The Foreign Service Journal, November 2009

38 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 9 Human Rights, Perestroika, and the End of the Cold War Anatoly Adamishin and Richard Schifter, United States Institute of Peace Press, 2009, $24.95, paperback, 356 pages. This joint memoir brings readers behind the scenes on both sides of the Cold War, as it recounts the friendship between Assistant Secretary of State Richard Schifter and Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly Adamishin, which began in 1987 when the two first met to discuss human rights. Each author offers his own take on the same set of events in alternating chapters, and the result is a body of practical insights into effective diplomacy between Russia and the United States that is still relevant today. As Soviet specialist and retired FSO Jack Matlock ob- serves, Adamishin and Schifter “provide valuable insight into negotiations that have received little attention as compared to those on arms control and geopolitical is- sues.” A career diplomat in the foreign ministry of both the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation, Anatoly Adamishin also served as ambassador to Italy and the United Kingdom. Richard Schifter practiced law before entering government service, where his appointments included service as assistant secretary of State for human rights and humanitarian affairs, counselor in the Na- tional Security Council and special adviser to the Secre- tary of State. Haiti In the Balance: Why Foreign Aid Has Failed and What We Can Do About It Terry F. Buss and Adam Gardner, with an afterword by Ambassador Edward J. Perkins, Brookings Institution Press, 2008, $28.95, paperback, 230 pages. Terry F. Buss and his associ- ates at the National Academy of Public Administration set out in this work to address the problems of foreign aid by examining the case of Haiti. Haiti certainly ap- pears to be a bottomless pit for U.S. aid, into which some $4 billion has been thrown over 10 years. Yet most Haitians still live on one dollar a day or less, and their country does not show even nominal improvement. While the analysis and the solutions to this dilemma are complex and well-developed, the message is a simple one: foreign aid will be ineffectual so long as the recip- ient government is so poorly organized and self-serving that the money never reaches its citizens. A professor at the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University in Aus- tralia, Terry F. Buss was previously director of interna- tional programs at the National Academy of Public Administration. AdamGardner is a graduate student of public administration at the University of Southern Cal- ifornia. Edward J. Perkins served as ambassador to Liberia and South Africa, ambassador to the United Nations and U.S. representative to the U.N. Security Council and ambassador to Australia, retiring as a career minister in the U.S. Foreign Service in 1996. He is a professor emeritus of the School of International and Area Stud- ies at the University of Oklahoma. Thomas Barclay, 1728-1793: Consul in France, Diplomat in Barbary Priscilla H. Roberts and Richard S. Roberts, Lehigh University Press, 2008, $62.50, hardcover, 407 pages. This is the first biography of Thomas Barclay, the first Amer- ican consul to serve abroad and also the first to successfully negotiate a treaty with an Arab, African or Muslim nation. Priscilla and Richard Roberts tell the story of this Irish immigrant who moved to Philadelphia in the 1760s and became a successful merchant, ship owner and political activist — especially within the Irish community. Barclay, whose friends in- cluded Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, moved to France in a consular capacity in 1781. A man of many firsts, Barclay also became the first American diplomat to die in the service of the United States. Priscilla and Richard Roberts lived, worked and raised a family in multiple countries for several OF RELATED INTEREST