The book sheds a little light on what happened to Stevens. While attackers tried to kill him and DS agents fought to save him, after he’d been overcome by smoke in the villa, a group of would-be Samaritans found Stevens and took him to Benghazi’s best hospital, There, attempts were made to resuscitate the ambassador. Stevens’ final moments are tragic enough without the exaggerations that embellish other reports of his demise.

Before reading this narrative through to its conclusion, I knew the murder of Chris Stevens was a loss to the United States, but it hadn’t occurred to me that it was, if anything, even more of a loss for Libya. Stevens, the authors write, “looked at the Arab Spring through that eternally American ailment of passionate optimism” and “had been Libya’s most ambitious advocate in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere around the world.” Most Libyans felt the loss as much as most Americans. Thousands expressed condolences.

Before reading this narrative through to its conclusion, I knew the murder of Chris Stevens was a loss to the United States, but it hadn’t occurred to me that it was, if anything, even more of a loss for Libya. Stevens, the authors write, “looked at the Arab Spring through that eternally American ailment of passionate optimism” and “had been Libya’s most ambitious advocate in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere around the world.”

What I view as the strength of this detailed, blow-by-blow narrative others may see as a weakness. We learn almost everything about what transpired at the consulate but nothing about what was happening in Washington. We don’t learn what President Barack Obama knew at the time the assault was going down. Under Fire doesn’t involve itself in the debate about what happened afterward, including allegations by some, like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), that the administration orchestrated a cover-up.

The authors of Under Fire do not hesitate to criticize. One subject of their criticism is Blue Mountain, the contract company that provided little-trained, unarmed local guards for the Benghazi compound. A British military veteran claiming to have been the local head of the Blue Mountain detail, Dylan Davies, published a now-discredited book about Benghazi, The Embassy House under the pseudonym “Sergeant Morgan Jones”. In the Burton-Katz book, the Blue Mountain guards are ineffectual once the attack unfolds.

 

A LOOK BACK

Also a strength in my view, but a distraction according to critics, are anecdotes throughout Under Fire about the history and accomplishments of DS personnel in the past. While the agents at Benghazi are never named, the historical accounts use real names. Some are about people I know. The stories are accurate and straightforward and help us understand how we got to where we are today in attempting to secure our embassies and consulates.

Unfortunately, and through no fault of the authors, where we are today is not a good place. A few short decades ago, the State Department’s security branch, known prior to 1985 as SY, was a tiny appendage to America’s foreign affairs department, with few people and little funding. Before terrorism became a daily fact of life, SY spent a lot of time processing security clearances, battling visa fraud and investigating misconduct by State’s own employees. In 25 years on the job (1964-89), I never saw a State security officer with an automatic weapon, a flak vest or an armored car.

There were no Marine security guards at Benghazi, but at most embassies and consulates Marines provided added strength in protecting the premises from attack.

Today, Marines and DS agents are numerous and highly visible at our 285 embassies and consulates overseas. Although DS funding has suffered a little in recent years, recent funding ($2.8 billion in 2010) has been many times the amounts spent on security in the 1970s and 1980s.

The business of the Department of State is to represent the policies of the U.S. government to governments of other countries. The official description of the mission: “to promote peace, support prosperity, and protect American citizens while advancing the interests of the U.S. abroad.” Yet the State Department has just 6,200 career diplomats, known as Foreign Service officer generalists – double the total from my era – while it boasts 34,000 American security agents. As implied throughout Under Fire, whose authors are unabashed cheerleaders for DS, the tail is wagging the dog.

Sadly, because of events like the Benghazi attack, we have little choice about continuing this imbalance. Everyone who does the real business of diplomacy will be grateful for the DS personnel who are rightly lionized in Under Fire.