Talk:John R. Countryman/GA1

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

GA Review

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Reviewer: Goldsztajn (talk · contribs) 09:49, 4 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Parking this here for the reivew. --Goldsztajn (talk) 09:53, 4 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Some basic fixes: Lead: break into two paragraphs with a simple first sentence as the first paragraph: "John Russell Countryman (born January 25, 1933), stage name Johnnie Russell, is a former child actor and retired diplomat." Between the info box and the lead United States Foreign Service appears four times, best to try and reduce. Second paragraph: "Jesuit military prep school" This is very specific US English, in the UK (and Australia, NZ and South Africa) prep school will refer to a school for children up to the age of 10-11, in the US it is secondary, can this be changed to a "private Jesuit military high school" (or secondary school). "United States/US" appears four times in this section; I would suggest dropping from Air Force (ie pipe to USAF), Ambassador to Oman (ditto) and the second mention of the Foreign Service. Drop language skills from lead. Should mention something along the lines of: "Countryman worked with leading figures of late 20th Century US diplomacy, including Averill Harriman, Laurence Eagleburger and Zbigniew Brzezinski." Infobox: remove majors from degrees. Add \|alma mater= parameter, move Fordham and UMi. For other names, instead of "Johnnie Russell, Johnny Russell" could it be "Johnnie/Johnny Russell"? Occupation: change to diplomat (Foreign Service Officer is repeated immediately below in years active)
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	I'm a little concerned about the over-use of a primary source for the article; see elaborated comment below.
	2c. it contains no original research.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	Earwig shows no problems
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	Couple of additional points: Education: he over lapped at Xavier the same time as Anton Scalia, this should be added (it's mentioned on p.121 of the interview). As above with use of "prep" school. Foreign Service career: this section is somewhat difficult, since it is so dependent on the primary source, but given Countryman was involved in some very significant issues in late 20th Century US policy, they deserve a fuller profile/clarification (page numbers refer to the interview). This is particularly the case for his time (1975-80) at Arabian Peninsular Affairs (ARP). "From 1971 to 1975, Countryman served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Libreville, Gabon, in west-central Africa. During his Gabonese tour, Countryman and his wife also toured South Africa, which was then under apartheid." I'm not sure how relevant the mention of the visit to South Africa actually is, but if it is left in, it should be clarified that the visit was officially personal and that while he expressed discomfort regarding apartheid, he took no official action. In the interview he mentions Lawrence Eagleburger (p78) during his time in Gabon and connects him as an old colleague from his time with Harriman. His relationship with Eagleburger should be noted somewhere, this is very notable. Expansion in the role of arms sales to Saudi, in particular the F-15, (p.87 "never sold a first run, front line American fighter plane to anyone in the Middle East except the Israelis.". Countryman discusses the limitations of the Carter administration's approach to human rights and the reality of US relations in the Middle East (pp89-90) Add a sentence on his role during Iran-hostage crisis. Connect him to Brzezinski. Countryman discusses knowledge of Oman-Israeli secret relations (p.127). Ha'azretz has a good background piece which can be used as a verification on the claim made in the interview. "During Countryman's ambassadorship, the Iran–Iraq War erupted." The next sentence is sort of meaningless and does not really make sense...why would be expected not to follow US policy and acknowledge the Iranians? Why is it significant if he was friendly with the Iraqi ambassador? US policy at the time, Iraq was an ally, it was his job to be friendly. Countryman's term as ambassador included the only visit of the Sultan's 50 year reign to the US [1] What's interesting about the interview is that he talks about the consequences of US strategic planning following the hostage crisis, how a lack of US bases in the Gulf undermined US operations, he then goes on to draft and negotiate the 1980 agreement with Oman for the right of the US to have a base in Oman - probably his most notable diplomatic achievement. Needs more prominence. "The facilities Agreement officially concluded in June 1980, marked the end of a much longer process, transforming a pattern of informal permissions - which allowed US forces to use facilities on Omani territory - into a full and formal 10 year renewable agreement." Oman, Culture and Diplomacy (p.193) I suspect there is no information, so it is probably going to have to be left out...but nevertheless; by all accounts Countryman is a very successful State Dept officer, he starts relatively late, but rises relatively quickly, is a specialist in one of the most strategically important parts of US foreign policy (ie the Middle East), connected internally to very important people, seemingly getting the nod every step of the way, personally called by Reagan to be ambassador, serves his first ambassadorship and then at the (young!) age of 52... leaves. This is the point where the pinnacle is in sight and he gets off the mountain. What happened? I found this quote from the interview (p.140) intriguing: "I have a very clear idea in my own mind of what I think of foreign cultures. I am not hesitant in saying I think, you know, American culture is the best in the world, it is superior." Whether or not it could be used I leave open.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	Given the nature of the sources, it does present a completely anodyne portrait; 33 citations from the oral history interview are more than all the other citations combined. The interview itself is not a critical engagement, but rather an exercise in allowing the subject to provide as much information, unanalysed, as possible. I think one way of balancing this problem out would be in more points where the interview is used also connecting to sources which highlight the particular issue at hand. Doing this with the points I listed above in his foreign service career would be good in that regard.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	It's unfortunate there's not actually an image available of Countryman himself for the article. In lieu of that, given one of the most important people he worked with directly was Averill Harriman, I suggest adding a photo. I can see at least two photos of Harriman on Commons that coincide with the time (1965-66) Countryman worked for him: [2] [3]. I've cropped one for a portrait that might be appropriate [4].
	7. Overall assessment.	Thanks for putting the work in on this, I actually found reading about Countryman extremely interesting. He's a worthwhile subject for a GA. There's more than a small problem with the over-use of a primary source, but at the same time, it is not a great problem that cannot be rectified through some balancing. I think the article is very close to being GA with the suggested changes. Let me know how long you think you may need to clean up. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 13:16, 13 May 2020 (UTC)[reply] Nomination withdrawn.--Goldsztajn (talk) 20:49, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Yoninah: thanks for your patience, that took me a little longer to complete than I planned. I leave a space below for you to respond. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 13:25, 13 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator responses

Thank you for the thorough review! I would like to address your comments over the next week. I don't know if I have enough information to get around the overuse of the primary source. Best, Yoninah (talk) 21:09, 13 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Goldsztajn: To be honest, I thought this was a relatively detailed article that would be able to pass GA. By your comments, I see there's a lot more research to be done. Frankly, I created the article because I was interested in his film career (and even that was hard to research), and I don't feel like expanding the rather technical and political details that I'm frankly not interested in. I appreciate your time pointing out the faults, and perhaps in future I'll try to fix up a few of them so the page is useful. For now, I'd like to withdraw this nomination. Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 20:24, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Yoninah: Hi Yonniah, sorry to hear this. I'll have a little time in about a week, I'll see what I can do to address these points and perhaps we can make it a co-renomination. Regards,--Goldsztajn (talk) 20:46, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.