Mr. Dubs’ death is in the news again, more than three decades after he was kidnapped and murdered in Kabul, Afghanistan.
You might have seen or heard his name in the reports of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens’ death and three of his staff in Libya. People are thinking that we have to do something about terrorism, but what?
Mr. Dubs’ murder puts Stevens’ death in context. Thirty-three years had passed without a similar incident. But this is not why I remember Adolph Dubs.
He died in 1979. I knew him several years earlier, in 1974-75.
Dubs, then in his mid-50s, spent a school year teaching in the international studies department of Rhodes College. He had been an interim ambassador in Moscow, and I was a student for two semesters in his Soviet Foreign Policy course.
He encountered some muddled thinking — I swear, not just mine — so he set aside one class period to teach us how to write political analysis.
First, he said, describe the situation; then, the steps taken; and finally, the result.
The instruction bingoed for me, and I’ve used it ever since, especially for news writing. The only difference is order. With news, you tell first what happened.
Another time, he and I were drinking coffee together in the cafeteria. He said he had been visiting with people around Memphis and seeking their opinions about foreign affairs. What did my grandparents think about the Arab-Israeli conflict?
Of course, I didn’t know. Maybe I could develop a wider curiosity?
Ah, that’s another attribute a reporter cannot do without.
If Mr. Dubs were alive today, I doubt he would remember these instructions, but they remain in my mind. I think of them as a legacy.
If you Google Adolph Dubs, you’ll find various reports on how he died. Most try to tell about the situation, the steps taken and the result.
But the information is murky, just like terrorism — which thrives in the dark.
What can we do about terrorism? Let’s keep trying to expose it to the light.
• Susan Montgomery is an advertising sales representative for the Commonwealth who occasionally dabbles in her former job as a writer and editor in the newsroom. Contact her at 581-7240 or smontgomery@gwcommonwealth.com.
