May 15th, 1955, was a momentous occasion for a war-battered Europe, and for the national history of Austria as the…
Charles Z. Wick: Diplomacy Hollywood-Style
Before being absorbed and restructured by the State Department in 1999, the United States Information Agency (USIA) was an independent…
Creating Yaounde’s First Consulate
The first official U.S. diplomatic post in Cameroon was founded in 1957 during its waning days as a United Nations…
Turning Out the Lights at U.S. Embassy Havana, 1961
The United States and Cuba officially severed diplomatic relations on January 3, 1961, the culmination of months of increasingly hostile bilateral…
Yeltsin Under Siege — The October 1993 Constitutional Crisis
For Russians, it was yet another dramatic confrontation which played out in the streets of Moscow, one which marked the…
Dissidents, Spies, and Attack Cartoons — Life at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana
Diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba were frozen in time for more than 50 years. After the U.S. formally severed…
“Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina” — The Tumultuous Times of Juan and Evita Peron
July 26, 1952: The people of Argentina are glued to their radios and fall silent as an official broadcast comes…
The Iran Hostage Crisis — Part I
November 4, 1979 – Radical Iranian students take over the U.S. embassy in Tehran and hold 52 Americans hostage. The…