Some not so much sighing, but conversations to exchange culture and to understand each other better between the United States and the soviet union. Ofre was a big Exchange National exhibitions. The exhibition booklet. You can see that on the cover they featured sputnik. The exhibition covered sputnik , agriculturedustry and cultural arts. A preview tour in a lastminute decision. The show. Tion toured the show is a counterpart of an american exhibition to be opened in moscow by esther next and nixon by mr. Nixon. Legitimately impressive achievements exploited to the utmost here. Not long after that the noted state sent their National Exhibition to moscow which was a huge hit. Keepsake where various things were handed out to the visitors and this is a little polaroid keepsake. The american exhibition covered various topics including computer technology, Automobile Technology and kitchen technology. We have heard a lot about the kitchen debates. Clearly what is going on during these exhibitions is this idea of which industry is better, capitalism or communism . In moscow big things was an american kitchen. You have the translators working with president next and and nikita khrushchev. Nixon escortsent premier accretion of premier khrushchev. The official opening of the american exposition. To showcasing the High Standard of life in our country, but on this occasion, traditional diplomacy goes by is eclipsed itself by a crackling exchange between nicks and and khrushchev. By nixon and khrushchev. American andof the soviet rivalry is argued. The threat of atomic warfare, diplomacy by ultimatum. The soviet will overtake america and then wave bye bye. Both khrushchev and nixon appeared to enjoy themselves. All i can say from the way you talk and dominate the conversation, you would have made a good lawyer yourself. Ut the culmination all of these reporters here, every word you have said has been taken down, and i promise you that every word have said will be reported in the United States and they will see you say. T on television [inaudible] will. Tainly it [laughter] token,the same everything that i say will be recorded and translated and will be carried all over the soviet union. One of those diplomats involved in this event of touring khrushchev and nixon through this exhibition was a Foreign Service officer. America. For voice of he had excellent russian Language Skills and even had the opportunity to provide impromptu got lost. N this is a huge event. Allison mentioned, on the flight back, they inaugurated what they jokingly called the kitchen cabinet. You can see that picture you were mentioning of nixon tormenting khrushchev. Password for a this exclusive club. In russian it means peace and friendship. The Language Skills are so important for diplomats, you never know when you might need to pull it out. We have some exchange in the conversation going on in the midst of the cold war and eventually things start to thought. Wexler is a recognition that the status quo cannot remain. During nixons president ial administration, you start to see the talks, strategic arms limitation treaties. During the reagan administration, this was a high priority as well. This was the segue into the Nuclear Forces treaty. That didnt happen so much with the number of arms but to limit the range of them. Inf treaty was witnessing the illumination of certain classes of missiles. This piece tells a little bit about that story. It is a beautiful piece. It inspires works of art. As a result of the 1987 inf inaty in causing stein onse extend cause extend this was the diplomat who went out to a limit rush to watch the elimination of the last of these missiles. They were laid out for display and measurement and verification and the entourage would go to a safe location and they were destroyed. Observedt military had some of the debris from previous elimination activity and contacted a local businessman to create these fantastic sculptures. The soviets gave the sculptures to their american counterparts as a celebration of the destruction of these missiles. You can see the soviet flag, the what was once a weapon is now a beautiful piece of art. This is all happening between the u. S. And russia as far as arm control systems, but berlin, germany is still a divided city. People are angry about that. Almost overnight, a physical wall divided berlin. They had a minister there. With can only have one ambassador in a country so we minister sent specifically to west berlin to cover the National Interest and protect american citizens over there. Apprise, thatnes wall started to come down. Katie, do you went to speak more about that particular minister . Of november 9, 1989, the u. S. Minister to berlin, Harry Gilmore, is what was called the allied chairman and the chairmanship rotated monthly between the british, the french and the u. S. The month of november was the u. S. s turn. People started gathering at these checkpoints. Word had gotten out that supposedly the checkpoints were open. Police were not prepared for this onslaught of people, and these checkpoints were still in russian territory. There was a buffer zone between the actual checkpoint that you crossed through before you got into west berlin territory. So the Police Needed permission to cross into that sector to help out the east Berlin Police with this rush of people. Wasy gilmore that this an on the spot decision. Himocol would normally have consult with counterparts and notify but he gave permission on the spot for the west Berlin Police to help out with the crush of people. The wall came down and not long the embassy was unified. This unique position of u. S. Minister to berlin was no longer needed. We have in the collection a wonderful flag, the position of u. S. Minister is a rarity. This flag was presented to Harry Gilmore at the end of his tenure as u. S. Minister to berlin. America saved the best for last with Harry Gilmore. As you can see on