Foreign Service Journal - July/August, 2009

BOOKS

A Rare Gift
for Reflection

Witness to a Changing World David D. Newsom, New Academic Publishing, 2008, $28, paperback, 388 pages.

REVIEWED BY ROSCOE S. SUDDARTH

Some 40 years ago an outside consultant did a study of the culture of the Foreign Service. He discovered two kinds of archetypal leaders. One was the “ethnic”: extroverted, ebullient and inclusive — that could have described Phil Habib. The other was the “ professional”: cool, confident, precise and eloquent — that could have been epitomized by David Newsom. Ten years after that study, Newsom succeeded Habib as under secretary for political affairs.

Newsom’s delightful memoir, Witness to a Changing World, finished just prior to his death at 90 last year, shows us David Newsom the man, as well as the professional; the wit as well as the sage. The formerly discreet diplomat is startlingly frank about his career and about his ancestors, noting the alcoholic ways of his paternal grandfather and the suicide of his adored father, a successful newspaper publisher but a chronic depressive.

The book’s title, however, is too modest, for Newsom was both an acute observer and key participant in many

The formerly
discreet diplomat
is startlingly frank
about his career
and life in this
posthumously
published memoir.
;

historic events. During a meeting in Baghdad in the early 1950s, Prime Minister Nuri Said told him that if the balance among the Kurds, Shia and Sunnis were ever destroyed, “Iraq will become ungovernable.” After quoting that warning, Newsom (who vigorously opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq) adds just two words: “How prophetic.”

His journal of a trip with the Central African Republic’s “Emperor” Jean Bedelle Bokassa, an incompetent megalomaniac, is sidesplitting. Such passages bring to mind Secretary of State Edmund Muskie’s description of Newsom as the only Californian he knew with the sense of humor of a down-easterner from Maine.

As director of the Bureau of North African Affairs, Newsom shepherded U.S. relations with the newly independent nations of the region before being named ambassador to Libya, the home of major U.S. oil interests and Wheelus Air Base. His memoir contains an absorbing account of how he

dealt with the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and the September 1969 coup d’état of Lieutenant Muammar Qadhafi.

The chapter reflecting on the author’s assignment as assistant secretary for African affairs (1969-1974) is titled “Eight Percent of the Black Vote.” That refers to the White House rejection of Newsom’s suggestion that President Richard Nixon give a speech on Africa, on the grounds that Nixon had received only a fraction of the African-American vote. Yet the administration’s indifference to Africa left him free to make and implement policy, leading to his most satisfying career assignment. For instance, Newsom used his 1970 trip to South Africa, the first by a sitting assistant secretary, to publicly condemn apartheid.

Newsom’s chapter title concerning his time as under secretary references a New Yorker cartoon showing a dejected man seated at a desk with his head in his hands, and a caption reading: “His concerns are global.” Newsom’s travails in dealing with the Iranian Revolution, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and other crises bear out the aptness of the caption. The memoir publicly reveals for the first time Newsom’s courageous opposition to admitting the shah to the United States for medical treatment because of the heightened risk to our people in Iran. The hostage crisis certainly proved him right.