Bill Clinton writes in his memoirs '' My Life '' that Ralston was used to resolve a potentially sticky situation with Pakistan in which the US would use Pakistani airspace to strike at the Al-Qaeda organization meeting in Afghanistan following the US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania . There was US concern that Pakistan 's intelligence services would tip off the targets or even worse assume the missiles over Pakistan came from India , potentially triggering a nuclear conflict on the Indian sub-continent . As Clinton writes on page 799 of '' My Life '' , " we decided to send the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , General Joe Ralston , to have dinner with the top Pakistani military commander at the time the attacks were scheduled . Ralston would tell him ( the Pakistani general ) what was happening a few minutes before our missiles invaded Pakistani airspace , too late to alert the Taliban or Al-Qaeda , but in time to avoid having them shot down or sparking a counterattack on India . " In September 2006 , Ralston was assigned as Special Envoy for Countering the Kurdistan Workers Party ( PKK ) by the President of the United States George W. Bush . The PKK is a Kurdish separatist group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States , Turkey and the European Union
US Embassy bombings
1998 United States embassy bombings
Joseph Ralston