The Foreign Service Journal, November 2012

MEMOIRS Pieces of History: The Life and Career of John J. Harter John J. Harter, Xlibris, 2012, $19.99, paperback, 250 pages; $3.99, Kindle Edition. The work of our nation’s diplomats abroad is often unacknowledged or overlooked— which is why the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training created the Diplomatic Oral History Series, which publishes selected transcripts of interviews from the Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection in book form. This volume in that long-running series recounts the life and career of John J. Harter, as told to ADST’s Charles Stuart Kennedy and David T. Jones in a series of interviews. Early life in Canyon, Texas; taking the Foreign Service Exam; serving as retiree rep- resentative on the American Foreign Service Association board; and his perspective on Wristonization are among the topics covered in addition to his Foreign Service career. During a 33-year Foreign Service career, John J. Harter served on four continents. He was a writer/interviewer at USIA and rep- resented the United States at various international meetings. Once retired, he served as an oral historian for the National Gallery of Art, organized 16 conferences on international economic issues for AFSA and worked for 12 years as a declassifier for USAID. Pancreatic Cancer: A Patient and His Doctor Balance Hope and Truth Michael J. Lippe and Dung T. Le, M.D., The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011, $18.95, paperback, 184 pages. This rare doctor-patient collaboration chronicles the unusual story of a man who defies all expectations in his fight against