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1 the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR TALCOTT W. SEELYE Intervie

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1 the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR TALCOTT W. SEELYE Intervie The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR TALCOTT W. SEELYE Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: September 15, 1993 Copyright 1998 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born in ebanon of American parents Amherst College US Army WWII Teacher and coach, Deerfield Academy Entered the Foreign Service in 1950 Security issue Baden,Wurttemberg, -ermany. /reis 0esident Officer 1950,1951 US military personnel anguage study Environment Operations Staff 0elations 2ith -ermans Amman, 3ordan. Political Officer 1951,1955 -overnment Sovereignty Council /ing Hussein Israeli relations Ambassador 3oseph -reen Embassy staff Dulles visit Eric 3ohnston Arab,Israel 3ordan 0iver 2ater Ambassador ester 4allory Operations Syrian53ordan relations Palestinian 3ordanians West Bank 1 Beirut, ebanon6 FSI. Arabic language study 1955,1957 Arab dialects Environment /u2ait. 8ice Consul5Consul 1957,1970 British dependency -overnment /u2ait Oil Company 9/OC: British Political Agent Iraq revolution US Beirut landings Suez 1957 War Sabah royal family Anti,Iranian sentiment State Department. Desk Officer, Arabian Peninsular Affairs 1970,1974 UNW0A affairs Abd al,/arim Qasim Iraq threatens /u2ait British military response /ing Saud@s US visit Protocol problems /ennedy,Saud talks Saudi Arabia 0oyal Family /ing Faisal Isa Sabbagh Aemeni 0evolution of 1971 Abdullah Salal 0egime recognition issue Aemen Arab 0epublic Egyptian troops Dissentions over Saud Ells2orth Bunker 4ediation 4ission UN force to Aemen Nasser US support of Saudis Saudi5Nasser differences British interests South Arabian Federation Abdullah Asnag 4arBist South Aemen takeover Persian -ulf Sheikhdoms CThe ArabistsD British Arabists 1 President /ennedy assassination Soviets Area petroleum National War College 1974,1975 3eddah, Saudi Arabia6 Deputy Chief of 4ission 1975,1978 Interim ChargG Ambassador Hermann Eilts US military sales US,U/ military sales package Aemen Foreign 4inister Omar Saqqaf 1977 SiB Day War Saudi position 0umors of US complicity ocal reaction /ing Faisal Saudi 4inisters Faisal5Nasser relations Aemen@s Hamid al,Din royal family Arabian American Oil Company 9A0A4CO: ocal restrictions iving environment Trans World Air2ays 9TWA: American Aenbo captive State Department6 Director, Arabian North Affairs 1978,1971 Assistant Secretary 3oseph Sisco Ambassador Pete Hart /issinger CBack,channelingD Israelis attack Beirut airport Iionist lobby 0ogers Plan /ing Hussein 3ordan P O53ordan confrontation Palestinians Palestinian Popular iberation Front 9P O: Hijacked American planes 9Da2son@s anding: Arafat Washington Special Action -roup 9WASA-: Syria invasion of 3ordan Israel E Soviets /issinger SiBth Fleet Syria Assad 4ilitary US relations Soviets ebanon Soviet Union 0elations 2ith Iraq 4iddle East Defense Organization 94EDO: United States Ambassador to Tunisia 1971,1977 Arab5French languages President Bourguiba 0elations Consul Hooker Doolittle USAID program Qadhafi SiBth Fleet French influence 4ohammed 4asmoudi ibya5Tunisia unity US5French Embassy relations 3e2ish community Commercial relations Tunisia5Algeria relations Cleo Noel and Curt 4oore assassinations Personal safety arrangements Tunisian government condemnation Floods US Helicopter rescue mission 8isit of 8ice President 0ockefeller State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Africa 1977,1978 /issinger@s Africa tour 0elations 2ith /issinger -overnor Scanton@s Africa tour Death of Ambassador to ebanon, Frank 4eloy Death of driver and Economic Counselor Circumstances of kidnapping and murder P O assistance Soviet connection /idnappers@ intentions 4 Special 4ission to ebanon 1977,1977 0ay Hunt P O Embassy security Funding Beirut arrival University of Beirut 9AUB: Official calls US policy Intelligence reports Syria Civil War 4aronite funding Personnel evacuation by sea Egyptian ambassador SiBth Fleet Arafat Authority to deal 2ith P O State Department6 Promotion Board54issions to Tunisia and Iaire 1978 United States Ambassador to Syria 1978,1981 Secretary Christopher Syrian 3e2s President Assad Syria5Israel relations -overnment ebanese Civil War Syrian forces to ebanon Personal contacts 2ith officials Israeli military moves UN 0esolution 14 1 -olan Heights 4edia Congressional visits Congressman Solarz Saddam Hussein Attacks against 4oslem Brotherhood 3ordan Syrian border mobilization Israel Soviet military assistance Communist Party Amman Summit meeting 5 Iran,Iraq War Arafat Soviets in Afghanistan Israeli 2ithdra2al from ebanon Camp David Agreement Assad opposition Strauss mission Ambassador 3ohn -unther Dean Embassy staff Senator Byrd visit Security USAID program EBchange programs USIA program Internal travel 3esse 3ackson visit Dirty trick photo Syria5Iran relations