The Foreign Service Journal, May 2005

76 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 0 5 emerging. Hiding out in a Florida safe house for several years did, how- ever, give Kolb the time and intro- spective leisure to pen these memoirs of his life so far. Readers interested in the world of espionage and covert statecraft will be most grateful despite a frustrating vagueness about dates and other details. Overworld is a page-turner extra- ordinaire, so it is no surprise that Hollywood producer Mark Canton has bought the film rights to the book. But don’t wait for the film. It could not possibly rivet your attention as much as Kolb’s own narrative. Bill Marjenhoff, an FSO since 1998, is currently a program analysis officer in the Office of Strategic and Perform- ance Planning. He is an avid reader of mysteries and espionage fiction and non-fiction. True or Farce? Florence of Arabia Christopher Buckley, Random House, 2004, $24.95, hardcover, 253 pages. R EVIEWED BY D AVID C ASAVIS We have all experienced periods when the paperwork is piled too high, the bureaucracy is too stifling, and it takes all our energy just to keep a bad situation from getting worse. At those times, and especially for those folks in the NEA Bureau, I suggest escaping to the world of Florence of Arabia. It’s a farce, but it works because it is (only just) believable. The characters, while broadly drawn, are readily identifiable. Flor- ence Farfeletti, an NEA desk officer, covers the kingdom of Wasabia (Saudi Arabia) and the emirate of Mutter (Qatar). Her colleague George Phish is a “desk-limpet” who has managed to stay in Washington his entire career except for one posting in Ottawa. And their boss Charles Duckett, an NEA deputy assistant secretary who peers at them “over his glasses with the custard pugnacity of a life bureaucrat,” only cares about securing his pending ambassadorship. Prompted by an unlikely incident, Florence — who has personal as well as professional reasons for disliking gender inequality in the region — comes up with an audacious proposal to foment female emancipation in the Middle East. She sends her scheme directly to the Secretary of State, cc’s Duckett and expects to be separated from the Foreign Service for her action. Instead, her proposal catches the covert eye of a shadowy figure with seemingly unlimited funding and influ- ence. But before agreeing to travel to Mutter to oversee the plan’s imple- mentation, Florence forces the opera- tive to jump through hoops so demanding that overworked officers will cheer her on. She eventually starts an Arabic-language television station targeted to women which, predictably, stirs up a hornets’ nest. And that’s only the beginning of the fantastical plot which, while always absorbing, some- times becomes quite convoluted. Fortunately, Christopher Buckley (son of commentator and novelist William F. Buckley) is blessed with his father’s ability to keep his cast of char- acters from spinning completely out of control. He also has a dry style and knack for understatement that work well. Buckley does diverge from the story to provide us with a spirited chase scene; after all, books in search of a movie deal, as this one assuredly is, need a good chase. But for a State Department reader, the image of a fed-up officer choking his DAS by the neck chain of his own badge is proba- bly action enough. A word of warning: This book is politically incorrect, sometimes to the point of viciousness. It depicts our Muslim allies as pompous, ignorant, greedy and arrogant, and splatters generous portions of egg on French faces. But Buckley does not spare his fellow Americans, either, whether in or outside the Foreign Service. At one point George, the stay-at-home officer, says to a K Street lobbyist: “Every time I think about going into the private sector, you open your mouth, and my drab, colorless exis- tence and niggardly paycheck sud- denly seem noble.” And, when Florence is captured and her people call for help, we get another classic: “What’s State doing? What they do best. Nothing. Just a few cables …” In short, this is a great book to curl up with after a difficult day or to take with you to the beach. Just be careful if you are going to read it around Washington; you might even want to remove the cover. Being seen with it might not be the most diplomatic move you could make. ■ David Casavis, a frequent contributor to the Journal , works for the Depart- ment of Homeland Security. B O O K S The image of a fed-up officer choking his DAS by the neck chain of his own badge may be a high point of the novel for some FS readers.