Egypt’s agriculture has always depended on the water of the Nile; the river’s perennial floods, while critical in replenishing the…
Cleaning up America’s Backyard: The Overthrow of Guatemala’s Arbenz
The Central Intelligence Agency launched a covert operation on June 18, 1954 to overthrow the left-leaning government in Guatemala. The…
Politics, Pinatubo and the Pentagon: The Closure of Subic Bay
The closure of Naval Base Subic Bay, the U.S. Navy’s massive ship-repair, supply, and rest and recreation facility in the…
The Battle to Create the Foreign Service Institute
The art of diplomatic relations and negotiations is as old as civilization itself. However, the State Department did not have…
Naming Names: U.S. Embassy Jakarta and Indonesian Purges 1965-1966
An article by an American reporter alleged that the U.S. embassy in Jakarta played a role in the Indonesian massacres…
Death of an AUB President and Father of a Future NBA Coach
He was a brilliant scholar who focused on the Middle East and whose books were widely read by Arabists. His…
Strobe Talbott — “We’re Menaced by the Zombie Behavior of Nations”
Strobe Talbott assumed the presidency of the Brookings Institution in July 2002 after a career in journalism, government and academia.…
I, Spy? Diplomatic Adventures during Soviet-American Détente
Among the challenges of serving as a U.S. diplomat in the USSR during the Cold War years of 1945 to…
Charles Z. Wick: Diplomacy Hollywood-Style
Before being absorbed and restructured by the State Department in 1999, the United States Information Agency (USIA) was an independent…
The INF Treaty, Part III — Crossing the Finish Line
A unified stance by NATO members and Gorbachev’s realization that it was better to go to global zero than to…