James Keenan served as United States consul to Hong Kong for eight years beginning in 1853. Keenan's career demonstrated the difficulties faced by United States consuls in the Far East. Many of the problems Keenan faced during his career resulted from the juxtaposition of a man predisposed to controversy with one of the most ambiguous posts in United States consular service. Keenan's career involved him in difficulties with a United States naval commander, British authorities in Hong Kong, a United States commissioner to China, his temporary successor in Hong Kong, and even the State Department. During his career, Keenan anticipated legislative changes regarding United States consuls. Nevertheless Keenan's colorful career won him many British and American friends. However, his predeliction for controversy damaged his effectiveness as United States consul.

This study examines the efforts of the Union and Confederate diplomatic agents to influence the events along the Rio Grande during the Civil War. The paper compares the successful accomplishments of Confederate agent Jose Quintero to the hindered maneuverings of the Union representatives, Leonard Pierce and M. M. Kimuey. Utilizing microfilmed sources from State Department records and Confederate despatches, the paper relates the steps Quintero took to secure the Confederate-Mexico border trade, obtain favorable responses from the various ruling parties in northern Mexico, and hamper the Union agents' attempts to quell the border trade.

Prompted by international ramifications of Jewish migration from Nazi Germany, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called a world conference on refugees in March 1938. The conference, held at Evian, France, in July, established the Intergovernmental Committee on Political Refugees. The committee, led by American diplomats, sought relaxation of Germany's discriminatory practices against Jews and tried, without success, to resettle German Jews abroad. World War II ended the committee's efforts to achieve systematic immigration from Germany. The American, British, and German diplomatic papers contain the most thorough chronicle of American involvement in the refugee crisis. Memoirs and presidential public papers provide insight into Roosevelt's motivations for calling the conference. Although efforts to rescue German Jews failed, the refugee crisis introduced Americans to intervention in Europe.

The study then focuses on the Bernadotte candidacy as the practical expression of a Norwegian desire for a national monarchy. Reaction to the candidacy is analyzed and, although it proved unsuccessful, the strength of the idea is again evident when the government shifted its focus to the secondary candidacy of Denmark's Prince Carl. During the debate over the candidates for the throne, the underlying theme which developed was the question of Norway's form of government-- monarchy or republic.