Kennedy, Charles Stuart
CHARLES STUART KENNEDY was a consular officer for many years and brings an insider’s appreciation of the work of these unsung American officials. He is a graduate of Williams College (BA with honors in history) and Boston University (MA). A veteran of the Korean War, he served as a consular officer in seven countries –– Germany, Saudi Arabia, Yugoslavia, South Vietnam, Greece, South Korea, and Italy.
After retiring from the Foreign Service in 1985, he founded and continues to direct the Foreign Affairs Oral History Program, which has placed over 1900 oral history transcripts of retired American diplomats on the website of ADST and 1750 on the Library of Congress website. He has received the 1997 Director General’s Foreign Service Cup, the 2006 Forrest C. Pogue award of OHMAR (Oral History in the Mid-Atlantic Region), and the American Foreign Service Association Award for Lifetime Contributions to Diplomacy.
As a British colony Americans relied on the far-flung British consular system to take care of their sailors and merchants. But after the Revolution they had to scramble to create an American service. While the U.S. diplomatic establishment was confined by protocol to the major capitals of the world, U.S....