President Carter Assad5Israel relations Attempted assassination enigma 0etirement 1981 Press intervie2 P O Prime 4inister Begin 4iddle East Specialists INTERVIEW Q: Today is September 15, 1993. This is an interview with Ambassador Talcott W. Seelye which is being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies. I(m Charles Stuart Kennedy. To start off, I would li)e to get something about your bac)ground, a bit about your family, where you grew up and went to school, etc. SEE AE6 I 2as born in 1911 in Beirut, ebanon 2here my father 2as a professor. I 2as born as a fourth generation of my family to live in the 4iddle East. It 2as my motherKs family 2hich first started the process. Q: What was your mother(s family name* SEE AE6 It 2as Chambers, but the first member of my family 2ho 2ent to the 4iddle East had the name of Frederick Williams. He 2ent out there around 1840 as a 7 Congregational missionary to 4osul in Turkey. Aou can imagine 2hat the conditions 2ere like in 4osul, Turkey in the middle of the nineteenth century. In his efforts to get established he lost his first three 2ives successively to disease, pestilence and the usual hygienic conditions that eBisted there. The first 2ife 2as the mother of my motherKs mother, that is the daughter of Frederick Williams. She married a Canadian Congregational minister and induced him to go out to the 4iddle East. That 2as my grandmother, and she had come back here to go to college, etc. So he goes out as a missionary, as a second generation of the Williams clan, although his name is Chambers, to be a missionary in the Ottoman Empire. He happened to be in 2hat became Turkey proper. 4y mother 2as born in Turkey and sent to the States to go to college 2here she met my father. Q: Where did they go to college* SEE AE6 He 2ent to Amherst and she 2ent to Bryn 4a2r. She did her Ph.D. dissertation on Islam at Columbia. After he finished Amherst he 2ent to the Divinity School at Columbia to become a minister. For three years he 2as a minister in Ne2 3ersey. Then the beck and call of the 4iddle East that 2as there in my motherKs mind,set got him to go out to the 4iddle East to follo2 suit. Q: Seems li)e it was dangerous for a male to marry one of your family. SEE AE6 ThatKs right. So he goes out there in 1919 as a professor, not as a missionary, to the University of Beirut. So those 2ere the three generations that started in the 4iddle East, and I 2as born there as a fourth. Then, of course, I served in the 4iddle East 2hile in the Foreign Service. One of my four children 2ho carried on the tradition, the youngest daughter, /ate, 2ho studied Arabic at Amherst, spent t2o years abroad at the American University in Cairo, and then 2ent out to live in 3ordan for three years 2here she taught English at a secondary school and 2orked 2ith Queen Noor. So she became a fifth generation to go out there. The family has had these connections for all that time. Q: Do you have any recollections of the Middle East as a young lad* SEE AE6 Sure I do. I left at the age of eleven and remember, of course, gro2ing up in Beirut. One of the unfortunate aspects of my youth in Beirut 2as that I became 1000 percent American and resisted learning Arabic. We had an American community school 2here in those days and Arabic 2as not taught. At home, 2e happened to have Armenian servants because there 2ere so many Armenian orphans and refugees 2ho fled Turkey after the massacres. 4y grandparents lived 2ith us, above us, and they and 2e hired Armenian orphans as servants. so I did not have an opportunity to learn Arabic from the 7 servants. The result 2as that my parents decided at one point, 2hen I 2as nine or ten, to bring in an Arabic tutor to teach me and one of my sisters. I apparently resisted that and the result 2as that 2hen I left Beirut at the age of eleven, I am ashamed to say, I kne2 only a half a dozen Arabic eBpressions. This came home to roost at one point later on 2hen I 2as in the U.S. Army. After basic training at Camp Walters, TeBas, my record card popped up, LOh, Seelye has spent 10 years in the 4iddle East.L So they pulled me out and sent me to the intelligence training center at Camp 0itchie, 4aryland 2here I 2as intervie2ed by an Arab,American to see ho2 fluent my Arabic 2as. He noted that my Arabic 2as virtually non,eBistent. Any2ay, that 2as the beginning of my a2areness that having lived that long in Beirut, people 2ould assume that I kne2 Arabic. ater on in the Foreign Service, 2hen I spent all the hours of drudgery and blood, s2eat and tears learning Arabic and reaching a modest degree of efficiency, people 2ould say, LOh, yeah, Talcott kne2 Arabic as a boy.L That used to bother me because this did not take into account all the effort I had put into learning Arabic as an adult. Q: When you came bac), where did you go to school* SEE AE6 We came back in 19EE 2hen my father 2as on a sabbatical. During this time he taught at Smith College in Northampton, 4assachusetts, so I 2ent to the Smith College Day School.
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