U.S. Misjudged Bloodthirsty Mugabe

For Western journalists visiting Zimbabwe in the middle of the last decade, a background chat with U.S. Ambassador Christopher Dell was an opportunity not to be missed. A veteran Foreign Service Officer with a refreshingly informal, outspoken style, Dell could be counted on to deliver candid assessments of Robert Mugabe’s latest skullduggery, and of the hapless efforts by Zimbabwe’s opposition to get rid of him. When I met him at his sprawling residence in the verdant northern suburbs of Harare in May 2006, while reporting a New Yorker story about Mugabe, Dell laughed as he told me of his arrest by the dictator’s thugs for trespassing near the presidential palace in downtown Harare. He was clearly enjoying rattling the regime. “I cannot even spell the word Dell with a ‘D’ but an ‘H’ and that is where Dell should go," Mugabe declared that year, to Dell’s delight.