By Harut Sassounian Publisher, The California Courier I disclosed several months ago in this column that the moderator of the infamous Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission, David L. Phillips, was busy writing a book on his misadventures with a few duped Armenians and several wily Turks. At the time of making that announcement, I had commented that since Phillips had committed scores of factual errors in his brief anti-Armenian opinion column published in the Wall Street Journal, how many more mistakes would he make in a much longer writing? We are about to find out. I, for one, can't wait to take apart this soon to be published book: "Unsilencing the Past: Track-Two diplomacy and Turkish Armenian Reconciliation." The publisher, Berghahn Books, in seeking pre-publication orders for this $40 volume, states that Phillips, a Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations, undertook to bring Armenians and Turks together and "to work with them towards a peaceful resolution of the enmity that had made any contact between them taboo. His lively account of the difficult negotiations makes fascinating reading; it shows that the newly developed 'track-two diplomacy' is an effective tool for reconciling even intractable foes through fostering dialog, contact and cooperation." It would be fascinating to see how Phillips manages to present his miserable failure at TARC as a brilliant success!

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