At the crack of dawn on June 7, 1998, Ambassador Peggy Blackford woke to sounds of gunfire outside and someone…
John D. Negroponte: A Diplomatic Life of Controversy and Consequence
John D. Negroponte joined the Foreign Service in 1960 and went on to serve as ambassador to Honduras, Mexico, the Philippines…
Russian Interference and the Marshall Plan
Russian Disinformation is Not New, Say Diplomats Who Implemented the Marshall Plan The obstacles the United States faced in implementing…
Harriet Elam-Thomas: A Career Well Served
Harriet Elam-Thomas grew up in Boston, the youngest of five children. She graduated from Simmons College and later earned a…
To be Young, Rich and Ambassador to Paris in the ’50s
C. Douglas Dillon was a politician and diplomat who served as U.S. Ambassador to France in the critical post World…
The U.S. Incursion into Cambodia
When President Richard Nixon took office in 1969, he and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger vowed to find a way…
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…
Bodies on the Doorstep: Jamaica in the 1970s
The island country of Jamaica in the Caribbean Sea experienced strong economic growth following its independence in 1962. This economic…
Teaching the Foreign Service to Speak Foreign Languages
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is the primary training institution to prepare American diplomats to advance U.S. foreign affairs interests,…
Peloponnesian Pilgrimage: An Idyll with the King and Queen of Greece
It was the wife of the U.S. Ambassador to Greece, John Peurifoy (seen right), who gave him the sobriquet “Pistol…