Diplomacy, beginning with artifacts from the cold war. We are in the thick of the cold war now. And1950s, the late 1950s, there was some not so much thawing, but conversations happening. To exchange culture and to understand each other better between the United States and the soviet union. And so in 1959, there was this big exchange of National Exhibitions. So the soviets sent their National Exhibition to new york city. That was in 1959. Here is the exhibition booklet. As you can see on the cover they , featured sputnik. Their grandest achievement. So their exhibition covered sputnik and soviet industry, agriculture and cultural arts. Foretelling americas role, president eisenhower flew to washington for a preview tour in a lastminute decision. As for Vice President nixon, he and the russian delegation toured the elaborate show. The show is a counterpart of an american exhibition to be opened in moscow next month by mr. Nixon. In an elaborate cultural exchange, fullscale models of our sputniks art things that the russians are most proud of. Legitimately impressive achievements exploited to the utmost here. Not long after that, the United States sent their National Exhibition to moscow , which was a huge hit. Is a keepsake where various things were handed out to the visitors and this is a little polaroid keepsake. And the american exhibition covered various topics including polaroid technology, automobile technology, and, of course, kitchen technology. We know that we have heard a lot about the kitchen debates. Indeed. Do you want to talk about the kitchen debates . Sure. Clearly what is going on during these exhibitions is this idea of which industry is better, capitalism or communism . In terms of technology. And so one of the big features in moscow was an american kitchen. So there you have the workingors who were with president nixon im sorry, Vice President nixon, and nikita khrushchev. Vice president nixon escorts on at premier khrushchev tour of the United States fair park in moscow. The official opening of the american exposition. Dedicated two showcasing the High Standard of life in our country, but on this occasion, traditional diplomacy goes by the board, and the story of the fair itself is eclipsed by a crackling exchange between nixon and khrushchev. They got offcamera, and finished offcamera before the recorders. Of the cold war and the american soviet rivalry is argued in blunt terms. The threat of atomic warfare, diplomacy by ultimatum. [inaudible] the soviet will overtake america and then wave bye bye. [applause] both khrushchev and nixon appeared to enjoy themselves. Says khrushchev, here is a communist spokesman dealing with a capitalist lawyer. All i can say from the way you talk in the way you dominate the conversation, you would have made a good lawyer yourself. [laughter] culmination and agreement is that both of these nations are forming up this debate uncensored. 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 it on television. [inaudible] [speaking russian] english, english. Certainly it will. [laughter] and by the same token, and by the same token, everything that i say will be recorded and translated and will be carried all over the soviet union. [applause] one of those diplomats involved in this event of touring khrushchev and nixon through this exhibition was a Foreign Service officer named and he actually worked for the voice of america at the time. He had excellent russian Language Skills and was part of the entourage, and even had the opportunity to provide impromptu translation for khrushchev because his official translator got lost in the crush of people. This is a huge event khrushchev and nixon were going through. As 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 pointing at khrushchev. They even had a password for this exclusive club. And 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. So we have some exchange in the conversation going on in the midst of the cold war and eventually things start to thaw. Eventually. There is a recognition that the status quo cannot remain. So during nixons president ial administration, you start to see the salt talks, the strategic arms limitation treaties being discussed in the United States. During the reagan administration, this was a high priority as well. This piece speaks to that as well. In 1967, they signed the intermediate range Nuclear Forces treaty. That didnt happen so much with the number of arms but to limit how far, the range of them. Exactly. And part of the inf treaty was witnessing elimination of certain classes of missiles. Right. And this happened both in the United States as well as in soviet territory. And this piece tells a little bit about that story. It is a beautiful piece. It is diplomacy as an art form, and it also inspires works of art such as this. And as a result of the 1987 inf treaty, in 1990, in cause asked khazakstan, this woman was a diplomat who is part of the entourage two went out to watch the elimination of these last missiles covered under the inf treaty. The missiles were laid out for display and measurement and verification and the entourage would go to a safe location and they were destroyed. And the soviet military had actually reserved some of the debris from previous elimination activity and contacted a local businessman to create these fantastic sculptures. And the soviets gave the sculptures to their american counterparts as a