The Foreign Service Journal, November 2006

Foreign Service, where he became the first black officer to ascend to the top position of director gen- eral. Sent by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 to help dismantle apartheid without violence, Amb. Perkins was the first black U.S. ambassador to South Africa. His presence as a strong, articulate, unflappable black man gave hope to South Africans of color, and his advice to President-elect George H.W. Bush helped modify American policy and hasten the release of Nelson Mandela and others from prison. Amb. Perkins’ three-year experience in the land of apartheid is a high point of the book. Now retired, Amb. Perkins is the William J. Crowe Professor of Geopolitics and executive director of the International Programs Center at the University of Oklahoma. At the Dawn of the New China: An American Diplomat’s Eyewitness Account Richard L. Williams, EastBridge, 2005, $24.95, paperback, 196 pages. “Only rarely do diplomats write insightful books about the societies to which they are posted. Even more infre- quently is there a convergence between momentous events and an insightful observer. In At the Dawn of the New China , Richard L. Williams writes insightful- ly of historic events,” says David M. Lampton, director of China Studies and dean of the faculty of Johns Hopkins-SAIS. Sent to Canton in 1979 as full diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China were estab- lished, Ambassador Williams was the first American consul general in mainland China in 30 years. His Chinese wife, Jane, saw her family for the first time since her departure in 1950. Williams combines the personal and professional sides of this historic assign- ment in a very interesting and informative book. Richard C. Holbrooke, who as assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs was intimate- ly involved in opening diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, provides a foreword. In a more-than-30-year career in the Foreign Service, Richard Williams served as the first U.S. ambassador to Mongolia, as consul general in Hong Kong and director of Chinese affairs at the State Department during the Tiananmen crisis, in addi- tion to opening the first American consulate in the PRC. It’s A Jungle Out There! Memoir of a Spook Rafael Fermoselle, Trafford Publishing, 2006, $24.50, paperback, 344 pages. “Straight Talk about Infor- mation Superiority” is the sub- title of this passionate memoir. The author believes that the events of 9/11 could have been prevented; and that they could happen again if lessons are not learned from the intelligence failures of the late 1970s and 1980s, failures he traces to the series of actions Congress took beginning in 1976 to “rein in” the intelligence community. The book is unabashedly personal. Based on his own experience working, among other places, with the FBI, the author makes an appeal for an understanding of the critical importance of both human and signal intelli- gence. He explains the process of becoming a spy and how intelligence agents work. Retired FSO Rafael Fermoselle was born in Havana and paroled into the United States as a polit- ical refugee in 1962 at the age of 16. He graduated with a Ph.D. from American University in 1972. Since 2002, he has worked as a contractor for the Department of Defense. War Whispers in the Wind Joann LaMorder Hickson, 2005, paperback, 28 pages. War Whispers in the Wind is a heartfelt and wistful mem- oir of Joann LaMorder Hick- son’s life overseas as a Foreign Service spouse and mother of three sons. Written in the form of short and simple vign- ettes, this book uses colorful language, metaphorical descriptions and dreamlike illustrations to remind readers of the beautiful yet transitory nature of the Foreign Service life. Despite the childlike narrative form, the author introduces the realities of political strife through the pervading refrain, “war whispers in the wind.” Anyone who has experienced any of the 70 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 6