1 the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR WILLIAM LUERS Interviewed
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR WILLIAM LUERS Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: May 12, 2011 Copyright 2020 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born in Springfield, Illinois in 1929 Family Background Childhood in Springfield BA with Honors in Chemistry and Math, Hamilton University 1947–1951 Officer in U.S. Navy 1952–1956 MA in International Relations, Columbia University 1956–1957 Entered the Foreign Service 1957 Background in Socialist and Communist Theory Naples, Italy—Visa Officer 1957–1959 Note Taker and Translator for Consular General Jim Henderson U.S. Policy Failure Excluding Leftist Parties Achille Lauro Visa Process Translating for Truman and De Nicola McCarthyism Washington, D.C.—Office of Soviet Union Affairs, Junior FSO 1959–1962 Soviet-Castro Relations Soviet Youth Propaganda U-2 Incident Outer Mongolia Relations Khrushchev-Kennedy Relations Oberammergau, Germany—Detachment R Language Trainee 1962–1963 Russian Language Training Moscow, USSR—Assistant General Service Officer 1963–1965 Family Adjustment Problems Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Cultural Exchange Program Year One 1 Kennedy Assassination Cultural Exchange Program Year Two Moscow Underground Andrei Amalrik KGB Surveillance Khrushchev Ousting State Department Mentality towards Russia Washington, D.C.—Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Internal Analyst 1965–1967 Soviet Research Open Forum Panel Chairman 1965–1969 Vietnam War Changing Role of INR Soviet Governance Soviet Expansionism Washington, D.C.—Guyana Desk Officer 1967–1969 Forbes Burnham Essequibo Caracas, Venezuela—Political Officer 1969–1973 Conflict with Ambassador Bernbaum Guerrilla Amnesty Wealth Inequality Party Structure Culture Concerns over Communism Alliance for Progress Washington, D.C.—Office of Soviet Affairs, Deputy Head 1973–1973 Washington, D.C.—Kissinger's Executive Secretariat, Deputy Head 1973–1975 Department Relations Kissinger Record Keeping and Transparency Brezhnev Washington, D.C.—Latin America Deputy Assistant Secretary 1975–1977 Intelligence Community Issues Cuba Relations Mexico Relations Jamaica Prime Minister Michael Manley Acting Assistant Secretary Human Rights Cuban Negotiations Meeting with Fidel in 2000 2 Washington, D.C.—Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe 1977–1978 Eastern Europe and Soviet Affairs Marshall Shulman Soviet Aggression Carter-Brezhnev Relations Anastasio Somoza Ceaușescu U.S. Visit Tito and Yugoslavia Caracas, Venezuela—Ambassador to Venezuela 1978–1982 Venezuela Relations Teodoro Petkoff Crime Venezuelan Culture Venezuelan Military Falklands Venezuelan Technical Skills Castro Meeting Princeton, New Jersey—Institute of Advanced Study Directors Visitor 1982–1983 Falklands Socialism in Peru Appointment Drama Prague, Czechoslovakia—Ambassador to Czechoslovakia 1983–1986 Czechoslovak-Soviet Relations Charter 77 Dissidents Boar Shooting Diplomacy Embassy Strougal and Gorbachev Agreements with Czechoslovakia Soviet Ambassador Václav Havel Charter 77 Dissidents Sudeten Issue German Unification U.S. Presidents and the Foreign Service Retired from Foreign Service May 1986 New York City, NY—President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 1986–1999 Responsibilities Fundraising International Relations Exchange NGO Work Velvet Revolution 3 Inauguration of Havel Independent Czechoslovakia New York City, NY—President of the United Nations Association 1999–2009 New York City, NY—Director of The Iran Project 2004–Present New York City, NY—Adjunct Professor at Columbia University Present INTERVIEW Q: Today is the 12th of May, 2011 with William, middle initial? LUERS: H. Q: H. Luers, L-U-E-R-S. And this is being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, and I‟m Charles Stuart Kennedy. And you go by Bill. LUERS: Yes. Q: OK. Let‟s start at the beginning. Where and when were you born? LUERS: Born in Springfield, Illinois in 1929 and my father was a banker in Springfield and my mother came from a farming town nearby. Q: OK, let‟s talk a little bit about the Luers. Where do they come from? It sounds German. LUERS: They came from Germany, a town just south of Hamburg. My grandfather, Henry Luers, emigrated in the 1880s and married a German lady from the same area. They emigrated to Springfield, Illinois where my grandfather started a shoe store. He had no education, my father had no university education. He had five sons and one daughter who grew up in Springfield. They became prominent citizens of the small town – capital of Illinois. It has a population of about 70,000 which has been rather stable over these many years. Central Illinois had many German speaking citizens before and even after WW1. The Luers Shoe Store was right next door to Lincoln Herndon