Ambassador in Paris: The Reagan Years; Pinstripes and Reds

These memoirs by Reagan ambassadorial appointees share a strident anti-Sovietism but are otherwise different. Ambassador Galbraith's account of Paris is humorously pugnacious-as befits an associate of William F. Buckley. There is also interesting material on the controversy over the pipeline to carry Siberian natural gas to Western Europe and on pressure on France over arms sales to Nicaragua. Ambassador Funderburk, protégé of Senator Jesse Helms, describes his tour in Romania and rails against the State Department as "an entrenched bureaucracy not subject to public opinion or presidential directives," with "a lack of sympathy for putting American interests first, and a tendency toward internationalism, détentism and compromise with Communists."