Codename: Operation Eastern Exit. In January 1991, violence due to the Somali Civil War had escalated so much that Ambassador…
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…
Life at Embassy Tokyo After Pearl Harbor
Despite getting extremely close to agreeing to negotiations to avert hostilities, the U.S. and Japan failed to make peace and…
A Day That Will Live in Infamy
December 7, 1941 will forever be one of the most memorable dates in American history. The attack on Pearl Harbor, a preemptive…
The Burning of the JFK Library in Cairo — Thanksgiving Day, 1964
On November 28, 1964 — Thanksgiving Day — several hundred students from the Congo and elsewhere set fire to the…
444 Days: Memoirs of an Iran Hostage
More than thirty years later, the Iran Hostage crisis still ranks as one of the most traumatic diplomatic events in…
Constance Ray Harvey, Diplomat and World War II Heroine
The life of Constance Ray Harvey at times sounded like something from the movie Casablanca. During World War II, after tours in…
The Assassination of Anwar Sadat, Part I
When Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords along with President…
A Ride to Remember: Exploring Cold War Russia via the Trans-Siberian Railroad
It was unusual for any Americans during the Cold War to travel in the Soviet Union but Russell Sveda did…
The More Things Change – A Look Back at Syria’s Hafez al-Assad
“You know I have my ups and downs, but I have a pact with God. The pact is that no…