Campbell, John

The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR JOHN CAMPBELL Interviewed by: Kenneth L. Brown Initial interview date: October 22, 2014 Copyright 2015 ADST Q: Today is October 22nd, 2014. I’m Kenneth Brown of the Association of Diplomatic Studies and Training, conducting an interview with John Campbell. John, welcome, and I assume you go by John? CAMPBELL: I do. Thank you. Q: Let’s start at the beginning. When and where were you born? CAMPBELL: I was born in Washington DC on July 14th, 1944. Q: Local. CAMPBELL: That’s right. My father’s s family was from Pennsylvania, my mother’s family from Virginia. My father was a civil servant. He rose eventually to be the Assistant Archivist of the United States, which meant he was responsible for the permanent collections in the National Archives, things like the Declaration of Independence or the Emancipation Proclamation. Before she married my father, my mother was a journalist. She did the society pages of little newspapers in Northern Virginia. Q: Where was your father’s family from and how far back do they go sort of as Americans, et cetera? CAMPBELL: It’s kind of an interesting story. My father’s grandfather came from Scotland, went in the 1870s from Glasgow to Montreal, and then from Montreal to Pittsburgh because there was some kind of business relationship with Andrew Carnegie. His mother’s family had all arrived in Pennsylvania before 1700 and were basically a mixture of English Quakers and Scots-Irish Presbyterians. Of those lines my father was extremely proud of his Scottish heritage. They were very strict Presbyterians. My mother’s side from down in Virginia and also from the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Delaware were Episcopalians.. And my mother used to say that she and my father compromised; he became an Episcopalian and she became a Scot. Q: (laughs) And then on your mother’s side, how far back did they go? CAMPBELL: Oh, before 1700 on both -- all the way around. 1 Q: That’s right, you just mentioned that. So you grew up in Washington, as well as being born there? CAMPBELL: I grew up basically in North Arlington between the country club and Chain Bridge on Glebe Road. Q: Yes, I know that area. Did the Scottish heritage, did that carry over? Was it something that influenced your childhood and your growing up? CAMPBELL: Oh yes. Most definitely so. And after I finished college I had a brief stay at the University of Edinburgh, and I did a PhD in British history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Q: Did anybody ever talk to you about the Campbell’s massacre, and the MacDonalds? CAMPBELL: Oh, heavens yes (laughs). Q: (laughs) My wife is a MacDonald. CAMPBELL: (laughs) Campbells were really quite good at some things. Q: So you really have a sense of Scottish ancestry? CAMPBELL: Yes. Well, Scottish ancestry, but also of the variety of different elements that make up American life. For example, on my mother’s side, there were lots of Huguenots. So, also French. On my father’s side as well. I mean, you know, we Americans are all mongrels, and we’re quite proud of it (laughs). yes. Q: As you were growing up, what was the conversation around the dinner table? Was there much political interest in the family? CAMPBELL: There was. My father, being eventually a senior civil servant meant that there was a great deal of interest in politics, but there was no partisanship. And that’s continued in terms of my own outlook right on down to the present day. In other words, I don't identify with being either Democratic or Republican. It would never occur to me to think that way. Q: Were issues of the day discussed in the family? CAMPBELL: Oh, incessantly. Yes. Absolutely incessantly. Earliest conversation about international affairs I can remember occurred when I was about four-years-old. And my mother, wringing her hands, about the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia and saying, “We’re going to have a war every four years.” Q: It probably seemed like that because we’d just gotten out of Korea. 