Memoirs and Occasional Papers – An ADST Series

ADST created the Memoirs and Occasional Papers Series to preserve firsthand accounts, histories, and other informed observations on foreign affairs for scholars, journalists, and the general public.

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Based on over forty years' consideration of Vietnam's history, the author aims (a) to put the Vietnam War within the context of Vietnam's overall history; (b) to examine the historical interaction of the United States and Vietnam in war and peace; (c) to understand U.S. and Vietnamese policies and perceptions and their implications; (d) to encourage the reader to appreciate Vietnamese points of reference, purposes, goals, and tactical/strategic means to achieve its goals; and (e) to understand the limits of American power and influence and the means to maximize foreign policy achievements by understanding the goals and intentions of it adversaries. This book is a memoire of the author's more than forty-year personal involvement with Vietnam. It implants the Vietnam War in the context of Vietnam's long, tortured history, its historic struggle for independence from China, its political radicalization in the twenties, its wars with France and the United States, and its political and economic evolution up to the contemporary time. The book is based on summer seminars the author conducted in Hanoi, Vietnam, for Princeton University, entitled "The Origins, Consequences, and Implications of America's War with Vietnam." Within this context, the author explores U.S. policy toward Vietnam in six assignments from 1964 in and about Vietnam, culminating in opening the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi 1995-1997. Against this background, the Princeton seminars in Hanoi 2007-2009 immersed the author in extensive research and intensive, direct contact with a wide variety of ordinary and professional Vietnamese, as well as distinguished historic Vietnamese figures. This seminar and those contacts permitted a radical reexamination of U.S. and Vietnamese policies, perceptions, and aspirations, as spelled out in this book.
United States-Vietnam Reconciliation
Anderson, Desaix Foreign relations, Memoirs and Occasional Papers

Based on over forty years' consideration of Vietnam's history, the author aims (a) to put the Vietnam War within the context of Vietnam's overall history; (b) to examine the historical interaction of the United States and Vietnam in war and peace; (c) to understand U.S. and Vietnamese policies and perceptions...

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Fifty Years of U.S. Africa Policy: Reflections of Assistant Secretaries for African Affairs and U.S. Embassy Officials
Fifty Years of U.S. Africa Policy: Reflections of Assistant Secretaries for African Affairs and U.S....
Anyaso, Claudia E. International relations, Peace-building, Politics and government

Fifteen men and women have occupied the position of Assistant Secretary for African Affairs. They charted the course of U.S. Africa policy for fifty years that spanned the dawn of African independence to the present era of globalized engagement. In these pages each Assistant Secretary describes his or her stewardship...

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Joys and Perils of Living Abroad: Memoirs of a Foreign Service Family
Joys and Perils of Living Abroad: Memoirs of a Foreign Service Family
Asencio, Diego , Nancy Rodriguez Diplomats, biography, International relations

Diego Asencio met Nancy Rodriguez in 1951, and the young couple married in 1953. Diego entered the U.S Foreign Service in 1957, and thus began his, Nancy's and their children's life as a U.S. Foreign Service family.

Diego's first overseas assignment was to Mexico, where he assisted jailed or troubled...

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Fifty Years in USAID: Stories From the Front Lines
Fifty Years in USAID: Stories From the Front Lines
Ballantyne, Janet C Biography, International relations

Published in November 2012 by Arlington Hall Press, an imprint of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, this collection contains 115 brief essays by past and present USAID staff and administrators, organized by decades. To celebrate USAID’s 50th anniversary, the editors, Janet C. Ballantyne and Maureen Dugan, reached out...

