![American Diplomat Podcast - [node:title]](/sites/g/files/litvpz541/files/styles/medium/public/default_images/213294%20American%20Diplomat%20Podcast%20Logo%20FINAL_0.jpg?itok=WwRb6RQP "American Diplomat Podcast - [node:title]")
What's so important about devoting your life to service? What are the rewards? How have the changing times impacted the work of diplomacy, and how have they not? One thing never changes: You have the opportunity to promote and protect and defend the interests of the United States of America.
Why was a stash of Nazi spy payoff money stuffed up Pete's chimney? Why was the Iran hostage crisis of the 70s such a huge aberration of norms? And why can it be difficult to tell the difference between diplomatic reporting and espionage? David Stewart is back with more stories.
Is immunity the same as impunity? Sadly for some, there are always consequences for a bad act. David Stewart, former State Department attorney, explains the reality.
Sondland, the Ukraine affair, and what this episode in history teaches us about the risks of appointing ambassadors who donate heavily to presidential campaigns. With Ambassador Dennis Jett, author of the new book titled, American Ambassadors: The Past, Present and Future of America's Diplomats.
We love Thanksgiving, and our diplomats especially love the holiday when celebrated overseas. What better way to celebrate an American tradition of thanks than to share it with our friends abroad? Plus, what's the best way to slaughter a turkey? Better ask the Uzbeks because the Americans really don't know....
They left to join the recruiter-imams' war. Now they're back home in Kosovo. How to make these young men peace-loving Kosovars once more? Greg Delawie explains.
Jim Dobbins, National Security Advisor to Bill Clinton, riffs on what it's like to work for Bill under the cloud of impeachment more than 20 years ago.
Mike Polt, who previously shared his experience in Serbia, shares a contrasting tale of successful adaptation to new circumstances in Estonia. What can we learn from these two tales?
Michael Polt shares his perspective on the honored tradition of the State Department dissent channel, and discusses his experience in the former Yugoslavia when he arrived as Ambassador to Serbia in 2003, just after the bombings in Kosovo. What actually was Yugoslavia, anyway? How did its dictator Tito's death give...
Brand new to the job, Lizzie Slater arrives at Embassy Dar es Salaam ready to begin work on embassy communications of every kind. Then the bomb falls. She is buried and seriously injured. But once pulled from the rubble, does she stop working? Many of us would, but Lizzie climbs trees to place satellites and does every...
Ambassador Prudence Bushnell puts Marie Yovanovitch's recent testimony on Capitol Hill in the context of the Certificate of Commission for all Foreign Service Officers, emphasizing the integrity, prudence and ability that are the guiding principle from which all American diplomats work. The message from Pete and Pru...
The Sequoia: A presidential yacht? A floating icon of American and diplomatic history? A loan gone south? Pete schools Laura on the proper pronoun for a thing of such great beauty (a "she", not an "it") and Mike Cantor does his best to answer our nosey questions about what really went on onboard.
We're in LA right now promoting a TV script we've written, inspired by many of AmDip's greatest stories including this one from an interview with Kate Canavan on the many things that can go wrong in Tijuana. Two air traffic controllers, fired for going on strike, go into (very) private industry. Pete's words: "Breaking...
AMLO, or Andrés Manuel López Obrador, President of Mexico, takes the long view, and so does the Mexican populace, in the face of insults and other perhaps spontaneous diplomatic communiques conveyed by tweet. As the 13th largest economy in the world, expected soon to be the eighth, they have big enough plans not...
This one went to work in the Lyndon Johnson White House at the tender age of 25, became Johnson's Appointments Secretary (a role now called the Chief of Staff) at 28, and later became a congressman and US Ambassador to Mexico. Do you know how much time Lyndon Johnson spent in his pajamas? And what do Mexicans really...
Communism drives immigration decisions, 1956. Hank Cohen is in love. It's his first tour, and he's in Paris. The Soviets invade Hungary and Hank helps thousands of refugees flee Communist aggression and make new lives in the US. But what about heartthrob megastar Yves Montand, who is an avowed Communist? How can Hank...
We're refreshing one of our earlier (and best!) episodes from the early days, before anyone had heard of us. But now you have! And so we offer you the joy you may have missed, of learning what it is to be black, creole or colored, all words that have been used to describe Desiree Cormier, both here in the US...
We love music. We love it almost as much as we love listening to our friends tell stories about life overseas. So here's our end-of-summer look back on some of our favorite music in the series. Enjoy! Your pals, Pete and Laura
Larry Dinger regales us with tales of tires on fire, pollution, trekking, and one of the most bizarre episodes in monarchy in the world. Now Laura wants to join the Foreign Service and all of us want to go to Kathmandu.
It's 1991 in Ethiopia. President Mengistu and the rebels are at war. Drought and famine are killing thousands. As Charge d'Affaires in Addis Ababa, Bob Houdek oversees the evacuation of 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel, and why? Because, as Bob explains, "Immigration is one of the fundamental human rights under the...