The Foreign Service Journal, October 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2019 33 policy during the first half of the 1970s—essential reading for anyone hoping to understand today’s global challenges. Winston Lord served in the U.S. Foreign Service and the Defense Department early in his career before serving as Henry Kissinger’s special assistant at the National Security Council during the Nixon administration. He later directed the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, served as ambassador to China and as assistant secretary for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. He is currently chairman emeritus of the International Rescue Committee. MEMOIRS Active Diplomacy to Achieve US Objectives 1960-1991, in Central America, Washington, Panama, and Argentina John A. Bushnell, XlibrisUS, 2018, $26.99/paperback, 720 pages. In this book, John A. Bushnell recounts more than 30 years as a Foreign Service officer with a focus on South and Central America. Joining the Foreign Service in 1959, he served early on as an economic officer in Bogotá, Santo Domingo and San José. By 1977 he had risen through the ranks to deputy assistant secretary for inter-American affairs, and later to deputy chief of mission in Buenos Aires. In 1989, he was named chargé d’affaires in Panama, ahead of the U.S. invasion of Panama to restore the democratically elected government of Guillermo Endara and arrest dictator Manuel Noriega. He received a Presidential Meritorious Service Award from President George H.W. Bush in 1991. “The culmination of my career was the use of the various skills I had acquired over 30 years in the management of the situation in Panama during the tricky period before the attack, [during] the attack, and getting the new government going thereafter,” Bushnell says of this experience. “In particular I am proud of getting the embassy relationships with our military right in this sensitive situation where the deficiencies in the civil-military relationships had been a problem for a long time.” Bushnell’s work to make the Kennedy Alliance for Progress more effective and his efforts to support Argentina’s return to democracy are also covered. The book is based on the author’s oral history as recorded by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal William J. Burns, Random House, 2019, $32/hardcover, 512 pages. Revered in the Foreign Service com- munity, Ambassador William J. Burns has written a powerful book that shows us why. “Far more than a memoir of Burns’ activities and experiences over- seas and in Washington,” as Ambassador Bob Beecroft notes in his review in the September FSJ , “it is also a powerful and timely advocacy piece for committed and informed diplomatic action in support of American interests and principles around the world.” In this book, Burns treats the reader to evocative, penetrat- ing portraits of diplomatic counterparts and adversaries, from James Baker and Richard Murphy to Muammar Gaddafi and Vladimir Putin; and he traces the ups and downs of U.S. foreign relations through the Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama administrations. In addition, the back of the book features a fascinating col- lection of recently declassified cables and memos written by Ambassador Burns on the critical issues of the day. Burns’ remarkable career from 1981 to 2014 includes his years as Deputy Secretary of State, under secretary for political affairs, executive secretary of the department, ambassador to Russia and Jordan, acting director of policy planning, and NSC senior director for Near East and South Asia. He holds the high- est rank in the Foreign Service as a career ambassador. He and his wife, former FSO Lisa McCarty, have two daughters.