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Thompson Buchanan's memoir describes the challenges facing a Foreign Service political officer during the Cold War in a career focused primarily on the Soviet Union and Africa. Born in 1924, Thompson Buchanan joined the State Department in 1948 as an intelligence analyst on the Soviet Union. In the Foreign Service from 1955, he was posted in Frankfurt interrogating defectors; served in Paris as a Soviet adviser to NATO; worked in Washington on preventing Soviet infiltration of Africa; and headed the Foreign Political Section in Embassy Moscow. After serving as DCM in Burundi (where radical Tutsis expelled him and his ambassador) and in Gabon, he was chief of personnel in the Africa Bureau, then chief of the Central Africa Office. Back in European affairs, he was deputy to the chief of Soviet affairs; political counselor in Moscow; DCM in Oslo; and consul general in Leningrad. Retiring in 1981, he worked on intelligence contracts for State and in Moscow for the INS and USAID. Readers will also find stories of Buchanan’s early life, his education, his service in World War II in the V-12 program and Germany; family adventures in Jackson Hole and Provence; and thoughts about life in the Foreign Service, the practice of diplomacy; and the final journey.
Mossy Memoir of a Rolling Stone
Buchanan, Thompson Memoirs and Occasional Papers, United states, forest service

Thompson Buchanan's memoir describes the challenges facing a Foreign Service political officer during the Cold War in a career focused primarily on the Soviet Union and Africa. Born in 1924, Thompson Buchanan joined the State Department in 1948 as an intelligence analyst on the Soviet Union. In the Foreign Service...

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In this personal, multifaceted memoir, Hala Buck, a professional artist and integrative therapist, reflects on her mixed Muslim and Christian family, her marriage to an American diplomat, their nomadic life between the Arab World and North America, raising a “Third Culture” daughter, and navigating cultures. Buck’s story finds her as she embarks on a pilgrimage to her birth country, rediscovering her Lebanese roots. The daughter of a Muslim father and Christian mother, Buck explores her childhood in Lebanon––itself a bridge between East and West. She leaves her country of birth to follow her American husband. Through stories, poetry, and watercolors, as well as art therapy, Hala paints us a picture of her transient life in seven Arab countries, West Africa, and Canada. Along the way she discovers and explores what it means to be a human bridge, crossing between cultures and inviting others to do the same, all the while looking for meaning and purpose. Bridge Between Worlds is both deeply personal and a universal story of searching for a sense of belonging and home. With honesty, creativity, and humor, Hala Buck shares her story with the hope of inspiring and encouraging readers to explore their own stories and discover, as she has, new understanding, perspectives, and gifts on their journey.
Bridge Between Worlds
Buck, Hala Lababidi Biography, Memoirs and Occasional Papers

In this personal, multifaceted memoir, Hala Buck, a professional artist and integrative therapist, reflects on her mixed Muslim and Christian family, her marriage to an American diplomat, their nomadic life between the Arab World and North America, raising a “Third Culture” daughter, and navigating cultures. Buck’s story finds her as...

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John Chapman “Chips” Chester offers up an often whimsical but highly informative memoir of an active life in international affairs. His exploits cover U.S. Army service in occupied Germany; a career in the U.S. Foreign Service in Germany, Croatia, Malawi, and the State Department; and a second career on Capitol Hill as a foreign affairs specialist, first for an outspoken liberal Republican representative and then, serving both parties, for the House Foreign Affairs (aka International Relations) Committee. Chips Chester’s book, like his life, is a buoyant mix of diplomacy, congressional politics, and high good humor.
From Foggy Bottom to Capitol Hill
Chester, John Chapman Chester, John Chapman., Memoirs and Occasional Papers

John Chapman “Chips” Chester offers up an often whimsical but highly informative memoir of an active life in international affairs. His exploits cover U.S. Army service in occupied Germany; a career in the U.S. Foreign Service in Germany, Croatia, Malawi, and the State Department; and a second career on Capitol...

