Category: Foreign Service Stories

by John C. Long Reprinted with permission from http://peacecorpsworldwide.org/peace-corps-early-days-the-day-the-fbi-came-knocking/ John F. Kennedy founded the Peace Corps shortly after his inauguration to fulfill a promise he’d made to University of Michigan students at a bull session after a presidential campaign speech. … Read more

by Josh Glazeroff On August 18, 2017, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke to this year’s participants in the Department’s internship and fellowship programs (see https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2017/08/273527.htm for full text). His remarks acknowledged a diversity gap at the Department and the … Read more

Angola – O dia-a-dia de um embaixador Angola – an ambassador’s daily diary by Ambassador Antonio Pinto da France Edicao de Livros e Revistas, Lisbon 2004 Translation by Ed Marks Selections From the preface I was the third Portuguese ambassador … Read more

by Robert Baker The 1962 Cuban missile crisis and 1964’s Belgian paratroop drop from U.S. C-130s in the Congo were the most interesting events in my five year intelligence career. Lowly intelligence analysts like me working for the U.S. Information … Read more

by Vance and Julia Hall In 1967, after a four year assignment in Seoul, we returned to Washington for a home tour. I was assigned to the Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands desk of the Bureau of East Asian … Read more

by William Harrop When I arrived as Chief of Mission to the Republic of Guinea in May 1975, Sekou Touré, the father of “African Socialism”, had been president for 17 years. He had founded a repressive Communist dictatorship. Guinea was … Read more

by Norma Brown Alexander Solzhenitsyn as Gulag inmate The title is totally misleading and not at all misleading. First, my apologies to all those who actually lived under communism, because I only lived for in the USSR for a little … Read more

by June Kunsman Consular officers at posts abroad face a range of difficult duties including informing relatives of a death abroad, counseling and helping victims of crime (do NOT go into Moscow’s underground street crossings late at night), visiting citizens … Read more

by Robert Baker In 1976, I requested from NASA a special collection of three moon rocks. NASA had offered to send them to U.S. Embassies for public exhibition for one month in each foreign country. I hand carried them all … Read more

by Allen Keiswetter I knew Vietnam would be my first tour when I joined the US Foreign Service fifty years ago this coming June at age 23.  I served there for 18 months (April 1968 to October 1969) as part … Read more

by Peter Bridges

by Robert Baker Vienna was snowed in when I first visited there in 1972. Twenty years later I was back in Vienna to relax and to direct the Regional Program Office’ excellent staff. Then Moscow melted and the Office had … Read more

by Robert Baker Until I did my report on the March, 1961 terrorist uprising in Angola, I had done well at my job as an intelligence analyst, especially at the hard slog of scanning thousands of pages of reports to … Read more

by Ernest Nagy

by Bob Baker Malaria was like having a pain X-ray of all your bones, but after a fever bout, shaking chills diverted attention from your aching bones. I had taken all the anti-malaria pills but had evidently bumped into a … Read more

by Robert Baker Rajat Neogy declared himself referee and demanded a formal exchange of insults contest between Paul Theroux and me. It was the fag end of a very Scotch evening in Rajat’s cluttered, dusty living room up in the … Read more

Gloria Irene (Wasielewski) Kreisher: English Language Teaching Officer Extraordinaire and the English Teaching Officer Profession at the Department of State by Robert R. Gosende On September 24 Gloria Irene (Wasielewski) Kreisher, one of the most effective English Language Teaching Officers … Read more

by Bruce K. Byers Thirty-seven years ago in Kabul, Afghanistan U.S. Ambassador Adolph “Spike” Dubs, a career diplomat and U.S. Navy war veteran, was abducted on his way to the embassy in Kabul and taken to a cavernous old hotel … Read more

by Bob Baker Nothing but a bunch of “cookie pushers” is an ancient slur against diplomats who are thus seen as simply sitting at fine tables sipping tea and offering cookies to equally insipid, wealthy and powerful guests abroad. In … Read more

by Bob Baker Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia came to address a national convention of Australian lawyers. I had requested a top constitutional lawyer and was delighted when Washington headquarters at the U.S. Information Agency in 1986 told me Justice … Read more