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

From the National Archives: The Value of Consular Work, 1947 by David A. Langbart   Since creation of the American Foreign Service under the Rogers Act in 1924 by combining the separate Diplomatic Service and Consular Service, a perennial issue … 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 John Coyne On this last day of 2016, I thought I might try and chart the impulses in America that brought about the creation of the Peace Corps–something positive to think about as we wait for 2017–and before all … 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

Nikita Khrushchev’s Memoirs: Part I

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

From the National Archives: Report on Hazards of the American Foreign Service, 1942 by David A. Langbart The image of the Foreign Service Officer (FSOs) as a “cookie pusher” who enjoys a cushy existence overseas is persistent. This was certainly … 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

Department of State Records Relating to Atrocities Against the Armenians During World War I  

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