The shaky peace that had held in Vietnam since the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973 began to…
“The U.S. values amateurism over professionalism in diplomacy”
Chas W. Freeman, Jr. is one of those rare diplomats with brilliant language abilities who also was involved in an…
An American in Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago”
He was a victim of cruel fate, a young American living in the USSR forced to endure unimaginable torture and…
The Terrorist Attack on the Saudi Embassy — Khartoum, 1973
Less than a year after its members murdered 11 Israeli athletes and one German police guard during the 1972 Summer…
Being Black in a “Lily White” State Department
Terence Todman is one of the few people to attain the rank of career ambassador – the equivalent of a…
The Jonestown Massacre
Jonestown, Guyana was the scene of one of the most harrowing tragedies in American history. On November 18, 1978, at…
Recalling the Attack on the U.S. Compound in Benghazi – from June 1967
The circumstances seem all too familiar — political turmoil leads to angry mobs storming the U.S. compound in Benghazi. Except…
The Iran Hostage Crisis– Part II
In these excerpts, Bruce Laingen, then Charge d’Affaires of U.S. Embassy Tehran and one of the “super Satans” kept hostage at the…
The Iran Hostage Crisis — Part I
November 4, 1979 – Radical Iranian students take over the U.S. embassy in Tehran and hold 52 Americans hostage. The…
Captive in the Congo
Michael Hoyt was Commercial Officer in Leopoldville from 1962 until 1965 and was serving as interim Principal Officer in Stanleyville…