The Foreign Service Journal - November 2017

36 NOVEMBER 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL School of Communication. Its short chapters invite busy readers to take their time and reflect on Whitman’s insights. Printed in chronological order of their publication dates, the segments con- stitute a cross-section of developments that got public attention between 2012 and 2016, as well as some that should have but didn’t. Answer Coming Soon challenges facile suppositions and notes historic moments of interest for the general reader. Dan Whitman was a Foreign Service officer with both the U.S. Information Agency and the Department of State from 1985 until he retired from the Service in 2009. His overseas postings included Denmark, Spain, South Africa, Haiti and Cameroon. He is the author of five other books, and has written for The Foreign Service Journal. Diplomatic Tales: Stories from a Foreign Service Career and One Family’s Adventures Abroad Lewis Richard Luchs, Lulu Publishing Services, 2016, $18/paperback; $7.55/Kindle, 366 pages. What is it like to be a diplomat in six far- flung nations? Lewis Richard Luchs gives you a behind-the-scenes look in Diplomatic Tales , a memoir about his Foreign Service career from 1967 to 1992. As he recounts, Luchs wore three hats at once in Madagascar, wit- nessed a military coup d’état in Mali, saw the creation of modern Singapore, felt the excitement of working in a France emerging from the self-isolation of the Gaullist era and observed Austra- lia’s efforts to redefine itself in a new Asia. He portrays the official diplomatic life, but also the personal life of diplomats and their families, in these extraordinary environments. In sharing his challenges, sorrows and joys, he tackles such questions as: What do embassies do? What do diplomats do? What stresses are put on their families? And what is it like to face terrorist threats? You’ll find insights, as well as thoughtful, prac- tical answers to those and many other inquiries, in this book. Lewis Richard Luchs, a retired Senior Foreign Service officer, served in Madagascar, Mali, Singapore, France, Malaysia and Australia. He brought a background in sociocultural anthropol- ogy and a lifelong interest in human cultures to U.S. diplomacy. Luchs has four sons and eight grandchildren and lives in Oregon with his wife, Sharon. He is also the author of Children of the Manse (2009). Dirty Wars and Polished Silver: The Life and Times of a War Correspondent Turned Ambassatrix Lynda Schuster, Melville House, 2017, $26.99/hardcover, 352 pages. Sixteen-year-old Lynda Schuster is bored at home in the Midwest, angry about her parents’ divorce and embarrassed by her mother, a dull suburban house- wife. In search of adventure, Schuster secretly buys a ticket to Israel, where she intends to volunteer on a kibbutz but finds herself in the middle of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Hooked on the fear and adrenaline rush of war, she decides to become a foreign correspon- dent, working in war-torn and otherwise dangerous locales. The early part of this memoir chronicles Schuster’s almost accidental entry into the world of journalism and her subse- quent adventures as a foreign correspondent in Central and South America, the Middle East and Mexico. She meets, marries and loses her first husband, a much older war correspondent for a competing newspaper, within the span of a year. She later meets and marries a U.S. diplomat. Realizing she isn’t going to be able to hold on to both husband and career, she quits her job to become a full-time diplomat’s spouse. She chronicles her daily life as an FS spouse, describing everything from formal dinners to post evacuations. See the September FSJ for a full review. Lynda Schuster is a former foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and The Christian Science Monitor. She is married to Ambassador (ret.) Dennis Jett and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with her husband and daughter. Foreign Service: Five Decades on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy James F. Dobbins, Brookings Institution Press, 2017, $29.99/hardcover, $16.19/Kindle, 336 pages. During a distinguished 35-year Foreign Service career, James Dobbins worked on the frontlines of American diplomacy, from 1960s Vietnam to Afghanistan at the start of the 21st century. His memoir, notes former FSO Harry Kopp in his review of this book in the July-August FSJ , “spans a period of ebbing, or squandering, of what had seemed in his phrase an ‘inexhaust- ible abundance of American power.’ It is the story of a career marked by diplomatic successes and darkened in its latter years by frustration.”