Remembering the 1998 Embassy Bombings

On August 7, 1998, al-Qaeda bombed the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Over 200 people died; thousands were wounded.

John Lange was in the embassy in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania.

He was charge d’affaires, or acting ambassador to Tanzania.

On the 15th anniversary of the attack, Lange recalls the moment the blast shook his building, and the rescue that followed.

“I had my back to the wall, sitting on a sofa,” Lange tells host Aaron Schachter. “There was a high window, and the glass blew in over my head and landed on the people in front of me. And I can still that in slow motion, as the glass came down on the people.”

The attack, Lange says, sent shockwaves through the Foreign Service community around the world.

Lange is now retired from the Foreign Service and refused to “second-guess” the current decision to close 19 US diplomatic posts around the world because of a suspected threat of terror attack.