ACNSL Annual National Security Book Award
Information about the 2025 ACNSL Book Award will be released in the coming weeks
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American College of National Security Leaders
ACNSL is a nonpartisan voice of experience on national security issues. Our Fellows are retired admirals, generals, ambassadors, and senior government executives with decades of experience in national security, diplomacy, and defense. Together, we are committed to strengthening the security of the United States by informing the debate, advising decision-makers, and educating the public.
For more information, contact:
Dianna Carson, Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired)
ACNSL Chief of Staff
Jamie Barnett, Rear Admiral, USN (Retired)
Chair of the Board, American College of the National Security Leaders
2024 Inaugural ACNSL Book Award
About the Author
Africa, You Have a Friend in Washington: An American Diplomat’s Adventures South of the Sahara
Authored by: Ambassador Herman J Cohen
Published by: New Academia Publishing/VELLUM
In his 38-year career as an American diplomat, the author experienced many encounters with African leaders, which he describes in this memoir. Following his youthful attraction to international service and early postings to Paris and the world of cultural exchange, he specialized in the emerging nations of Africa. He recounts growing a new embassy in Uganda, fighting white supremacy in Southern Rhodesia, the end of colonialism in Zambia, coping with chaos in Zaire, serving in Paris under Kissinger’s scrutiny, and becoming ambassador to Senegal and The Gambia. Stateside assignments included the intelligence community, personnel management, the National Security Council under President Reagan, heading the Africa Bureau under President George H. W. Bush, followed by the World Bank’s Global Coalition for Africa, and, in retirement, heading his own international consulting firm.
HERMAN J. "HANK" COHEN, a 38-year Foreign Service officer who retired with the top rank of Career Ambassador, took a special interest in the economics of developing nations and specialized in U.S. relations with sub-Saharan Africa. Overseas posts included Paris, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Zaire, and, as ambassador, Senegal. At home he served as assistant secretary of state for African Affairs, the president's special assistant on Africa, deputy head of State's Intelligence and Research Bureau, World Bank senior adviser on Africa, president of Cohen and Woods international consulting firm, and adjunct professor at SAIS. He is the author of Intervening in Africa: Superpower Peacemaking in a Troubled Continent (2000), The Mind of the African Strongman: Conversations with Dictators, Statesmen, and Father Figures (2015), and U.S. Policy Toward Africa: Eight Decades of Realpolitik (2020).