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Delivering the Mail and Avoiding Martial Law in South Korea, 1987
Chun Doo-hwan, president of South Korea from 1980 to 1988, seized power in 1979 and crushed many democratization movements during his controversial rule. According to the South Korean constitution,...
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A Secret Betrayal — Kurdish Refugees in Iran
Between 1961 and 1975, the relationship between the Kurds and the Iraqi government was especially tumultuous. In 1961, the First Kurdish-Iraqi War, an attempt to create an independent Kurdish state in...
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Chile’s Coup Against Salvador Allende and the Truth Behind “Missing”
In 1973, political tensions were high in Chile, with conflict arising between the socialist President Salvador Allende and the more conservative Congress of Chile. The Chilean economy was failing, the...
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Microwaving Embassy Moscow
U.S. relations with Moscow through the decades have been problematic at best while the embassy itself has been the subject of spy scandals, eavesdropping and other Cold War intrigue. One of the...
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Frank Carlucci, Cold Warrior
Frank Carlucci III is best known for his tenure as Secretary of Defense under the Reagan administration, yet in his 2000 interview with Charles Stuart Kennedy, Carlucci narrates his journey through the...
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An Iran-Contra War Story with Oliver North
Oliver North is a former United States Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel who served as a National Security Council staff member during the Iran–Contra affair, a political scandal involving the...
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“The First Terrorist Attack in the U.S.” – The Letelier-Moffitt Assassinations
After Augusto Pinochet led a coup d’état in Chile on September 11, 1973, taking power from the democratically elected President Salvador Allende, he exiled Allende’s Foreign Minister, Orlando Letelier....
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The Strange Case of Ngo Dinh Can
It sounds like a scene out of a movie: a corrupt dictator attempts to flee the country with the help of the American Consul, but is stopped by a CIA agent who arrests him. However, this is a very...
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The Search for Peace in Southern Africa – Oil, Angola, and the Proxy Wars
During the Cold War, the United States and the USSR engaged in a zero-sum game throughout the globe; while mutually assured destruction prevented the two nuclear superpowers from fighting a hot war,...
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The Embassy Moscow Fire of 1977
Diplomats working in the USSR had to contend with a wide range of difficulties – poor bilateral relations, KGB surveillance, tough living conditions, Russian winters. For those serving in 1977, you...
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Not-So Full Disclosure
So you have been entrusted with a very important mission — in this case, trying to convince several countries in the 1950’s to allow take-off and landing of a new, super-secret aircraft, the U2, which...
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The Afghan Invasion as Seen from U.S. Embassy Moscow
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was, among other things, a horrible political miscalculation, lasting nine bloody years and resulting in the death of some one million civilians as well as forcing...
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The Queen of Thailand Does Dallas
There are many hallmarks of a good diplomat — the ability to understand foreign cultures, communications skills, flexibility, the ability to think on one’s feet. One usually thinks of such skills being...
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The Failed Attempt to Get a Terrorist Mastermind
Imad Mughniyah, Chief of Hezbollah International Operations, was one of the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists and was sought by authorities in 42 other countries. Over a 30-year span, Mughniyah repeatedly...
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Boots on the Ground
Central America in the 1980’s became a focal point for foreign policy during the Reagan administration, as concern over gains by leftist groups, such as the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, led to...
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The Last Hurrah of Old Pineapple Face
From 1983 to 1989, Panama was under the iron grip of General Manuel Noriega, who had been trained by the U.S. military at Fort Bragg and the School of the Americas and who since the late 1950s had been...
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“Apparently I have been kidnapped” — The Death of a Vice Consul
In 1974, Bobby Joe Keesee (in photo), recipient of the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star for his actions during the Korean War, kidnapped Vice Consul John Patterson and held him for a $500,000 ransom....
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Books, Defectors, and Song — The Cuban Missile Crisis, as Seen from Moscow
The Soviet Union, in Churchill’s famous words, was a “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”; as such it made it extremely difficult for outsiders – including foreign intelligence services —...
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Tachito Crumbles – The End of Nicaragua’s Somoza Dynasty
From 1936 to 1979, Nicaragua was under the grip of the Somoza family. Coming to power following the death of his older brother, Anastasio “Tachito” Somoza Debayle re-established the fierce reign of...
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Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s Founding Father
Lee Kuan Yew, who died in March 2015, is known for being the longest serving prime minster in the world and the creator of modern Singapore. His legacy is not without controversy, however. He was a...
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