When USAID employee Judith Gilmore was asked to play First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS), it wasn’t because a…
George H.W. Bush, American Diplomat
George H.W. Bush was a diplomat before he became the 41st president of the United States. Bush served as U.S.…
Talking to Soviet Soldiers During the 1991 Coup Attempt: A U.S. Defense Attaché’s Tale
James Cox knew that Soviet officers would stonewall a foreigner like him, but there was a chance that regular soldiers…
Long Before He Headed the CIA, James Woolsey Challenged Paul Nitze Over the Vietnam War
For a young lieutenant to challenge the number two man in the Department of Defense over Vietnam policy in 1969…
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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…
Sound, Fury, Brilliance & Booze: Faulkner in Post-War Japan
William Faulkner, among the most decorated writers in American literature with the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature, the Pulitzer Prize…
Raymond Hare: Our Man in Cairo during WWII
Egypt and the Suez Canal became a point of global strategic interest during WWII because of the quick access the…
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.…
The Lion King of Swaziland
King Sobhuza II was proclaimed King of Swaziland at the age of four months and would rule for 83 years,…