OUTPOST

OUTPOST, A Diplomat at Work, by Christopher R. Hill, Simon & Schuster 2015

It's not often we see a book from a career diplomat who spent years in the US Foreign Service working in the world's most difficult hot spots - Sarajevo, Albania, Africa, Macedonia, , Beijing, three trips to "the heart of Darkness" - Pyongyang, North Korea, and even Washington, DC.  

But what attracted me was the block of black and white photos that included shots of a younger Hilary Clinton.  I was curious about her role as she was standing at the microphone on a stage well before becoming Secretary of State; another shot pictures her standing next to the President.  Did these shot show another side of the presidential candidate's experience?  Hard to say

The author spent 33 years at State, and his parents spent decades as well, travelling with their large family of five kids from one post to another.  There's a lot to be said for learning the language of diplomacy at home, the unwritten rules that make it possible for a young Foreign Service officer to survive and do well in difficult posts.  Hill tells tough stories of dangerous places, close-calls where only a tiny bit of information, or the power of the words US, saved him.  Readers will be most interested in Hill's mentor ship under legendary diplomats Lawrence Eagleburger and the late Richard Holbrooke; the attack on the embassy at Skopje in Macedonia on the first day of the Kosovo War, as staff stayed in a safe room while demonstrators attempted to break in using a flagpole as a battering ram (one of Hill's great photos); his trip to Pyongyang in 2007 to being the long process of attempting to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis, a continuing concern; his incredible time in Iraq, including creating election law for the 2010 elections.