1 the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR FRASER WILKINS Interviewed

The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR FRASER WILKINS Interviewed by: Peter Jessup Initial Interview Date: July 21, 1988 Copyright 2010 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background ducation at Yale Foreign Service exam volution of Foreign exam Inspector General under Dean Rusk 1964-1971 ,pgrading the role of the IG Political appointees vs. career officers ,.S.-British relations before Israeli independence Recognition of Israel Palestinian refugees History of /udaism in the 0orld ,.S. representation to ,nited Nations Secretary 2arshall vs. Secretary Dulles 3egality of Sue4 Canal ,sers Association As0an Dam Fiasco Tehran, Iran 1977-1960 Iranian history Travel in Iran Russians in Iran Am.assador Bo0les Cyprus , Am.assador 1960-1964 3earning Greek Political situation in Cyprus Addendum INTERVIEW 1 :1ote: Am.assador Wilkins died in /anuary 1989, before having an opportunity to edit this transcript. The Oral History Program has made light changes in the transcription regarding punctuation and has filled in some names.] Q: I was saying that you graduated from Yale in the class of (31, and then you entered business, and you were in Kentucky for a while, weren,t you - Frankfurt Distilleries and so forth/ 0hat prompted you to get into the Foreign Service/ 0ere there any particular influences at New Haven, or among classmates that led you into that field/ nd did any of them follow you in/ WI3KI1S: There@s a little prologue to the last part of your statement. I 0as .orn in Omaha, Ne.raska, on the hot day of August A1, 1908. Rather different than the muggy days of Washington in 1988 B almost 80 years ago. It 0as the custom in Omaha, in those days, for young boys of middle class families to go east to college. Actually, to go east to prep school, and then to college. In accordance 0ith this custom I 0ent to The Hill School in 1922, having previously lived in Chicago from 1910. 2y father moved back to Omaha, having been a vice president of Cudahy Packing Company. 2r. Cudahy had moved to Chicago in 1910, and bet0een 1917 and 1922 moved back to Omaha because he didn@t like the Stockyards in Chicago. So In 1922 I 0ent to The Hill, and finished there in C27. Incidentally, many other young men from Omaha also 0ent to The Hill SchoolD among them Truman 2oorsman, and /. rnest Sherman. The former is alive, the latter is not. I 0as at Yale from 1927 to CA1. At first I thought I 0ould go to the Sheffield Scientific School, because I hadn@t had much training on the scientific side. I had al0ays speciali4ed, at the Hill, in nglish, and all sorts of literary activities. I 0as the class poet at the Hill, for example. I made the class poet@s speech at commencement in 1927. 2y mother and father had come from Omaha. After a year at Yale, in 0hich I studied higher trigonometry and advanced calculus, I decided that I 0as in the 0rong section of Yale, and I asked my father if I could transfer .ack to the college. He said, EWhy don@t you do 0hat you 0ant to doFG I said, EWell, I@d really prefer to study nglish, and History, and International Relations,G a su.ject 0hich only could be pursued in the Yale College. I suppose Yale ,niversity is still split the same 0ay, although I@m not familiar 0ith its present set-up under the house system. An interesting thing a.out the scientific first year: the only 0ay I passed advanced calculus 0as by memori4ing the five important formulas and matching them to the Huestions on the six month exam. Thus, I got through the course and gave it up forever. Q: 0ell, you did get into foreign affairs/ 2 WI3KI1S: Then I majored in International Relations, under Professor Spykman, and a man 0ho su.seHuently became president of Yale and 0ho attended the 1919 Iersailles Conference in Paris, Charles Seymour. There 0as /ames Ro0land Angell himself, William 3yon Phelps, Tennyson, Bro0ning, Stanley Williams in American 3iterature, and so on. In fact, I 0on the Henry P. Wright 2emorial Pri4e under /ohn Berdan, 0ho taught the EAge of Pope.G So you can see that my interests 0ere really on the history, nglish, and the literary side. I never achieved any great fame. I became a mem.er of EYale Daily 1e0s,G but did not .ecome a mem.er of the Yale 3it. I guess the verse that I 0rote at the Hill 0as not up to the