During a 1986 protest in Santiago, Chile against the human rights abuses of Augusto Pinochet’s regime, teenagers setting up barricades…
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…
Beijing Spring and the Lead-up to Tiananmen Square
The iconic image of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and brutal government crackdown on the peaceful demonstrators is that of the…
“Austria is Free!” Post-War Vienna Escapes the Soviet Bloc
May 15th, 1955, was a momentous occasion for a war-battered Europe, and for the national history of Austria as the…
Monkeys and Olives for Dinner: The Glamorous Life of a U.S. Ambassador
Arriving at a new post and setting up your household and office can be quite a challenge, even for a…
Creating Bangladesh: The Triumph and Tragedy of Sheikh Mujib
The leader of the Bangladesh’s independence movement, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, helped create a sovereign nation, successfully taking on Pakistani occupying…
The Fight for Non-Proliferation Begins at Home
The development and potential use of nuclear weapons defined the Cold War era and kept the world under the shadow…
Winning the Peace – USAID and the Demobilization of the Nicaraguan Contras
In the 1980s, one of the focal points of U.S. foreign policy was the rise of leftist militants throughout the…
Iraq’s Rocky Road to Recovery Post-Saddam
In the wake of the U.S.-led Coalition Forces invasion of Iraq in March, 2003 and dissolution of the Ba’ath Party,…
Combining Forces to Counter Terrorism — The Birth of S/CT
U.S. inter-agency coordination on countering terrorism was limited, for bureaucratic and technical reasons, prior to the mid-1980s. As hijackings and…