Author: Robert Baker / Political Geography: United States of America

Author:: Robert Baker
Publication Date:: 04-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: The 1962 Cuban missile crisis and 1964’s Belgian paratroop drop from U.S. C-130s in the Congo were the most interesting events in my five year intelligence career. Lowly intelligence analysts like me working for the U.S. Information Agency had to sit in the Director’s chair about three weekends every year as part of the job. Our building near the White House was almost empty on weekends. Nobody else was on duty except the front door guards and the cable/code room guys. If some critical action telegram came in during Saturday or Sunday, my job was to phone the Director on his red, secure phone immediately, wherever he might be.
Topic:: Cold War, Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, and Memoir
Political Geography:: Soviet Union, Cuba, Caribbean, North America, and United States of America

Author:: Robert Baker
Publication Date:: 03-2016
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: Rajat Neogy declared himself referee and demanded a formal exchange of insults contest between Paul Theroux and me. It was the fag end of a very Scotch evening in Rajat’s cluttered, dusty living room up in the green hills of Kampala. Brimming ashtrays and empty beer bottles lay on tables and chairs. Everyone was gone except the three of us. Rajat grinned a brilliant grin as he scribbled down his insult scores as Paul and I exchanged jibes. He grinned and goaded us on. We drank some more. Rajat declared that I had won. Paul was briefly sullen but we had another drink and he came around. Paul is smarter than I but had likely drunk more. We staggered out, leaving Rajat as the rising sun peeped through his windows. Rajat in 1966 was the Indian editor of Transition, Africa’s only literary magazine in English, not run by Europeans. Rajat published most of Africa’s leading writers and many from Europe and the U.S. Paul was then an impecunious English teacher living in a bachelor flat at Makerere University and a commercially unsuccessful novelist. I was Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer at the dusty, run-down American Cultural Center and Library on Kampala Road.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Media, Colonialism, and Memoir
Political Geography:: Uganda, Africa, and United States of America

Author:: Robert Baker
Publication Date:: 05-2016
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: Until I did my report on the March, 1961 terrorist uprising in Angola, I had done well at my job as an intelligence analyst, especially at the hard slog of scanning thousands of pages of reports to assemble a good picture of communist efforts in Africa. My reports helped guide where and how the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) directed its propaganda efforts. They also helped convince Congress that USIA needed more money to match the communists. They outspent us in propaganda by about ten to one, measured by their output of films, radio broadcasts, books, pamphlets, magazines and exhibits tailored for Africa. Communists also gave more equipment and mass media training to Africans than did the U.S., though the West got the best students and other trainees and had a head start in African mass media and education programs. Few top students really wanted to learn Russian or Czechoslovakian for example, nor to live in those countries and to study communist theory in addition to their technical or academic work. A handful of African students at communist universities were recruited for communist intelligence work when they arrived back in Africa.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Terrorism, Colonialism, Violence, and Memoir
Political Geography:: Africa, Portugal, Angola, and United States of America

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