Sign-In
Cart
Vera and the Ambassador: Escape and Return
Paperback
Political BiographiesEastern European HistoryInternational Relations
ISBN13: 9781438426648
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: Nov 5 2021
Pages: 364
Weight: 1.13
Height: 0.76 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
A behind-the-scenes look at diplomacy and international relations in post-communist Eastern Europe.
Vera and the Ambassador is a book to be savored and enjoyed on many levels. Both a behind-the-scenes peek at the operations of a U.S. embassy in a post-Cold War former Soviet satellite and a personal story of a refugee's escape and triumphant return, Vera and Donald Blinken's dual memoir openly details their challenges, setbacks, and victories as they worked in tandem to advance America's interests in Eastern Europe and to restore a former Soviet satellite state to a pre-communist level of prosperity.
Hungary in all its cultural glory and historical anguish lies at the heart of this dramatic and deeply personal story. Born in Budapest just prior to World War II, Vera was only five years old when the Germans invaded in 1944. In a harrowing account, she describes how she and her mother managed to survive the atrocities of the war and, in 1950, narrowly escape Soviet-occupied Hungary for the freedom and opportunity of America. Making their way to New York, Vera settled into her adopted country with an indomitable spirit, a vow to become the best American she could be, and a hope of finding some way to give back as a show of gratitude for her good fortune in surviving the destruction of the war.
That opportunity came in 1994 when her husband was appointed ambassador to Hungary by President Clinton, just five years into the country's tentative transformation from a command economy and totalitarian government into a market economy and fledgling republic based upon democratic ideals. A former investment banker, Donald might have lacked foreign service experience, but his skills as an administrator and his willingness to try innovative ideas, combined with Vera's knowledge of Hungarian language and culture and her outreach to the Hungarian community, helped them deal head-on with a variety of challenges, including a collapsing economy and the threat of a slide back toward the old ways of communism, and a brutal civil war that raged across the country's southern border in the former Yugoslavia.
Replete with colorful characters from the streets of Budapest, humorous scenes at the ambassadorial residence, and accounts of tense high-level diplomatic negotiations in the run-up to Hungary's vote to join NATO, Vera and the Ambassador shows how the Blinkens helped chart a new course for American diplomacy in the mid-1990s. Ultimately, it is also the story of how Hungarians came to see them personally, and memorably, as their Vera and their ambassador.
1 different editions
Also available
Also from
Blinken, Vera
Also in
Political Biographies
Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
Trump, Mary L.
Hardcover
American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn's Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump
Goldmark, Susan
Bird, Kai
Hardcover
One Man in: The Explosive Firsthand Account of the Lone Special-Ops Commando Who Fought Off a Major Terrorist Attack in Kenya
Craighead, Christian
Hardcover
Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded Usaid
Enrich, Nicholas
Hardcover
Crisis of the Common Good: The Fight for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America
Murphy, Chris
Hardcover
Unreliable Boyfriend: An Insider's View of Dealing with a Chaotic Superpower, Plutocrats, and Other Complicated People
Freeland, Chrystia
Hardcover
The First Eight: A Personal History of the Pioneering Black Congressmen Who Shaped a Nation
Clyburn, Jim
Hardcover
Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution
Hemingway, Mollie
Hardcover
The Power Broker (Pulitzer Prize Winner): Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Caro, Robert A.
Paperback
Poisoned Ivies: The Inside Account of the Academic and Moral Rot at America's Elite Universities
Stefanik, Elise
Hardcover
The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the Cia, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
Talbot, David
Paperback
King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation
Anderson, Scott
Hardcover
Don't Tell the President: The Best, Worst, and Mostly Untold Stories from Presidential Advance
Becker, Jean
Collamore, Tom
Hardcover
Dreams of a White Snow Lion: The Remarkable Life, Vision, and Deeds of the Dalai Lama
Bianca, Mariateresa
Dhargye, Sherab
Hardcover
King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation
Anderson, Scott
Paperback
The Assassination of Leon Trotsky: Espionage, Scandal, and the Crime of the Century
Melton, H. Keith
West, Nigel
Hardcover
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice
Browder, Bill
Paperback
The Road to Unafraid: How the Army's Top Ranger Faced Fear and Found Courage Through
Struecker, Jeff
Paperback
Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary
Griffin-Gracy, Major
Meronek, Toshio
Paperback
Finding the Third Way: Lessons in the Politics of Civility from My Journey Through History
Davis, Lanny J.
Hardcover
Unleash Your Humanity: Where Personal Awakening Becomes Collective Change
Tavis, Scott
Sherif, Yasmine
Paperback
Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
Trump, Mary L.
Paperback
How to Test Negative for Stupid: And Why Washington Never Will (Large Print) (Large Print Edition)
Kennedy, John
Paperback
Winning the Earthquake: How Jeannette Rankin Defied All Odds to Become the First Woman in Congress
Rinehart, Lorissa
Hardcover
This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian-American Story (Large Print Edition)
Gershkovich, Evan
Paperback
Slow Poison: IDI Amin, Yoweri Museveni, and the Making of the Ugandan State
Mamdani, Mahmood
Hardcover
The Game Changer: How Harry Reid Remade the Rules and Showed Democrats How to Fight
Ralston, Jon
Hardcover
The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist
Day, Dorothy
Paperback
Redeem the Time: Savor the Moment, Plan the Future, and Live in Light of Eternity
Sasse, Ben
Sasse, Alex
Hardcover
The Power Broker (Pulitzer Prize Winner): Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Caro, Robert A.
Hardcover
Starting Somewhere: Community Organizing for Socially Awkward People Who've Had Enough
Douglass, Roderick
Paperback
A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid
Gobodo-Madikizela, Pumla
Paperback
The First Fascist: The Sensational Life and Dark Legacy of the Marquis de Morès
Luzzatto, Sergio
Hardcover
Glory, Grief, and the Gavel: An Inside Guide to Running for Speaker of the House
Leganski, John
Hardcover
Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines
Jean-Pierre, Karine
Hardcover
My Struggle: English Translation of Mein Kamphf - Mein Kampt - Mein Kampf
Murphy, James
Mein Kampf, Kamphf English Kampt
Hitler, Adolf
Paperback
G-Man (Pulitzer Prize Winner): J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century
Gage, Beverly
Paperback
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
Larson, Erik
Hardcover
Even After Everything: How One Humble Kibbutznik Believed in Heaven While Living Through Hell
Frischman Fischer, Betsy
Paperback
Hey Yang, Where's My Thousand Bucks?: And Other True Stories of Staggering Depth
Yang, Andrew
Hardcover
Ni Venganza Ni Perdón: Una Amistad Al Filo del Poder / Neither Revenge Nor Forgiveness: A Friendship on the Edge of Power
Fernández Menéndez, Jorge
Scherer Ibarra, Julio
Paperback
Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill
Millard, Candice
Paperback
Reconcilable Differences: The Unlikely Political Alliance of John F. Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt
Perry, Barbara A.
Hardcover
With a Name Like Chief: Reflections on Recovery and Identity Through the Seven Sacred Teachings
Chief, Kevin
Slayen, Stu
Paperback
Churchill's Secular Creed: Empire, Zionism, and Islam's Complicity in the Holocaust
Warraq, Ibn
Paperback
The Afterlife of Malcolm X: An Outcast Turned Icon's Enduring Impact on America
Whitaker, Mark
Paperback
The Architect of Espionage: The Man Who Built Israel's Mossad Into the World's Boldest Intelligence Force
Katz, Samuel M.
Hardcover
Outed: Lbj's Confidant and the Arrest That Transformed a Presidency
Stewart-Winter, Timothy
Hardcover