American Ambassador Diego Asencio bravely reconstructs his 61 days of captivity in Bogota, Colombia. The siege takes place at the Dominican Republic Embassy and is carried out by Colombia's revolutionary M-19 guerrilla organization. This book is a rare look at how the captive diplomats played a large role in securing freedom. It is also testimony that, given time, the honest practice of conflict resolution can bring positive results. It is a small miracle that only one person died during this epic takeover. Much credit must be given to the diplomats in captivity. Ambassador Asencio is a polished writer and does an outstanding job of objectively describing the highs and lows of his days as a hostage.
About the Author: Ambassador Diego Asencio and his wife Nancy are a retired US Foreign Service couple. Most of their thirty year diplomatic career was spent stationed at Embassies throughout Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. In 1980, while attending a cocktail party at the Dominican Embassy in Bogota, Diego, who was serving as American Ambassador to Colombia, was captured together with a group of other foreign ambassadors. The terrorists belonged to a politically radical paramilitary organization known as M-19. In a departure from the usual turn of events, the hostages directly participated in the negotiations that eventually set them free. Ambassador Asencio was ultimately awarded the State Department's Medal for Valor, and became Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs. After his tenure as Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, he was named Ambassador to Brazil at a most poignant moment, when civilian rule returned to that society. The Asencio's upcoming memoirs, "The Joys and Perils of Serving Abroad," also recounts Diego's tenure as a member of the US-Moscow Investigating Commission, and as Chairman of the Commission for the Study of International Migration and Cooperative Economic Development. Having decided that there were too many retired ambassadors in Washington looking for interesting things to do, Diego and Nancy moved to Florida, where they have resident children and grandchildren. Governor Lawton Chiles promptly appointed him Executive Director of the Florida International Affairs Commission with a charge to coordiante the State's foreign trade policy. After a couple of arduous years he returned to private life, concentrating on consulting with American firms, including McDonald's and Coca Cola, on their Latin American operations. Nancy spends a great deal of her time reading, writing and painting, her passions in life. They live a few steps from the Intercoastal, across from the town of Palm Beach, with their Portuguese Water Dog Filomena, cat Tinkerbell and cockatiel Blanquita, all three refugees abandoned into their care.