Mohammad Mossadegh became Prime Minister of Iran in 1951 and was hugely popular for taking a stand against the Anglo-Iranian Oil…
The Division of Cyprus: Paradise with a Problem
Cyprus gained independence from the United Kingdom on August 16, 1960, but the agreements that led to sovereignty failed to…
Srebrenica and the Horrors of the Balkan War
The break-up of Yugoslavia caused some of the most heinous human rights violations and ethnic mass killings seen in the…
The Berlin Blockade and Airlift of 1948
Beginning in April 1948, the USSR blocked Western Allies’ access to Berlin as a means of protesting the introduction of…
Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe
Robert Mugabe is one of the more controversial figures in Africa. He rose to prominence in the 1960s as the…
Loy Henderson, Mr. Foreign Service
Loy Henderson (1892-1986) is one of the most storied figures in American diplomatic history. Beginning his career in 1922, he…
Frances Willis, The First Career Female Ambassador
Frances Willis was the first female to rise to the rank of Ambassador as a career Foreign Service Officer. After…
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…
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 Marshall Plan — “The Europeans did the job themselves”
After World War II, Europe was recovering from the devastation of conflict and suffered from high unemployment and food shortages;…