American Ambassadors in a Troubled World: Interviews with Senior Diplomats

(Hardback)

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Following a brief historical introduction, 74 senior US diplomats provide personal accounts of ambassadorial life. They describe their reasons for becoming ambassadors, the appointment process, their training, the management of an embassy, problems in dealing with heads of state and officials at home. They discuss troubles in Korea and Laos, the Six-Day War in 1967, the Jonestown affair, hostilities in Cyprus, the fall of Saigon, civil strife in Nicaragua, along with terrorism, coups and other demonstrations of violence in the 1970s and 1980s. Finally, they point to the future role of ambassadors.

Reviews

"[This interview record of ex-ambassadors] sheds considerable light on the role of American ambassadors that cannot be found elsewhere."-John Carroll Professor of History Lamar University
. . . a highly readable primer on the ambassadorial role and a book likely to be of particular interest to the past and present members of the Foreign Service--who will find many old friends on its pages.-Foreign Service Journal
. . . Troubled World is a imaginatively arranged collection of interviews and parts of interviews with more than seventy senior diplomats who served in their country throughout the globe in the modern era.-Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Mak and Kennedy present an interesting collection of interviews on the nature of diplomatic representation and the issues that diplomats face. . . . Their work is worthwhile reading for anyone interested in American diplomatic missions.-Harvard International Review
." . . a highly readable primer on the ambassadorial role and a book likely to be of particular interest to the past and present members of the Foreign Service--who will find many old friends on its pages."-Foreign Service Journal
." . . Troubled World is a imaginatively arranged collection of interviews and parts of interviews with more than seventy senior diplomats who served in their country throughout the globe in the modern era."-Journal of Interdisciplinary History
"Mak and Kennedy present an interesting collection of interviews on the nature of diplomatic representation and the issues that diplomats face. . . . Their work is worthwhile reading for anyone interested in American diplomatic missions."-Harvard International Review

Author Bio

DAYTON MAK and CHARLES STUART KENNEDY, former foreign service officers, are in the Foreign Affairs Oral History Program at Georgetown University. Mr. Kennedy is also the author of The American Consul: A History of the United States Consular Service and, with William D. Morgan, The U.S. Consul at Work, both published by Greenwood Press in 1990.