The Making of a Pacific Citizen

By Hugh Burleson II

A 9th-generation American, the author takes us from his childhood as a barefoot boy in Depression-era Southern California, through his prep school years on a scholarship, being drafted out of U.C.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1425971083
• ISBN13: 9781425971083
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Authorhouse
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.39 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A fascinating memoir of U.S. public diplomacy in Japan, India, Vietnam, and Korea

Read this memoir for its narrative chapters, its themes, and its view of American public diplomacy: Chapters: Hugh Burleson was a minister's son in California during the Depression and the early years of World War II; a soldier assigned to the occupation of Japan; an Army civil service worker in Japan at the outbreak of the Korean war; a graduate student on the GI Bill in California; a Foreign Service Officer of the U.S. Information Agency who served in Japan, India, Vietnam, and Korea; and active retiree. Theme: intercultural marriage. In the film "Sayonara," "Airman Joe Kelly" (Red Buttons) married "Katsumi" and met a tragic end. Burleson's marriage to Kimie Yamada opened a long and happy life together. Theme: Pacific Citizen. Another theme is how serving abroad enlarged his vision. He was an American diplomat, yes, but he was animated in his work by a growing feeling he was a "Pacific Citizen," helping create a community of understanding and cooperation. American diplomacy: Burleson well traces how the old U.S. Information Agency built up a foundation of understanding that supported -- and informed -- every U.S. foreign policy initiative. Conversations begun at libraries and cultural centers continued at seminars and in exchanges. These dialogs moved into newspapers, magazines, radio, and television and on to the formal diplomacy of international conferences and negotiations. With Embassy and Washington offices focused on opinion trends, strong teams working in journalism and broadcasting, robust magazine diplomacy, exchanges of academics through the Fulbright program, and invitations for rising leaders to visit the U.S. (the International Visitor program), USIA was a highly effective part of U.S. foreign policy from 1953 to 1999. Burleson's memoir well relates what I call the "thickness" of American public diplomacy in the USIA era. Moving through the 21st century, all acknowledge the United States needs more -- and more effective -- public diplomacy and should rely more on "soft power." This was USIA's mission, and many lessons can be re-learned by studying its work. Hugh Burleson's autobiography tells the story "up close and personal." -30-