After the 1985 Geneva Summit, where President Ronald Reagan and leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, met for the first…
Shirley Temple Black: From the Good Ship Lollipop to the Ship of State
Shirley Temple Black, born April 23, 1928, served her country in vastly different ways. As a child star in the…
Beijing Spring and the Lead-up to Tiananmen Square
The iconic image of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and brutal government crackdown on the peaceful demonstrators is that of the…
A Crack in the Iron Curtain: Freeing Sharansky
As General Secretary of the Communist Party, Mikhail Gorbachev authorized the release of thousands of Soviet Jews who wanted to leave the…
The Velvet Revolution, November 1989
In 1989, change was in the air throughout all of Eastern Europe. Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika –…
Eyes of the Dragon — Under Surveillance in China
The extent of the surveillance operations of the Soviet KGB is legendary, but the Soviet Union was not the only…
The Ivory Coast’s Félix Houphouët-Boigny – “A Master Manipulator and Destabilizer”
The late President Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) did not look like a “strong man.” He was small…
The Carnation Revolution – A Peaceful Coup in Portugal
“There was real jubilation in the streets the first few weeks. It’s still known as the Revolution of the Carnations,…
The Afghan Invasion as Seen from U.S. Embassy Moscow
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was, among other things, a horrible political miscalculation, lasting nine bloody years and resulting in the…
Re-establishing Ties with Cuba, 1977
“Cuba ought to be free and independent, and the government should be turned over to the Cuban people.” That in…