On November 28, 1964 — Thanksgiving Day — several hundred students from the Congo and elsewhere set fire to the…
444 Days: Memoirs of an Iran Hostage
More than thirty years later, the Iran Hostage crisis still ranks as one of the most traumatic diplomatic events in…
War of the Waves: Combating Espionage in Embassy Moscow
U.S. relations with Moscow through the decades have been problematic at best while the embassy itself has been the subject…
Murder in an Embassy, Part II — Paranoid Psychotic or Faked Insanity?
On August 30, 1971, Alfred Erdos murdered his assistant, Donald Leahy, at the small American embassy in Equatorial Guinea. Delusional…
Murder in an Embassy, Part I — “I am not losing my mind”
A Communist plot, a gruesome murder, a maniacal dictator: all were elements in what would seemingly be the scandal of…
Chile’s Coup Against Salvador Allende and the Truth Behind “Missing”
In 1973, political tensions were high in Chile, with conflict arising between the socialist President Salvador Allende and the more…
The Assassination of Ambassador John Gordon Mein, Guatemala, 1968
Eight U.S. Ambassadors have died while on duty, six of whom were killed in armed attacks. The most recent was…
A Cold End to the Prague Spring
In 1968, growing opposition to the failing sociopolitical and economic policies of hard-line Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, led by Antonín…
Cyprus — August 1974: “It was a blind shot that got the Ambassador”
On August 19th, 1974, recently appointed Ambassador to Cyprus, Rodger Davies, was shot dead during a Greek Cypriot protest outside…
Terror on the 9th Floor — The Kuala Lumpur Hostage Crisis
On August 4th, 1975, five members of the Japanese Red Army or JRA – a militant organization intent on overthrowing…