I am writing to endorse Peter Galbraith's bid to become one of Windham County's two Democratic candidates for the Vermont Senate.
I first met Peter when he worked as a teenage volunteer on Phil Hoff's successful 1966 gubernatorial campaign, and I was struck then by his formidable organizational and political abilities. Several years later, I had the pleasure of teaching political science and international relations with him at Windham College and was again impressed by his “people skills.”
Over the years, I have followed his distinguished career in public service, as he rose from a staff position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (where he was instrumental in exposing Saddam Hussein's gassing of the Kurds) through a number of extremely important diplomatic troubleshooting roles in Croatia, Bosnia, Kurdistan, and East Timor, to become, most recently, Deputy U.N. Representative in Afghanistan. He was “relieved” from that job because of his efforts to expose the massive fraud in the Afghan national elections earlier this year.
At first glance, one might wonder why Galbraith, who has negotiated in so many hot spots around the world, is interested in becoming a Senator from Windham County in the tiny state of Vermont.