My foundation opened its new office
foundation opened its new office across from the New York Stock Exchange last week and for me, the biggest delight was the arrival of Joanne King Herring who was in town promoting her fabulous new book, Diamonds and Diplomacy: My Wars from the Ballroom to the Battlefield.
You must know the story of Joanne King Herring, whether you realize it or not. She is the woman portrayed in the movie Charlie Wilson’s War, played by Julia Roberts opposite Tom Hanks. She is the woman who has met with every world leader from Ronald Reagan to Anwar Sadat to Winston Churchill III. She is the woman who saw the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan for what it was and opposed it vehemently, as she opposes the Taliban today not for being Muslim but for being murderers, and she is the one who is helping re-build Afghanistan so it can survive the future on its own terms. She is a woman of extreme power.
As the former president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, said:
I know Joanne Herring to be a most dynamic and inspiring personality. Her deep commitment to alleviate and assuage the sufferings of people of our region has touched me immensely. Her unique contribution to the Afghan freedom struggle in the 1980s turned the tide of the conflict. Her book is a reaffirmation of her genuinely feminine intuition towards a complex human tragedy spanning the last three decades
via Jim Luce: Joanne King Herring in Afghanistan: From Her Mouth to God’s Ears.
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