Lessons from the edge: a memoir, by Marie Yovanovitch

 

This is a fascinating memoir by Marie Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who served in many roles throughout the former Soviet Union and who ended her career as the ambassador to Ukraine before she was unceremoniously removed from her position because she was opposing the first Trump administrations' corrupt practices. Post college graduation, Yovanovitch did a three month intensive language program in Moscow, but then settled briefly into a job in advertising before she realized her true calling as a foreign service officer. After completing the foreign service training program, her first posting took her to Somalia, followed by stints in the UK, Russia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia, broken up by occasional appointments back in the U.S. In 2016, she took the opportunity to return to Ukraine as ambassador. She enthusiastically took on her role, including encouraging the Ukraine leadership to tackle the corrupt practices that had taken root in the country after its independence in 1991. Over time she began to learn of efforts by people in Trump's orbit to discredit her and have her removed from her position. These efforts were tied up with Trump's attempts to coerce Ukrainian President Zelensky to implicate presidential candidate Biden in corruption scandals as a way to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election, which Zelensky famously resisted. Once Yovanovitch returned to the U.S., she was subpoenaed by the House of Representatives impeachment investigation, testifying behind closed doors, and then again during the actual impeachment hearing, along with several other U.S. diplomats who worked with her on Ukraine issues. 

While Yovanovitch's last years in Ukraine were perhaps the most dramatic and consequential of her career, her accounts of serving in other former Soviet republics and Somalia are equally fascinating. These are the places that don't make the news as often, but their histories and strides towards (or away from) democracy are important to document. U.S. diplomats all over the world are working closely with their peers in other countries to develop relationships, improve economies, share best practices, and support the rights of women and other marginalized groups. It was fascinating and humbling to read about how influential the U.S. has been in the world, in both large and small ways, and sad to think about how that influence is being eroded by the current administration. This book was published in 2022, before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia and before Trump was returned to office. I can only imagine the horror Yovanovitch must feel about both of these developments.