Joseph C. Wilson IV oversaw the closing of the U.S. Embassy in Iraq in 1991, just before U.S. and allied…
James Baldwin: The Expatriate Who Fought for His Country
James Baldwin is counted among the greatest and most influential of American authors. He died in 1987 at the age…
About ADST
Founded in 1986, ADST is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that has conducted and posted over 2,500 transcripts of oral history…
General’s Coup Attempt Prompts Evacuation from Guinea-Bissau
At the crack of dawn on June 7, 1998, Ambassador Peggy Blackford woke to sounds of gunfire outside and someone…
USAID’s role in helping rebuild Rwanda after the genocide of 1994
Philip-Michael Gary’s career with USAID put him face-to-face with then-Vice President and Minister of Defense of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, in…
Combating the flow of Foreign Fighters affiliated with the Islamic State
The rapid ascent of ISIS in 2013-16 was fueled by a flow of “foreign fighters” from across the Middle East,…
“We didn’t know if they were all dead…” The attacks on American embassies during the Six-Day War
During the Six-Day War of June 1967 Israel fought and won a decisive victory against Syrian, Egyptian, Iraqi, and Lebanese…
From the 1985 Achille Lauro Hijacking to the 2014 Ebola Crisis: Steven Browning’s Foreign Service Career
Steven Browning was a third-tour Foreign Service Officer in Alexandria, Egypt when he found himself in the midst of the…
Thumbs Down on a Nelson Mandela Speech
Nelson Mandela is justifiably revered, but not every act or speech by the Nobel Peace laureate was universally acclaimed. American…
Our Man in Banjul: Ambassador Recalls Gambia’s 1994 Coup and the Rise of Yahya Jammeh
Our Ambassador in Banjul, Gambia, was not expecting a coup on the morning of July 22, 1994 — but that…