The Foreign Service Journal, September 2008

David had little time for “career- ists.” For instance, he had an impish way of dealing with subordinates who approached him, hoping to alter his always precise prose in their efficien- cy reports. He would cheerfully agree, only to add something equally critical, or worse. In the end, the hap- less supplicant would abandon his effort, often requesting the original version from the bemused Newsom. He had many occasions to both laugh and suffer during his rich career. The laughter resulted from David’s inveterate punditry and his wry, ironic, self-deprecating sense of humor — often on full display in staff meetings and at the family dinner table. Secretary of State Edmund Muskie said Newsom was the only Californian he knew with the sense of humor of a down-Easterner from Maine. David liked nothing better than getting to know the real character of his country of assignment. He often said he found it more meaningful to sip tea in a Bedouin tent than to swell about in the salons of the capital. I remember one mirthful incident on a two-week Saharan expedition he led. At one stop, we had trouble getting the Libyan guard to allow us to enter the Esso oil-drilling compound, where the American ambassador was expected. The guard took one look at the unshaven and burnoos-clad Newsom and said in Arabic: “If that is the American ambassador, then I am King Idris.” David got a kick out of telling that story over the years. His memoirs — Witness to a Changing World , completed in January 2008 at age 90, just prior to his death — are a terrific read. Both personal and serious, the book is a great admixture of sage observations and amusing anecdotes, including astute personal observations on many world figures. It also includes many delicious sketches illustrating New- som’s superb comic sense. There is, for instance, one account, in Ethiopia, of passing a ferocious lion tethered to a chain on the palace staircase, only to find the waiting Emperor Haile Selassie accompanied by two tiny Chihuahuas. And there is Libyan King Idris’ explanation of the origin of the myth about the Arab host giving the hon- ored foreign guest the sheep’s eye to eat. The actual practice of showing the eye to convince a guest that the sheep had been recently killed was apparently misunderstood by a British envoy — who ate the eyeball, to the astonishment of his host! In the Eye of the Storm David seemed fated to be in the “eye of the storm,” as a 1980 New Yorker series described him. Dealing with Lieutenant Qadhafi’s totally unex- pected coup in Libya and, later, with the Iranian Revolution and the gruel- ing hostage crisis, as well as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, brought out three of his most sterling qualities: competence, courage and discipline. Competence was his hallmark throughout his career, inspiring his superiors to give him enormous lati- tude. As the young head of Arabian peninsular affairs, he negotiated con- tinued access to the Dhahran Airbase in Saudi Arabia and established diplo- matic relations with Yemen. As head of North African affairs, he was given a virtual free hand by his admirer and boss, Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Mennen “Soapy” Williams, to 64 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 8 David D. Newsom.