Reston Man Highlights Foreign Service Career In Newly Published Memoir
RESTON, VA — Over his 35-year career at the U.S. Agency for International Development, Robert Lagamma represented the interests of the U.S. in eight African countries. From Togo to Nigeria and South Africa, he worked included three years as director for African Affairs and two years as a public affairs officer at the Pretoria Embassy during Nelson Mandela’s presidency.
“First and foremost, I worked to improve U.S.-African relations through managing cultural centers that consisted of libraries and educational and cultural exchanges,” said Lagamma, who retired in 1997 at the rank of minister-counselor.
Highlights of Lagamma’s career included arranging for Jesse Owens to come to Ivory Coast where President Houphouet Boigny named a street for him. While in Togo, he made possible the first archeological project in the country’s history. In Nigeria, he implemented initiatives for civil society to make possible the transfer of power from the military to civilian government.
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Lagamma also organized the first White House Conference for Africa, involving President Clinton and Vice President Gore as well as major U.S. government officials, heads of corporations, civil rights leaders, and congressional representatives, as well as African ambassadors.
On July 9, Palmetto Publishing released Lagamma’s memoir,”Episodes From A Foreign Service Career.” The author, who resides in Reston, agreed to answer a few questions about book and his time working for USAID.
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Patch: Where did you grow up?
Lagamma: I grew up for the first 22 years of my life in a Bronx tenement not far from Yankee Stadium, went to Stuyvesant High School, then Brooklyn College. I later earned a masters degree in international relations from Boston University.
What made you decide to enter the foreign service after you graduated from college?
It was a time of the greatest decolonization in world history, mainly of Africa. It was also the time of John F. Kennedy, a president whose charisma affected me and spread beyond our borders. On the way home from college, I occasionally emerged from the subway at 42nd Street and walked over to the U.N. where I was dazzled by the flowing robes and honeyed rhetoric of African diplomats.
As a student of international relations, I wanted to be part of that great experiment. Also, I identified with the civil rights movement at home and regarded Africa as a parallel development. To the extent I label myself anything, I’m an Africanist.”
What inspired you to write “Episodes From A Foreign Service Career”?
I wrote this book to revive many memories, to come to conclusions about many of my life’s objectives and to seek to evaluate what I may have accomplished. It also reflects on what I considered to be my major disappointments and provides some critiques of U.S. policy. This is my first and only book.
What was the experience of writing a memoir like?
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The process of writing this book was revelatory for me. It allowed me to weave together the many diverse chapters of living in a variety of places. My six years in Italy made me acutely aware of my heritage and what it means to be of Italian origin in the U.S. I also learned a lesson that George Kennan once wrote about when he was humbled about major tasks before him. He then realized he was not just George but rather the representative of the greatest nation in the world. At that point, the adrenalin flowed through him and he was up to the job.
What takeaways would you like people who read your book to have?
I hope readers will gain some insights and perspective on world affairs. I also hope it provides young people a potential resource about a career in foreign affairs. But the original and still most realistic objective is to inform friends and family what I was up to over three and a half decades and hope they see meaning in it.
Writing a memoir, you had a chance to look back at your 35-year career. What was your assessment of that career?
I learned a great deal about many cultures and how someone from my culture could relate to them. I made many friends and shared many experiences. I achieved a goal I never had anticipated achieving, managing a foreign affairs bureau consisting of 50 overseas offices, 100 Americans and several thousand foreign nationals. I also take pride in having fought the bureaucratic battles, often successfully, to provide adequate resources to our overseas personnel. My career ended with my work having been acknowledged with the Edward R. Murrow Award for Public Diplomacy bestowed at Tuffs University.
How long have you been a resident of Reston?
We bought our house a mere 43 years ago. But we first learned about Reston in the course of a 1963 ride on my Vespa with my soon-to-be wife Anita. When we came upon recently built Lake Anne and the concept that was this “new town, ” Anita said to me “I’d like to live here one day.” A couple of decades and four African countries we did. My wife Anita of 58 years passed away two years ago, leaving me with two sons and three daughters.
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