For more than 225 years extraordinary men and women have represented the United States abroad. In 1996 the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) and DACOR, an organization of foreign affairs professionals, created a book series to increase public knowledge and appreciation of American diplomats and their role in advancing our national interests. The books in this series demystify diplomacy by telling the story of American diplomats, the lives they led, and the world events they helped to shape.
Dick Jackson captures the humor and sheer incongruity of working across cultures in an international career spanning diplomacy and education. Written in a lighthearted tone, his memoir also delves into tragic consequences in countries such as Somalia, Libya, and Greece. The author uses wit and anecdote to chronicle the monumental...
Cold War Saga gives an insider’s view of the global confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States and its allies. The author, veteran diplomat Kempton Jenkins, was directly involved in this epic struggle from its beginning in 1950 through 1980.
The way in which people become ambassadors of the United States is the result of time––honored traditions and, in some cases, a thinly veiled form of political corruption. Former U.S. ambassador Dennis Jett’s American Ambassadors explains where ambassadors come from, what they do, where they go, and why they still...
A major event in the history of the Cold War, the Colonels’ Coup of April 21, 1967, ushered in seven years of military rule in Greece, turning the Greek democracy into yet another country where fear of Communism led the United States into alliance with a repressive right-wing authoritarian regime....
As a British colony Americans relied on the far-flung British consular system to take care of their sailors and merchants. But after the Revolution they had to scramble to create an American service. While the U.S. diplomatic establishment was confined by protocol to the major capitals of the world, U.S....
From the moment Pakistan gained its independence in 1947, its relations with the United States have careened between intimate partnership and enormous friction — reflecting the ups and downs of global and regional geopolitics and disparate national interests. Although the Cold War is over, Pakistan retains strategic importance for Washington,...
As deputy to the U.S. ambassador in Rwanda, Joyce E. Leader witnessed the tumultuous prelude to genocide—a period of political wrangling, human rights abuses, and many levels of ominous, ever-escalating violence. From Hope to Horror offers her insider’s account of the nation’s efforts to move toward democracy and peace and...
Defiant Diplomacy depicts the extraordinary life of diplomat Henrik de Kauffmann (1888–1963), a major figure in U.S.-Danish relations during World War II and the first decades of the Cold War as Denmark’s envoy to Washington.
The book highlights the dramatic story of Kauffmann’s courageous decision, after Nazi Germany seized his homeland...
Jane C. Loeffler, a scholar in architectural history and American civilization, extensively researched the history and politics of U.S. embassy design and building, focusing on the years following World War II. These high-profile, often controversial structures––projections abroad of American art, culture, and political philosophy––have formed the settings for the conduct of...
There was a time when Wyoming and other Rocky Mountain and midwestern states were as likely to elect a liberal Democrat to Congress as they were a conservative Republican. Gale McGee (1915–92) was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1958, at the height of American liberalism. He typified what Teddy...