The Foreign Service Journal, November 2009

N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 61 A Distinguished Diplomat Looks Back Danger Zones: A Diplomat’s Fight for America’s Interests John Gunther Dean, Vellum, 2009, $26, paperback, 240 pages. R EVIEWED BY S YED A HMED M EER For this account of a highly eventful 40-year diplomatic career, retired Am- bassador John Gunther Dean draws heavily upon the unpublished collec- tion of reports and cables (many highly classified) that he has donated to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. Taking a chronological approach, Amb. Dean begins by recounting how he used his German origins and lan- guage skills to assist a U.S. Army intel- ligence unit following World War II. He then describes his role in imple- menting the Marshall Plan during the early 1950s, and recalls serving in Africa, where he opened the first U.S. embassies in Togo and Mali. Dean played several key diplomatic roles during the Vietnam War. While serving in Paris, he worked closely with visiting Senator Robert Kennedy, who in 1967 received a peace signal from Hanoi through the French Foreign Office. From 1970 to 1972, he was deputy director of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Sup- port program in Vietnam, and then spent a year in Laos as chargé d’af- faires. There he single-handedly took on the Laotian Air Force, standing on the tarmac and shouting into a mega- phone to forestall a coup against the government of Prime Minister Sou- vanna Phouma. After leaving Vientiane, Dean held five consecutive ambassadorships: Cambodia (1974-1975), Denmark (1975-1978), Lebanon (1978-1981), Thailand (1981-1985) and India (1985- 1989), where I had the honor to serve with him as science counselor. He re- tired from the Foreign Service 20 years ago, settling in Paris. Informing Dean of his assignment to Phnom Penh, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said: “John, you’re going out there to be ambassador. You size up the military situation and take control of it. I’ll take care of the diplo- matic side.” The official U.S. goal was to achieve a military solution, but the facts on the ground soon convinced Dean that only a negotiated solution was feasible. Alas, that was not to be. Dean describes the highly emo- tional American withdrawal from Cambodia on April 12, 1975, including a heroic effort to airlift all U.S. person- nel and friends to safety on ships. The last American to leave, Dean cradled the mission’s flag in his arms as he stepped from the roof of the embassy onto a helicopter. Despite their previ- ous differences, in a 1977 farewell let- ter Sec. Kissinger praised the am- bassador’s dignity in those difficult days. After a tour as ambassador to Den- mark, Dean was selected by Pres. Carter as chief of mission in Lebanon, then gripped by civil war. At his con- firmation hearing, he made clear that he was completely neutral as far as the factions within Lebanon were con- cerned, and between Israel and the Palestinians. Dean writes that despite his Jewish heritage, this even-handed approach provoked allegations from the Israeli press and government that he was “pro-Palestinian” and “anti-Is- rael.” Amb. Dean was particularly criti- cized for his reporting of Israeli viola- tions of Lebanon’s borders. While traveling with his family, he was nearly assassinated in an ambush by terrorists using automatic rifles and antitank weapons. In his book, he airs his sus- picions about the identities and spon- sors of his attackers. “Fatal Embrace,” the final chapter, discusses Dean’s tenure in India in the late 1980s, during which he developed Dean’s candor was neither well received nor publicly acknowledged. B OOKS