Full Title

American Ambassadors in a Troubled World: Interviews with Senior Diplomats

Description

How do American citizens become ambassadors, and how do they serve U.S. interests overseas? What is embassy life really like? How do ambassadors deal with host governments and officials back in Washington? Seventy-four senior diplomats provide real insights and practical lessons into the business of being an American ambassador today in a troubled world. They talk informally about their motivations for a foreign service career, their appointments as ambassadors or senior envoys, their training, the management of an embassy, problems in dealing with heads of state and Washington bureaucracy, serious crises, terrorism, coups, and other violence in the 1970s and 1980s.

Authors

Dayton Mak and Charles Stuart Kennedy, former foreign service officers, are in the Foreign Affairs Oral History Program at Georgetown University.