The Foreign Service Journal, December 2016

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2016 11 artifacts from the Cold War period. I would encourage colleagues who served in Warsaw Pact countries to consider donating any interesting items they may have. Besides socialist realist art, the museum is interested in every- day objects that typified life under the socialist regimes of the period. Many of us who served in these countries may have items in our base- ments that will be lost to history unless properly bequeathed. The Wende Museum offers permanent credit and recognition for all donations, plus pos- sible tax deduction benefits for more valuable items. I encourage colleagues to visit www. wendemuseum.org for more informa- tion. At present, most of the collections can only be viewed on a rotating basis, but in the fall of 2017 the museum is scheduled to move into the former armory of Culver City, California, where it will function as a full-fledged museum open to the public on a daily basis. This is a serious, world-class museum dealing with a time and place that many of us experienced firsthand in our careers and that should for many reasons be remembered by future gen- erations. Rudolf Perina Ambassador, retired Vienna, Virginia Thanks, AFSA! Thank you, AFSA, for the welcom- ing happy hour you hosted on Oct. 20, where I had the pleasure of meeting colleagues from different cones and agencies. I want to let you know that The For- eign Service Journal was a very valuable tool for me as a young officer in under- standing and internalizing the Foreign Service as a career. The magazine not