This volume reviews highlights of the author’s twenty-eight-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service while he served in Romania, Italy, Poland, and Washington, as elicited in a multi-session conversation with the founder of the Foreign Affairs Oral History Program. Historians and other readers may find of particular interest Bastiani’s account and analysis of developments while he was head of the U.S. consulate in Krakow before, during, and immediately after the imposition of martial law.
Inside a U.S. Embassy is widely recognized as the essential guide to the Foreign Service. This all-new third edition takes readers to more than fifty U.S. missions around the world, introducing Foreign Service professionals and providing detailed descriptions of their jobs and firsthand accounts of diplomacy in action. In addition to profiles of diplomats and specialists around the world-from the ambassador to the consular officer, the public diplomacy officer to the security specialist-is a selection from more than twenty countries of day-in-the-life accounts, each describing an actual day on.
Ronald Neumann, former US ambassador and president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, called the second edition of Career Diplomacy a "must-read for those seeking understanding of today's foreign service." In this third edition Kopp and Naland, both of whom had distinguished careers in the field, provide an authoritative and candid account of the foreign service, exploring the five career tracks--consular, political, economic, management, and public diplomacy--through their own experience and through interviews with over one hundred current and former foreign service officials. The book includes significant revisions and updates from the previous edition, such as: Obama administration's use of the foreign service; a thorough discussion of the relationship of the foreign service and the Department of State to other agencies, and to the combatant commands; an expanded analysis of hiring procedures; commentary on challenging management issues in the Department of State, including the proliferation of political appointments, the rapid growth in the number of high-level positions, and the difficulties of running an agency with employees in two personnel systems (civil service and foreign service); and a fresh examination of the changing nature and demographics of the foreign service. Includes a glossary, bibliography, and list of websites and blogs on the subject.
Not Exactly a Company Man is both an oral history memoir and a dissection of U.S. policy during the wars that engulfed the former Yugoslavia in the early-mid-1990s. Divided roughly by tours of duty, the first parts describe the professional coming of age of a young, newly-minted Foreign Service Officer as he adapted to the myriad challenges of diplomatic life at home and abroad. The middle parts provide sketches of Tito’s Yugoslavia, Thatcher’s Britain, resolution of the long intractable Czechoslovak Claims/Gold problem, and assorted scuffles in both the bureaucratic trenches and the upper reaches of government. An extended portion of the book deals with three critical years in which Administrations of both parties largely stood aside during the Bosnian genocide and how they sought, ingloriously, to justify their timidity. It describes in particular how Washington became so intent on avoiding a larger role in the Balkans that it greenlighted a major Iranian move into Europe, an act with potentially dire consequences for broader U.S. interests and for the immediate security of U.S. personnel on the ground. Finally, it explains how, in his time as chief of mission in front-line Croatia and later, before several Congressional Committees, this officer dealt with, as his interviewer puts it, the “real honest to god dragons” of conscience that would effectively end his Foreign Service career.
The entire Italian American experience—from America's earliest days through the present—is now available in a single volume. This wide-ranging work relates the entire saga of the Italian-American experience from immigration through assimilation to achievement. The book highlights the enormous contributions that Italian Americans—the fourth largest European ethnic group in the United States—have made to the professions, politics, academy, arts, and popular culture of America. Going beyond familiar names and stories, it also captures the essence of everyday life for Italian Americans as they established communities and interacted with other ethnic groups. In this single volume, readers will be able to explore why Italians came to America, where they settled, and how their distinctive identity was formed. A diverse array of entries that highlight the breadth of this experience, as well as the multitude of ways in which Italian Americans have influenced U.S. history and culture, are presented in five thematic sections. Featured primary documents range from a 1493 letter from Christopher Columbus announcing his discovery to excerpts from President Barack Obama's 2011 speech to the National Italian American Foundation. Readers will come away from this book with a broader understanding of and greater appreciation for Italian Americans' contributions to the United States.
What is this book about? A fast-paced interview that follows the life of a small-town “loggers” son as the youngest member of the famed U.S. Army’s “Green Berets” into military operations in Laos, Cuba, Vietnam, and other “hot” spots around the world. Following his highly successful military career, he became the manager of the Department of State Crisis Management Training Program for a second career training diplomats to handle terrorism, natural disasters, and the protection of U.S. citizens around the world. For 50 years, LTC John T. Haralson has been on the forward-edge of his country’s wars and other crises.
Career Diplomacy—now in its second edition—is an insider's guide that examines the foreign service as an institution, a profession, and a career. Harry W. Kopp and Charles A. Gillespie, both of whom had long and distinguished careers in the foreign service, provide a full and well-rounded picture of the organization, its place in history, its strengths and weaknesses, and its role in American foreign affairs. Based on their own experiences and through interviews with over 100 current and former foreign service officers and specialists, the authors lay out what to expect in a foreign service career, from the entrance exam through midcareer and into the senior service—how the service works on paper, and in practice. The second edition addresses major changes that have occurred since 2007: the controversial effort to build an expeditionary foreign service to lead the work of stabilization and reconstruction in fragile states; deepening cooperation with the U.S. military and the changing role of the service in Iraq and Afghanistan; the ongoing surge in foreign service recruitment and hiring at the Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development; and the growing integration of USAID’s budget and mission with those of the Department of State.
Four Continents and Three Islands covers John’s childhood in Hawaii, his education at Reed College, and his service in the Peace Corps and his years as a teacher in Japan, Iran, and Tacoma. It then describes his career as a Foreign Service Officer on four continents (Europe, Africa, Asia and North America) and three islands (Hispaniola, New Guinea, and Trinidad).
What do diplomats actually do? That is what this text seeks to answer by describing the various stages of a typical diplomat’s career. The book follows a fictional diplomat from his application to join the national diplomatic service through different postings at home and overseas, culminating with his appointment as ambassador and retirement. Each chapter contains case studies, based on the author’s thirty year experience as a diplomat, Ambassador, and High Commissioner. These illustrate such key issues as the role of the diplomat during emergency crises or working as part of a national delegation to a permanent conference as the United Nations. Rigorously academic in its coverage yet extremely lively and engaging, this unique work will serve as a primer to any students and junior diplomats wishing to grasp what the practice of diplomacy is actually like.
