The call by South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Khánh on July 19, 1964 to expand the Vietnam conflict led to…
Douglas MacArthur, America’s Emperor of Japan
He was a general’s general, tough, unrelenting, a man who embraced the role history thrust on him. He was also…
Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe
Robert Mugabe is one of the more controversial figures in Africa. He rose to prominence in the 1960s as the…
A First-Class Spy Flap: CIA Agents Compromised in Ghana
Relations between the United States and Ghana were strained in the early 1980s. Its leader, the enigmatic former Flight Lieutenant…
Sound and the Fury — The 1954 Geneva Conference on Vietnam and Korea
In April 1954, amidst growing tensions regarding the situation in the Korean Peninsula and Indochina, the international community convened a…
Like Father, Like Son — Tyranny in Syria, A Massacre in Hama
As the civil war in Syria drags on with no end in sight, the humanitarian toll of the conflict becomes…
The Art of China Watching During the Great Leap Forward
From 1958 to 1961, following the anti-rightest crackdown of the Hundred Flowers Campaign, Mao Zedong and the Communist Party launched…
The Long Arm of History — Kurt Waldheim Banned for his Nazi Past
On June 8th, 1986, Kurt Waldheim was elected President of Austria. The former Secretary General of the United Nations and…
No Nukes for New Zealand — Breakdown of the ANZUS Treaty
In the mid 1980’s, U.S. bilateral relations with New Zealand, a long-time ally in a relatively peaceful corner of the…
The Power of a Talking Point: The Work of Ambassador Thomas Miller in Morocco
All too often in the State Department, people can lose hope that their efforts matter and come to believe that…