Throughout the Cold War, democratic and communist nations waged a “war of ideas.” The United States, seeking to expose the…
Grapes of Wrath and Strained Relations with Chile
Grocery stores throughout the United States pulled tons of grapes from their shelves when traces of cyanide were found in two…
A Sketch in Time: Cape Verde from an Ambassador’s View
The nation of Cape Verde, now known as Cabo Verde, is a group of islands located off the western coast…
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…
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…
Negotiating the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT)
Due to rising concern about radioactive fallout from increasingly big nuclear tests underwater, in space, in the atmosphere and underground,…
The Siberian Seven: Escaping Religious Persecution in the U.S.S.R.
From its inception, the Soviet Union became the first state in the world to actively attempt to eliminate religion from society.…
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…
Algeria’s Struggle for Independence
The modern-day People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria is now a proud, sovereign state in North Africa that readily influences the…
Anatomy of an Overthrow: How an African Leader was Toppled
A council of combined security forces known as the Derg staged a coup d’état on September 12, 1974 against Ethiopian…