Month: June 2018

Louise Keeley waited and worried in neighboring countries when her husband, American diplomat Robert V. “Bob” Keeley, faced the encircling Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the depredations of Idi Amin in Uganda. Waiting for news of a spouse on a dangerous diplomatic assignment can be more stressful than the assignment itself. And when U.S. family… Read More "Duty and Danger: A Diplomatic Spouse Recounts Narrow Escapes from Uganda and Cambodia"

Long before he was President Reagan’s Secretary of Defense, Frank Carlucci was a young State Department political officer in Kinshasa, Congo (then known as Leopoldville).  He got to know Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and was among the last Americans to see him alive before Lumumba’s 1961 murder. Multiple theories surround Lumumba’s death, which remains controversial… Read More "Frank Carlucci and the Last Days of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo"

For a young lieutenant to challenge the number two man in the Department of Defense over Vietnam policy in 1969 took guts. The ensuring argument pitted R. James Woolsey, still in his 20s and later to become Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, against Paul Nitze, Deputy Secretary of Defense and pillar of the U.S.… Read More "Long Before He Headed the CIA, James Woolsey Challenged Paul Nitze Over the Vietnam War"

Lewis Lucke was called out of retirement in 2010 to coordinate USAID’s response to the disastrous 7.0 magnitude Haitian earthquake, which killed an estimated 100,000 people and dealt a devastating blow to a country still reeling from political instability and the aftermath of a military coup.  Lucke found bodies in the street and mountains of… Read More "Washington Demands and Disaster Assistance: USAID and the 2010 Haiti Earthquake"

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 ushered in a fraught time in the lives of East and West Germany — and the American diplomats posted there.  U.S. diplomat Donald Bandler and his wife Jane found a novel way to reach out to East German diplomats in Bonn adjusting to the new order: the… Read More "Helping Reunite Germany with Tennis"

Francisco Franco’s death in 1975 opened the path for newly-throned King Juan Carlos to become Spain’s head of state. His first independent action was to fire Prime Minister Carlos Arias Navarro. This came as a shock to citizens, diplomats, and Spanish government officials. Because the Juan Carlos had outwardly supported the Franco regime, while privately… Read More "Spain’s New King and the Politics of a Fourth of July Party"

Reverend Billy Graham visited the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 1992. The evangelist met with the Supreme Leader Kim Il-Sung and was permitted to preach the Christian Gospel in the officially atheist hermit kingdom.  The visit led to a brief opening, including charity work by Christian non-governmental organizations. Graham was accompanied by Dr.… Read More "Christ and Communism: How Rev. Billy Graham Helped Improve U.S.-North Korean Relations"

What is it like to transition from the senior ranks of American journalism to a top job in an agency you once covered?  Strobe Talbott found out when his old Oxford roommate, newly-elected President Bill Clinton, asked him to join the State Department.  Talbott went on to serve for seven years as Deputy Secretary of… Read More "Strobe Talbott: From Foreign Affairs Journalist to Number Two at the Department of State"

USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) is perhaps the world’s premier international disaster assistance agency.  It was not always that way. OFDA administrator Oliver “Ollie” Davidson knows this better than most. OFDA’s response to the devastating 1985 Mexico City earthquake was ernest and energetic, but not always well-targeted.  In his oral history, Davidson recalls… Read More "Lessons Learned: USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and the 1985 Mexico City Earthquake"

After decades of right-wing dictatorship, Portugal faced a threat of a takeover by communists in the mid-1970s.  Ambassador Frank Carlucci, who went on to become Secretary of Defense, headed up efforts to prevent the first loss of a NATO member state to the alliance’s political and ideological foes.  That meant engaging with parties and politicians… Read More "Frank Carlucci: Helping Block the Communists in Portugal"