celebration of the last, the destruction of these missiles. You can see the soviet flag, the u. S. Flag, and this very interesting, and quite beautiful, i think. It is evocative of turning your swords what was once a weapon is now a beautiful piece of art. And a reminder. Exactly. This is all happening between the u. S. And russia as far as arms control systems, but berlin, germany is still a divided city. Very much so. And people are quite angry about that. Indeed they were. In 1961, almost overnight, a physical wall divided berlin. Im so this presented a challenge for the United States. They had an embassy in journal germany, but they maintained the diplomatic presence with west germany. So they had a minister over there. We can only have one ambassador in a country, so we had the u. S. Minister sent specifically to west berlin to cover the National Interest and protect american citizens over there. Very quickly, much to everyones surprise in 1989, that walt literally started to come down. Wall literally started to come down. Katie, do you went to speak more about that particular minister . She played a crucial role in that. Sure. The night 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. So month of november was the u. S. s turn. So people started gathering at these checkpoints. Word had gotten out that supposedly the checkpoints were open. They could now cross. Berlin police were not prepared for this onslaught of people, and so the mayor of berlin and these checkpoints were still in russian territory. There was sort of a buffer zone , if you will, between the actual checkpoint that you crossed through before you got into west berlin territory. So the west Berlin Police needed permission to cross into that sector to help out the east Berlin Police with this rush of people. So Harry Gilmore, this was an on the spot decision, had to make it. Normally, protocol would have had him 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. And of course the wall came down , and not long later, the reunified. Berlin,ssy was moved to so this unique position of u. S. Minister to berlin was no longer needed. We have in the collection a wonderful flag. It is a unique flag. The position of u. S. Minister is a rarity. Kind of antiquated. So this flag was presented to Harry Gilmore at the end of his tenure as u. S. Minister to berlin. And it has a wonderful inscription on the presentation box 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 great seal in the middle. It is a blue field with white stars around the great seal. And for further comparison, the secretary of states flag. Great seal, blue field, but four stars, one in each corner of the flag. So it is a wonderful representation of this unique time in u. S. History. So i think we will bring out a few more artifacts. Lets go. In the last segment, we talked about embassies being the site of refuge and asylum, but sometimes embassies are often the site of political unrest and physical attacks. This little piece here up front 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 mpiece this piece was retrieved in 2003 as they were renovating the sidewalk and surrounding area. That particular sidewalk is a has a pretty interesting history for the u. S. Embassy. And that is why your collection is so fascinating, because at first glance it is just a piece of concrete. In 1968, in the thick of the conflict with vietnam, the north ontnamese lost in offensive the vietnamese holiday of the new year. Traditionally, this had been a day of truce. In theew a hole compound, the embassy. There was a wall surrounding it, and they planted a bomb in it and through this, the Vietnamese Forces were actually able to enter the courtyard. This put american diplomats in extreme danger, but they were held in the courtyard and never actually made it inside the embassy. They were finally driven out by some helicopter reinforcements coming in, but the american diplomats inside were very brave. The kept up the line of communications with the United States the whole time, and they never left their posts. So the gentleman who retrieved that has an interesting narrative about going in 2003 and noticed they were ripping up the sidewalk, and that is actually right near where the hole was blown into the embassy compound. Right. And as the gentleman who retrieved the sidewalk for us pointed out, this attack spilled out into the streets as well. There were security guards and military forces on the sidewalks and in the street as well. So items like this is an artifact collection are called site elements. So it is a really interesting way to evoke a time and a place, and couple that with imagery and footage of the time. It can tell a powerful story. Especially since the embassy no longer exists. That point you to thinking about that place. Continuing in vietnam, that was 1968, when the attack happened. In the early 1970s, our diplomats were there at the embassy, continuing, in the midst of the conflict that was occurring, trying to do their best to assist their military counterparts. There is a lot of political relationships that our u. S. Diplomats needed to understand as well, which can be pretty complicated. So one enterprising Embassy Political officer thought to create a chart to be able to track who is who, who is the cousin of who, who is married to who . So he went down to the mailroom and got this piece of brown up ong paper, tacked it 