Article 3.
NYT -— Books
Mohamed EIBaradel, the Inspector Leslie H. Gelb
THE AGE OF DECEPTION Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times By Mohamed ElBaradei 340 pp. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company. $27.
May 6, 2011 -- The Nobel laureate Mohamed E]Baradei has stated his intention to “nominate myself’ to be president of Egypt, but this memoir will not improve his election prospects. In personal terms, it’s hard to imagine anything less thrilling to Egypt’s street revolutionaries than ElBaradei’s accounts of his meals (“The food was very basic, with few choices: noodles, meat and kimchi; no fruit or salad’’) and accommodations (“a worn, drab-colored suite consisting of a bedroom and a salon’’) in places like North Korea. Nor will his fellow Egyptians be much intrigued by the details of his battles against nuclear proliferators. At the moment, the protestors have other priorities.
On the other hand, foreign policy leaders and wonks everywhere will find plenty in this memoir to stir debates about the most vital task for global survival — the need to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, especially to rogue states and terrorists.
That quest is ElIBaradei’s story. For decades he was an intimate participant in dramatic nuclear proliferation confrontations that dominated headlines. He served as a senior official at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog and inspection arm, for 13 years (1984-97) before rising to its director-generalship in 1997. He resigned in 2009 after completing
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_024970