After Augusto Pinochet led a coup d’état in Chile on September 11, 1973, taking power from the democratically elected President…
The Ever-changing Nature of the American Foreign Service
The Foreign Service has undergone major reforms and tinkering over the past century, so much so that people often joked…
Memoirs of a Foreign Service Arabist
Back to Diplomats and Diplomacy Memoirs of a Foreign Service Arabist Available in January 2014 “Among Parker’s fascinating insights into…
In Ambassador We Don’t Trust: Working Under the Leadership of the Infamous Turner Shelton
As movies like “The Devil Wore Prada” attest, bad bosses can make everyone’s life miserable (and can be quite entertaining…
The Dramatic Hostage Crisis and Daring Rescue at the Japanese Embassy in Peru
It sounds like something out of a novel: a group of rebels, helped by an American, seize an embassy in…
The Failed Attempt to Avert War with Japan, 1941
The attack by the Imperial Japanese Army against the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor catapulted the United States into World…
Georgia: A Place of Ethnic Unrest and Civil Strife
The Caucasus region of the former Soviet Union has experienced several conflicts that have been provoked by ethnic hatred and…
Today in History
Find articles about diplomatic events from each day of the year Here’s a handy calendar of events linked to Moments…
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956
The early 1950s witnessed a thaw in the Communist monolith. Stalin’s death in 1953 led to Khrushchev’s “secret speech” in…
Khrushchev Visits America – A Cold War Comedy of Errors, Act II
In September of 1959, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev visited the United States on an unprecedented goodwill trip spanning several days,…