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 as well. And this chart became a pretty handy tool and pretty popular among his fellow officers. Left vietnam and came back to washington dc for his next post, this chart was left for use by his colleagues. Thankfully, this survived, and it almost didnt. Almost didnt. In 1975, South Vietnam completely collapsed. So the American Embassy was very hastily evacuated. There are very iconic figures of helicopters landing off the roof and South Vietnamese citizens attending to board the helicopter. So for american personnel working in these embassies, you have to make it out decision on what to take with you. You have classified documents, but you are also in a helicopter with the weight of the helicopter. But this family chart was one of the things that an american diplomat grabbed. It was salvaged and the political officer who created it had no idea. His colleague, weeks after the evacuation, surprised him, and walked into his office at the department of state and handed this over, much to his surprise that it survived. But i think it was a smart thing to do because there was it was such a fear of reprisal from the South Vietnamese when the northfield knees north vietnamese entered, which led to the evacuation. Im sure there is a lot of value to saving this document. And we are happy to have this now. Crises continued in the 1970s. There is a lot going on in iran in the late 1970s, a lot of protests. A lot of protests. So in 1979, the Islamic State was created after much Political Violence and unrest. Of course, putting the americans who were serving as diplomats in grave danger. And it all came to a head when the shah of iran sought asylum in the United States of america to seek medical treatment after he was exiled from iran. He was suffering from cancer. President carter permitted him to come to the United States, which greatly angered the political leaders of iran. Absolutely. So that anger boiled over and ultimately, one day in november 1979, the u. S. Embassy was overrun. And the u. S. Diplomats who happened to be there in the building at the time were taken hostage, as we know, and they were there, 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, they were interrogated, they were beaten. And we are privileged to have this cloth, really, just a cloth, but this was used as a blindfold on the economic officer robert blucher. And the takeover of the embassy happens to coincide with his first full day on the job. So what a day, what a first day on the job. And on the second day, he was beaten. About a month later, he was called out for interrogation and said he was blindfolded in a cold room for six hours. And he could hear the cooking sounds of his captors rifles in the background. Very harsh treatment. So this blindfold came to us through a friend of his. We know the end of the story , they were ultimately freed. Once he returned to freedom, he was visiting friends and gave this blindfold to his friend as kind of a thank you gift for hosting him. And he said just wash it. Oh,and luckily, this friend did not and she treated it like a relic, and ultimately ended up in our collection. And we do consider it a treasure of the collection. There are so many stories surrounding the embassy takeover. Because not everybody was there for 444 days. Thats right. There were some who escaped out the back door of the consulate. They ultimately became known as the canadian six. The six americans found shelter with the canadian ambassador as well as the canadian consul general john shearden. They were there houseguests for their houseguests for three months before the cia was able to successfully extricate them from the country. And we have, as you see in the image, a pair of fake eyeglasses. This was part of the costume given to one of the canadian six. Her name was catherine stafford. Kathleen stafford. Cia agents 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. So these fake eyeglasses are a wonderful representation of that successful extrication. Thats right. We have two sides to the story. And how they made it out. Thats right. In addition, we have items that show the end of the story, the welcome home. The 52 hostages were released on the day 21st, 1981, after Ronald Reagans inauguration. They returned and were showered with gifts, memorabilia, and certificates. And we have a button that was a gift to ann swift. Ann was part of the two women of the 52 held captive. The button celebrates their welcome home and incorporates a Yellow Ribbon. And 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. It remains today. Exactly. Embassies are still targets, unfortunately. Still targets, and in 1998, there was a surprise attack in the continent of africa. This was a coordinated attack, and we now know that this was an al qaeda attack on the embassy in tanzania and the embassy in 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. But also, how professional american diplomats were under these circumstances. Absolutely. I cannot imagine anything more traumatizing than your Office Building basically exploding. You are in a meeting exactly. Prudence bushr well, our ambassador to kenya at the time. On the morning of the attack, she was in a meeting with the kenyan minister of commerce. To office was quite close the embassy, just across the parking lot, really. So she and some department of commerce colleagues were upstairs at the meeting