The Foreign Service Journal, November 2021

36 NOVEMBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Richard E. Nugent commanded the XXIX Tactical Air Command as it gave air support to the Ninth Army from the Siegfried Line to within 53 miles of Berlin. The squadron won the U.S. Presidential Unit Citation (formerly the Distinguished Unit Citation), while 209 individuals, serving in various land or air units, who took part in the campaign won at least one award for heroism, ranging from the Distinguished Service Cross to the Soldier’s Medal. Using official and unofficial sources, T. Dennis Reece presents these accomplishments, largely forgotten about since 1945, for the gratitude and inspiration of future generations. T. Dennis Reece is a retired Department of State Foreign Service officer who served in Brazil, the Soviet Union, Saudi Arabia, the Dominican Republic, Cabo Verde, Guyana and Washington, D.C. He previously published works on bomb disposal from 1942 to 1946 and the Ohio River flood of 1884. Modern Paraguay: Uncovering South America’s Best Kept Secret Tomás Mandl, McFarland, 2021, $39.95/paperback, e-book available, 255 pages. To the limited extent people have thought about Paraguay, they have called it variously the “least-known country in Latin America,” “an island surrounded by land” and “the South American Tibet.” For many years, for- eign writers and journalists who ventured there described it as an enigmatic land where a peculiar people endured calamities and Nazis sought refuge. While working for Embassy Asunción from 2016 to 2020, Tomás Mandl traveled through the country, meeting leading minds and sifting through data. But it was not until March 2017, when political unrest led to the burning of the Paraguayan Congress and a lockdown, that he realized no authoritative history of the country existed, either in English or Spanish. So he decided to write one himself. Drawing on more than 40 interviews with historians, political scientists, economists, journalists and diplomats, this book provides a timely assessment of Paraguay’s strengths, challenges and developmental outlook, and their implications for the world. Among other things, Mandl demolishes the myth that Paraguay was ever run by Nazi-imitators, noting that its authoritarian tendencies are homegrown and existed long before World War II. Tomás Mandl was born in Virginia and raised in Uruguay. Currently a program officer with the Center for International Private Enterprise, he previously worked for the Department of State as a political specialist in Ecuador, Vietnam and Paraguay, accompanying his wife, Laura, a USAID Foreign Service officer. His articles in English and Spanish have appeared in World Politics Review and Revista Perspectiva , among other periodicals. He lives in Falls Church, Virginia. Transforming Our World: President George H. W. Bush and American Foreign Policy Edited by Andrew S. Natsios and Andrew H. Card Jr., Rowman & Littlefield, 2021, $38/hardcover, e-book available, 288 pages. In his introduction to this compilation of 19 essays, editor Andrew S. Natsios notes that we are now three decades into the post–Cold War era. This book reflects on that transition, which took place during George Herbert Walker Bush’s presidency. The fact that both President Bush and several of the figures he chose to carry out his foreign policy have died, and others are advanced in years, underscores the need to capture their irreplaceable memories of events for the historical record before they are lost. Most of the contributors will be familiar to Foreign Service Journal readers: former Secretaries of State James A. Baker III and Condoleezza Rice, Dennis Ross, Carla Hills and Philip Zelikow, to name but a few. Two distinguished retired ambassadors, both career Foreign Service officers, wrote chapters, as well: Thomas Pickering (“President George H. W. Bush and the United Nations”) and Edward D. Djerejian (“Constructing the Alliance to Liberate Kuwait”). Collectively, the authors shed new light on Bush’s role in world events, his style of diplomacy, and the organization and functioning of his foreign policy team. Andrew S. Natsios was director of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance during the George H.W. Bush administration and USAID Administrator during the George W. Bush administration. Currently, he is an executive professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs. Andrew H. Card Jr. held numerous positions at senior levels