AUTHOR RECALLS HOW PRESIDENT REAGAN BUILT UPON PRESIDENT CARTER'S CRITICAL CHANGES FOR REFUGEES

Hope of the Phoenix

The Reawakening and Rise oF America's Humanitarian Spirit 
from the Ashes of Vietnam
1975-1986

Presidents Carter and Reagan (photo credit: History.com)

Author Jim (James N., Jr.) Purcell remembers when President Reagan took the torch and heartily supported the new Bureau for Refugee Programs at the State Department.  George P. Shultz was President Reagan's Secretary of State after Alexander Haig.

In 1979, President Carter's State Department geared up to establish a new bureau for refugee programs to deal with the continuing and increasingly critical flow of refugees from Southeast Asia after the Fall of Saigon, April 30, 1975--40 years ago. 

Incoming in 1981, President Reagan gave full support to State's growing Bureau for Refugee Programs, today known as Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration.  

The author has considered Secretary Shultz to be a professional mentor since 1976, when President Nixon appointed Mr. Shultz to be director of the Bureau of the Budget, now known as the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the author, a young budget analyst, met him at the outset and told his own staff, "This time, we got a good one."  

In 1982, President Reagan appointed Mr. Shultz to the State Department, and he was the author's boss in the Refugee program, where the author served from 1979 to 1986.

April 28, 2015, in the finishing stages of writing Hope of the Phoenix, Jim Purcell is scheduled to visit at the Hoover Institution, not far from San Francisco, to meet with former Secretary of State George P. Shultz .

The meeting with "the boss" will set a cherished milestone for the author.

Book Progress Update April 2015

Hope of the Phoenix

The Reawakening and Rise of America's Humanitarian Spirit 
from the Ashes of Vietnam
1975-1986

James N. Purcell, Jr.

Genres: Memoir; Refugees; Public Policy; History (U.S.State Department refugee program, 1975-1986) 

UPDATE-April 2015 

Travel

Calendar -Jim is scheduled to meet with former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz at the Hoover Institution, not far from San Francisco, CA, at the end of April 2015. This will be a milestone for the author for whom Secretary Shultz has been a professional mentor. In 1976, President Nixon appointed Mr. Shultz to be director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) where Jim was an analyst. Later, Secretary Shultz was Jim's boss when Jim served in the U.S. Refugee Program at State.

Travel under discussion- Jim's wife Jean is discussing with him her possible visit to the Truman Library in Independence, MO, while Jim is in California, end of April. Of special interest to them are archived papers of George Warren, whose unpublished manuscript is a resource noted in Hope of the Phoenix.  George Warren assisted at the Evian Conference, Evian-les-Bains, France, 1938, a disappointing yet important initiative of President Roosevelt to discuss with European leaders their rising refugee crisis, early World War II. (The conference failure led to better work at a London meeting the next month-covered in Hope of the Phoenix). Mr. Warren also assisted Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt's work to obtain approval for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Mr. Warren serrved in other refugee-related capacities, including the post-WWII Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration.

Peer Reviews

Incorporation of selected peer review input is 99 % finished. Reviewers' comments and questions have lent clarification and correction overall.    

Book Proposal

The proposal draft for Hope of the Phoenix has been agreed with a book proposal expert.

What is the time-line for completion of the book/manuscript?

Completion date amended: The author does not want to publish an estimated completion date yet.
 

Comments on this blog are welcome.