Nelson Mandela is justifiably revered, but not every act or speech by the Nobel Peace laureate was universally acclaimed. American…
Cold War Cover Stories: The U-2 Incident
On May 1, 1960, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union brought down an American U-2 spy…
USAID: Working With State and DOD on Counter Terrorism – and with Oliver North in Honduras
Elizabeth Kvitashvili’s USAID career took her from Afghanistan to Honduras to Russia. She led efforts to provide humanitarian assistance amidst crisis…
Raymond Hare: Our Man in Cairo during WWII
Egypt and the Suez Canal became a point of global strategic interest during WWII because of the quick access the…
Edward Elson: Entrepreneurial Ambassador to Denmark
The fall of the Soviet Union upset long-established power dynamics, leaving East and Central Europe, in particular, in uncharted waters.…
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…
Wait ‘til the Winter: Iran, Iraq and the Kurdish Rebellion
Iraqi Kurds are scheduled to hold a referendum on independence in September, 2017. The Kurdistan region of about five million…
CNN, Tanks, and Glass Walls: The August 1991 Coup
In August of 1991, hard-liners opposed to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev initiated a coup attempt to overthrow him. The rebellion…
The Rough Road to Moscow for Malcolm Toon
Malcolm Toon was a fluent Russian speaker and one of the State Department’s top experts on the Soviet Union during…
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…