by Ambassador [ret] Jimmy Kolker

by Susan Clyde

American speaker programs were long a staple of US Information Agency (USIA) programs overseas. Not all went as planned.

New items for November 2019

by Peter Sufrin

by Ofer Israeli

by Dick Virden

by Michael McCarry

Review by John M. Handley
Raising the Flag: America’s First Envoys in Faraway Lands, by Peter D. Eicher: Potomac Books, 2018, 370 pages with end-notes and index. ISBN 978-1-61234-970-1.

from Our Woman in Havana: A Diplomat’s Chronicle of America’s Long Struggle with Castro’s Cuba
by Ambassador Vicki Huddleston
Copyright c 2018 by Vicki Huddleston. Published by arrangement with The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc. ISBN: 978-1-4683-1579-0

Review by Gilbert Donahue
Fascism: A Warning. Madeleine Albright with Bill Woodward, Harper Collins, 2018, 288 pages including index.

Review by J. R. Bullington
Peace Works: America’s Unifying Role in a Turbulent World. By Rick Barton. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, April 2018. Pages: 312. ISBN-13: 978-1538113004 and ISBN-10: 1538113007

by Beatrice Camp

by Elizabeth Krijgsman

by Rick Barton

Review by Renee M. Earle
To the Secretary: Leaked Cables and America’s Foreign Policy Disconnect. ISBN 978-0-393-24658-2. W.W. Norton & Company. Mary Thompson-Jones

by Patrick Duddy Venezuela remains in crisis. Popular support for the so-called Bolivarian revolution and its socio-economic model known as twenty-first century socialism has eroded dramatically.  Polling suggests there is a near consensus among Venezuelans that conditions are bad and … Continued

    Our aim is to have Americans see how important it is that the United States be present on the global stage.  We hope the series encourages people to join public service to represent our great nation abroad in … Continued

by Rachel Ansley Reprinted with permission from The Atlantic Council. http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/publications/reports/state-department-reform-report A new Atlantic Council report (www.atlanticcouncil.org/ publications/reports/ state-department-reform-report) seeks to enhance the US State Department’s effectiveness recommends, among other things, a more results-oriented budget and streamlined foreign aid. A key recommendation is … Continued

by Ambassador (ret.) Robert Pearson The Character of Democracy “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” This famous opening line from Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is important also for democracies. While Turkey and … Continued

AFSA President’s Views by Barbara Stephenson Reprinted with permission from American Foreign Service Association. http://www.afsa.org/building-enduring-support-foreign-service As I begin my second term as AFSA president, having been elected on a platform of continuing the work begun two years ago by the … Continued