Babbitt, Harriet C

The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR HARRIET C. BABBITT Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: November 21, 2002 Copyright 2004 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born in est Virginia" raised in Texas University Americas (Mexico City College)" University of Texas" Sweet Briar College" University of Madrid, Spain" Ari,ona State University Travels in Europe Marriage .aw Practice in Phoenix, Ari,ona 190121984 E5ual Rights Amendment Husband Bruce Babbitt elected Attorney 8eneral of Ari,ona Husband becomes 8overnor of Ari,ona (1900) .atino population Democratic politics Board of the National Democratic Institute Husband's bid for Presidential nomination 1984 Iowa campaign Japanese trade issue New Hampshire campaign Resumed law practice in Phoenix 198421992 Member, Board of National Democratic Institute for International Affairs National Democratic Institute (Chile Plebiscite) Foreign Election monitoring Cuba (spy accusation) New Articles re Cuba Relationship with the Clintons Co2Chair, Clinton campaign in Ari,ona Husband Bruce Babbitt appointed US Secretary of the Interior 1992 1 US Ambassador to the Organi,ation of American States (OAS) 199121990 Sarah Horsey Barr .atin American Colleagues Settling in 8uatemala coup Mexico's role Monitoring elections Baena Soares, Secretary 8eneral Anti2Corruption convention Small Arms Trafficking Convention Unilateral Drug Certification Helms2Burton legislation Cuba Human Rights Commission Assessment of OAS ar over Upper Cenepa Valley Fujimori US invasion of Haiti Aristide Deputy to the Administrator of AID 199022001 AID Personnel Jesse Helms Embassy security Operating problems Relations with State Department oodrow ilson Center, Senior Public Policy Scholar 20012 Senior Vice President, Hunt Alternatives Fund omen aging Peace INTERVIEW Q: You go by %Hattie'( BABBITT: Yes, I do. Q: I)m wondering if you can tell me when and where you were born , something about your bac-ground. BABBITT: I was born in Charleston, est Virginia on November 11, 1940. My father 2 worked for the Union Carbide Chemicals Company, so therefore we moved around, as he was moved around to manage plants. I lived on the Canadian border, Niagara Falls, New York, for fifth and sixth grade. e moved shortly thereafter to the Mexican border in Brownsville, Texas. It was that move that kind of whetted my appetite for the international arena. Q: /ell, what was the bac-ground of your father' BABBITT: He was a chemical engineer. Q: /here was he from' BABBITT: Missouri and isconsin. Q: /here did he go to college' BABBITT: In Missouri. My father died when he was 40. My mother, who is almost 90, just told me how he got from Missouri to Charleston, est Virginia. It was in the middle of the depression, and he got a job, when he got out of college. But the banks in Missouri were closed. He didnCt have any money anyway, so he hopped a freight train. It was the only way to get to Charleston, est Virginia, to take this job. They, of course, were embarrassed by that. I thought, D hy were they embarrassedEF I thought it was wonderful. ItCs something I would never have imagined. Q: /hat is the bac-ground of your mother, her maiden name' BABBITT: Her maiden name was Edmunds. Her family was from Virginia and est Virginia, for a very long time, a very traditional family. Q: Did she go to college' BABBITT: Yes. Q: /ell, that wasn)t traditional, was it' BABBITT: I guess not. But, sort of a southern family... Q: /ell, did the southern 0irginia, /est 0irginia, rub off on you much' BABBITT: ell, some of it did. My mother moved back to Charleston, and her 92 year old sister is still there. e are headed there next week for Thanksgiving, so we kept that kind of family get2together stuff. My mother lived in a traditional kind of... She was a Colonial dame, Daughter of the American Confederacy, and a member of the DAR GDaughter of the American RevolutionH, and a member of the Junior .eague. I didnCt take 1 any of those routes. Q: Do you have brothers or sisters' BABBITT: Two brothers. Q: How old were you when you got to Brownsville' BABBITT: Seventh grade, so 12, 11, something like that. Q: As you go to school, what sort of sub2ects interested you' BABBITT: If you look on a map of the United States, and look at the places that have school systems which are described as Dtragic,F I hit them. Other than the two years in Niagara Falls, NY, I was in an awful public school system. Texas was something like 40th in the nation, South Texas was