My Memoirs

These memoirs of the distinguished Iraqi statesman Tawfiq al-Suwaydi (1892-1968) evocatively recapture a now largely vanished Arab world--and are an eloquent reminder that Iraq was once a far more open and tolerant society than it is today. Al-Suwaydi served as Iraq's prime minister three times (1929, 1946, 1950), as foreign minister on numerous occasions, and as ambassador to Iran, the League of Nations, and the United Nations. He frequently undertook sensitive diplomatic missions on behalf of the Iraqi monarchy. Among the major world figures with whom he interacted personally were Kemal Ataturk, Adnan Menderes, Gamal Abdul Nasser, Chaim Weizmann, David Ben Gurion, John Foster Dulles, Anthony Eden, George Curzon, Benito Mussolini, George Antonius, and Kings Abdullah, Faisal, Hussein, and Ibn Saud. From this vantage point, he wrote with an insider's detail about the diplomatic, political, and geostrategic issues that vexed Iraq and the entire Arab world from the early twentieth century through mid-1960s. A comprehensive essay by Antony T. Sullivan, senior associate for Middle East affairs at TerraBuilt Corporation International, introduces this first English-language edition of the memoirs.