Sometimes it is the journey itself, not the destination, that one recalls. We have all been on “trips from hell” but as the years pass these trips become ever more memorable in their retelling and constitute some of the romance … Read more

Quietude can be downright pleasurable, particularly as one grows older. I reflected on this while observing (via short-wave radio and satellite TV news) the world’s turmoil at the start of the New Year from the vantage point of one of … Read more

One more of the many installments we have been privileged to present to our readers from the rich store of experiences shared by our retired Foreign Service colleagues. The gist here: “You wanted maybe a piano that plays?”—Ed. The telephone … Read more

Surviving the Heart of Darkness: A Consul’s Tale Review by Michael W. Cotter Captive in the Congo: A Consul’s Return to the Heart of Darkness. By Michael P. E. Hoyt. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000. Pp. xxiv, 275. $29.95 … Read more

“That day in Guanajuato introduced me to a world of musical pleasure that has brightened the subsequent 40 years.” The year was 1962. The place was the Teatro Juarez, a tiny, century-old jewel of an opera house in the colonial … Read more

The Winds of War Blow By It would be overstating the case to say that the Iraq War turned out to be a non-event in Niger…but not by much. In the months leading up to the war, many of us … Read more

Through the courtesy of the Foreign Service Journal , we are pleased to present seven personal reports of an unusual but not unknown side of life as a diplomat: the drama of being caught up in dangerous conflicts and experiencing … Read more

Through the courtesy of the Foreign Service Journal , we are pleased to present seven personal reports of an unusual but not unknown side of life as a diplomat: the drama of being caught up in dangerous conflicts and experiencing … Read more

Through the courtesy of the Foreign Service Journal , we are pleased to present seven personal reports of an unusual but not unknown side of life as a diplomat: the drama of being caught up in dangerous conflicts and experiencing … Read more

Through the courtesy of the Foreign Service Journal , we are pleased to present seven personal reports of an unusual but not unknown side of life as a diplomat: the drama of being caught up in dangerous conflicts and experiencing … Read more

Waiting for War As the chances of war with Iraq have moved from high to certain (in the absence of an unlikely capitulation or internal overthrow of Saddam Hussein in the next couple of weeks—I’m writing this in early February), … Read more

Through the courtesy of the Foreign Service Journal , we are pleased to present seven personal reports of an unusual but not unknown side of life as a diplomat: the drama of being caught up in dangerous conflicts and experiencing … Read more

Through the courtesy of the Foreign Service Journal , we are pleased to present seven personal reports of an unusual but not unknown side of life as a diplomat: the drama of being caught up in dangerous conflicts and experiencing … Read more

The author was a U.S. Foreign Service spouse until the retirement in 1984 of her husband. Now residing in Florida, she has published a number of sketches of life abroad in this journal and in Florida Today, a weekly newspaper … Read more

Through the courtesy of the Foreign Service Journal , we are pleased to present seven personal reports of an unusual but not unknown side of life as a diplomat: the drama of being caught up in dangerous conflicts and experiencing … Read more

by William Weech

The author of the following account of one aspect of a diplomat’s life brings a distinguished thirty-year career to the telling. Ambassador Dale, president of this journal’s board of directors, had the good fortune, as will be seen, to interact … Read more

The author recounts an unusual household problem encountered at one of her posts. Or perhaps it was not so terribly unusual for Foreign Service families living year after year abroad in various countries. Certainly she and her husband solved the … Read more

by Helga Ruge

by Evelyn D. Reuckert