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 w...
8 Apr 202127min
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...
31 Mar 202127min
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, ho...
26 Mar 202135min
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. D...
18 Mar 202118min
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 aparthei...
11 Mar 202139min
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, a...
4 Mar 202135min
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 Ambassa...
25 Feb 202150min
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,...
18 Feb 202146min
