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What do 840 people, 96 hours, a hamster, a newborn, a bag of Doritos and a husband expecting to fly first class all add up to? The zombie apocalypse, or, the evacuation of Americans from Wuhan, China, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Consular officer Alan Eaton makes it all sound like fun. For more, here's an...
Dennis Jett, recidivist American Diplomat guest, regales and opines on hostage-taking in Peru, the Cuban missile crisis, the JFK assassination, and (drum roll, please) Joe Biden's first 100 days in foreign policy. Quiz: State dinners or the Iran nuclear deal - which one is a foreign affairs food fight?
In our third of three episodes on the assassination of JFK, we learn what the eminently reasonable Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, former CIA operations officer, has learned by focusing purely on the facts. But questions remain. Among them: Can we trust our own government? Can we handle the truth?
Why did her diplomat father take his own life? Her mother kept her in the dark. Why? To protect her? From what? Zelda just wants some answers.
Charles Thomas had intel, valuable intel, on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. And to thank him for his efforts to share this intel, he was "selected out" of the Foreign Service, or, fired. This led to his suicide not long after. We chat with award winning author Phil Shenon who wrote the book on this...
Ambassador Jim Gadsen and mid-career officer Paloma Gonzalez share their stories of diversity and inclusion, one a Black man whose career was launched in part by the Civil Rights Movement, the other a Latina whose parents came to the US to be where the Civil Rights Movement was changing lives. In the end, though,...
It's 5:30am, and Kala Bokelman of the Diplomatic Security Service is one of many staking out a professional photographer named Solano's house on a skinny on a dead-end street in Costa Rica. Together with Costa Rican security, the DSS helps bust a child pornography ring resulting in 757 years in prison (that's right,...
Party at Carla's house! Kala Bokelman, diplomatic security special agent, tells of a raid on a house straddling the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border. The goal? To stop coyotes smuggling people from Cuba to the US via Ecuador and every state in between. The problem? Her jurisdiction ends in Carla's back...
As a diplomat of color, how did the murder of George Floyd inspire Christian Loubeau, Security Council negotiator for the United States mission to the United Nations, to create change at USUN? And, how exactly do you conduct multilateral negotiation on behalf of the US?
Andrew Shinn onboards as a new Foreign Service Officer during the pandemic. But what is he onboarding to? There's no place to go, and even State doesn't really know what to do with these newbies. Do you swear in wearing your underwear?
We all know the importance of Nelson Mandela, but great as he was, he did not work alone. Each of these figures brought their motives and personalities to shape South Africa's transition from apartheid to the present. John Campbell, political counselor in Johannesburg during the collapse of apartheid, shares the...
It all began with a call from the police. Andrew Byrley, a young officer and former robotics expert, shares tales of a harrowing month assisting Americans in crisis in Belize. What can, what cannot, and what must the American consulate do for you in a foreign country?
The Arab Spring - Tunisia, Egypt - we know about these places. But Bahrain is almost never in the news. What is its geopolitical significance, and strategic importance to the US? And why was Ambassador Tom Krajeski in a tight spot when the Arab Spring came to Bahrain? Can we walk and chew gum at the same...
But we're Americans. We don't lose wars. False! Ambassador and former National Security Advisor Tony Lake takes a hard look at American leadership in the world from Kennedy until the present time, when like so many countries, our democracy needs shoring up as well. For more about Tony Lake, see this article in the...
Like Chicago mobsters, hard line parties grab to divvy up the riches after the genocide in Bosnia has stopped. Ambassador Tom Miller, together with the British ambassador, organizes "secret dinners" that lead to a peaceable coalition of factions that brings stability and to great surprise wins the election 2000....
Or a traitor, anyway. In an eerily quiet region during the Vietnam war, from a banana grove in the middle of the night, Lionel Rosenblatt discovers that a US military official is guilty of supplying the enemy with life-saving medicine from the United States. Lionel is saved from a murderous reprisal through...
Again in honor both of Black History Month and Linda Thomas-Greenfield's recent appointment as US ambassador to the United Nations, we repost our second chat with Linda from last summer: April 7, 1994, Rwanda. Not a good day to be mistaken for the acting Prime Minister. Linda Thomas-Greenfield shares the tale of her...
Mohammed Bouazizi, an underemployed fruit seller, sets himself on fire, launching what we later began calling the Arab Spring. Ambassador Gordon Gray walks us through life on the ground in Tunisia, when things in the Arab world began to change. Plus, read Gray's article in the Foreign Service journal for...
In honor of upcoming Black History Month, and in honor of the new administration, we repost our first episode with Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Biden's new Ambassador to the UN. Go, Linda! Here's the episode: “I respect your culture, but I do not believe it is your culture to allow women to die,” says Ambassador Linda...
Dan Kurtzer, Ambassador to both Egypt and Israel, parses this complex part of the world from his experience on the ground. Why was Anwar Sadat killed? What social forces produced the revolution of February 2011? And how is the average Egyptian living now? Better or worse than before?