The Foreign Service has attracted some very talented people over the years and many of those are the spouses of…
Julia Chang Bloch’s Whole-of-Mission Approach in Nepal
In 1990, Nepal’s centuries-long history of monarchical rule and more recent autocratic substitutes were finally brought to an end in…
Negotiating the UNFCCC – Moving to the Endgame
In Part III, Robert Reinstein, the United States’ top negotiator at the United Nations, and Stephanie Kinney, one of the State…
Negotiating the UNFCCC – “The Whole World Was Against Us”
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a landmark international climate treaty which entered into force in March…
Indira Gandhi’s Assassination and the Anti-Sikh Riots, October 1984
Indira Gandhi was one of the most powerful women of the 20th Century, whose initial rise to power in 1966…
Sue McCourt Cobb: Ambassador and Summiteer of Mt. Everest
Climbing Mount Everest has long been the epitome of physical and mental endurance. Since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became…
The 1991 Madrid Peace Conference
The Madrid Peace Conference, held from October 30 to November 1, 1991, marked the first time that Israeli leaders negotiated…
Drug-Sniffing Mongooses and Other Tales of the Sri Lankan Civil War
In July 1983, tensions increased between Tamil minority separatists and the Sinhalese majority in Sri Lanka, erupting into civil war.…
A Giant of the Kennedy Era: John Kenneth Galbraith
With his impressive intellect, polarizing personality, close ties to the Kennedy White House and imposing stature, Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith…
Congo in Crisis: The Rise and Fall of Katangan Secession
When the Republic of the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) became independent from Belgium in June 1960,…