Egypt and the Suez Canal became a point of global strategic interest during WWII because of the quick access the…
North Yemen: Ambassador to a Divided Land
Yemen has experienced violence and poverty in recent decades, but for centuries was a pivotal crossroads for trade and travel.…
A Man for all Transitions: Thomas Reeve Pickering
Considered by many the most accomplished diplomat of his generation, Thomas Reeve Pickering served as U.S. Ambassador to Jordan, Nigeria,…
Harold Saunders: The Original “Peace Processor”
Born in Philadelphia, Harold “Hal” Saunders graduated from Princeton and Yale before serving in the U.S. Air Force. After working…
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…
The Technology of Terror – South America in the 70s and 80s
Terrorism the world over poses a threat to the lives of Foreign Service Officers. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s terrorist…
Crisis Management: Occupation of USIS in South Korea, 1985
On May 25, 1985, seventy-three South Korean students barged into the United States Information Services (USIS) library in Seoul and…
Rooted in the Good Earth: White, Protestant “China Brats” in the Foreign Service
A confluence of two rising movements in the early 1800s, Western outreach to China and reinvigorated Christian evangelism, led to…
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…