the image, it is an interesting flag. The great seal is in the middle. It is on a white field with blue stars surrounding the seal. A u. S. Ambassadors flag has the seal in the middle on a blue field with white stars. For further comparison, the secretary of states flag. Great seal, blue field, but four stars. One in each corner. It is a wonderful representation of this unique time in u. S. History. I think we will bring out a few more artifacts. The last segment we talked about embassies being the site of refuge, but sometimes embassies are often the site of political unrest and political attack. Here is a segment of the sidewalk that surrounded the former u. S. Embassy saigon and what is now the u. S. Consulate ho chi minh city. This piece was retrieved in 2003 as they were renovating the sidewalk and surrounding area. That particular sidewalk is a the city. Sting at first glance it is just a piece of concrete. With the vietnamese, they blewan offensive a hole into the compound. Whole a bomb in the whole and the forces were able to enter the courtyard. American diplomats in extreme danger but they were held in the courtyard and never made it into the embassy. The american diplomats inside were very brave. The kept up the line of communication and never left their post. Who retrieved that has an interesting narrative noticeding in 2003 and they were ripping up the sidewalk, right near where the hole was blown into the embassy compound. Whos the gentleman retrieved the sidewalk for us pointed out, this attack spilled out into the streets as well. There were security guards and on the sidewalks and in the street as well. Called sitehis are elements. It is an interesting way to evoke a time and a place, it can tell a powerful story. Especially since the embassy no longer exists. Continuing in vietnam, that was 1968. In the early 1970s, our diplomats were at the embassy, continuing in the midst of the conflict that was occurring, doing their best to assist their military counterparts. There is a lot of political relationships that our u. S. Diplomats needed to understand which can be complicated. Enterprising political officer thought to create a who iso be able to track who, who is the cousin of home . Brown this piece of mailing paper, tech did up on the wall in his office and started with the vietnamese president , and started charting out his political family relations as well as the interrelations with his prime minister. Handyhart became a pretty tool and pretty popular among his fellow officers. Vietnam and came back to washington, d. C. For his next post, this chart was left for use by his colleagues. Thankfully, this survived and almost didnt. In 1975, South Vietnam completely collapsed. The American Embassy was hastily evacuated. Ofre is the conic figure helicopters landing on the roof. For american personnel in these bases you have to make a snap decision what to take. You are also in a helicopter. But this family chart was one of the things that an american diplomat grabbed. And thes salvaged political officer who created it had no idea. His colleague, weeks after the evacuation, surprise to milwaukee to his office and handed this over, much to his surprise that it survived. I think it was a smart thing suchcause there was a fear of reprisals. We are happy to have this now. The crises continued in the 1970s. There is a lot going on in iran in the late 1970s, a lot of protests. The Islamic State was created after much Political Violence and unrest. The l came to a head when asylum inan sought the United States of america to seek medical treatment. He was suffering from cancer. President carter permitted him to come to the United States which greatly angered the leaders of iran. Andhat anger boiled over ultimately, one day in november 1979, the u. S. Embassy was overrun. The u. S. Diplomats who happened to be there in the building at the time were taken hostage. They were held hostage for a total of 444 days. 52 american diplomats in total. We know some thing of their treatment and it was not that great. They were blindfolded, interrogated, and beaten. We are privileged to have this cloth. This was used as a blindfold. On the economic officer robert blucher. Embassyover of the coincided with his first full day of the job. What a first day. On the second day, he was beaten. About a month later, he was called for interrogation and said he was line folded in a cold room for six hours. He could hear the cooking sounds of his captors rifles in the background. Very harsh treatment. This blindfold came to us through a friend of his. We know the end of the story that they were ultimately freed. When he returned to freedom, he was visiting friends and gave this blindfold to his friend as a thank you gift for hosting him. And he said, just wash it. , this friend did not and she treated it like a relic and we do consider it a treasure of the collection. There are so many stories surrounding the embassy takeover. Oute were some who escaped the back door of the consulate. They ultimately became known as canadiandy and 6 six. The six americans found shelter with the canadian ambassador as well as the canadian consul general john sheared and. John shearden. Houseguests for three months before the cia was able to successfully extricate them from the country. The image wee in eyeglasses. Of fake this was part of the costume given to the member of the canadian six. Er name was Catherine Stafford they provided them with costumes and fake personas, and fake documents. They had to take on and memorize these cover stories to pass through the revolutionary guard at the tehran airport. These fake eyeglasses are a wonderful representation of that successful extrication. We have two sides of the story. In addition, we have items that show the end of the story, the welcome home. The 52 hostages who were , the dayon january 21 after Ronald Reagans inauguration. They were showered with gifts and