What leadership behaviors work best in a crisis? Here is what worked for me and the U.S. embassy community after we were bombed by al Qaeda operatives on August 7, 1998. I was the ambassador and chief of mission. My community included Kenyan and American employees, their families, Nairobi city residents and in-country U.S citizens. A truck bomb exploded in a small parking lot in the back of our building. Immediately, the seven-story office building next door collapsed. Hundreds of people were buried in rubble. Two hundred and thirteen people died, including 12 Americans, and 5,000 people were wounded. The embassy suffered 50% casualties. Those who made it … [Read more...] about Leadership in Times of Crisis
Articles
Why I Wrote This Book
My book "Terrorism, Betrayal, and Resilience: My Story of the 1998 US Embassy Bombings" was released on October 1st. This is the story behind why I wrote this book. -------------------------- Three years before al Qaeda bombed our homeland in 2001 and forever changed history, the jihadist group led by Osama bin Laden attacked the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. For years I waited for others to write a full account of what happened in Nairobi in 1998, then I did it myself. Around 10:30 a.m. on August 7, 1998 a pickup truck filled with a ton of TNT exploded in the small parking lot behind the American embassy on a busy downtown corner of Nairobi. The … [Read more...] about Why I Wrote This Book
Rattling Teacups
Former U.S. Ambassador and survivor of the 1998 embassy bombing in Kenya, Prudence Bushnell, tells that story in her gripping new book, "Terrorism, Betrayal and Resilience." With the emphasis on resilience. - Rattling Teacups by Rheta Grimsley Johnson from The Shoofly Magazine Prudence Bushnell looks like her name sounds. Neat, petite, well-dressed and well-groomed. Like a resounding success of a 1950’s upbringing, when Captain Kangaroo woke us up and our mothers put us to bed. Friends, and I am one, call her Pru, which somehow changes everything. Pru has a wicked wit, the resume of a Bond girl and an intellectual curiosity that gets her into more jams … [Read more...] about Rattling Teacups
Commemorating 20 Years Later
Last winter, four people talked about how to bring remembrance and meaning to the anniversary of the August 7, 1998 al Qaeda bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. We each contributed what we had to offer over the spring and early summer. Shaun Dorman, editor of the Foreign Service Journal, and her team elicited stories from 40 survivors and printed them in its July/August edition using informal networks which John Lange, my counterpart in Dar es Salaam, and I had maintained over the years. To make those stories real, Katie Speckart, archivist from the U.S. Diplomacy Center worked with her colleagues and other museums to create a public display of artifacts from both … [Read more...] about Commemorating 20 Years Later
Surviving an Attack on Our Community
My heart goes out to communities in our country that are in the process of creating a new normal (for themselves) in the wake of a violent attack. That challenge confronted the Kenyan and American community in 1998 after al Qaeda blew up the U.S. embassy in downtown Nairobi, killing 215 and injuring thousands more. This is some of what I learned: Two skills and one value are essential. The skills are 1) asking powerful questions and 2) listening to the answers. When the hormones cut off and the honeymoon phase ended, life was just plain hard. The only way I knew to work in sync with the community as we moved ahead was to ask questions and pay attention to the … [Read more...] about Surviving an Attack on Our Community