Law Offices when my grandfather bought it. The Lincoln family had bought shoes from that store. My cousin who ran the Shoe store for years still has the record of the shoe sizes of the Lincoln family. The Luers Shoe Store was just off the corner of the Old Courthouse Square at the Center of the town. Indeed, when Barack Obama announced his candidacy for president from the steps of courthouse in Springfield Illinois, I watched the national TV coverage. The pictures taken from a helicopter showed corner near where my grandfather had the shoe 4 store. On another corner of the same square was the building of the former Illinois National Bank where my father began as a clerk after the First World War. He went into the army, became an officer, was wounded, was decorated for bravery and returned to the Bank as a clerk. 40 years later he became president of that bank. On another corner of the square was the building of the former Marine Bank where Uncle Ted, who also had started from scratch, became the Bank President. Uncle Arthur took over as head of the Luers Shoe Store, Uncle Harry become a leader in the Springfield City Council, and my Uncle George ran some farms outside of town. This German American family occupied some important pieces of Springfield. None were wealthy, they were all self-made and each of them remained in Springfield with their families for their entire life. Many of my generation of the large Luers clan left Springfield. Q: Were there any problems during World War I about being German? LUERS: Absolutely. WW1 profoundly affected the ―German‖ culture in Central Illinois and indeed throughout the Middle West. My father was the only one of his brothers who went to war but many German Americans joined. As you recall they went to a bloody war against the Germans. My father became a Lt in the Army, fought in some of the most difficult battles and was awarded a Silver Star for bravery under fire and two Purple Hearts for injuries in combat. He returned to Springfield, where German culture and even language had played a large role, to realize that German Americans were less honored and their culture and language was not celebrated. The German language was spoken only in the family, if there, and the German language signs were taken down. I am unclear how that affected my father in the 1920‘s but what I am clear on is that WW1 made him a super American patriot. He and Mother still liked Europe and during the 1930‘s they took vacations in the UK, France, Italy and Germany as part of their cultural education and to have fun. Super patriot that he was, on December 8, 1941, that Monday after Pearl Harbor, he signed up again to rejoin the Army. He had no hesitation at the age of about 50. ―I must go into this,‖ I remember him telling me, his 12 year old only son. Within a few months he received a commission as a Major in the U.S. Army Air Corps which was then part of the Army and not a separate branch of the armed forces. He was immediately assigned as Commanding CEO -- he was commanding officer of a new air base in Dyersburg, TN the Air Corps was building in the spring of 1942. He was commanding officer there for about six months, and then he, to his surprise, was relieved of his command. He was transferred to Fort Benning, GA and interrogated. He then learned that someone had written a letter to the War Department claiming that my father was a Nazi spy. My parents liked travel and they had visited England, France and indeed Germany in the 1930‘s. This writer of the letter, who created a story that my father had been in Berlin when Mussolini went to visit Hitler, turned out to be a man my father fired from the bank. It was a devastating experience for him to learn that the U.S. government doubted his loyalty to the US and believed that somehow he was a Nazi spy. He had nearly lost his life fighting the Germans for his country in the First World War. 5 The USG eventually cleared him completely. Yet this episode took a toll on his life. I never knew how deeply it affected his life after WWII. Q: Something like this can be devastating. LUERS: He was a man I greatly admired. He was tall, straight, and handsome -- Rectitude was his strongest characteristic. In recent years I have looked through his papers and had a better sense of what actually happened, read the strong testimonials from friends and associates about my father‘s character and loyalty. It was an upsetting thing. I often used to talk with my friend Kurt Vonnegut, from a German American family, about those troubled years for German Americans and how after two world wars of fighting Germans, the German culture, once so strong in the Middle, fell under an almost permanent shadow. Q: He wrote Slaughterhouse Five. LUERS: Yes. You don‘t call yourself German-American today. You call yourself Irish- American, or Italian-American, but German-American is not description to be proud of.