“A Conversation With Anne Dammarell” by Anne Dammarell is now available for purchase

Citi of Books is glad to announce the publication of the book “A Conversation With Anne Dammarell” by Anne Dammarell. In this book, the author, was interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy about her survival of the first suicide attack on the American embassy. Read the content of her interview and purchase a copy. Her interview is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other retail sites.

Anne Dammarell was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on January 2, 1938. Upon graduating from Our Lady of Cincinnati College in 1960, she interviewed housewives throughout the country about P&G products for a couple of years before living in Europe for a few years.  

In 1994, Anne earned a Georgetown University Master’s degree with her thesis, Hidden Fears, Helpful Memories: Aftermath of the 1983 Bombing of the United States Embassy in Beirut.  A year later, she joined the Agency for International Development, serving in Washington, DC, with the Office of International Training and then as an Afghanistan Desk Officer before being posted to Lebanon and Sri Lanka. Anne retired in 1988.  

As a volunteer, she taught English at neighborhood Schools, Sacred Heart, and Sitar Art Center, and then in Cairo and Bangkok with the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.  

I became much more aware of the world. When I would look at a map, I would say so and so was from here.

“A Conversation With Anne Dammarell” by Anne Dammarell contains a documented interview of Charles Stuart Kennedy with Anne Dammarell about her life, family, and experience in the Foreign Service, as an officer for the United States Agency for International Development

On April 18, 1983, a truck loaded with two thousand pounds of military grade explosives drove into the front door of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing sixty-three people, seventeen of whom were Americans. The nascent Iranian-backed Hezbollah had begun its terrorist campaign against the U.S. Anne Dammarell later wrote about the bombing for a master’s degree from Georgetown University.

“Bob and I were the only two in the cafeteria that lived. The awful part is they all died. You know, people talk about feeling guilt. I never felt guilty. I just felt terrible. I felt bad that they died, and I didn’t die.” – after the attack on the embassy.

The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) created the Diplomatic Oral History Series and started transcripts of interviews from its Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection. It is an independent nonprofit organization created in 1986 to assist foreign affairs personnel training at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute and to advance American diplomacy. 

Through the interview, Anne Dammarell reflects on the complexities of serving in volatile regions and the resilience required for such a demanding career.