Barbara Bodine, former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen, has had experiences that most people only read about. She was on duty when the U.S.S. Cole was bombed, has negotiated with kidnappers and survived the hijacking of her plane.

She will share her experiences when she speaks on “Political Islam,” at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 27 at the University of Delaware. Her talk, free and open to the public, will be held in 128 Clayton Hall, on the UD Laird Campus. It is part of the lecture series “Understanding International Terrorism Today.”

Bodine was on duty when the U.S.S. Cole was bombed in a terrorist attack. In 1999, she negotiated for many hours to release three Americans kidnapped in Yemen and in 2001 her plane from Yemen was hijacked and sidetracked to Africa.

She has spent her career working primarily on Southwest Asia and the Arabian Peninsula. She has twice served in the Bureau of Near East Affairs' Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs and also has had assignments as deputy principal officer in Baghdad, Iraq, and as deputy chief of mission in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion and occupation in 1990. She was awarded the Secretary of State's Award for Valor for her work in Kuwait.

Following Kuwait, Bodine was the associate coordinator for operations and later served as the acting coordinator for counter terrorism. She went on to serve as the dean of professional studies at the department's Foreign Service Institute. She has worked on the secretariat staff of Secretaries Kissinger and Vance, and as a congressional fellow in the office of Senator Robert Dole. She recently spent one year as the director of East African Affairs.

Bodine earned her bachelor of arts degree in political science and Asian studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara and her master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts. She also studied at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Department of State's Language Training Field Schools in Taiwan and Tunisia.

More information on UD’s Global Agenda series can be found online at [www.udel.edu/global] or by calling (302) 831-2355. The program is a presentation of the World Affairs Council of Wilmington, the University of Delaware’s Center for International Studies and departments of communication and political science and international relations.

March 19, 2002