Afghanistan has had a long history of living under foreign rule. Once a protectorate of the British Empire, Afghanistan became fully independent…
Wait ‘til the Winter: Iran, Iraq and the Kurdish Rebellion
Iraqi Kurds are scheduled to hold a referendum on independence in September, 2017. The Kurdistan region of about five million…
When One of “The Murrow Boys” Became a Foreign Service Wife
Mary Marvin Breckinridge Patterson was the only female member of the original generation of CBS Radio war correspondents known as…
New President, Bad Plan: the Bay of Pigs Fiasco
After Fidel Castro ousted Cuban strongman Fulgencio Batista, expropriated American economic assets and developed links with the Soviet Union, President Eisenhower authorized the…
North Yemen: Ambassador to a Divided Land
Yemen has experienced violence and poverty in recent decades, but for centuries was a pivotal crossroads for trade and travel.…
A Man for all Transitions: Thomas Reeve Pickering
Considered by many the most accomplished diplomat of his generation, Thomas Reeve Pickering served as U.S. Ambassador to Jordan, Nigeria,…
Revolutionizing Public Diplomacy: U.S. Embassy Tokyo in the 1970s
The goal of public diplomacy (PD) is defined as supporting the achievement of U.S. foreign policy goals and objectives, advancing…
Looking at the War in the Falklands/Malvinas from Both Sides Now
In 1982 a long-simmering dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina over a small group of islands – the Falklands…
Soft Power in a Cold War: Challenges of Reaching out to the Soviets
The “Iron Curtain” was a term used to denote the efforts of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to block…
Crisis Management: Occupation of USIS in South Korea, 1985
On May 25, 1985, seventy-three South Korean students barged into the United States Information Services (USIS) library in Seoul and…