We are saddened to share the news that Charles Stuart “Stu” Kennedy died on Sunday, January 2. As Jim Dandridge…
Diamonds, Coal, and the Dutch Queen—NBC’s First Female Broadcaster Escapes The Netherlands in 1940
Reporting live from a shortwave radio station near the German border at the beginning of World War II, NBC’s first…
Harriet Elam-Thomas: A Career Well Served
Harriet Elam-Thomas grew up in Boston, the youngest of five children. She graduated from Simmons College and later earned a…
Edward Elson: Entrepreneurial Ambassador to Denmark
The fall of the Soviet Union upset long-established power dynamics, leaving East and Central Europe, in particular, in uncharted waters.…
When One of “The Murrow Boys” Became a Foreign Service Wife
Mary Marvin Breckinridge Patterson was the only female member of the original generation of CBS Radio war correspondents known as…
Richard Solomon, Ping-Pong Diplomat to China
China scholar Richard Solomon, who was an essential component of the “ping-pong diplomacy” that led to the thaw in relations…
A Man for all Transitions: Thomas Reeve Pickering
Considered by many the most accomplished diplomat of his generation, Thomas Reeve Pickering served as U.S. Ambassador to Jordan, Nigeria,…
Harold Saunders: The Original “Peace Processor”
Born in Philadelphia, Harold “Hal” Saunders graduated from Princeton and Yale before serving in the U.S. Air Force. After working…

When the Life of the Party Became Ambassador to France
An effective diplomat, dazzling socialite, and the mother of Winston Churchill’s grandson, Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman won the respect…
Shirley Temple Black: From the Good Ship Lollipop to the Ship of State
Shirley Temple Black, born April 23, 1928, served her country in vastly different ways. As a child star in the…