Consular officers are often the face of the U.S. government overseas. They are the ones interviewing visa applicants, dealing with…
Japanese Fishermen and the Bikini Atoll H-bomb Blast
On March 1st, 1954, the U.S. conducted its largest hydrogen bomb test ever near the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall…
The Day Stalin’s Daughter Asked for Asylum in the U.S.
On March 9th, 1967, Svetlana Alliluyeva — Joseph Stalin’s only daughter — walked into the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi…
Nixon Goes to China
“There is no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able people to live in…
McCarthy’s Red Herring
With his infamous Wheeling, West Virginia speech on February 9, 1950, in which he declared he had a list of…
The Show Trial of U-2 Pilot Francis Gary Powers
On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union and its pilot, Francis…
Four Days in September — The Kidnapping of the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil
It sounds like something out of Hollywood. Indeed, it was made into a Brazilian movie in 1997 with Alan Arkin…
The Assassination of Ambassador Spike Dubs — Kabul, 1979
Adolph “Spike” Dubs was a career diplomat who served in Germany, Liberia, and the Soviet Union. He became a noted Soviet expert, and in…
Being Black in a “Lily White” State Department
Terence Todman is one of the few people to attain the rank of career ambassador – the equivalent of a…
The USS Pueblo Incident — Assassins in Seoul, A Spy Ship Captured
January of 1968 saw two of the most serious incidents to occur on the Korean peninsula since the end of…