2 CAMPBELL: Well no, we had not gone into Korea. Korea is later. Q: Oh, I see, this wasn't the -- I’m thinking the Hungary Uprising. CAMPBELL: No, no, no, this was ’48. Q: Yes, yes, yes, yes, OK. And then of course with the Hungarian Uprising later on. CAMPBELL: That’s right, mm-hmm. Q: What was it like for you as a child in North Arlington at that time? In terms of -- were you free to play, ride your bike? CAMPBELL: All that sort of thing. Close to idyllic. People didn't lock their doors. We were in and out of each other’s houses all the time. Practically nobody’s mother worked, which meant as children everybody got a lot of personal attention. Rode bikes everywhere. We went to the local schools. I went to first James Madison Elementary School, then, then Jamestown and then Williamsburg Junior High and then Washington- Lee High School (Yorktown High School, which now serves that area, had not yet been built.) They were all within walking distance. And notice the names of the schools. I mean there was a huge emphasis on Virginia’s historical roots. Q: At Washington-Lee did they require a major? Did you have to choose a major? CAMPBELL: No. Q: Were you sort of college prepped though at that point? CAMPBELL: Well, everybody was. Q: Everybody was. CAMPBELL: Well, sure, more than 90% went to college. Q: I see, I see. And which college did you choose? CAMPBELL: The University of Virginia. Q: University of Virginia. And had you considered other places, or you just knew you were UVA bound? CAMPBELL: Oh no, no, I considered lots of other places. My father had gone to Princeton and I was interested in Princeton. It’s interesting. He went to Princeton, but the other, the other university he applied to was the University of Virginia. This is in 1928, 3 1929. And I also thought about St. John’s in Annapolis and William and Mary. So yes, there were a number of -- Q: What did you choose as a major at UVA? CAMPBELL: European history with a concentration in British history. Q: And then was it at that point that you went on to University of Edinburgh, or was this - - CAMPBELL: That was between, that was between University of Virginia and University of Wisconsin where I did a PhD in British history, specifically the Tudor-Stuart period. Q: When you were at UVA were you active beyond the classroom? Were you, were you a student body president or head of the journalism club? CAMPBELL: No, no, no, nothing like that at all. I was a -- I was active in the university guides, which essentially were the guides who took visitors around the Jeffersonian grounds. That’s what really interested me. Q: You graduated from UVA in what year? CAMPBELL: 1966. Q: ’56. CAMPBELL: ’66. Q: ’56, yes, I’ve just aged you by 10 years. CAMPBELL: (laughs) Q: So. CAMPBELL: So I stayed on and did an MA (Master of Arts) degree, which I finished in ’67. Went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at Wisconsin I finished a PhD in 1970. In 1970, I went to work as an assistant professor of British and French history at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia. Q: But you have two doctorates? CAMPBELL: Just one. Q: Just one. So the one at Edinburgh was -- CAMPBELL: Oh, I was at Edinburgh for only a semester. 4 Q: Oh, I see, one -- for some reason I was thinking -- I guess I was thinking of Ed Brynn, you know, who was -- CAMPBELL: Yes, yes, that’s right. Q: Irish history and U.S. history. CAMPBELL: That’s right. Q: When you were at Wisconsin, was Professor Ted Marmor in the Political Science Department, do you recall? CAMPBELL: I do not recall, but I was in history. Q: Right. CAMPBELL: And further, further in European history. Q: Right. CAMPBELL: But from a certain perspective, those years at Wisconsin were formative. They were formative because at that time Wisconsin was at the cutting edge of African history. Q: It’s true. CAMPBELL: And I was surrounded by people who were doing really interesting things in African history. Such as, how do you make use of oral traditions to construct an historical narrative? That was Professor Jan Vansina’s thing. Q: Yes. CAMPBELL: Or Philip Curtain on just how big was the Atlantic slave trade and how did it work. So it was there that I really got interested in Africa. Q: And I think one of the leading political scientists interested in Africa was at the University of Wisconsin who did politics in the Congo. And his -- CAMPBELL: That was Jan Vansina, wasn't it? Q: No, Vansina I’m sure had some influence. CAMPBELL: Oh, he did. Well, and he did a lot of work on Congo. 5 Q: Yes, I know he did, and he was an expert on the Lega people in the eastern part of the Congo. CAMPBELL: Yes. Q: The name will -- Crawford Young. CAMPBELL: Oh. Indeed. Crawford Young arrived slightly after I left. I left in 1970. But I got to know him very well because after I left the Foreign Service I went to the University of Wisconsin as a visiting professor of international studies.

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