memorabilia. Giftve a button that was a to and swift. Ann swift. Ann was part of the two women of the 52 captives. The button celebrates their welcome home and incorporates a Yellow Ribbon. As we know the Yellow Ribbon campaign was started by some of the family members to show solidarity and it really caught hold throughout the nation. Targets, are still unfortunately. In 1998, there was a surprise attack in africa. We now know that this was an al qaeda attack on the embassy in tanzania and ken that kenya. We have a couple of items from that tragic event that are highly personalized. We really get a sense of the person and what it was like to be there during that time. Cannot imagine anything more traumatizing than your Office Building exploding. Ambassador who was our ambassador to kenya at the time. On the morning of the attack, she was in a meeting with the kenyan minister of commerce. His office was quite close to the embassy, just across the parking lot. She and some department of commerce colleagues were upstairs at the meeting when we heard noise which we learned was a stun grenade. There were about eight people in the room at the time and most of them got up to walk to the window to see what it was about. That was the purpose of the stun grenade, to bring people to the windows. Back, and was unconscious for a few minutes. In. Ceiling came going to die. S it is a feeling i will never forget. But i didnt. As i went down 21 flights of stairs with one of my department colleagues, i kept thinking, i just need to get out of the embassy, back to my and into the medical unit and i will be all right. It was when we exited the charred and i saw the remains of what was once human beings, looked up and saw that my embassy was destroyed that i realized there was a medical unit to go to, and i was going to have to take charge. Heade was injured on her and she very graciously has donated the suit she was wearing on that day. Bloodstains that remain on that suit from the horrible morning. The Embassy Building was completely destroyed, as were some of the surrounding buildings. Were able employees to go back and retrieve their parked car you can imagine the chaos of the scene. One embassy employee found this trunk of the chunk of the b uilding in the backseat of her car. It had blown to the window. Bushnellon, ambassador gave us this personalized hard hat. After the attack, she wanted to go back and tour the site and see what happened and offer her love and sympathy to the people dealing with this. Embassy staff personalized this hard hat with the word ambassador and a gold sticker for her to wear. Mention theyou staff, it is not just americans. We have Foreign Service nationals. Their native to the company and often work there for 20 or 30 years and developed a very close relationship with the americans, and especially the ambassadors. Sign of affection and appreciation that she was so severely injured, but came back the next day to show concern for the people of that nation and what a strong bond that was. Katie, why dont we bring gifts to give giftsry of appreciation to show that mutual respect. Gift tomedallion was a a delegation of japanese diplomats back in 1860. This giftgiving is a wonderfully long tradition and americans absolutely took part in this tradition going back to the 19th century. Very much so. This story of opening up trade with japan is fascinating. Been forced into trading with the western powers. The japanese were concerned that they wanted to keep their own sovereignty. They begin welcoming communication with western nations and signed a treaty with the United States, similar to the 1778 treaty. It but then signed the american president had to sign it. That was the reason for the delegation. Samuraisree highlevel that came with 74 other japanese and some interpreters. Of of the entire japanese. They were wind and dine at the smithsonian and had a very elegant dinner. Not quite all that heavy with everything they ate because they were served rice with sugar and butter on it, and they were horrified. Nowadays you would not offer them that. It was considered to be a successful visit. And with the last visit with the president , he gave them what was a gold coin that had been engraved by a gentleman who worked at the rent who came up with the design and a number were struck to commemorate the visit. You can see the profile of , and on thechanan reverse commemorates the visit. Theays, in commemoration of First Embassy from japan to the United States 1860. Again, the embassy meaning meeting people, not the actual building. The secretaries of state travel. A big part of their time in office is traveling and meeting with foreign counterparts area part of those meetings and trips involve an exchange of gifts, and our secretary works closely for the offices protocol the giving and receiving. They cant keep them. They cant keep them all the time, so the Diplomacy Center has a number of examples of gifts to secretaries of state. They are wonderful pieces and have Great Stories behind them, including this girl inlaid box, which was a gift to secretary , a gift from the mayor of bethlehem. Bethlehem is an palestinian territory and considered to be an agent city. Diplomatic relations with the arab world had been restrained. The 1960s and 1970s, american president s and secretaries were preoccupied with negotiating between egypt and israel which was during the carter administration. When Ronald Reagan became president and then his successor theey were focused on palestinian conflict. This was very important that not only was it given in bethlehem in palestinian territory, it was shift in thinking about american foreignpolicy and how they could mediate the settlement between the israelis and palestinians. This particular box came with a personalized note to secretary baker, and it is from the mayor you can see, and that he writes, welcome to bethlehem. ,e pray that secretary of st