when we heard a noise, which we quickly learned was a storm 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 all about. Is that the first purpose of the stun grenade, to bring people to the windows. I was knocked back, unconscious for just a few minutes. The feeling came in, and i thought i was going to die. This is a feeling i will never forget, i was going to die, but i did not. I went down 21 flights of stairs with one of my department of commerce colleagues. I kept thinking, i just need to get out of this building. Back to my embassy, into the medical unit, and i will be all right. It was when we exited the building and i saw the charred remains of what was once human beings, looked up and saw that that issy was destroyed realized there was no medical unit to go to, and i was going to have to take charge. Head, was injured on her and she very graciously has donated the suit that she was wearing on that day, and you can see the bloodstains that still remain on the suit from that horrible morning. And so the embassy building, it was completely destroyed. As were some of the surrounding buildings. Ablebassy employees were to go back and retrieve their parked car, you can imagine the chaos of the scene. One embassy employee found this chunk of the building in the backseat of her car. It had blown through the back window from the explosion. And in addition, in bash her l gave us thishnel personalized hardhat. The day after the attack, she wanted to go back and tour the site, see what happened, and offer her love and simply to people dealing with this. Sympathy to people dealing with this. Embassy staff, in a show of love and support to her, personalized this hardhat with the word ambassador and a gold seal sticker for her to wear and she was touring the site. , they areassy sites not just americans. They have Foreign Service nationals. Foreign Service Nationals are native to the country and have worked there for 20 or 30 years, and they will develop a very close relationship with the americans, especially the ambassadors. So clearly, this mutual sign of affection and appreciation, that she was so severely injured and came back the next day to show her concern for the people of that nation, what a strong bond that is in the embassy family. Excellent point, yes. So why dont we bring out some gifts to the secretarys . Because often on their travel, they are given gifts of appreciation to show that Mutual Respect . Thats right. This medallion here was a gift to a delegation of japanese diplomats way back in 1860. Diplomatic gift giving a wonderfully long tradition, and americans absolutely took part in this tradition, going back to the 19th century. Very much so. The story of this kind of opening up of trade with japan is fascinating. Not their ownd by accord, kind of horse of trading into the western powers, and the japanese wanted to keep their own sovereignty. So in the 1850s, they began welcoming communications with western nations and signed a treaty with the United States that was very similar to the 17 78 treaty, it was called the treaty of amity and commerce. The japanese president signed it, and then the american president had to sign it. So it was three very high level samurais that came with 74 other japanese and some interpreters. They landed in 1860 in the Washington Navy yard. We have this wonderful photograph taken by Matthew Brady of the entire japanese embassy. All these delegates out there, and they were wined and dined and went to the smithsonian and to congress, and had a very elegant dinner in the east room in the white house. But they were not quite all that happy with everything that they ate, because they were served rice with sugar and butter on it, at which they were a little bit horrified about. Right now, foods diplomacy, you are understanding and would not offered them that, but it was considered to be a very successful visit. On their last visit with thenpresident buchanan, they gave him a gold coin that had been engraved by a gentleman who worked at the mint, who came up with this design. A number of these were struck at the time to commemorate the visit. Right. You can see the profile here of president buchanan, and on the it commemorates the visit. It says in commemoration of the First Embassy from japan to the United States, 1860. And that word Embassy Meeting people, delegations. Yeah, not the actual building. Our secretaries of state travel. A big part of their time in office is traveling and meeting with therefore in counterparts their foreign counterparts. A big part of those meetings involves an exchange of gifts, and our secretary works closely with the office of protocol to arrange the giving and receiving. They cannot keep them. Not all the time, they cant keep them all the time. The Diplomacy Center has a number of examples of gifts to secretaries of state in the collection, and they are wonderful pieces that have Great Stories behind them, including this pearl inlaid box which was a gift to secretary baker in 1991. A gift from the mayor of bethlehem. Palestinian is in territory, considered to be a very important, ancient city. It will medically with the arab world have been extremely strained after the creation of diplomatic relations with the arab world have been extremely strained after the creation of israel. So secretaries were very preoccupied with negotiations between agents and israel, which was essentially in egypt and