Bogardus, George F
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project GEORGE F. BOGARDUS Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: April 10, 1996 Copyright 1998 A ST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in Des Moines Iowa Harvard University European visit - 1938 US Army (,riefly- Entered Foreign Service - 19.1 Montreal Canada - 0isa officer 19.1-19.. 1ewish refugees Mom,asa 2enya - Consular and administrative duties 19..-19.3 Environment US Army (redrafted- - OSS 19.3 China studies Prague C4echoslovakia - Assistant Secretary 19.3-19.8 Post-war travel to Prague Environment Am,assador 5awrence Steinhardt 5ocal economy E6propriated US property Political parties Clai,orne Pell Stalin pressure on C4echs to refuse Marshall Plan 1an Masaryk Coup d7etat Algiers Algeria 19.8-1930 Ferhat A,,as USAID 1 Toronto Canada - Consul 1931-193. Industry reporting Israel (9ionist- activities Ham,urg :ermany - Economic officer 193.-1936 Department of State - INR 1936-1937 Department of State - FSI 1937-1938 Stuttgart :ermany - Consul 1963-1967 Transfer USAFE from Paris to Patch Ara,-Israel war - 1967 Evacuation - Middle East USS 5i,erty attack Department of Defense - ISA 1967-1970 Saigon 0ietnam - Economic officer 1939-1963 Environment Madame Nhu Diem assassination Addendum 5eaks to Israeli intelligence? INTERVIEW ": Today is the tenth of April 1996. This is an interview with George G. Bogardus. It's being done on behalf of the Association of Diplomatic Studies and I'm Charles Stuart Kennedy. Can we start at the beginning* Could you tell me a bit about where and when you were born and something about your family* BO:ARDUS: I was born in Des Moines Iowa on 1une 6 1917. Both my parents came from Springfield Illinois and they are now buried in a plot which is adjacent to 5incolnBs cenotaph in Springfield Illinois. ": What was your father* BO:ARDUS: My father was the youngest of five brothers and they all went to the University of Illinois but DadBs father died when he was a freshman at the University of Illinois so he never was a,le to graduate. All the time I knew him he was selling heating plants in Iowa and Ne,raska for large buildings. Fortunately a lot of schools were being 2 put up there at that time. I grew up in Des Moines and went to Plymouth Congregational Church which was only three blocks away. I was bapti4ed and taught there. I went to pu,lic school at :reenwood Elementary which was only three blocks from Henry Agard CallaceBs home that is and then later to Theodore Roosevelt High. At age 12 in 1929 Dad got a big promotion to be the manager for the same company 2ewanes Boiler Company for all of Ohio with headEuarters in Cleveland. So I lived there all during my junior high days in Shaker Heights which is a very fine area. Then the depression really took hold there especially in the heavy industry area of Ohio and Michigan. E6actly three years later we went back to Des Moines. That was the end of DadBs career. My mother had been elected president of the Des Moines ComenBs Clu, which was 1 000 ladies strong in 1929 and had to give that up most sadly for us all. ": So, where did you go to high school* BO:ARDUS: Shaker Heights High for a year and a half and then two and a half years at Roosevelt High. I graduated there and won a scholarship to Harvard in the spring. I graduated in 1anuary of B33 and I won a scholarship both to Chicago and Harvard and chose Harvard. That was a full scholarship: F.00 a year. ": When you were at Harvard, what was your particular area of interest* BO:ARDUS: I gravitated rather Euickly to political science. They called it GgovG then (government- the classical theorists and languages. I already had French and some 5atin and I went into :erman as well American history European history constitutional law. ": So, I assume you were there from about '3. to '39* BO:ARDUS: ThatBs right. I graduated in B39. ": Tell me, what was the impression that you were getting from Harvard of events in Europe* BO:ARDUS: Cell we were very much into that. I became a mem,er of the Harvard Student Union and stayed with it for two years through 1938 through de,ates on Fascism and the Ethiopian Car Spanish Civil Car Hitlerism anti-Semitism and the Munich Pact but became disgusted because it became Euite clear that as an affiliate of the American Student Union covert communists among us were directing things. I remem,er going to a rally on North Station for Earl Browder with a movie 5enin at Finalnd Station. 