American Diplomat

By Ambassador (Retired) Pete Romero and Writer/Producer Laura Bennett

Society & Culture Education Government & Organizations Non-Profit

What's American Diplomat about?

American Diplomat goes behind the scenes to hear real stories from diplomats who lived newsworthy events overseas. Experience the Cuban revolution, Central American insurgencies, the end of apartheid and more through the eyes of those who were there.

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They Will Cut Our Heads, Of...

07.29.2021

Amb. Ryan Crocker, Middle East expert, explains the value of Foreign Service Nationals and brings it all home with a story of the day that local staff saved his life. Toobah, a former employee of USAID, then tells us of ...

American Diplomat episodes:

07.29.2021 They Will Cut Our Heads, Of Course! Amb. Ryan Crocker, Middle East expert, explains the value of Foreign Service Nationals and brings it all home with a story of the day that local staff saved his life. Toobah, a former employee of USAID, then tells us of ...
07.23.2021 Don't Let Us Be Killed HT, an Afghan interpreter who worked alongside US forces and has been denied a visa to come to the United States explains how he served, who in his family has been killed as a consequence of his service, and how ...
07.15.2021 Encore: Send Lawyers, Guns and Money Consular officer 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 Bad, in the skies.”
07.10.2021 Encore: We’ll Always Have Paris 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 ...
06.30.2021 Encore: Who Lost China? It is the 1950s. Senator Joseph McCarthy and his henchman Roy Cohn target and humiliate our diplomats for accurately reporting an eventual Mao victory in China. Jack Service and his family are at the center of the storm. How are ...
06.24.2021 Encore: Stay Home and Pour the Tea A social worker by profession, Bonnie Miller traveled the world with her spouse Ambassador Tom Miller and created the first-ever course in Psychosocial Consequences of War in response to trauma she witnessed in Sarajevo. But the life changing moment came ...
06.16.2021 Dull, Duller, Dulles Trick Question: What happened in Yalta in 1945? Probably more than you think! And why did those proceedings hold up the confirmation of Ambassador Avis Bohlen's father Charles Bohlen as Ambassador to the Soviet Union? Plus: Are things better in ...
06.12.2021 Encore: Pedro Pan and the Guerrillas Pete sends Phil Chicola to guerrilla country to investigate the deaths of American linguist missionaries, and both Pete and Phil are accused of negotiating with the FARC. All of this concurrent with the Clinton impeachment, and as Pete explains, it ...
06.04.2021 The Sky is Green! Phil Shull is back, this time connecting our earlier discussion of Chinese culture to practical business and policy challenges faced by Westerners doing business in that country.
05.28.2021 Scarcity Colors Everything Why does the West find China so confounding in matters of business and diplomacy? Phil Shull, retired Foreign Agricultural Service officer, explains: China's culture and history may be best understood by its written character for "population", which is comprised of ...
05.20.2021 A Bag of Doritos: It's Happening 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 ...
05.13.2021 Biden Gets an Incomplete (So Far) 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 ...
05.06.2021 The Mother of All Conspiracy Theories 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 ...
04.29.2021 Her Fathers' Death: It Just Doesn't Add Up 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.
04.22.2021 A JFK Assassination Tipster's Demise 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 ...
04.15.2021 Diversity Across the Generations at State 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 ...
04.08.2021 Is 757 Years Enough? 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 ...
03.31.2021 Smuggling Cubans 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 ...
03.26.2021 Combatting Anti-Blackness as a Diplomat of Color 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 ...
03.18.2021 Onboarding Online 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 ...
03.11.2021 F.W. de Klerk, Winnie Mandela and Cyril Ramaposa 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 ...
03.04.2021 Trifecta 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 ...
02.25.2021 Bahrain, So Small, So Important 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 ...
02.18.2021 The Shining City on the Hill? "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 ...
02.12.2021 The Secret Dinners 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 ...
02.04.2021 The Ugly American 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 ...
02.01.2021 Bonus Repost: That Day I Had to Run 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 ...
01.27.2021 December 17, 2010 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. ...
01.25.2021 Bouns Repost - A Few Choice Words 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 ...
01.21.2021 The Nile Just Keeps Flowing 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 ...
01.14.2021 The Merchant of Death The worst of the worst: Victor Bout, Russian arms dealer, is not the only one. A a host of other nogoodnicks invest their nefarious proceeds in American cities such as Louisville, Dallas, Cleveland, unbeknownst to city officials. These criminals receive ...
