The Foreign Service Journal, November 2019

30 NOVEMBER 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL James D. Bindenagel, a retired FSO and former ambassador, was deputy chief of mission (U.S. Minister) at the U.S. embassy to the German Democratic Republic in 1989 and 1990. He served subsequently as director of the Office of Central European Affairs at the State Department, as DCM and chargé in Bonn from 1994 to 1997, as a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States from 1997 to 1998, and as a U.S. ambassador and special envoy for Holocaust issues from 1999 to 2002. From 2002 to 2003, he served as a special negotiator for conflict diamonds. Following retirement from the Foreign Service in 2003, he served as vice president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (2003-2005) and as the vice president for community, government and international affairs at DePaul University in Chicago (2005-2013). Since 2014 he has been Henry Kissinger Professor and director of the Center for International Security and Governance at the University of Bonn. The popular quest for freedom and self-determination brought down the Berlin Wall, ending an era. BY JAMES D. B I NDENAGE L A GIFT OF Peace FOCUS ON THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL w hen the Berlin Wall fell on Nov. 9, 1989, the world sighed with relief that this historic event happened peacefully. We were all elated. German and Euro- pean unity was a gift of peace to the trans-Atlantic partnership—the United States, Canada and Europe—that had constituted a vast zone of peace, prosperity and democracy for most of the last 70 years. BERLINWALLPHOTOBYJAMESTALALAY