September 11, 2001 left an indelible mark on American history when nineteen members of al Qaeda carried out the deadliest…
“A Recipe for Endless War” – The Rise of the Taliban
After conquering Kabul in April 1996, the Taliban established the ultra-conservative Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, enforcing a radical interpretation of…
PTSD in the Foreign Service — The Embassy Beirut Bombing
In an unprecedented suicide attack on Americans, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was bombed on April 18, 1983. The tragedy…
Top Ten Things You Learn From a Hostage Situation
Sometimes it just ain’t easy working for the State Department. If you go through the lengthy history of the Foreign Service…
Death of an FSO, As Remembered by His Widow
Dennis Keogh had been Political Counselor in South Africa from 1980-83 and made 25 trips to Namibia. In the spring…
“The First Terrorist Attack in the U.S.” – The Letelier-Moffitt Assassinations
After Augusto Pinochet led a coup d’état in Chile on September 11, 1973, taking power from the democratically elected President…
The Lockerbie Bombing and Its Aftermath
On December 21, 1988, Pan American flight 103 flying from London Heathrow to JFK Airport in New York exploded over…
The Dramatic Hostage Crisis and Daring Rescue at the Japanese Embassy in Peru
It sounds like something out of a novel: a group of rebels, helped by an American, seize an embassy in…
Life at Embassy Tokyo After Pearl Harbor
Despite getting extremely close to agreeing to negotiations to avert hostilities, the U.S. and Japan failed to make peace and…
The Burning of the JFK Library in Cairo — Thanksgiving Day, 1964
On November 28, 1964 — Thanksgiving Day — several hundred students from the Congo and elsewhere set fire to the…