. foreign policy. A different title was adopted. Four decades later, every talk- show host speaks of the United States as “policeman to the world,” and Kurt Shafer (Letters, January FSJ ) casually uses the phrase as a commonplace description of the U.S. foreign policy role in the world. On to another subject: My brief comment (Letters, November 2002 FSJ ) on some of the reasons for Muslim antagonism toward the West in general, and the U.S. in particular, was intended as no more than a review of major events since Israeli recognition in 1948. I only wish I had written William Harkell’s impressive tour de force (Letters, November 2002), reach- ing back to the Muslim conquest of formerly Christian North Africa and the Balkans. One must have served in Romania, which was under Turkish occupation for over three hundred years (with Islam knocking on the doors of Vienna twice during this period), or know a good deal more about French his- tory than the average American, to recognize the full force of Harkell’s argument. Indeed, I suspect few people, even among those who know how Islam was turned back at Poitiers, realize that the Moors conquered the High Alps as far as the borders of modern Switzerland — as evidenced by the village of Tour Saracen not far from Albertville. When one knows enough to appreciate the basis for the centuries-long contention over Lotharingia, between the other two remnants of Charlemagne’s medieval empire, one can perhaps under- stand the validity of Harkell’s, Robert Blau’s, Richard Miles’ and Shane Myers’ astute contributions to this ongoing search for under- standing of why Arafat has repeat- edly turned down accommodations which appear eminently acceptable to us. And one can better appreci- ate why Palestinian kids are willing to die for a cause that Europeans gave up fighting for after the Hundred Years War and the Treaty of Westphalia. David Timmins FSO, retired Salt Lake City, Utah Doug and “Wahwee” A couple of years ago, I started collecting anecdotes about the late Career Ambassador Douglas 8 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 0 3 L E T T E R S