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The Lady of Silk and Steel, From Everest to Embassies tells the rags to riches story of a woman who grew up in nearly destitute circumstances on a small California farm to live in Elizabeth Taylor s former penthouse on the Potomac. A graduate of Stanford University, Sue Cobb became a tennis star, a national champion downhill ski racer, and a successful attorney who graduated from law school at forty-one, and simultaneously took up the practice of law and high altitude mountain climbing. Ten years later she came incredibly close to being the first US woman to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. With wit and candor, Sue McCourt Cobb now recounts her extraordinary life story, spanning the mid-twentieth century (1937) to the early years of the twenty-first century (2020) when college-educated women went from secretaries to CEOs, when women learned to balance family, careers, and full adventurous lives. And Sue Cobb has certainly lived several lives in one lifetime. This is a memoir of someone who reached the summit of success while nurturing her family. At every step of her life, she has played her roles superbly. From a corporate and then a diplomatic wife to husband Ambassador Charles Cobb and as full-time mom to sons Christian and Tobin, The Lady of Silk and Steel is both the personal story of a partner, mother, athlete, and friend as well as a revealing account of a professional woman s life. Challenges some might balk at, Sue M. Cobb met head-on. She started and grew the public finance division of one of Miami s largest and most prestigious law firms, helped elect a United States president, and redefined the role and relationship of ambassador to one of America's most proximal allies. Impactful lessons are woven through the twists and turns of her life in the United States and Iceland until on the fateful day of September 11, 2001, she began her role as Ambassador of the United States of America, Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Jamaica. She has shared moments with Vaclav Havel, Shirley Temple Black, Henry Kissinger, Sir Edmund Hilary, Neil Armstrong, Barbara and George Bush and many others. Interviews by contributor Laura Tanna with prime ministers, generals, ministers, and others with whom Ambassador Cobb worked add an unusual dimension to this book. Yet Sue M. Cobb, living a richly layered life personally and professionally, is the portrait of humility. An athlete and adventurer at heart, Sue s travels have taken her from Kilimanjaro to Kingston, Miami to Machu Picchu, from Taiwan to Tibet. She has faced rifles and rhinos, and cheated death more than once. She is not a thrill-seeker, but in her zest for life she has pursued a myriad of passions. The Lady of Silk and Steelis neither vain, nor vacuous, but rather is a fascinating account of a truly inspirational and indomitable woman, which leaves the reader wondering, what's next?
Lady of Silk and Steel
Cobb, Sue M. Memoirs and Occasional Papers, United states, history

The Lady of Silk and Steel, From Everest to Embassies tells the rags to riches story of a woman who grew up in nearly destitute circumstances on a small California farm to live in Elizabeth Taylor s former penthouse on the Potomac. A graduate of Stanford University, Sue Cobb became...

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Africa, You Have a Friend in Washington
Africa, You Have a Friend in Washington
Cohen, Herman J. Memoirs and Occasional Papers, Political science

In his 38-year career as an American diplomat, the author experienced many encounters with African leaders, which he describes in this memoir. Following his youthful attraction to international service and early postings to Paris and the world of cultural exchange, h

In his 38-year career as an American diplomat, the...

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Danger Zones is the autobiography of John Gunther Dean, a career Foreign Service officer, five-time U.S. ambassador, and a leading diplomat of the twentieth century. Published by New Academia Publishing, his book is the 12th in the ADST Memoirs and Occasional Papers Series. It is drawn from documents, including the author’s oral history, now housed in the U.S. National Archives at the Carter Center Library in Atlanta. Over the course of his action-packed career, Dean found himself embroiled in controversy in hot spots in Asia and the Middle East. On one of several stints in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, he worked with the U.S. military as deputy for CORDS in Central Vietnam and helped to protect the famous Cham Museum in Danang, the leading tourist attraction in Vietnam today. In Laos, he brokered the deal that ended a war, and he faced down an attempted coup d’etat in 1973 against the neutralist regime of Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma. In Cambodia, he was the last man out on April 12, 1975, on the last helicopter that left Phnom Penh as Khmer Rouge forces approached the city. In Lebanon, where he was nearly assassinated in an ambush, he reached out to all factions and promoted the idea of one Lebanon. As an activist diplomat throughout his career, he worked hard to bring people together to avoid bloodshed.
Danger Zones
Dean, John Gunther Diplomats, Memoirs and Occasional Papers

Danger Zones is the autobiography of John Gunther Dean, a career Foreign Service officer, five-time U.S. ambassador, and a leading diplomat of the twentieth century. Published by New Academia Publishing, his book is the 12th in the ADST Memoirs and Occasional Papers Series. It is drawn from documents, including the...

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