January 28, 2005, 6.58pm • 67 comments » • 986 Views

Climbing the US’ security-political tree

With this week’s release of four Britons from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, sparking concern about UK plans to place terror suspects under house arrest, I was reminded of an interview I had with one of the top knobs at the US embassy in London exactly three years ago today.

You could say it was at the height of the concerns over human rights abuses on the camp; but, as this week showed, there has been no height, the furore never went away.

Glyn Davies went away. Where once the story page linked to his bio on the US Embassy’s website, that bio has been replaced by that of another loyal American policy servant.

Yes, Davies, who “received a tongue-lashing from UK MPs” over Camp X-Ray, has, since our interview, moved on. I was interested to find out to where, and Google game to my aid; showing me how someone rises through the ranks of the US security, dipomatic and political machine…

Pre-interview…

• Ambassador Davies earned his Bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University in 1979.
• From 1987 to 1992, Ambassador Davies served in the State Department’s Office of European Security and Political Affairs, then as Deputy Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Paris.
• He was Special Assistant to Secretary of State George Shultz from 1986 to 1987.
• He served in a variety of consular, economic, and political assignments at the U.S. Consulate General in Melbourne , Australia and at the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa, Zaire, from 1980 to 1984.

Post-interview…

• Ambassador Davies earned his Bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University in 1979.
• From 1987 to 1992, Ambassador Davies served in the State Department’s Office of European Security and Political Affairs, then as Deputy Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Paris.
• He was Special Assistant to Secretary of State George Shultz from 1986 to 1987.
• He served in a variety of consular, economic, and political assignments at the U.S. Consulate General in Melbourne , Australia and at the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa, Zaire, from 1980 to 1984.

To say his career is “distinguished” would be an understatement.