It’s hard to imagine U.S. foreign policy in East Asia without its closest partner and ally in the region: Japan. Yet relations between the two allies have not always been close nor has their shared history been without its crises. While it may seem that the alliance between Japan and the United States has always been in its strong present state and that the military bases in Okinawa have always been accepted, this could not be further from the case, especially during the 1995 Okinawa Rape Incident.

Following the end of the Second World War, Japan had been occupied and humbled by the allies, led by the United States. However, as the war ended, a new conflict in the form of the Cold War with the USSR began, leaving Japan in a precarious position. As the Chinese Civil War ended with a Communist victory and Korea became a major strategic concern, Japan’s role went from an occupied enemy to a friend and partner in the fight against Communism. Japan, as Prime Minister Nakasone put it, became “an unsinkable aircraft carrier.” As part of the U.S.-Japan alliance, especially through the Status of Forces Agreement signed in 1960, Okinawa retained its U.S. military bases while U.S. servicemen gained some degree of extraterritoriality. Tensions over trade issues and the security agreement itself were already high when the Okinawa Rape Incident of 1995 occurred, causing wide-spread anger towards the U.S. presence and shining a spotlight on long-neglected Okinawa. The crisis also exposed differences of opinions between the military stationed on Okinawa and diplomatic personnel in the embassy in Tokyo, both of which wished to proceed in their own ways.

During this time, Foreign Service Officer Rust Deming was serving in Japan as the deputy chief of mission to political appointee Ambassador Walter Mondale. During the crisis, Deming helped in navigating the complex Japanese-American relationship by balancing security with politics and economics, all of which had been straining the alliance. Later, he served as chargé d’affaires and throughout his career, faced multiple other crises and disputes between Japan and the United States.

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Few get the chance to leave their mark as a record holder. Beatrice Bishop Berle certainly did just that. In the mid-1940s, Beatrice Bishop Berle administered the first dose of penicillin in Brazil’s history. Her husband, Adolf Berle, Jr., was the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil from 1945–1946. Spouses of ambassadors play a considerable role in their given host country, whether it be fostering relations amongst government officials or looking out for the well-being of the embassy staff. In this regard, spouses do not necessarily trail their Foreign Service partners (as the moniker “trailing spouse” would suggest), but rather lead and contribute to American diplomatic practice through their formal and informal duties.

Adolf Berle Jr. was an original member of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Brain Trust.” The “Trust” was a group of policy experts who offered advice and guidance to FDR during his presidency. Adolf Berle Jr. was instrumental in crafting FDR’s First New Deal in 1933. Later in his career, Adolf Berle Jr. was assigned to the State Department as Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs. When Adolf Berle Jr. became U.S. Ambassador to Brazil in 1945, Beatrice Bishop Berle used her newfound connections to become an unpaid volunteer at a hospital in Rio de Janeiro. Her experience in the asylum ward meant that she met and knew those Brazilian citizens she would not have met at typical diplomatic events. As a practicing physician in the United States, Beatrice Bishop Berle offered vital assistance to the local ward and learned about parasitic diseases like bilharzia that affected the local community. At the local hospital in Rio, Beatrice made history by administering penicillin for the first time to two patients with pneumonia.

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When William Lacy Swing left Port Elizabeth, South Africa in 1966, he vowed to never return until the end of Apartheid. Twenty-three years later, Swing did just that, returning to South Africa as the United States ambassador. Thanks to the relationships he had formed early on in his Foreign Service career, especially throughout his time in Port Elizabeth, Ambassador Swing was one of the first people outside the African National Conference (ANC) to welcome Nelson Mandela back to freedom.

