The “Iron Curtain” was a term used to denote the efforts of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to block…
Grapes of Wrath and Strained Relations with Chile
Grocery stores throughout the United States pulled tons of grapes from their shelves when traces of cyanide were found in two…
A Sketch in Time: Cape Verde from an Ambassador’s View
The nation of Cape Verde, now known as Cabo Verde, is a group of islands located off the western coast…
Mission Unspeakable: When North Koreans Tried to Kill the President of South Korea
On October 9, 1983, while South Korean President Chun Doo-Hwan was on a visit to Rangoon, Burma to lay a…
The Technology of Terror – South America in the 70s and 80s
Terrorism the world over poses a threat to the lives of Foreign Service Officers. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s terrorist…
Crisis Management: Occupation of USIS in South Korea, 1985
On May 25, 1985, seventy-three South Korean students barged into the United States Information Services (USIS) library in Seoul and…
The 1991 Coup Against Mikhail Gorbachev
In August 1991, hard-line members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) who opposed President Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms…
American-Israeli Tensions over the Black Hebrew Community
The African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem, often referred to as the Black Hebrew Community (BHC), is a religious group that…
Getting the U.S. President to Write to the President of Guatemala About Human Rights (Hint – It’s Who You Know)
With the end of the Cold War, the U.S. began to put greater emphasis on enforcing its policy of protecting…
Negotiating the Mexican-American Border: the Case of Chamizal
Defining the border between Mexico and the United States has not always been in the hands of politicians; at one…