Synopsis "Postcards from SAddam; The True Confessions of an Economic Hit Man"
In "Postcards from SAddam: The True Confessions of an Economic Hit Man ", the author recounts how he used CIA tradecraft rather than bribery to secure contracts for U.S. companies, and more importantly, negotiate his way out of perilous situations. The most notable of these was a connecting flight through a hostile Muslim country, where he crosses paths with Saddam Hussein. Traveling without the Italian passport he normally used to conceal his American identity, as the airport and his plane are surrounded by Saddam's guards, he is unable to get to his connecting flight. Trapped with only his American passport and a briefcase with documents linking him to U.S. intelligence agencies, he puts tradecraft to the ultimate test. As he weighs his options, he recalls a similar situation in Chile involving another dictator, Augusto Pinochet, and one in Argentina, where tradecraft helped him narrowly elude imprisonment. Drawing parallels between dictators and the polarized political climate in Chile during Pinochet's rule to that of the U.S., he stresses how developing countries' state of affairs is the product of their leaders, not the World Bank or predatory U.S. corporations; how ineffective political and business leaders reap undeserved rewards when the net result of their leadership is the destruction of wealth, and how the Chilean media sometimes mischaracterized Pinochet's regime while downplaying the violence of extremists who targeted his Chilean contact, Solange - his co-worker and the young woman he'd planned to marry, who may very well have saved his life. In a final dramatic account, a Good Samaritan helps him evade capture by Saddam's guards. Although initially suspicious of this Good Samaritan, his suspicions are dispelled when the pair are apprehended going through a secret tunnel. Realizing that his Muslim friend has put himself in jeopardy by concealing his American identity from the soldier questioning him, the author executes a risky psychological maneuver perfectly to get himself and his friend released. However, he will later have no choice but to try going through that same tunnel a second time.
