Mr. Ambassador: Warrior for Peace [Hardcover]

Edward J. Perkins (Author), Connie Cronley (Author), David L. Boren (Preface), George P. Shultz (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 10, 2006

“Apartheid South Africa was on fire around me.”

So begins the memoir of Career Foreign Service Officer Edward J. Perkins, the first black United States ambassador to South Africa. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan gave him the unparalleled assignment: dismantle apartheid without violence.

As he fulfilled that assignment, Perkins was scourged by the American press, despised by the Afrikaner government, hissed at by white South African citizens, and initially boycotted by black South African revolutionaries, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu. His advice to President-elect George H. W. Bush helped modify American policy and hasten the release of Nelson Mandela and others from prison.

Perkins’s up-by-your-bootstraps life took him from a cotton farm in segregated Louisiana to the white elite Foreign Service, where he became the first black officer to ascend to the top position of director general.

This is the story of how one man turned the page of history.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Edward J. Perkins, now retired as a U.S. Ambassador, is William J. Crowe Professor of Geopolitics and Executive Director of the International Programs Center at the University of Oklahoma.

Connie Cronley, an award-winning journalist and radio commentator, lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is the author of a previous book of essays, Sometimes a Wheel Falls Off, and the collaborating author of Mr. Ambassador: Warrior for Peace, a memoir by Edward J. Perkins.

George P. Shultz is former Secretary of State of the United States.

Rhodes Scholar David Boren, currently President of the University of Oklahoma, was the longest-serving chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee.

Throughout his three-decade career in elective politics as Governor and three-term U.S. Senator, Boren was known as a bipartisan reformer, championing efforts to make government more accountable to the American people. During his tenure in Washington, Boren crusaded for congressional campaign finance reform and stronger congressional oversight of secret intelligence programs. He sponsored legislation to declassify thousands of documents pertaining to the history of the CIA. Boren chaired the special 1992-93 Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, which proposed making Congress more efficient and responsive by streamlining congressional bureaucracy, reducing staff sizes, and reforming procedures to end legislative gridlock. He authored the National Security Education Act in 1992 to provide scholarships for studying abroad and learning additional languages. Since the program's inception, more than 3,500 students have been given the opportunity to study abroad as Boren Scholars. The National Security Education Program is the largest international studies program created since adoption of the Fulbright scholarships.

A 1963 graduate of Yale University, Boren received his law degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Law in 1968. Prior to becoming President of the University of Oklahoma, he served for ten years as a Trustee of Yale. When Boren left the U.S. Senate in 1994 to become President of the University of Oklahoma, he had an approval rating of 9l percent after being reelected with 83 percent of the vote in 1990, the highest percentage in the nation in a U.S. Senate contest in that election year.

Under Boren's leadership, the University of Oklahoma has emerged as a pacesetter in American public higher education, ranking first in the nation among public universities in the number of National Merit Scholars per capita. Total endowment has grown five-fold to more than $1 billion during the thirteen years of his presidency. A teacher at heart, Boren is in the classroom every semester leading a first-year course in political science.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 576 pages
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press (April 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806137673
• ISBN-13: 978-0806137674
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,428,847 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A hard-hitting memoir of politics and social change, August 18, 2006

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mr. Ambassador: Warrior for Peace (Hardcover)

The memoir of Career Foreign Services Officer Edward J. Perkins, the first U.S. black ambassador to South Africa in 1986, comes to life in a hard-hitting memoir of politics and social change that will prove a 'must' for any seeking insights into South Africa under apartheid - and after. Perkins came from a cotton farm in segregated Louisiana to join forces with the elite Foreign Service, becoming the first black officer to ascend to director general. But even these many achievements would be superceded by his work in South Africa - and MR. AMBASSADOR: WARRIOR FOR PEACE tells it all.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Read, April 10, 2007

By 

Mrs. Patricia Ehr (Gresham, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mr. Ambassador: Warrior for Peace (Hardcover)

An account of a black man who truly pulled himself up by the bootstraps. He was raised on a cotton farm in segregated Louisiana by grandparents who could neither read nor write. He went on to get an education and ultimately enter the elite white Foreign Service. He was appointed as U.S. Ambassador four times: Liberia, South Africa, the United Nations, and Australia. A very well written book.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading, February 15, 2007

By 

Oliver L. Weaver - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mr. Ambassador: Warrior for Peace (Hardcover)

This is a terrific book! Perkins is a Black American born in 1928, who became a diplomat in the Foreign Service, and was the US Ambassador to South Africa in the 1980s during apartheid. The first chapter describes life in rural segregated Louisiana and Arkansas in the 1930s. It is a moving account, the more so because it is so simply and straight-forwardly told. Anyone who wonders if we've made progress in race relations should read this chapter. Moving on we meet the people outside Perkins' family who mentored him, and see clearly the truth of his statement that "... none of us goes through life unassisted." Later we see him as a US Marine, learning Japanese and studying Asian philosophy. It is just inspiring.

That's enough. Get the book; read it; and pass it on.