"Forever Tandem" by David and Teresa Jones

The boy from Scranton meets the girl from Novasibirsk–and they “do diplomacy” for 30 years.

“Forever Tandem” provides an adroit balance between the “growing up” personal and the “doing it” professional. This is not a standard foreign service trek from one hardship post to the next but rather a cool-eyed examination of some of the major foreign affairs and political military issues of the past generation. Read–and be inside–the struggles over missile deployments and negotiations for the defining arms control Reagan-Gorbachev treaty that eliminated short and medium range nuclear missiles. Watch and rub elbows with Canadians, Quebeckers, and Americans contesting the future of Canada. Learn about the infighting over intelligence estimates and trade negotiations.

See how the serpents slither through some of the State Department (and interagency) snake pits; indeed, the 2,000-year old “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” demonstrates that nothing is new in personal interactions. Diplomacy may be bloodless, but it is hardly dry.

Available from Amazon in paperback and Kindle