ADST is proud to host the world's largest collection of U.S. diplomatic oral history.

Featured History:

Ambassador Peter Romero

Ambassador Peter Romero joined the Foreign Service in 1977. He served as Ambassador to Ecuador from 1993 to 1996 and as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs from 2000 to 2001. He was featured in a “Moment in Diplomatic History” – “Billion Dollar ‘Plan Colombia’ toEnd Decades of Civil War”

Some excerpts:  

On the Foreign Service oral exam . . . “The oral exam is deliberately filled with lots of ambiguity, particularly as it relates to questions. There’s no right or wrong answer and they want to see how you operate on your feet, without a lot of preparation and that’s probably one of the key things for Foreign Service Officers, to be able to do that, to have that skill. And I didn’t know anything about the Foreign Service, so I had no idea that there was no right or wrong answer to most of the questions that they asked you."

On the elite group of guerillas in El Salvador in the 1990s: "It’s interesting, the rank and file basically went back to farming or went to school or took advantage of micro-credits, you know Catholic Relief Services and other do village banking, it was a great program and some probably took advantage of small credits to start their own little businesses and then some probably snuck into the United States."

Explore Ambassador Romero's full oral history here.

 

For a list of oral histories by NAME, click here.  ADVANCED SEARCH:   click here.

 

 

Podcasts are a great way to experience ADST's oral history collection --  the world's largest collection of U.S. diplomatic oral history.

Check out our featured podcast -- "Basketball: The Fifth Basket of the Helsinki Final Act and the Effects on U.S.-Soviet Relations " -- and the rest of our podcasts on either of the links below.

  

 

Please let us know what you think of our podcasts!

 

 

by Rodger McDaniel

The Man in the Arena offers a political history of the United States from the late 1930s to 1980, told through the experiences of a U.S. senator who was deeply involved in the most crucial issues of the times and among the century's most renowned liberal senators. At the height of American liberalism, Gale McGee was elected to the U.S. Senate from conservative Republican Wyoming in 1958 and reelected twice. From 1977 to 1981 he served as Jimmy Carter's U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States.

 

“Gale McGee was indeed an extraordinary person. He had three distinct careers and loved them all equally. During his service as a professor, a U.S. senator, and an ambassador, his powerful intellect and eloquence reached the young minds in his classroom and reached out across the globe, where he shared his energy, knowledge, and brilliance––all to the common good.”

                        —from the foreword by former U.S. senator Alan K. Simpson

Click HERE to order "The Man in the Arena" through ADST.

For more ADST publications:  click here.