A disastrous famine struck the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 1997. Dubbed “The March of Suffering” by the North…
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,…
Frank Carlucci: Helping Block the Communists in Portugal
After decades of right-wing dictatorship, Portugal faced a threat of a takeover by communists in the mid-1970s. Ambassador Frank Carlucci,…
Latino American Ambassadors
Latino Americans have some of the lowest rates of participation in the federal workforce making it incredibly difficult for them…
Getting Mexico to the NAFTA Negotiating Table
U.S. diplomats who helped lay the groundwork for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) first had to overcome entrenched…
Edward Elson: Entrepreneurial Ambassador to Denmark
The fall of the Soviet Union upset long-established power dynamics, leaving East and Central Europe, in particular, in uncharted waters.…
Warming to the New Administration at the State Department, 1980-1981
Administration transitions, during which power over the federal executive branch is transferred from the sitting president to the president-elect, can…
Looking at the War in the Falklands/Malvinas from Both Sides Now
In 1982 a long-simmering dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina over a small group of islands – the Falklands…
Between Iraq and a Hard Place: Declared Persona Non Grata by Saddam
Iraq expelled an American diplomat stationed in Baghdad on November 17, 1988 for having contacts with Iraq’s Kurdish minority. Haywood…
Grapes of Wrath and Strained Relations with Chile
Grocery stores throughout the United States pulled tons of grapes from their shelves when traces of cyanide were found in two…