The Foreign Service Journal, November 2003

account of a family’s experience there, Pegge Hlavacek is careful to state in her introduction. Still, while this unusual family’s experience in Bombay and New Delhi in the 1950s is enjoyable as a personal story, it also con- tains much rich detail on India and things Indian during that country’s first two decades as an independent nation. The author traveled widely in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), and met luminaries such as Prime Minister Nehru and his daughter Indira. The Hlavaceks also had a unique relationship with Tenzing Norgay, the conqueror of Mount Everest, and his fami- ly that is recorded in the book. The narrative is written in a breezy, chatty, very personable style, which carries the reader along happily. An adventurous newspaper reporter before she became a vice consul, the author wrote the book in 1960; four decades later her husband discovered the unpublished manuscript in a box in the attic of their home in Omaha, Neb. Some Far and Distant Place Jonathan S. Addleton, University of Georgia Press, 2002, $19.95, paperback, 232 pages. Released for the first time in paperback, this memoir by USAID Mission to Mongolia Director Jonathan Addleton offers a unique perspective on the Muslim- Christian interaction that has come to center stage in today’s world. Born in Muree, a small hill station in Pakistan over- looking Kashmir, of Baptist missionary parents from rural Georgia, the author grew up at the intersection of different religions, races, classes and cultures. His vivid portrayal of his experiences coming of age in the 1960s in a faraway land provide many insights into the wonder of a child’s world, into both Christianity and Islam, and into the broader cultural ethos of Pakistan as well. “Splendid reminiscences. … His memories project a deeply moving warmth and kindness,” says Library Journal . A Foreign Service officer for nearly two decades, Addleton has served in Pakistan, Yemen, Jordan, South Africa and Kazakhstan. His “Reflections on the Church Attack in Islamabad” appeared in the Foreign Service Journal last November. Tales of an American Culture Vulture Bill McGuire, iUniverse, Inc., 2003, $16.95, paperback, 240 pages. Much has been written about relations between the governments of the United States and the former Soviet Union. But what about peo- ple-to-people contact between the two countries during the Cold War? How were young, Russian-speaking Americans treated in the Soviet Union? Why did Soviet citizens stand for hours in the cold, rain and snow to visit American cultural exhibitions? What happened when a Soviet delegation met with the John Birch Society in Iowa? What caused the Voice of America to stop hiring Russian-speaking Americans and replace them with recent Soviet emigrés? Author Bill McGuire’s narrative is based on his experiences in the USSR and in the U.S. McGuire, a native of Pennsylvania, studied Russian at Georgetown University. He worked on three USIA- sponsored exhibits in the Soviet Union and toured both the U.S. and USSR with high-level American and Soviet dele- gations. He spent 17 years as a writer, announcer and pro- ducer in the Russian Service of the Voice of America, and for the next 10 years was a program development officer at USIA’s Office of Teleconferencing. Creative Recollection of a Foreign Service Life Mary Cameron Kilgour, 2003, $10.00, paperback, 62 pages. This volume is a compilation of previously published short stories and reflections by retired USAID officer Mary Cameron Kilgour. The nine finely wrought pieces convey the humor, irony, injustice and fortitude in charac- ters and situations the author encountered in the Philippines, Pakistan, Latin America and Bangladesh dur- ing a long career in USAID and, before that, as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Regular readers of the FSJ will recognize several of the pieces, as five were first published here. One appeared in AFSA’s recent Inside a U.S. Embassy , and the remaining three were published in literary journals. Kilgour retired from USAID after serving 19 years in six developing countries and 10 years in Washington. She taught part-time at Georgetown University and the University of Florida, consulted and then took up cre- F O C U S 24 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 3