The first agreement between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) aimed at limiting North Korea’s…
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…
Picturing the “War of Ideas”: Wartime Film-Making in Korea
Throughout the Cold War, democratic and communist nations waged a “war of ideas.” The United States, seeking to expose the…
Crisis Management: Occupation of USIS in South Korea, 1985
On May 25, 1985, seventy-three South Korean students barged into the United States Information Services (USIS) library in Seoul and…
Rooted in the Good Earth: White, Protestant “China Brats” in the Foreign Service
A confluence of two rising movements in the early 1800s, Western outreach to China and reinvigorated Christian evangelism, led to…
The Thai-tanic: Responding to the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997
Asian countries took a financial hit in 1997, resulting in a crisis that reverberated throughout the world. It began on…
Teaching the Foreign Service to Speak Foreign Languages
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is the primary training institution to prepare American diplomats to advance U.S. foreign affairs interests,…
The Overthrow of Haiti’s Aristide
Haiti has long been plagued by coups d’état and regime changes, leading to long-time political instability and weak governance. In…
The ACDA-USIA Merger into State — The End of of an Era
As the Cold War began to go into full swing, the United States soon realized the need for distinct agencies…
“The Cold War Was Truly Over” — The 1986 Reykjavik Summit
After the 1985 Geneva Summit, where President Ronald Reagan and leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, met for the first…