Diego Garcia

In chapter 2 of Dick Clarke's book Against All Enemies, he writes about President Reagan's decision to get involved in the Middle East, which included setting up an American base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. One of the classic State Department telegrams I remember was a reply to a worried inquiry sent to a number of American embassies about how their governments would respond to our setting up such a base. One embassy replied, "Our government thinks Diego Garcia is a cigar."