Story of Diplomacy
From D-Day to the U.S. Foreign Service: Lt. Col. Karl F. Mautner
Karl Mautner was a Jewish Austrian who became a U.S. soldier in WWII, a U.S. citizen, and a U.S. Foreign Service Officer.
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Story of Diplomacy
Karl Mautner was a Jewish Austrian who became a U.S. soldier in WWII, a U.S. citizen, and a U.S. Foreign Service Officer.
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Secretary Madeleine Albright was a trailblazer as the first woman Secretary of State, serving from 1997 to 2001. She also served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (1993-1997). In 2012, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. As part of her commitment to…
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In July 1994, President Bill Clinton visited Germany. More than four years after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Germany as a whole and the city of Berlin had been fully reunified. Clinton spoke in front of the Brandenburg Gate, where in 1987 President Reagan had famously called for Soviet…
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In September 1978, U.S. President Jimmy Carter invited Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the United States for peace negotiations. It would result in the historic Camp David Accords, bringing peace between the two countries. In the runup to that meeting, Esther Coopersmith, a well-known Washington, DC…
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At U.S. diplomatic posts in South Vietnam in April 1975, diplomats and others worked diligently to evacuate staff and at-risk South Vietnamese citizens to safety as the North Vietnamese forces approached. Robert Mosher was one of those diplomats. He was posted to the U.S. Consulate in Can Tho but was pulled to…
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Jane Simmons joined the State Department and served overseas in challenging locations. While in Warsaw she met William Dougherty, another embassy employee. The two fell in love and were married while serving at the embassy. After Warsaw, they were assigned to the Embassy in Moscow. This is the diplomatic identification card issued…
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William Dougherty joined the State Department and served overseas in challenging locations. Dougherty was recruited in 1945 from the U.S. Army Signal Corps, where he worked as a cryptologist. While in Warsaw he met Jane Simmons, another embassy employee. The two fell in love and were married while serving at the embassy.…
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As a young boy in Vienna, Austria in the 1930s, Richard Schifter would often walk with his father past the Austrian Consular Academy. Richard would tell his parents that one day he wanted to be a diplomat. One time, his father pulled him aside and explained, “We are Jews. Jews can't get…
Collection Highlights
With 2023 coming to a close, the National Museum of American Diplomacy is reflecting on a successful year building the museum’s collections. Here are a…
Story of Diplomacy
On August 1, 1975, the Helsinki Accords, also known as the Helsinki Final Act, were signed. The signing of the Helsinki Accords was a big…