Midcoast Forum on Foreign Relations

Ambassador Goodwin Cooke

Monday, August 9 at 12 Noon (Samoset)

Topic: Politics of the Dark Continent

Ambassador Goodwin Cooke earned his Bachelor’s degree in 1953 from Harvard College and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the US Marine Corps that same year.  He served as an engineering officer and battalion adjutant from 1953-1955, with an overseas posting to Okinawa, Japan.  He began his career with the US State Department in 1956, serving as a foreign service officer until 1981, with postings to Pakistan, Yugoslavia, Italy, Belgium, Canada, and the Ivory Coast/Cote d’ Ivoire.  In his final posting, he served as US Ambassador to the Central African Empire/Republic.

Since leaving the foreign service, Ambassador Cooke has been a professor at The Maxwell School of Syracuse University.  He is now Professor of Practice Emeritus, International Relations.  In this capacity, he has developed a course on Nations and Nationalism which addresses some of the issues and dilemmas which lie behind the world’s bloodiest conflicts.

“The Central African Republic is not a place you volunteer to go to. It’s a very, very difficult place, and a very isolated country. When I got there it was run by a dim, ferocious man named Jean-Bedel Bokassa who crowned himself emperor in a crazy Napoleonic ceremony. I think he had tertiary syphilis.  To some extent I helped kick him out. When there was a massacre of school children I left the State Department with my instructions and went to meet with the Head of African Affairs in France. I made it clear to them that the U.S. would not object if Bokassa was taken from the scene.  Six weeks later the French army carried out a coup and restored former leader David Dacko to power.”