The Foreign Service Journal, December 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2020 27 FSJ: What was it like serving as deputy chief of mission and later ambassador to Liberia? EJP: After my tour in Ghana, I was assigned as the deputy chief of mission in Liberia for Ambassador Bill Swing. He was still awaiting confirmation, so I went directly fromGhana to Liberia, had some overlap with the outgoing DCM and served as chargé until Ambassador Swing’s arrival. Monrovia was a post where there were many administrative issues, given the large number of U.S. government agencies represented. USAID had a big program, as well as the Voice of America, which had the largest station in Africa there. This new reality required me to make a big switch in my approach. There were also many political concerns. The country had undergone a coup prior to my arrival in 1981, and some of the previous leaders who were descendants of former American slaves (called Americo-Liberians) had been executed. The current leader, Samuel K. Doe, was a former Army sergeant with little education. There were tensions between the Americo-Liberians and African Liberians, and it was my job to try to work with these two groups. The Americo-Liberians expected the United States to support them and help overthrow the president and return things to where they had been in the past, while the African Liberians wanted justice and compensa- tion for the way they had been historically treated like slaves. I told both groups that it was the U.S. position to support Liberia as a country and as a people, not just one particular group. FSJ: President Ronald Reagan tapped you as the first Black U.S. ambassador to apartheid South Africa in 1986. What was your mission there, and how did you manage it? EJP: When President Reagan interviewed me for the job, he asked me what I would want to accomplish in South Africa, and I told him that I would try to change the system using the power of his office. He asked me how I would do it. I told him that I would get to know the Black South Africans, as well as other South Afri- cans. I told him that we didn’t know Black South Africans well, that they were suspicious of the United States, and we needed to gain their trust. I added that we needed to work toward a peace- ful transition in South Africa, and we needed to convince the Afrikaner government that their time was up. Finally, I told him that I would expect to speak on his authority, and that everything I would say would be on his behalf. It was difficult and challenging because the Afrikaners were a small group of people who had come from Flanders to South U.S. Ambassador to Liberia Edward J. Perkins presents his credentials to Liberian Head of State Samuel K. Doe on Aug. 28, 1985. Inset: U.S. Embassy Accra Political Counselor Edward Perkins, second from right, engages with a tribal chief in Ghana in 1978.