Problem: Background: Born in Venice, Ohio, Alson spent much of his childhood on a farm in Morning Sun; when he was a teenager, the family moved to Darrtown. Alston attended Milford Township High School in Darrtown, and received the nickname "Smokey" as a high school pitcher, owing to the speed of his fastball. He graduated from high school in 1929 and married longtime girlfriend Lela Vaughn Alexander the next year. In 1935, Alston graduated with a degree in industrial arts and physical education from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Context: The team finished 21 games back in seventh place (71-83 (.461)) in 1958, the club's first season in Los Angeles. Criticism of Alston had begun to mount during that season, but he led the Dodgers to a world championship in 1959. Six players on the 1959 team finished with double-digit totals in home runs, while 22-year-old Don Drysdale led the team's pitchers with 17 wins. Several Los Angeles players, including Wally Moon, characterized Alston as indecisive in the late 1950s and 1960s. However, Moon later came to describe Alston as a good manager who had gotten "good mileage" out of his players.  Managing the NL All-Star Team in 1960, Alston attracted some controversy when he left ]]1960 Milwaukee Braves season|Milwaukee Braves]] pitchers Warren Spahn and Lew Burdette off the roster. An Associated Press report said the omission may have been a snub directed at Dressen, who was the manager in Milwaukee. The 1960 Dodgers finished in fourth place. The following year, the team finished in second place after veteran Duke Snider missed two months with a broken arm. The Dodgers lost the lead in the 1962 NL pennant race and rumors surfaced that Alston and coach Leo Durocher might be fired, but the team retained both for 1963.  The Dodgers swept the World Series in 1963, the first time that the New York Yankees had lost a World Series in four games. Alston's pitchers excelled, as Koufax struck out 23 batters over two games and Drysdale threw a shutout in Game 3. Over the four games, Alston employed only four pitchers: three starters and one reliever. The 1964 team was 80-82, its first losing season in several years. Alston used the team's 1964 performance to motivate them moving forward. In spring training before the 1965 season, he said that he would not let his team forget the difficulties they had in the previous season.  The Dodgers returned to the World Series in 1965 against Minnesota. Alston could not start his number one pitcher, Koufax, in the opening game on October 6 because Koufax was observing Yom Kippur. Instead, Alston turned to Drysdale, who struggled and surrendered seven runs in just 2 2/3  innings. When Alston came to the mound to remove him in the bottom of the third, Drysdale quipped, "I bet right now you wish I was Jewish, too." The team recovered from losing that first game and they won the World Series in seven games. Koufax appeared in three games during the series, registering two shutouts.  Alston's Dodgers teams of the 1960s benefited from the strong pitching by Drysdale and Koufax. In 1966, both players held out of spring training and demanded three-year contracts each worth $500,000, which was more money than anyone was making in baseball at the time. The players were eventually signed for lesser amounts. Drysdale struggled that year, but Koufax won 27 games. The Dodgers returned to the World Series, but were swept by the Baltimore Orioles. Koufax retired after the season on the advice of doctors who examined his sore arm. Drysdale retired three years later. Both men had pitched their entire major league careers for Alston.
Question: What happened during Walter Alston's early years in Los Angeles?
Answer: The team finished 21 games back in seventh place (71-83 (.461)) in 1958, the club's first season in Los Angeles.

Problem: Background: Bernard Lewis, FBA (born 31 May 1916) is a British American historian specializing in oriental studies. He is also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Lewis' expertise is in the history of Islam and the interaction between Islam and the West.
Context: In 1936, Lewis graduated from the School of Oriental Studies (now School of Oriental and African Studies, SOAS) at the University of London with a BA in history with special reference to the Near and Middle East. He earned his PhD three years later, also from SOAS, specializing in the history of Islam. Lewis also studied law, going part of the way toward becoming a solicitor, but returned to study Middle Eastern history. He undertook post-graduate studies at the University of Paris, where he studied with the orientalist Louis Massignon and earned the "Diplome des Etudes Semitiques" in 1937. He returned to SOAS in 1938 as an assistant lecturer in Islamic History.  During the Second World War, Lewis served in the British Army in the Royal Armoured Corps and as a Corporal in the Intelligence Corps in 1940-41 before being seconded to the Foreign Office. After the war, he returned to SOAS. In 1949, at the age of 33, he was appointed to the new chair in Near and Middle Eastern History.  In 1974, aged 57, Lewis accepted a joint position at Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study, also located in Princeton, New Jersey. The terms of his appointment were such that Lewis taught only one semester per year, and being free from administrative responsibilities, he could devote more time to research than previously. Consequently, Lewis's arrival at Princeton marked the beginning of the most prolific period in his research career during which he published numerous books and articles based on previously accumulated materials. After retiring from Princeton in 1986, Lewis served at Cornell University until 1990.  In 1966, Lewis was a founding member of the learned society, Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), but in 2007 he broke away and founded Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) to challenge MESA, which the New York Sun noted as "dominated by academics who have been critical of Israel and of America's role in the Middle East." The organization was formed as an academic society dedicated to promoting high standards of research and teaching in Middle Eastern and African studies and other related fields, with Lewis as Chairman of its academic council.  In 1990, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Lewis for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. His lecture, entitled "Western Civilization: A View from the East", was revised and reprinted in The Atlantic Monthly under the title "The Roots of Muslim Rage." His 2007 Irving Kristol Lecture, given to the American Enterprise Institute, was published as Europe and Islam.
Question: why was he seconded to the foreign office?
Answer: