The purview of an ambassador in a U.S. embassy extends beyond the geographical borders of their host nation and into…
Diamonds, Coal, and the Dutch Queen—NBC’s First Female Broadcaster Escapes The Netherlands in 1940
Reporting live from a shortwave radio station near the German border at the beginning of World War II, NBC’s first…
Frank Carlucci and the Last Days of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo
Long before he was President Reagan’s Secretary of Defense, Frank Carlucci was a young State Department political officer in Kinshasa,…
Latino American Ambassadors
Latino Americans have some of the lowest rates of participation in the federal workforce making it incredibly difficult for them…
China’s Fight for Tiny Islands — The Taiwan Straits Crises, 1954-58
Recent disagreements over Beijing’s claim to the South China Seas (in which a tribunal constituted under the UN Convention on the…
The Foreign Service Exam – Finding a More Diverse FSO
The process to become a Foreign Service Officer is long and grueling. If you successfully pass the Foreign Service Officer Test…
The U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands gets Addicted to Pac-Man
July 2016 saw the explosion of the global phenomenon Pokémon Go, where people walk around town (and often into traffic…
Sputnik, The Ugly American, and the Push to Improve FSI Language Training
In the depths of the Cold War, the USSR in 1957 launched Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the earth.…
How Did We Get Here? A Look Back at the Creation of the European Union
Welcome to Part I of our crash course on the formation of the European Union (EU). Each treaty signed between 1948…
Alexander Haig’s Fall from Grace
A highly decorated military leader and influential political figure, Alexander Haig’s career, which included such roles as Supreme Allied Commander…