Scroll down for testimonials from some of our friends, or click here for selected academic citations.
“I am a strong proponent of oral histories whether in my community or in diplomatic relations. Carefully employed, oral histories lend depth and texture to otherwise dry recitations of official documents and statements. For me, the Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection, is a unique and incomparable source for understanding our past and present.”
W. Nathaniel Howell
Professor Emeritus of Public Affairs
University of Virginia
“The oral histories that your organization has collected over the years are a national treasure . . .”
Senator Sam Nunn
D-Georgia (retired)
I have used many of these interviews in my research and have found them truly invaluable. The interviews offer diplomatic and personal information, reflections, and memories that I would be unable to find anywhere else, save the enormous and often likely impossible task of conducting oral histories myself. These documents hold an unparalleled source for historical research
Martha Hodes
Professor of History
New York University
Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 2018-19
“The ADST Foreign Service oral histories are a tremendously important source for historians, political scientists and practitioners. I have used them extensively in work on South Asia, both during spells as an academic at Yale and the Library of Congress and during the course of conducting an Asia Society policy review on South Asia. I also draw on them as a practitioner: the oral histories provide depth and context for U.S. foreign relations over multiple decades. Diplomacy intimately depends on expertise and knowledge built over time. These oral histories are not just of historical interest but provide a vital contribution to contemporary U.S. diplomacy – and deserve support.”
Alexander Evans, Ph.D.
Member of the Senior Management Service
U.K. Diplomatic Service
Visiting Senior Research Fellow
King’s College London
“I had never thought of diplomats as a source until I met you. Thank you for opening my eyes to a whole other resource!”
Anne Walker, MEd Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment
Benton Middle School, Manassas, VA
“After my talk at George Mason University on nuclear [issues], students asked for suggestions for readings on diplomacy. I pointed to the incredible trove of diplomatic memoirs maintained online by the Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training”
Amb Laura Kennedy (ret.)
Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkmenistan
“The Association has created over the years an invaluable resource for understanding and writing the history of American foreign relations and indeed of the wider international history of the 20th and 21st centuries. The interviews and transcripts that the ADST has prepared, often with the help of dedicated volunteers, has produced a wealth of material that would otherwise be lost to history.”
Margaret MacMillan, Ph.D.
Professor of International History University of Oxford
and Distinguished Scholar
Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, Johns Hopkins, SAIS
“Firsthand American accounts are also to be found in . . . [the] illuminating oral history records of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, located at the George P. Schultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center.”
Jeffrey A. Engel, Ph.D.
Director of the Center for Presidential History
Southern Methodist University
“I have been a fan of the oral history collection for many years, both while doing research for my PhD and for my current book on consular representation in Britain. Anyone who is at all serious about writing on diplomacy or international relations and wishes to go behind the bland, sanitized official accounts of events should make the collection their first call. “
Nicholas M Keegan, B.A., Ph.D.
Durham, University
“The Association’s oral histories . . . provide scholars with a valuable tool for the study of U.S. diplomacy.”
Lee H. Hamilton
Former Chairman
Foreign Affairs Committee
U.S. House of Representatives
“[The collection is] an invaluable resource for students and scholars of modern U.S. history. [The interviews are] an entertaining compilation of tales by former diplomats free of their so-called ‘diplospeak’ shackles and recounting everything from the serious to the strange.”
Alan B. Nichols
The Washington Diplomat