the worst. So, I really didnCt have an academic experience... I won the English pri,e. I won all the pri,es, but there was nothing academic about it. It wasnCt until I went to law school, and kind of got compelled by anything more specific than a raw interest and a love of reading. Q: You -now, so many people who are achievers, no matter where they go to school, they end up educating themselves, reading and all that. How about you' BABBITT: Oh, yes, ICm a reader. Now ICm reading about the Israeli2Palestinian conflict. I just got back from there. Q: Do you recall any boo-s in particular that caught your attention when you were young' BABBITT: ICm a child of the 1940s, so I read what at the time was terribly important, I now reali,e I read all the books that children of the 1940s read" Herman Hess. I donCt know if I read that now whether I would think it was silly or insightful. Q: /ell, it does give a generational feeling to this. BABBITT: Yes. Q: /hat was Brownsville li-e' BABBITT: It was terrific in many ways. My father thought he had died and gone to heaven, because he liked to hunt and fish. It is right on the coast. ThereCs an island that separates the coast. So, you can fish in the bay, you can fish in the ocean. He would come home early from the plant, about 4:00, take a cooler out. He could shoot his limit of white wing by sunset. 4 Q: A white wing being a bird. BABBITT: An especially tasty type of dove. I wanted to go away to school, because the schools there were so terrible. My parents said, DOh, honey, youCre our last one, stay home.F So, I did, and got an entirely different kind of education. .iving in a border town was an education. It was a Mexican border town with a very friendly relationship with Matamoros, which was on the other side. Now the combination of truck traffic and all of the security makes the border anything but inviting. But, it was a very easy life when I was there. e could run over and have dinner in a Mexican restaurant, at the drop of a hat. The whole dinner cost $I.00 for the family, and it was fun 2 the nightlife. Q: Did you learn any Spanish while you were there' BABBITT: Yes. Then, I graduated from high school early and went to school in Mexico City. Q: /hen did you go to school in Me4ico City' BABBITT: 1944. Q: Did the students of the 1560s revolt in Me4ico City' I can)t remember when the 7lympics was. BABBITT: All the killing was in 1948, I think. In 1944, it was fairly tran5uil, in a political sense. Q: Did you get a feel for Me4ican politics at the time' BABBITT: I didnCt. I was 14. I went to what used to be called, a long time ago, Mexico City College, and then was called University Americas, and now itCs been transferred to Pueblo. ICm sure you know other people who have gone there. It was a wonderful time. Mexico City was paradise of the western hemisphere. It had not gotten over populated. It was a beautiful climate. I learned less Spanish than I should, because I hung around with interesting American friends. But, I learned my lesson. hen I went to school in Spain, I made sure I had no American friends, and only spoke Spanish. Q: /ell, didn)t the 1560s penetrate the Americans you were running with, e4patriates, whatever you would call them' BABBITT: The people I hung out with were less political and more into art, mainly. riting the great novel. Q: /ell, you were helping the Me4ican economy. I BABBITT: I was. That was important too. Q: /ell, going to Me4ico was designed, essentially, to bring your Spanish up' /as this it' BABBITT: It was designed to get me out of Brownsville. I had taken all the courses there were to take at Brownsville High School. I was very young. I had started school early and graduated early. I just wanted to spend six months in Mexico, doing something interesting, getting my Spanish up. Q: /ell, where did you go after that' BABBITT: I went to five different undergraduate schools, so it will take a while. Q: /ell, all right, let)s tal- about it. BABBITT: I went to school where I wanted to be, geographically. So, I saw lots of the world, but didnCt end up with lifetime college chums. I went to the University of the Americas. I then went to Sweet Briar. I went back to my roots. Q: I was going to say, that was the 8uintessential of southerners, wasn)t it' BABBITT: Absolutely. In a graduating class of 1I0 something from Brownsville High School. I was the only student who went out of the state of Texas to college. I do remember this, 5ui,,ing my advisor.

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