During his first tour in South Africa, Swing served as the second of two members of the Port Elizabeth Consulate. This assignment allowed Swing to build relationships with founding members of the ANC, who were concentrated in the nearby Bantustans. At this time, Nelson Mandela was already on trial, preparing to spend the rest of his life in prison for his protest against Apartheid. When William Swing returned, South Africa was nearing the end of Apartheid and nearing Nelson Mandela’s release from prison. Meanwhile, F.W. De Klerk and the ANC were beginning private negotiations to end Apartheid. In this “moment” in U.S. diplomatic history, we see that while the U.S. was not a party to the negotiations, Ambassador Swing leveraged his connections to gain important information from key members of the ANC and his neighbor and friend, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to jet off across the world continent-to-continent at a moment’s notice? Before the days of instant electronic communications, the role of a diplomatic courier would be to deliver classified information back and forth as quickly as possible. Earl Kessler was a diplomatic courier stationed in Shanghai during the late 1940s. As a courier, he traveled and connected consulates and embassies across Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, India, and even Russia.

The situation in Shanghai and across China at this time was tenuous, and traveling out of Shanghai became a dangerous affair as the civil war between Chiang Kai-shek and the communists raged on. By 1949, the situation had deteriorated so dramatically that Kessler and the consulate had to evacuate from Shanghai to Honolulu. While abroad, Kessler would have the strenuous task of safeguarding classified materials everywhere he went. Once he reached his desired location, Kessler had to navigate his way through unfamiliar environments to deliver crucial information to both U.S. and foreign residences. Along the way, Kessler met and befriended various individuals, from foreign government officials to playing tennis with local warlords. Following the evacuation from Shanghai to Honolulu, Kessler spent his later career as an administrative officer. He served in Athens (1949–1952) and Madras (1952–1954). Later in his career, Kessler returned to Washington, D.C., and taught administration courses at the Foreign Service Institute.

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In the early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy sought to maintain an open dialogue with Brazil with the intent to create an intermediary in communications with Fidel Castro in Cuba. However, the troubled U.S.-Brazil relationship was riddled with distrust and hidden motives. In particular, the Brazilian president at the time, João Goulart, was infamous for his financial mishandling and leftist leanings, ultimately prompting anxieties and doubts concerning the use of U.S. foreign aid in Brazil among American congressional leaders.

Washington also wanted to ensure that Brazil would not be gradually influenced by Cuban communism. However, Brazilian politicians desired a healthy relationship between the United States and Cuba. At the same time, they hoped that by serving as a successful mediator between the United States and Cuba they would secure their standing and prove Brazil’s legitimacy as an exemplary, Latin American powerhouse in the international community—showing that they could maintain significant influence in the international system beyond Latin America. As such, they viewed the relationship as a primary diplomatic bridge between the United States and other Latin American countries. However, Brazilian and American intentions clashed with each other. Specifically, Brazil wanted to bring Cuba into Latin American politics, and the United States worked to ensure that Cuba would not spread communism throughout the southern hemisphere. These difficult dealings required a very intricate and carefully executed approach.

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The Liberian Civil War was doubtless one of the most devastating conflicts in recent history. Spanning from 1989 to 2003, an estimated 250,000 Liberians were killed during the war, and countless more were victims of atrocities. Liberia was founded in 1820 by freed enslaved people from the United States and Carribean, and had long struggled with tensions between the settlers—who traditionally dominated politics—and indigenous ethnic groups.

In 1980, Samuel Doe, a member of the Krahn ethnic group, came into power after leading a coup d’état against the government, ultimately triggering tensions with other ethnic groups. In 1989, Charles Taylor, a former government official, launched a rebellion against the Liberian government. The country descended into chaos as government forces and various ethnic militias battled for control. The war was characterized by atrocities such as mass rape and the use of child soldiers. In 2003, the violence became so intense that ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) troops arrived in the besieged capital of Monrovia to stop the attack and depose Taylor.

In addition to the role of the international community, the peace activism of Liberian women was instrumental in ending the war. Having been the victims of some of the worst atrocities of the conflict, the women of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace campaign captivated the international community with their sit-ins, protests, and insistence on peace negotiations that ultimately helped bring an end to the war. When the war ended, politician and economist Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected as president, making her the first female head of state in Africa. But although the conflict had ended, the scars left on Liberian society would persist. This was the case when USAID director Pamela White arrived in Liberia in 2008. Despite the challenges, Pam was inspired by the reconstruction efforts of women from Liberia and the international community.

