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James Morrison

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James Morrison

jmorrison@washingtontimes.com

James Morrison joined the The Washington Times in 1983 as a local reporter covering Alexandria, Va. A year later, he was assigned to open a Times bureau in Canada. From 1987 to 1989, Mr. Morrison was The Washington Times reporter in London, covering Britain, Western Europe and NATO issues. After returning to Washington, he served as an assistant foreign editor until his transfer to the Metro desk as the Virginia editor. Mr. Morrison returned to the Foreign Desk in 1993 to launch the Embassy Row column, a diplomatic news column primarily focusing on foreign ambassadors in the United States and U.S. ambassadors abroad. The column is the only one of its kind in U.S. journalism.
Mr. Morrison was born on Nov. 27, 1950, in Charleston, W.Va. His father worked as a printer for the Charleston Gazette and later relocated to Washington to work as a photo engraver at The Washington Post until his retirement. Before joining The Washington Times, James Morrison was a reporter for the Springfield, Va., Times, the Northern Virginia Sun and the Alexandria Gazette. He attended American University.

Articles by James Morrison

Embassy Row

Armenian-Americans are organizing for a second time to stop the appointment of career diplomat Matthew Bryza as ambassador to Azerbaijan, where he is serving in a temporary position.

February 6, 2011

Embassy Row

One of Andras Simonyi's earliest memories growing up in Hungary was watching Soviet tanks crush the anti-communist revolution in 1956. He was 4 years old.

February 3, 2011

Embassy Row

The United States appeared surprised by Iran's diplomatic and military incursions in Latin America and urgently sought intelligence from all U.S. embassies in the region, according to a secret cable from the State Department in 2009.

February 1, 2011

Embassy Row

Before Cairo fell into chaos, the U.S. Embassy in Egypt was worried about the stability of President Hosni Mubarak's regime and its perpetually poor human rights record.

January 30, 2011

Embassy Row

U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford presented his credentials to the president of Syria on Thursday, reopening full diplomatic relations with a country the State Department lists as a sponsor of terrorism.

January 27, 2011

Embassy Row

The United States added its opposition to Hungary's new media law after massive street protests in Budapest and stinging criticism of the measure from the European Union only weeks after Hungary assumed the presidency of the 27-nation alliance.

January 25, 2011

Ricciardone

Embassy Row

The new U.S. ambassador to Turkey greeted reporters upon his arrival in the capital, Ankara, with an old Turkish saying about reacquainting oneself with old friends.

January 23, 2011

Embassy Row

A secret cable from the U.S. ambassador in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) underscored the perilous position of some pro-American Arab leaders dealing with terrorist infiltrators, rumors of Israeli hit squads and populations suspicious of Western motives.

January 20, 2011

Embassy Row

South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool implied that intolerance among the country's black majority led to his dismissal in 2008 as the premier of the picturesque Western Cape province, when he met U.S. Ambassador Donald Gips in 2009.

January 18, 2011

Embassy Row

A U.S. ambassador returned to Syria on Sunday, ending nearly six years of a diplomatic protest from Washington over the 2005 assassination of a former Lebanese leader, whose assassination is widely blamed on Syria and its Hezbollah extremist allies in Lebanon.

January 16, 2011

Embassy Row

Greece's unionized intelligence service is such a failure that it is "dangerous to national security," and police know the identities of domestic terrorists but cannot arrest them because of legal barriers, a former U.S. ambassador in Athens said after private talks with the country's former minister for public safety.

January 13, 2011

**FILE** Cameron Munter (usembassy.gov)

Embassy Row

The Pakistani press denounced U.S. Ambassador Cameron Munter for "meddling" in the country's domestic affairs, but a media watchdog noted that the reports deliberately distorted his recent remarks about the need for Washington to monitor aid to a country widely noted for official corruption.

January 11, 2011

Taseer (Associated Press)

Embassy Row

The Cypriot ambassador, a Christian of the Greek Orthodox faith, last week expressed his sympathy over the murder of a Pakistani Muslim politician killed for supporting religious tolerance.

January 9, 2011

Embassy Row

The document dump of classified U.S. diplomatic cables is starting to jeopardize the positions of American ambassadors who sent the State Department candid reports on sensitive subjects, as foreign governments complain about the leaks and nervous officials in Washington try to deal with the fallout.

January 6, 2011

Embassy Row

U.S. diplomats are still wrestling with the question of whether Turkey's ruling party is part of a fundamentalist Muslim movement bent on imposing brutal Islamic law on a country founded on democratic secular principles.

January 4, 2011

Embassy Row

The Russian government routinely brutalizes prisoners, jails them in harsh climates, confines them to tiny isolation cells and allows infectious disease to spread through the incarcerated population, according to a confidential memo from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

January 2, 2011

Matthew Bryza

Embassy Row

Matthew Bryza's supporters cheered this week when President Obama ignored Senate opposition and appointed the career diplomat to serve as U.S. ambassador to the Central Asian nation of Azerbaijan. They also accused two senators who had blocked his nomination of abusing their power.

December 30, 2010

Embassy Row

The Conservative-led British government is considering naming an atheist and halfhearted socialist who has justified terrorism as its next ambassador to the United States, according to a London newspaper with close ties to left-wing political circles.

December 28, 2010

Embassy Row

A Scottish professor who taught two future prime ministers and the man who would be king is promoting an even more daunting goal than teaching Britain's elite.

December 26, 2010

Embassy Row

Drunken politicians. Smiling warlords. Twirling gypsies. Thousands of U.S. dollars littered on the dance floor. The bridegroom's father with a gold-plated automatic pistol tucked in his pants. A classic Rolls-Royce Silver Phantom.

December 23, 2010