Publisher's Synopsis
From the Anzio beachhead to the roof top of the US Embassy in Saigon, this expansive memoir recounts the wide-ranging life of a US foreign service officer who quite literally had a front row seat in the Cold War. The eldest son of an émigré from Nazi Germany, Wolfgang J. Lehmann joined the US Army in 1942. After receiving military intelligence training at Camp Richie and serving on the front lines throughout the Italian campaign as a POW interrogator, Lehmann joined the US foreign service. Filled with fascinating insights and intimate details from a State Department career spanning eight Presidential administrations, the book describes Lehmann's role in implementing post-war refugee policy and his years serving as political advisor to the Bureau for European Affairs, NATO and EURCOM during the height of the Cold War. It explains his role as Deputy Ambassador of the US Embassy in Saigon and his crucial role in the US evacuation of Vietnam in April 1975. And it details his unique perspective on German democracy as Consul General in Frankfurt during the Ford and Carter administrations. Touching on policy issues that remain relevant to this day, including the politics of immigration, proxy wars, the Middle East, and East-West relations, A Seat in the Front Row is a timely eye-witness account of Cold War policy and politics.
