Author: Liz Dee

Fighting opium production in Afghanistan before 9/11 meant working with the Taliban.  Veteran foreign service officer James P. Callahan found ways to do that. He recalls a time when U.S. interests in combating the heroin trade aligned with those of the Taliban, and when efforts to curb opium production had some success.   From 1999… Read More "Cooperating with the Taliban to Fight Opium Production in Afghanistan Before 9/11"

A USAID officer secured a meeting with two senior and notorious Afghan warlords in the late 1980s when he appeared as an unexpected (and unwanted) guest in their homes. Adhering to the Pashtun code of conduct requiring hospitality be offered to every guest.  Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Abdul Rasul Sayaaf reluctantly — but courteously — welcomed… Read More "A Reluctant Welcome From Notorious Warlords in Afghanistan"

Kidnappings, particularly those of high-ranking political officials, were not uncommon in 1970s Uruguay given the prominence of an urban guerilla group called the Tupamaros. Mistaken as someone with great importance, junior diplomat Mark Gordon Jones was kidnapped by the group in 1970. In “one of the dumbest luck things that could ever happen,” Jones was… Read More "A Diplomat Recalls Escape From a Kidnapping in Uruguay"

Few Americans have met personally with the leadership of both Mao Zedong’s China and Chiang Kai-shek’s Taiwan. Sheila Platt, and her husband Nicholas Platt, are among that select group.  Sheila Platt dropped out of Radcliffe in 1957 to join her Foreign Service husband in a storied diplomatic career that led him to ambassadorships in Zambia,… Read More "Sheila Platt: A Diplomatic Life Bridging Both Sides of China’s Divide"

USAID unearthed a major corruption scandal in Russia in the late 1990s involving Harvard University’s Institute for International Development.  Dr. Janet Ballantyne, USAID’s mission director, blew the whistle. In her oral history, Ballantyne discusses the consternation this caused with U.S. Embassy leadership, and the repercussions of her reporting on relationships with key Russian officials. Throughout… Read More "Whistle-Blowing on American Corruption in Russia"

Rebuilding Rwanda after the genocide was no easy task.  USAID tasked George Lewis to head up that agency’s efforts to help a nation heal after one of the most horrific episodes in recent history.  He faced extreme ethnic animosity, a destroyed country, and an “epic event in the history of human movement,” the return of… Read More "Helping Rebuild Rwanda After the 1994 Genocide"

After the fall of  Somalia’s dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, a civil war broke out between warlords.  In the ensuing conflict, an estimated 350,000 Somalis died because of famine, disease, and war-time casualties. With the death toll mounting, President George H.W. Bush sent a U.S.-led humanitarian force to Somalia.  It was among the earliest… Read More "Removing Corpses from the U.S. Embassy: Behind the Scenes of Operation Restore Hope in Somalia  "

Joseph C. Wilson IV oversaw the closing of the U.S. Embassy in Iraq in 1991, just before U.S. and allied forces launched Operation Desert Storm.  Wilson defied a directive from the State Department’s Operations Center to evacuate the American Embassy under cover of darkness, insisting that the U.S. departure be coordinated with the embassies of… Read More "Human Moments With George and Barbara Bush on the Eve of the 1991 Gulf War"

While democratic elections were held in Burma (Myanmar) by the military-led government in 1990, the elected parliament was never allowed to meet. Even before the elections were held, Aung San Suu Kyi (the daughter of one of the founders of Burma and leader of the National League of Democracy) was detained and subsequently put under… Read More "Tracking the Politics of Burma (Myanmar) After the Flawed 1990 Elections"

In the early 1990s, at the height of the “War on Drugs,” David Lyon took a break from consular work and accepted an assignment as the Director of the Bureau of International Narcotics Matters (INM/T—now INL for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement). Over the course of his three years with INM/T, Lyon… Read More "The State Department’s Air Wing and Counternarcotics Programs in South America"