In a Hawaiian hotel room sat a U.S. ambassador and officials from Palau, peering over details of a treaty to…
A Foe in Need: Famine in North Korea
A disastrous famine struck the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 1997. Dubbed “The March of Suffering” by the North…
Embassies: “An Artifact of an Earlier Age?”
Do embassies still matter? Donna Oglesby, a senior official at the United States Information Agency (before it was incorporated into…
Witness to the Arab Spring in Tunisia
In December 2010, Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi proved that it can take just a single moment to spark a…
Warming to the New Administration at the State Department, 1980-1981
Administration transitions, during which power over the federal executive branch is transferred from the sitting president to the president-elect, can…
Revolutionizing Public Diplomacy: U.S. Embassy Tokyo in the 1970s
The goal of public diplomacy (PD) is defined as supporting the achievement of U.S. foreign policy goals and objectives, advancing…
Mission Unspeakable: When North Koreans Tried to Kill the President of South Korea
On October 9, 1983, while South Korean President Chun Doo-Hwan was on a visit to Rangoon, Burma to lay a…
Basketball: the Fifth Basket of the Helsinki Final Act
The Helsinki Final Act, an agreement signed by 35 nations at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE)…
Chipping Away at Czechoslovak Communism: The Helsinki Final Act and Charter 77
The Solidarity Movement. Perestroika and Glasnost. The fall of the Berlin Wall. All of these movements, policies, or events had…
The Overthrow of Haiti’s Aristide
Haiti has long been plagued by coups d’état and regime changes, leading to long-time political instability and weak governance. In…