With his infamous Wheeling, West Virginia speech on February 9, 1950, in which he declared he had a list of communists working in the State Department, Senator Joseph McCarthy ushered in one of the darker periods in the post-war era. The speech came at a time when the fear of communism and communist infiltrators in… Read More "McCarthy’s Red Herring"
Desert Storm: “The War Never Really Ended” — Part II
Chas Freeman was U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm and consulted frequently with General Norman Schwarzkopf and others on the conduct of the war. In this segment, he discusses his frustrations in dealing with Washington, his preoccupation with “visitor management”, his lack of respect for the media which covered the war, and the… Read More "Desert Storm: “The War Never Really Ended” — Part II"
Desert Storm “The War Never Really Ended” — Part I
It was the first major foreign policy crisis for the U.S. since the end of the Cold War. Iraq, which had built up the fourth-largest army in the world with U.S. assistance, was heavily in debt after its costly eight-year war with Iran. It pressured Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to forgive its debts, but they refused.… Read More "Desert Storm “The War Never Really Ended” — Part I"
Hard Rock Hotel Panama: Noriega and the U.S. Invasion, Part II
The U.S. and SOUTHCOM had spent considerable time and effort planning for the invasion and had mapped out several places where Noriega could potentially be hiding, the chief one being the house of a mistress. However, he wasn’t in any of them as he had been tipped off. Now the U.S. military and the embassy… Read More "Hard Rock Hotel Panama: Noriega and the U.S. Invasion, Part II"
Hard Rock Hotel Panama — Noriega and the U.S. Invasion, Part I
Beginning in the middle of the 1980s, relations between General Manuel Noriega, Panama’s de facto leader, and the United States started to deteriorate. In 1986 President Ronald Reagan pressured him with several drug-related indictments in U.S. courts; however, Noriega did not give in. As relations continued to spiral downward, Noriega shifted his allegiance towards the… Read More "Hard Rock Hotel Panama — Noriega and the U.S. Invasion, Part I"
The Jonestown Massacre
Jonestown, Guyana was the scene of one of the most harrowing tragedies in American history. On November 18, 1978, at the direction of charismatic cult leader Jim Jones, 909 members of the People’s Temple died, all but two from apparent cyanide poisoning, in a “revolutionary suicide.” They included over 200 murdered children. The poisonings in… Read More "The Jonestown Massacre"
A Hostage in Communist China, 1948-49
As Mao Zedong’s People’s Liberation Army swept through China during the Civil War against the Nationalists in 1948 and 1949, it took over Mukden (now Shenyang), a major trade center. The Communists demanded that American Consul Angus Ward surrender the consulate’s radio transmitter. Ward refused. In response, PLA troops surrounded the consulate on November 20, 1948, putting Ward… Read More "A Hostage in Communist China, 1948-49"
CSI: Sao Paulo — The Search for the Angel of Death
Stephen F. Dachi had one of the more unusual — and as it turned out, fateful — backgrounds of anyone in the Foreign Service. Born in Hungary in 1933, he was three years old when his parents died, leaving him in the care of his grandparents in Romania. After emigrating to the U.S., he became a… Read More "CSI: Sao Paulo — The Search for the Angel of Death"
The U.S. Embassy Nairobi Bombings
It was one of the most horrific events in U.S. diplomatic history. On August 7, 1998, between 10:30 and 10:40 a.m. local time, suicide bombers parked trucks loaded with explosives outside the embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi and almost simultaneously detonated them. In Nairobi, approximately 212 people were killed, and an estimated 4,000… Read More "The U.S. Embassy Nairobi Bombings"