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In the late eighties, drug trafficking into the United States from Latin America came into the spotlight with Reagan’s War on Drugs, a global campaign led by the United States aiming to reduce the illegal drug trade. 1986 saw President Ronald Reagan declare drug trafficking a national security threat, immediately amplifying national attention and resources distributed to tackling the issue. Budgets surrounding anti-narcotics assistance ballooned, just as foreign service officer Yvonne Thayer stepped into a new role as the chief anti-narcotics officer for Ecuador.

Ecuador was a small piece of a much bigger network of drug transportation, production, and sales; but it served as a key hub for the transit of coca paste out of Colombia, Bolivia, and especially Peru. Combatting the flow of drugs through the region then made Thayer’s new role in Ecuador important, all the more so in the relationships she would need to develop with her new counterparts in the Ecuadorian government.

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World War II brought great uncertainty in its aftermath. The rise of Anti-Right and Anti-Left wing movements, for example, contributed to the hegemonic battle between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics. These events, in turn, had an effect on labor.

Following the Second World War, the United States launched the European Recovery Program. Better known as The Marshall Plan, this initiative represented the largest aid package received to date by the European nations. It had significant consequences for the economic development of European economics and industries. Much of these industries’ growths would affect scores of labor unions, which would later pose movements across Europe. Regional and international labor organizations rose up to fight for the rights of laborers as well as for the direction in which their party politics would dictate future labor policies.

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A desolate landscape and frozen ocean seems like an unlikely place for the scene of major world events and geopolitical confrontation. But as climate change accelerates the thawing of the Arctic polar caps, it welcomes an abundance of natural resources, fisheries, and commercial sea routes.

The countries bordering the Arctic Ocean, including the United States and Russia, all lay claim to areas of exploitable territory from their respective borders—and often with overlapping boundaries. Therefore, the Arctic Council was created in 1996 to resolve territorial disputes and promote cooperation to combat environmental challenges facing the region.

Despite a complicated relationship since the end of the Cold War, the Arctic Council facilitates a successful partnership between the United States and Russia. More recently, a June 2021 Biden-Putin summit recognized the Arctic as an area of peaceful cooperation; the two countries partner in areas of scientific research, search and rescue missions, environmental protection, and more. However, continued cooperation rests on the efficacy of the Council in light of increased military operations in the region and rising geopolitical tensions, especially with the introduction of new actors, such as China.

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In 1986 Congress overrode a presidential veto on major foreign policy. During the 1980s, the American public increasingly resented the South African system of apartheid and urged the United States government to take major action. This led to bipartisan Congressional action to override President Reagan’s veto of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act [CAAA] of 1986. This act imposed broad economic sanctions against South Africa to pressure the government to end the system of apartheid.

While the act may have played a role in hurting the South African economy, it included measures to assist victims of apartheid. Wendy Stickel recounts how the CAAA established policies and objectives that guided the early years of United States Agency for International Development [USAID] programs.

In the summer of 1987, Stickel arrived in South Africa as USAID’s Assistant Director. Because the CAAA was seen as the American people’s policy and not the administration’s policy, it gave USAID entry to South African communities that were hesitant to work with the U.S. government. In this “moment” in U.S. diplomatic history, Stickel establishes the importance of communicating USAID’s genuine commitment to support and fund projects from South African organizations. Stickel made sure to listen to the South African communities on the type of support they needed from USAID, including an education program, community outreach and leadership development, a private enterprise program, labor union training program, and human rights and legal assistance fund. Stickel recognized that the success of these programs was in part due to the Foreign Service Nationals who helped USAID navigate the changing politics of the South African community and connected them to organizations dedicated to the same causes.

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