Who cares what you think, Richard?!
"I see myself as the reader's proxy, lucky enough by virtue of occupation to go where they cannot go," he says. "I can visit places they're not likely to go and under conditions they would probably avoid (the Middle East almost a dozen times, Africa, Central America, Asia and Europe over and over again) and, sometimes most perilously, the halls of Congress or the salons of Georgetown.
Does the bold part mean what I think it means?