On March 1st, 1954, the U.S. conducted its largest hydrogen bomb test ever near the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. An unexpected blast of 15 megatons — 1,000 times stronger than the Hiroshima bomb — affected Australia, India and Japan with widespread radioactive fallout. The Fortunate Dragon (Daigo Fukuryū Maru), a Japanese fishing boat,… Read More "Japanese Fishermen and the Bikini Atoll H-bomb Blast"
The Day Stalin’s Daughter Asked for Asylum in the U.S.
On March 9th, 1967, Svetlana Alliluyeva — Joseph Stalin’s only daughter — walked into the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and requested political asylum. No one knew she was even in India. (She had traveled there in 1966 in order to place the ashes of her boyfriend, an Indian Communist she had met in Moscow,… Read More "The Day Stalin’s Daughter Asked for Asylum in the U.S."
The Red Scare Hits the Foreign Service Institute
The Foreign Service Institute plays a central role in the training of American diplomats and other professionals in the U.S. foreign affairs community. Decades of experience and its hundreds of course offerings–from language and area to studies to management and technical training–have made FSI uniquely qualified in this regard. Despite its importance, the Institute’s existence… Read More "The Red Scare Hits the Foreign Service Institute"
The Terrorist Attack on the Saudi Embassy — Khartoum, 1973
Less than a year after its members murdered 11 Israeli athletes and one German police guard during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, the infamous Palestinian terrorist group Black September Organization (BSO) on March 1, 1973 launched a brazen raid on the Saudi Arabian embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, kidnapping U.S. Ambassador Cleo Noel and Deputy Chief… Read More "The Terrorist Attack on the Saudi Embassy — Khartoum, 1973"
Nixon Goes to China
“There is no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able people to live in angry isolation.” Richard Nixon, after his election in 1968, pushed for better relations with China despite historical tensions and hostilities. In 1971, National Security Advisor and future Secretary of State Henry Kissinger took two trips… Read More "Nixon Goes to China"
With his infamous Wheeling, West Virginia speech on February 9, 1950, in which he declared he had a list of communists working in the State Department, Senator Joseph McCarthy ushered in one of the darker periods in the post-war era. The speech came at a time when the fear of communism and communist infiltrators in… Read More "McCarthy’s Red Herring"
President Nixon Meant to Thank Faisal, not Faisal
Less than a month before President Richard Nixon’s resignation on August 9, 1974, he took a presidential tour of the Middle East. The trip was meant to strengthen U.S. relations with the region as well as provide the president with a respite from the onslaught of bad press at home due to the infamous Watergate… Read More "President Nixon Meant to Thank Faisal, not Faisal"
“You’re nothing but a two-bit dictator” – Dealing with the DR’s Rafael Trujillo
Known as “El Jefe,” or “The Chief,” Rafael Trujillo ruled as dictator of the Dominican Republic for more than 30 years. During this time, more than 50,000 people were killed under Trujillo’s oppressive and corrupted regime. He was assassinated in 1961, less than a year after Ambassador Joseph Farland left the Dominican Republic. Farland served… Read More "“You’re nothing but a two-bit dictator” – Dealing with the DR’s Rafael Trujillo"
On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union and its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was captured. The Eisenhower administration initially attempted to cover up the incident but was soon forced to admit that the U.S. had been conducting reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union for several years.… Read More "The Show Trial of U-2 Pilot Francis Gary Powers"
Four Days in September — The Kidnapping of the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil
It sounds like something out of Hollywood. Indeed, it was made into a Brazilian movie in 1997 with Alan Arkin (in his pre-Argo days). Charles Burke Elbrick, U.S. Ambassador to Brazil, was kidnapped and held for four days in September 1969. What made the incident so strange was that Fernando Gabeira, a member of the guerrilla group… Read More "Four Days in September — The Kidnapping of the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil"