Ah, the power of bureaucrats! It doesn’t seem to matter if you’re talking about the upper echelons of the State…
Captive in the Congo
Michael Hoyt was Commercial Officer in Leopoldville from 1962 until 1965 and was serving as interim Principal Officer in Stanleyville…
Operation Dragon Rouge
William E. Schaufele, Jr. was the Congo Desk Officer at State from 1964 to 1965, when 330 people, including the…
The Cairo Fire of 1952
The Cairo Fire, also known as Black Saturday, was a series of riots that took place on January 26, 1952,…
Dancing with the Stars…And Stripes in the Congo
Michael Rives joined the Foreign Service in 1950 and served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Brazzaville from 1963 to…
A Hostage in Communist China, 1948-49
As Mao Zedong’s People’s Liberation Army swept through China during the Civil War against the Nationalists in 1948 and 1949, it took…
An Itch for Politics: Breaking up a Protest in Unconventional Fashion
Politics can be a tough, even nasty business. James Jones describes an incident before he joined the Foreign Service when…
Harry Barnes: In an Episode Right Out of “Get Smart”
Harry Barnes had a distinguished Foreign Service career spanning 35 years, serving as Ambassador to India, Romania and most notably…
Blood on Ice: The 1969 Hockey Championships and Vengeance for Czechoslovakia
On the night of 20–21 August 1968, the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia in…
CSI: Sao Paulo — The Search for the Angel of Death
Stephen F. Dachi had one of the more unusual — and as it turned out, fateful — backgrounds of anyone…