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- Former Afghanistan ambassador John Bass was pressed to return to Kabul in August 2021.
- Bass was called by a top State Department official to return to the nation to help lead the US' withdrawal.
- Bass was so unprepared for the assignment that he had to run to an outdoor store to get gear.
Former US ambassador to Afghanistan John Bass was in the middle of teaching future US diplomats when he was called to return to the country and help lead America's chaotic withdrawal as Taliban forces swarmed Kabul, according to a forthcoming book.
Bass was so unprepared for the assignment that he needed to make a quick run to REI to get the necessary gear that he no longer had since he didn't live in the nation's capital.
"He drove straight to the nearest REI in search of hiking pants and rugged boots," journalist Franklin Foer writes in "The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future," which will be released on September 5. "He needed to pick up a laptop from the IT department in Foggy Bottom."
The Atlantic published an excerpt from Foer's book on Tuesday morning. The passage is devoted to the end of the war in Afghanistan, a major moment in Joe Biden's presidency. Bass, according to the book, was pressed to return because acting Ambassador Ross Wilson, Bass' successor in Kabul, was not "able to function at the level that was necessary" in order to do the job alone, then-Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman told Bass on the phone.
Before leaving to buy his gear, Bass offered a quick goodbye to the class of future ambassadors he was training in suburban Virginia.
"With apologies, I'm going to have to take my leave. I've just been asked to go back to Kabul and support the evacuations," the book quotes him as saying. "So I've got to say goodbye and wish you all the best, and you're all going to be great ambassadors."
Just 30 hours later, Bass was back in Kabul. His office was now at the Hamid Karzai International Airport, where the US embassy had been relocated after the State Department shut down the physical location.
According to the book, Biden himself would "pepper" Bass with ideas on how to get more evacuees through the airport's gates. US officials were relying on the Taliban's cooperation to get as many people with the necessary approval through as possible. But the US' adversary in the longest war in the nation's history proved to be a mercurial partner. Foer describes how the Taliban would change its approach, letting buses through with no questions at first only to later demand manifests. Sometimes they would shut down access entirely.
"The president's instinct was to throw himself into the intricacies of troubleshooting," Foer wrote. "Why don't we have them meet in parking lots? Can't we leave the airport and pick them up? Bass would kick around Biden's proposed solutions with colleagues to determine their plausibility, which was usually low. Still, he appreciated Biden applying pressure, making sure that he didn't overlook the obvious."
News of Bass' appointment sparked scores of emails with names of Afghans that friends and colleagues hoped he could save. He filled up an entire six-foot‑by‑four-foot whiteboard with the names.
An Atlantic spokesperson told Insider that the italicized comments are not in quotation marks to signify that they are "as told to." Requests for comment sent to Bass, Ross, and Sherman were not immediately returned.