Special Focus on the Legacy of the Peace Corps in the Foreign Service
Although State does not track former PCVs in the department, an average of 5% of new Foreign Service Officers in the last four entering classes reported Peace Corps experience and more than 60 former volunteers have served as U.S. ambassadors.
How I Invented the Peace Corps (Sort Of)
by Gerald Kamens One morning in March 1959, a top secret policy paper appeared on my boss’s desk at Dwight Eisenhower’s Bureau of the Budget—later reborn as the Office of Management and Budget. Its subject: How to counter the Soviet … Read more
First Ambassador with Peace Corps Experience: Parker Borg
by John Coyne
Responding to the Call for Volunteers “From Every Race and Walk of Life”
by John Coyne
U.S. Ambassadors who Served in the Peace Corps
Editor’s note: This is an unofficial list compiled by John Coyne. Please send any additions or corrections to editor@americandiplomacy.org.
Groping in the Dark
Turbulent Atlantic Waters
by Robert Cox
The Peacekeeping Dilemma
by Roger Meece
Pioneering an International Urban Development Program
A Frontline Snapshot of USAID History
by Eric Chetwynd, Jr.
Leveraging Diplomacy for Managing Scientific Challenges
An Opportunity to Navigate the Future of Science
by David P. Hajjar and Steven G. Greenbaum
Operational Public Diplomacy: The Enduring and the New
by Donald M. Bishop
How the Peace Corps Transformed the Foreign Service
by John Coyne
Refugee Integration in Berlin—Lessons for the U.S.
by Liliana Martinez, Brittany Aldredge, Maen Hammad
Getting to Know Jane Goodall
by Ralph Bresler
The Presidential Election of 1972: Analysis of Soviet Bloc Opinion
Link to The Text Message, at the National Archives
Foreign Service Accounts from the Oral History Archives
August marks the 30th anniversary of the Burmese student pro-democracy demonstrations that began on “8/8/88”. The U.S. subsequently withdrew its ambassador in protest of the military regime, beginning a hiatus in relations that lasted until 2012.
Links for Fall 2018
Diplomatic Courier | To Infinity and Beyond: Space Diplomacy and the New Space Age National Security Archive | Excessive U.S. sanctions could push Iran “over the brink”: UAE official to U.S. in 1995 STRATFOR | What If Brexit Happened Without an Exit … Read more
Books of Interest Fall 2018
Near Abroad, Thailand, The Road to Unfreedom, US Counterterrorism, In Praise of Blood, The Darkening Web, China’s Great Wall of Debt, The Peace Makers