American Diplomacy wishes to bring to your attention an extraordinary research resource easily accessible on line through the Library of Congress at: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/diplomacy/
Frontline Diplomacy
Frontline Diplomacy: The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training presents a window into the lives of American diplomats. Transcripts of interviews with U.S. diplomatic personnel capture their experiences, motivations, critiques, personal analyses, and private thoughts. The transcripts are searchable by author, country and region and key words.
The interviews in the collection are mostly with Foreign Service Officers but there also are some with political appointees and other officials. While some 1920s-, 1930s-, and World-War-II-era diplomacy is covered, most of the interviews involve post-World-War-II diplomacy, from the late 1940s to the 1990s. This collection captures the post-World-War-II period in vivid terms and intimate detail, documenting the way that U.S. diplomacy defends the United States and its interests in a challenging world.
The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST), a private, nonprofit organization donated the 1,658 transcripts of oral history interviews. Transcripts are regularly added to the collection and others not yet posted to the LOC website are available through the ADST website at: http://www.adst.org/Oral_History.htm