01.07.2021 The Dirty Money Tracker What exactly is dirty money, and how is it laundered? How much of it flows through the world, and the United States in particular? And how does it impact regular Americans going about our daily lives? Kathleen Doherty, aka "the ...
12.31.2020 Hiatus Post - More with Gina Winstanley For some even better discussion with Gina, here's our second of two with her: Religious police stop Gina and terrorists attack the consulate general in Jeddah. See you next week with new original content. Happy New Year!
12.26.2020 Hiatus post: Gina Winstanley's Adventures in the Middle East Bet you haven't heard this one! We recorded this story when we began the show a few years ago and no one knew about us yet. Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley regales, in her first of two episodes. Do you know where to ...
12.17.2020 Hiatus Post - Pete Goes Native Pete visits the Huarani Indians, botches up a boar hunt, drinks the mystery drink chicha, and receives upon his departure a marriage proposal, ambiguously addressed either to himself one of the other fine young gringos. Follows first episode, titled “Cowboys ...
12.10.2020 Hiatus Repost - Cowboys and Indian at the Embassy In this adventure tale in two parts, Pete visits the Huarani tribe in the Amazon jungle while serving as US Ambassador to Ecuador. Today, in light of Covid, Pete feels remorse. We promise that no one contracted any Western illness ...
12.03.2020 Hiatus Post - Foreign Service Test? Quiz Show? You Decide. You’ve heard a zillion stories of adventures in Foreign Service. How did all of these regular people become such erudite heroes of public service? They took the Foreign Service Test. And so, for your entertainment, Laura did, too. Here’s a ...
11.25.2020 AmDip Thanksgiving Special! Join us for some of Pete's jokes (Laura laughed, we promise) and our annual show featuring stories of Thanksgiving overseas. Enjoy! Stay safe! ~Pete & Laura
11.18.2020 Hiatus Post - Bill Burns: The Back Channel Bill Burns, one of our favorite guests, is shortlisted for Secretary of State in the Biden administration. Go, Bill! We're reposting our discussion with him from last year about his book "The Back Channel," which is even more timely now ...
11.06.2020 Hiatus Post - The Man of My Dreams We're on hiatus until January - so we want to hear from you as we look ahead to future programming. Send us your questions, ideas, comments at [email protected], on Facebook or at www.amdipstories.org. And enjoy a rerun, a propos of ...
10.29.2020 That Day I Had to Run April 7, 1994, Rwanda. Not a good day to be mistaken for the acting Prime Minister. Linda Thomas-Greenfield shares the tale of her escape from the anti-government militia, while millions of others perished in the country's genocide.
10.22.2020 A Few Choice Words "I respect your culture, but I do not believe it is your culture to allow women to die," says Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield to the Taliban. And do you know what the Taliban did after that? And why? Listen to find ...
10.15.2020 Bananas Was His Business Hugo Rodriguez, from the banana business in Latin America to the US Foreign Service. Machetes, scorpions, poisonous snakes, starting work at four am in the fruit fields...how does this prepare someone to help bring education to American-born children of Mexican ...
10.07.2020 Malfeasances Aside... There's a gray area in judging the actions of ambassadors, whether political appointee or career. What's the difference between what is illegal, inappropriate, or, more to the point, truly unethical? Harry Geisel puts his subtle mind to the task.
09.30.2020 My Job is to Keep You out of Jail What's the difference between a political appointee ambassador and a career ambassador? Increasingly, these ambassadorships are offered as rewards for large political campaign contributions. How can these appointments go awry? Harry Geisel helps us count the ways.
09.23.2020 The World's Blindest Power? 9/11/2012, Benghazi, Libya, an attack on our diplomatic mission, killing four, including our ambassador. The legendary Tom Pickering led the first investigation (of ten), and it was not a pleasant report to write. But, as a consequence of these events, ...
09.17.2020 Ukraine is Not Dead Yet And neither is worldwide democracy, thanks in part to the very fine-tipped pen and tiny notebook of Ambassador William Taylor, a key source in the Congressional investigations into the Ukraine corruption affair of the last year. Democracy lives another day!
09.10.2020 Second Annual AmDip Greatest Hits! Need a mood lifter? We do! Laura likes our music selects so much that she's listening to this one twice! Go back to simpler times (say, 2019) with AmDip, then sing along to our Covid-era theme song. Love, Pete and ...
09.03.2020 Colombia: Bloodless Theater in the Jungle Ambassador Whitaker tells the story of how the Colombian government fooled the guerrillas into releasing long-held hostages... an operation that would make Hollywood proud.
08.27.2020 A Grandfather's Love and Legacy Desiree Cormier, one of our favorite guests, is back to share stories learned of her grandfather's life since his recent passing. We hear not only how he shaped Desiree's life of public service, but also how his very personal commitment ...

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