King Sobhuza II was proclaimed King of Swaziland at the age of four months and would rule for 83 years,…
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…
New President, Bad Plan: the Bay of Pigs Fiasco
After Fidel Castro ousted Cuban strongman Fulgencio Batista, expropriated American economic assets and developed links with the Soviet Union, President Eisenhower authorized the…
The U.S. Incursion into Cambodia
When President Richard Nixon took office in 1969, he and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger vowed to find a way…
North Yemen: Ambassador to a Divided Land
Yemen has experienced violence and poverty in recent decades, but for centuries was a pivotal crossroads for trade and travel.…
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…
Looking at the War in the Falklands/Malvinas from Both Sides Now
In 1982 a long-simmering dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina over a small group of islands – the Falklands…
Between Iraq and a Hard Place: Declared Persona Non Grata by Saddam
Iraq expelled an American diplomat stationed in Baghdad on November 17, 1988 for having contacts with Iraq’s Kurdish minority. Haywood…
Mission Unspeakable: When North Koreans Tried to Kill the President of South Korea
On October 9, 1983, while South Korean President Chun Doo-Hwan was on a visit to Rangoon, Burma to lay a…