The Foreign Service Journal, November 2008

is his discussion of the decline of U.S. governmental support for expertise in the language, culture and his- tory of specific regions, a problem revealed by the shortage of Arabic-speaking diplomats today. During his 26-year diplomatic career, Robert Ober specialized in communist affairs, and negotiated with the Russians in Kabul and Prague. He also served in Athens, Delhi, Hamburg, Warsaw and Washington, D.C., and was a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Before retiring, he was president of the International College in Beirut. Abroad for Her Country: Tales of a Pioneer Woman Ambassador in the U.S. Foreign Service Jean M. Wilkowski, Notre Dame Press, 2008, $30.00, hardcover, 400 pages. In 1972 Jean Wilkowski got a call from Washington asking if she’d like to go to Zambia — as ambassador. In this memoir, she takes readers through her pioneering, 35-year career in the Foreign Service and her exceptional rise from a young graduate of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College (when few women were seeking professional careers) to vice consul, to the first female U.S. ambassador to Africa and the first female ambassador to Latin America. At age 20 she was sent to Trinidad during World War II, when the State Department took even “4-Fs and women.” For many years she specialized in U.S trade and investment interests in Paris, Milan, Rome, Santiago and Geneva. Wilkowski served during a rev- olution in Bogota, attacks on the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa, and the war between El Salvador and Honduras. In 1977 she went to work for the United Nations and retired in 1980. Wilkowski recalls memorable visits from Louis Armstrong and his band in Milan, where she never saw an audience “more gone mad,” the local street riots during the revolution in Bogota, and her deci- sion not to marry a dashing young Marine and leave the Foreign Service. Her professional insights into each post, combined with her frank personal reflec- tions on being a female diplomat, make for an engag- ing and important read. Jean M. Wilkowski entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1944 and served in assignments to nine countries on three continents before retiring in 1980. She has received six honorary degrees and is the only woman to receive the Foreign Service Cup from the Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired. Her book is part of the ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy series. Nona: A Different Kind of Motherhood Ellen Boneparth, iUniverse, 2007, $14.95, paperback, 148 pages. This little gem of a memoir, written by a former FSO and aca- demic who made the decision not to have her own children, is an insightful tribute to motherhood in its many manifesta- tions. While in Greece as a young scholar, Ellen Boneparth befriended the wife of her landlord, and became the “Nona,” or godparent, to her daughter Katerina. As the landlord’s wife explained, she wanted her child to have an example of a strong, independent woman. Boneparth describes her relationship with Katerina over the years as it intertwined with her own career tra- jectory, current events and her personal biography. After leaving Greece when Katerina was 5, the author — now in her 50s — reconnects with her goddaughter at age 15, and they form a loving relationship. Katerina visits and travels with the author and her husband; they guide her through university life in California and sup- port her in graduate school. For Katerina, it meant first trips abroad, educational opportunities and parental advice; Boneparth worried about being too protective, hoped for the best for her surrogate daugh- ter, and provided a loving home away from home. Ellen Boneparth wrote Nona at home in California and in her adopted home of Lesbos, Greece. She is the author of two novels — Tatiana (AuthorHouse, 2008) and Days of Atonement (iUniverse, 2005) — that are also set in Greece, where she has lived and worked off and on for more than 25 years. Sit Down Young Stranger John Graham, Packard Books, 2008, $26.00, hardcover, 276 pages. What is the path to a meaningful life? How does one find the courage and skill to walk it? This is the story of one life — and of the challenges facing every person. 28 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 8