5o and behold who was collecting money? Two or three of our classmates. 5arry 5evy was one of them. I knew him very well. He was from the same house 5everett House. He finally admitted to me that he was head of the Houng Communist 5eague for Boston and received the Party GlineG weekly. 5ater on Bill 2irstein a friend of mine who was a year older and 1ewish like 5arry said that 5arry had continued as a supporter of Stalin through 19.1. 3 ": So, you were ta0ing this government course. What did this produce for you when you got out* I mean, where did you go in 1939* BO:ARDUS: May,e weBd better stop for a minute. In B38 I made a trip by cattle boat to England and then carried on with youth hosteling across England into France and as far east as Munich. I clim,ed the 9ugspit4e which is the highest peak in :ermany on the Austrian border and came back. ": What was your impression of Europe* It was really on the eve of the war* BO:ARDUS: Oh yes things were Euite tense and getting tenser. One of my Harvard connections my Harvard professor of :erman gave me an address of a woman to stay with in Munich. I arrived a day late there (they were unhappy-. The name was von Oheim and Frau von Oheim having been educated for at least two years in Britain spoke very good English. It turned out later after the war she was a leading feminist. They were a real 1unker family from Breslau. Her hus,and was a career colonel in the Cehrmacht. They showed me around helped me see Tristan und Isolde etc. Frau von Oheim had paired me with one of her sons who was a,out my age. I was 21 at that point and he Hagen was 20 and a mem,er of the Alpine Clim,ing Society. On the way up to the 9ugspit4e we got a,ove the tim,erline. Everything was bare and rocky chamois in the distance we approached the ice with backpacks. All of a sudden down the trail came three guys. There was a brief e6change and suddenly every,ody was shouting angrily e6cept me. I took my knapsack off ready to help Hagen. Eventually it blew over without any blows. I said GChat was it?G He answered GTheyBre from Berlin.G I said GHes?G He said GThey wanted me to say BHeil HitlerB and I would never do that.G ThatBs why we had the near fight. Chat better proof could you have that they were really resistant? He confided that he and his two brothers attended the Salemschule on 5ake Constance one of two schools not controlled by the Na4is. (Prince Philip of Britain went there too.- Then just before I left Frau von Oheim had invited me over for Sunday breakfast in their apartment in the same building where I was staying. They revealed that her hus,and had ,een aide-de-camp to Colonel :eneral Cerner von Fritsch. The previous 1anuary Cerner von Fritsch was head of a ca,al of the other 1unker generals the general staff. Some,ody had to go and tell Hitler that the chief of staff von Blum,erg had to go. Hitler could choose any one of the rest of them to replace von Blum,erg. But von Blum,erg was too easy for Himmler of the SS to press. They called him Gthe ru,,er toy lion.G The officer who was chosen for that finally got to see Hitler after a,out .8 hours or more. He came ,ack afterwards and recounted GHou know the man just--I gave him the message twice and the Fuhrer rolled around in a fit on the carpet. I got so disgusted that I finally left without an answer.G The answer came two days later that von Fritsch (somehow they guessed who it wasI the SS had somehow guessed it---von Fritsch was dismissed as well as von Blum,erg. I never was a,le to do anything. Chat could I do? I was just a student 4 going back home. A lot of this became fairly well-known and corro,orated much later. It was astonishing that they told me this. I donBt know what they e6pected me to do with the Gscoop G but they knew I was going to leave within two hours. ": Sure, you just didn't 0now. Even if you had... BO:ARDUS: But with this other background of the--Anyway you were asking what I did when I left school. I took a commercial course in typing and shorthand elementary commercial law that sort of thing. Then I had a short jo, as an office boy for a time until I finally got a scholarship.