USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) is perhaps the world’s premier international disaster assistance agency. It was not always…
Getting Mexico to the NAFTA Negotiating Table
U.S. diplomats who helped lay the groundwork for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) first had to overcome entrenched…
The 1985 Mexico City Earthquake
On the morning of September 19, 1985, an 8.1-magnitude earthquake hit the western states of Mexico and including Mexico City. …
A Jack of All Trades: Working Without Foreign Service Nationals in Moscow
Foreign service officers are often subject to circumstances beyond their control. Such was the case when a diplomatic quarrel occurred…
The Iran Hostage Crisis: Diplomatic Drama and Legal Innovation
Next to Pearl Harbor and 9/11, the Iranian seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979 and…
A Look Back—First Director of the Population, Refugees, and Migrations Bureau
The Biden administration nominated Ambassador Julieta Valls Noyes to serve as assistant secretary of state for the department’s Bureau of…
Environmental Diplomacy: The United States and Russia in the Arctic
A desolate landscape and frozen ocean seems like an unlikely place for the scene of major world events and geopolitical…
Grains, Cows, and the End of the Cold War
The end of the Cold War is sometimes thought about as a dramatic and rapid event marked by the fall…
In the Heat of the Cold War: Diplomats in a Divided Germany
Ever since the Foreign Service’s infancy, Foreign Service spouses have traveled with their partners to all corners of the world,…
Folk Songs and Fellowship: The Power of Music in the Labor Movement
Organized labor holds power in the histories of countries all across the world, coming to the forefront as a political…