israel, which was solved during the carter administration. Ronald reagan became president and his successor, george h. W. Bush, they were focused on the palestinian conflict. This was very important, that not only was it given in bethlehem, in palestinian territory, it was an important shift in thinking about american foreignpolicy and thinking about how they could mediate this settlement between the israelis and the palestinians. So this particular box came with a personalized note to secretary baker, and it is from the mayor of bethlehem. You can see that he writes welcome to bethlehem. We pray that secretary of state mr. Baker will succeed in helping us to have peace between palestinians and israelis. It is dated march 12, 1991. And continuing with priorities here, during the clinton administration, extreme violence broke out in sarajevo, with the breakup of yugoslavia. Kind of the last gasp of the cold war. So the americans were very much involved in the Peace Process in dayton, ohio, the dayton accord ended that war. But the region was very much still on the focus of the administration. Secretaryot spot, and of state Madeleine Albright was very much aware of what was going on in the region. She was. She managed the response and coordination with some of her foreign minister counterparts, and she held an almost daily Conference Call with these foreign ministers, and later Conference Call diplomacy to help manage this conflict. They coordinated and works quite well together, and at the end of secretarys albrights tenure in and her2001, she Conference Call diplomacy counterparts gathered for dinner in paris to celebrate the end of secretary albrights tenure. She was presented with gifts, as it were. This spectacular russian porcelain set, coffee set, was a gift by the Russian Foreign minister igor even off. I think you can see on each of the cups is the image of albright and her foreign minister counterparts, and these include the russian, robin cook of the united kingdom, hubert germany,f france, canada, and italy. There with thep faces. They dubbed the use this group madeleine and her dream team of foreign ministers. Engraved on the services trade. Matteson all right is the first woman secretary of state and is very much a gendered her male counterparts. Mailer her male counterparts and a gift to a woman secretary of state. It is on display, it is very much a parent. The art of diplomatic giftgiving is trying to figure out who the person is, what might they be adjusted in, but at the same time, well represents me and my country, how can i represent my culture, the National Resources and artisans of my country as well. This does this magnificently. We have been actively building this artifact collection for many years now and we are at about 7500 items in the collection. ,his collection is truly unique there is no other institution that is solely focused on collecting diplomacy. Objects would have no worlds to go and would be somewhat lost to history. With the diplomacy museum, we can really bring the stories to light through these fascinating , this visual appeal and the many fascinating people and events behind these objects. In front of our outreach, we travel around United States quite a bit and most americans know they can go to the state department to get a passport, but they dont really quite understand sometimes what the function of the state department and would do american Foreign Service officers do. Learn all of these stories and be able to see these wonderful objects. What is diplomacy, who does it, and why does it matter is really the key question to answer throughout every exhibition. History relevant to everyday americans, and what have our diplomats done, what are they doing today and what have they done to promote security and our National Interests abroad. This was the second of a twopart look at the u. S. Diplomacy Center Museum collection. You can view part one and all other American History tv programs at cspan. Org history. Sunday night at after words, former speechwriter for president george w. Bush and atlantic columnist david from trumpocrasy. It comes from the same root of democracy, and its a book about the study of power, that is with the suffix means. If the study of donalds power, how did he get it, how does he maintain it, how does he get away with it. Its the system of enabling in the white house and between trump and congress and between trump and the media that enable him and create an audience. Its a system that involves the republican donor leads, traditional elements of their public and party, and above all, between him and that core group of his voters within the republican party, who enabled him to win the republican nomination and then go on to the presidency. Watch after words, sunday on cspan twos book tv. American history tv is joining the Cox Communications cable partnership is the history of fayetteville, arkansas. To learn more about the cities visit current tour cspan. Org citiestour. We considered as we continue the history of fayetteville. The museum of American History in bentonville, arkansas , the mission of the museum is to teach history. Query history museum. We are history museum. We use native american art to story, the story that spans 16,000 to 18,000 years. We are set up chronologically, we start with the oldest story,t time period, the paleo time period
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