Lee Kuan Yew, who died in March 2015, is known for being the longest serving prime minster in the world…
American Diplomacy at Risk
A strong State Department, based on a strong Foreign Service and a strong Civil Service, is a critical component of…
Tachito Crumbles – The End of Nicaragua’s Somoza Dynasty
From 1936 to 1979, Nicaragua was under the grip of the Somoza family. Coming to power following the death of…
Books, Defectors, and Song — The Cuban Missile Crisis, as Seen from Moscow
The Soviet Union, in Churchill’s famous words, was a “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”; as such it made…
Brazil’s Long Detour on the Road to Democracy
Brazil’s path to democracy was far from perfect and often tortuous. In 1961, a “possibly half insane” Janio Quadros was…
Lincoln Gordon
Back to Diplomats and Diplomacy Lincoln Gordon: Architect of Cold War Foreign Policy ––University Press of Kentucky, 2015 After World…
Targeted by Germany’s Red Army Faction
An offshoot of the radical Baader-Meinhof Group (named for its founders, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler, and Ulrike Meinhof),…
The Irrepressible Prudence Bushnell
As a teenage daughter of a Foreign Service Officer who moved his family from country to country every so often,…
A Thieving U.S. Citizen Wreaks Havoc at the U.S Embassy in Nicaragua
It is a commonly held belief that while abroad as a U.S. citizen, the American government and its embassy will…
The Tumultuous Economy of 1990s Japan
The Lost Decade marked a tumultuous time in Japan’s economic history, as corporations and banking systems played fast and loose…