Mission to Oslo by Tom Loftus
'Mission to Oslo: Dancing with the Queen, Dealmaking with the Russians, Shaping History' by Tom Loftus
Tom Loftus is a familiar name in Wisconsin politics. He was speaker of the state assembly and chaired Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns committee in the Badger State. In a February 1993 Oval Office meeting, Loftus, of Norwegian descent, asked for appointment as U.S. ambassador to Norway. Clinton obliged.
Mission to Oslo is Loftus’ conversational account of his four years at the embassy. Anyone with a passing concern for the workings of diplomatic relations will find his detailing of minutiae interesting. He also digresses into history. Norway’s King Harold, a child in exile during World War II, received help with his homework from Franklin D. Roosevelt. After the war, neutral Norway hesitated before joining NATO and signed up on the condition that no foreign bases be established on its soil.
Norway was the front line of the Cold War only recently ended when Loftus arrived in Oslo. He gives a nostalgic nod to better days in his foreword, calling the ‘90s “the most optimistic and opportune time of the 20th century for Europe and the United States.”
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