In the early 1980s, Contra militant groups in Honduras engaged in guerrilla warfare in an attempt to overthrow the Sandinista…
Nixon vs. Khrushchev — The 1959 Kitchen Debate
It was undoubtedly one of the most unorthodox – and therefore memorable – settings for a major political debate. On…
A First-Class Spy Flap: CIA Agents Compromised in Ghana
Relations between the United States and Ghana were strained in the early 1980s. Its leader, the enigmatic former Flight Lieutenant…
The Art of China Watching During the Great Leap Forward
From 1958 to 1961, following the anti-rightest crackdown of the Hundred Flowers Campaign, Mao Zedong and the Communist Party launched…
The Seychelles – Gangsta’s Paradise
A country of white sand beaches and palm trees, the Seychelles is an exotic tourist destination. It also happens to…
The Iran-Contra Scandal
One of the biggest foreign policy scandals of the last half-century was the Iran-Contra affair, in which the Reagan Administration,…
Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s Founding Father
Lee Kuan Yew, who died in March 2015, is known for being the longest serving prime minster in the world…
Tachito Crumbles – The End of Nicaragua’s Somoza Dynasty
From 1936 to 1979, Nicaragua was under the grip of the Somoza family. Coming to power following the death of…
Books, Defectors, and Song — The Cuban Missile Crisis, as Seen from Moscow
The Soviet Union, in Churchill’s famous words, was a “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”; as such it made…
“Apparently I have been kidnapped” — The Death of a Vice Consul
In 1974, Bobby Joe Keesee (in photo), recipient of the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star for his actions during…