The Foreign Service Journal, September 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2021 49 fromMongolia; and Ulaanbaatar, from inside the Moscow orbit, waited for an approach fromWashington. It would take the end of the communist regime in March 1990 and Secretary Baker’s personal interest and initiative to change the dynamic. In a decision that surprised everyone at the Department of State, including the assistant secretary for East Asia, Baker decided to visit Mongolia in the summer of 1990. He visited in August and again in 1991, while Washington and the world were focused on the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Now 30 years later, in 2021, Mongolia has held its seventh democratic presidential election and peaceful transfer of power, testimony to the commitment of its people and the value of the U.S.-Mongolia tie. In a previous FSJ article, “Frontier Embassy” (December 1992), Joe Lake discussed the challenges of setting up the U.S. embassy in Ulaanbaatar in 1990. Here we focus on some of the important players and early events in building that relationship. A Look Back Modern Mongolia was created in 1921 with the support of White Russians, but they were soon ousted by the Mongolian People’s Party (renamed the Mongolian People’s Revolution- ary Party in 1924) with support from the Red Army. In 1924 the Mongolian People’s Republic was proclaimed, and its dual roles as the second communist country in the world and the first of the Soviet satellite states were firmly established. It is important to recall that despite ruling most of Eurasia in the 13th and 14th centuries, for hundreds of years afterward and until 1921 Mongolia did not exist as a modern nation-state but rather as an outer march of the Chinese empire, but not closely tied to the center. This lack of a democratic tradition, coupled with its 20th-century Marxist-Leninist experience, makes the country’s post-1990 success an even greater tribute to the Mon- golian people and the new society they created. Because of its close ties with Mongolia as the second com- munist country and its strategic importance to them, the Soviet The first (nonresident) Ambassador to Mongolia Dick Williams presents his credentials in 1988. Flanking him is Davaagiv, later the second Mongolian ambassador to the U.S., to the left, and Mongolian Chief of Protocol Natsagdorj, right. At back, from left, is Steve Mann and Victoria Nuland, members of the first embassy team. Note: At that time, Mongolians used only one name. COURTESYOFJOELAKE