Slow-moving, coast-hugging Hurricane Mitch devastated Nicaragua in October 1998. The United States organized a massive disaster response, and President Clinton…
Frank Carlucci and the Last Days of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo
Long before he was President Reagan’s Secretary of Defense, Frank Carlucci was a young State Department political officer in Kinshasa,…
Sheila Platt: A Diplomatic Life Bridging Both Sides of China’s Divide
Few Americans have met personally with the leadership of both Mao Zedong’s China and Chiang Kai-shek’s Taiwan. Sheila Platt, and…
About ADST
Founded in 1986, ADST is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that has conducted and posted over 2,500 transcripts of oral history…
“We didn’t know if they were all dead…” The attacks on American embassies during the Six-Day War
During the Six-Day War of June 1967 Israel fought and won a decisive victory against Syrian, Egyptian, Iraqi, and Lebanese…
Harriet Elam-Thomas: A Career Well Served
Harriet Elam-Thomas grew up in Boston, the youngest of five children. She graduated from Simmons College and later earned a…
The Afghan Revolution of 1978: Invitation to Invasion
Afghanistan has had a long history of living under foreign rule. Once a protectorate of the British Empire, Afghanistan became fully independent…
Revolutionizing Public Diplomacy: U.S. Embassy Tokyo in the 1970s
The goal of public diplomacy (PD) is defined as supporting the achievement of U.S. foreign policy goals and objectives, advancing…
Soft Power in a Cold War: Challenges of Reaching out to the Soviets
The “Iron Curtain” was a term used to denote the efforts of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to block…
The Technology of Terror – South America in the 70s and 80s
Terrorism the world over poses a threat to the lives of Foreign Service Officers. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s terrorist…