During the spring of 1994, Americans were gripped by an incident in Singapore which unexpectedly became a cause celebre: the…
Freeing American Hostages in the First Gulf War
Shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein and his Republican Guard forces took hundreds of Americans…
Srebrenica and the Horrors of the Balkan War
The break-up of Yugoslavia caused some of the most heinous human rights violations and ethnic mass killings seen in the…
Who May Enter? Issuing Visas to Jewish Refugees
Nazi policies designed to persecute Jewish populations prompted a wave of emigration from Europe beginning in 1933. Many sought to…
The American Consul
Back to Diplomats and Diplomacy The American Consul: A History of the United States Consular Service, 1776–1924 “Kennedy has produced…
“Do you know who I am?” – Diplomatic Immunity Gone Wrong
For the uninitiated, one of the apparent perks of being a diplomat is diplomatic immunity — You’ll never have to…
Loy Henderson, Mr. Foreign Service
Loy Henderson (1892-1986) is one of the most storied figures in American diplomatic history. Beginning his career in 1922, he…
The Art of China Watching During the Great Leap Forward
From 1958 to 1961, following the anti-rightest crackdown of the Hundred Flowers Campaign, Mao Zedong and the Communist Party launched…
The Long Arm of History — Kurt Waldheim Banned for his Nazi Past
On June 8th, 1986, Kurt Waldheim was elected President of Austria. The former Secretary General of the United Nations and…
Terror in the Sky — Hezbollah Seizes TWA Flight 847
The summer of 1985 was a particularly gruesome one for terrorist incidents. One of the more memorable was the hijacking…