News & Politics The Mysterious Kidnapping of an American Ambassador Still Haunts the State Department Spike Dubs took over the US Embassy in Kabul in 1978. A charismatic Kremlinologist, the ambassador was optimistic that he could maintain America’s influence in a country that bordered the Soviet Union. Then one morning only seven months into Dubs’s tenure, an unidentified band of kidnappers carjacked him and took him hostage at a popular hotel in the center of town. Ambassador, Spike Dubs, State Department, US EmbassyJune 4, 2017
