The Foreign Service Journal, November 2005

Author and former FSO James Campbell — who served two tours of duty in Vietnam from 1965 to 1967, first as psychological-warfare adviser to the American military and then as director of 15 indigenous teams propagandizing via entertainment — does not claim to challenge other historians’ conclusions or present new facts. Instead, he zeros in on the fundamentals that, in his view, drove the events in wartime Vietnam to their fateful conclusion, such as South Vietnam’s basic vul- nerabilities in the areas of security, leadership effec- tiveness, motivation and commitment and diversity of population. Campbell combines hard facts with per- sonal anecdotes and insights in a spare narrative that is highly readable. After military service in World War II, Campbell completed his education, taught at the University of Geneva and worked on various assignments for the Department of Defense. He joined the State Department in 1956, and during the next 12 years was posted with USIA in France, Ecuador, Vietnam, Spain and Washington, D.C. After leaving the Foreign Service, he taught international relations at the University of Maryland and Southern Methodist University. Now retired, he divides his time between California and Spain. Anthology of Arabic Literature, Culture and Thought Dr. Bassam K. Frangieh, Yale University Press, 2004, $60.00, hardcover, 600 pages with slipcase and DVD. This comprehensive reader of Arabic literature from pre-Islamic times to the present is the first of its kind created for advanced students of Arabic. Selections from 70 different authors, the best of the various schools and disciplines including poetry, religious texts, grammar and linguistics, literary criticism, belles-let- tres, religious thought and philosophy, novel and drama make this a truly comprehensive collection. Each selection is followed by a vocabulary list, a list of idioms and notes, and a set of questions about the text. The F O C U S N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 29