by Elizabeth Knight My professional path has been a winding one, with turns that have taken me places I never imagined. Looking back on over a decade in international development, there is much I have learned and even more that … 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

John Lothrop Motley The Witty US Minister to Vienna Chapter 1 of Foreign Vistas: Stories from a Life in the Foreign Service by William Sommers If success in the diplomat’s trade were based solely on education, language facility, mastery of … Continued

Did He Violate the President’s Instructions?
Chapter 2 of Foreign Vistas: Stories from a Life in the Foreign Service
by William Sommers

by Jon Dorschner

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 … Continued

by Peter Bridges Back in the late 1950s, when Stalin was not long gone and the Soviet state remained our militarily powerful and dangerous adversary, the State Department’s basic office for dealing with the Russians was a Soviet desk composed … Continued

by William Sommers Budapest During the 2009 holidays I sent a greeting card—along with a short poem—to an old friend—Andras Baltazar—in Budapest with whom I worked on local environmental projects in Hungary in the early 90s. I wasn’t sure that … Continued

by Mirco Reimer “In the 1990s, we thought we had the magic formula for everything. We were rich and invincible, and even Germany was expected to do what we wanted” – Stephen M. Walt, professor at Harvard University, on the … Continued

by Bob BakerVienna was snowed in when I first visited there in 1974. 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 huge … Continued

by William SommersDuring a recent visit with my daughter in Cambridge, Mass., we walked around the neighborhood and came upon a wonderfully reconstructed large and appealing house on Sacromento Street.  We found that it was the long ago residence of … Continued

By Erik Brattberg, resident fellow, the Atlantic Council http://nationalinterest.org/feature/could-the-ukraine-crisis-reboot-nato-10279 Reviewed by James L. Abrahamson, contributing editor Writing for the National Interest, Brattberg sees the crisis brought on by Russia’s seizure of Crimea as “both a tremendous challenge and a tremendous … Continued

By Ambassador (Ret) Thomas Pickering Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05E2_Vkt5KI&list=UUPssYbwV8FFSw_ZbhBV5X3Q Review by Michael W. Cotter The Richard N. Krasno Distinguished Professorship in History & International Affairs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, now held by Professor Klaus Larres, hosts a … Continued

By David Cameron, Prime Minister of Great Britain Text: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/eu-meeting-on-ukraine-david-camerons-speech Review by David T. Jones In a concise speech on March 6th to the European Union (EU), British Prime Minister David Cameron addressed all of the pertinent realities regarding Ukraine. … Continued

The Premises of the Breakdown of the Communist System by Dr. Morris M. Mottale In 1965, the Polish philosopher and academician Adam Schaff, at that time a high ranking member of the Communist intelligentsia, published a book entitled Marxism and … Continued

by Walter R. Roberts In 1960, the United States Information Agency (USIA) where I was then responsible for American information and cultural programs in Central and Eastern Europe assigned me as Public Affairs Officer to the American Embassy in Belgrade, … Continued

by Yale Richmond The participating States… Make it their aim to facilitate freer movement and contacts, individually and collectively, whether privately or officially, among persons, institutions and organizations of the participating States, and to contribute to the solution of the … Continued

Review by Csaba T. Chikes
Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum, Anchor Reprint, 2013, ISBN-13: 978-1400095933, 640 pp.

Review by James Abrahamson

Reviewed by John Handley