verse that 0as 0ritten at Yale, in those days. I remem.er some of the leading lights in the latter 0ere Wilder Ho.son, and Selden Rodman. I still have papers in 0hich they made comments a.out the verses I su.mitted to them. Q: They were classmates, weren,t they/ WI3KI1S: They 0ere seniors to me. Some 0ere in my class, and some 0ere in others. I don@t remem.er 0ho 0as in 0hat class. Q: Rodman went and lived in Haiti for a long while. WI3KI1S: I@ve lost all track since I graduated from Yale. And incidentally, my father died the day I graduated from Yale, in 19A1. He had a coronary throm.osis in Chicago, 0hich 0as a great shock to my family. I had three younger brothers B my mother and three younger brothers. 2y father had al0ays said to me, EIf I@m not here you are the head of the family.G Well, I took this responsi.ility very seriously. All of us, in effect, had to go to 0ork. Being the middle of the Depression 0e had hardly t0o nickels to ru. together. And from 19A1 until 1940, 0hen I entered the American Foreign Service, I 0orked hard for a living. Q: You didn,t go to Cudahy did you/ WI3KI1S: Well, I did through some of my father@s old associates. At one point I 0as 0orking in Chicago, and through some of my father@s old associates I tried to sell them some outdoor advertising, because that 0as the company I 0as 0orking for, but little came of it. Then I 0as transferred from Chicago to 3ouisvilleD and from 3ouisville to Baltimore, 0here I 0orked for Frankfurt Distilleries, Incorporated. So you can see ho0 a young man in the middle of the Depression shifts from one jo. to another, Huite by chance. And being in Baltimore, I 0as a.le to study for the Foreign Service and go to the cram schools in Washington, like Camp.ell Turner, and Roude.ush, and some of the others. Although it took me several years to catch up from the academic training that had fallen .ehind me, I 0as a.le to pass the 0ritten exams in the fall of 19A9. A Q: As an aside, wasn,t one of the Cudahy,s an ambassador to Poland/ There was a tall handsome Ambassador Cudahy in 0arsaw. WI3KI1S: I don@t recall. There 0ere t0o branches to the Cudahy familyD the branch that came from 2il0aukee, and the branch in Chicago. 2y father 0as associated 0ith the Chicago branch. In fact, he 0as a close friend of .A. Cudahy, Senior and 0ent to 0ork for him. He 0orked there for A0 years, and died in 19A0: he 0ent to 0ork for them in 1887, 0hen he 0as 17 years old. He planned to marry my mother in 1898. 2r. Cudahy said, EWhen are you getting marriedFG He said, EWell, I@m getting married in /une.G But he said, EI 0ant you to go up to Alaska in /une.G This is to my father. 2y father said, EWell, I [email protected] And he said, EWell, 0hy can@t you move the 0edding up to 2ayFG So my father did and 0ent up to Alaska. When he got there B this is interesting B he 0ent up the Yukon River by boat, collecting gold 0ith some miners from the Klondike, 0ho had bought provisions from the Cudahy Packing Company stations along the river. When he got to the head of the river, in the fall, he turned around to return 0ith the gold he had accumulated, and the Yukon had fro4en over. So he 0as forced to proceed a 1000 miles overland, from Circle City in the Klondike B or up in that region B to Skag0ay, do0n on the southern coast of Alaska. And it 0as very em.arrassing to him, because he had al0ays 0orn shoes 0ith heels on them. 2ost of the men 0ith the dog sleds 0ore moccasins. ConseHuently, his ankles became very cramped because he 0asn@t accustomed to moccasins. And he 0as forced to ride in the dog sleds 0ith the gold B a thousand miles. Then 0hen he got back to Omaha, and 0ent in to see 2r. Cudahy, Senior, and tell him a.out his journey and to make delivery of the gold, 2r. Cudahy gave him a bonus of 5500. Of course, that 0as in 1898 and $700 in those days 0as a lot of money. That@s an interesting little sidelight. But it sho0s the fact that me father 0as al0ays an entrepreneur. In 1927 B six years before his death B he had gotten interested in Old 2exico, and in an old Spanish grant from the Kind of Spain to one of the men in Corte4@ expedition. And he and one of 2r. Cudahy@s brothers and another American named Raymond Bell B a cattle man in 2exico B became partners and acHuired 227,000 acres of land, 0ith 17,000 head of Hereford cattle.

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