The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Program Foreign Service Spouse Series CARROLL R. SHERER Interviewed by: Patricia Norland Initial interview date: March 22, 1999 TABLE OF CONTENTS Early Years Morocco 946- 949 Getting to Tangier&& Birth of second child Hungary 949- 95 Departure as persona non grata Czechoslovakia 955- 95, Isolation nanny and cook pregnancies Political intruder .arsaw 96 - 966 Surveillance white elephant sales Death of FS National demonstration Togo 961- 9,0 Promoting local crafts Department ob4ection Apollo onze African ways 5missing blouse6 Guinea 9,0- 9,2 Attempted coup Interviewer8s memories School for domestics embassy beautification 1 Czechoslovakia 9,2- 9,5 Return to Prague as AEP Switzerland 9,3- 9,5 Helsinki Final Act negotiations in Geneva 0ew York: U0 9,5- 9,, Murder of Francis E. Meloy in Lebanon About Albert .. Sherer, Jr. George Aennan speech, 96 Thanks, Foreign Service&B INTERVIEW Q: This is Patricia Norland. I am interviewing arroll Sherer, who has come from hicago to Washington, D for the occasion of recording an oral history. The date is March 22, 1999. So now we can proceed with our interview. arroll, we were talking earlier about the possibility of just a few words on your early years, where you lived and schools and so on. SHERER: .ell, Pat, thanks. I was born in Chicago and went to the University of Chicago studying anthropology. .hile I was a student there the Second .orld .ar broke out and I rushed through college taking eCtra courses and studying in the summer. I graduated when I was nineteen years old and went into the Cadet Nursing Corps. At the time I thought that I was doing something to save the world, but the truth is that nursing training saved me several times when I was in the Foreign Service. I stayed at the nursing school for a couple of years and then my best beloved came home from his missions in the central Pacific and we were married in Chicago in the church that I had always attended. By the way, he was Albert .. Sherer, Jr., who turned out to be a very good Foreign Service Officer, but we didnDt know whether that would happen at the time. .ell, I did, but he wasnDt Euite sure. .e started out for our first post, Tangier, Morocco, in 946. I was twenty-three years old and had never been outside of North America. .e had a three-month-old baby, which we carried around in a basket covered with mosEuito netting, as well as twelve other pieces of luggage. The State Department was not organized in those days to help with much information about the post or even how to get there. .hen I left home I was wearing high-heeled shoes and a little white feather hat. .e traveled on an unconverted troop ship, where we had a tiny cabin, unlike the other passengers who were assigned to sailorsD Euarters, hammocks and gender separated 2 dormitories. .e were privileged because of our small baby. The footlocker containing the babyDs food and clothing was mistakenly packed in the hold instead of delivered to our cabin. The shipDs captain was mortified, and he allowed my husband to go to the shipDs kitchen and make formula. ThatDs really all I remember. The baby survived somehow. Maybe it was a good thing there was no bar on that ship, although at the time, it seemed otherwise. Arriving at Le Havre, we looked over the side of the ship and realized that there was only a temporary dock, the permanent ones having been destroyed by American and British bombs during the war. There was no proper eCit on dock level, which meant that we had to descend on a skinny little ramp, carrying the baby in a blanket. I still remember the scary business of looking down from that ramp three stories high at the water between the ship and the dock. I still wore the high-heeled shoes and little feather hat, probably no help. Due to a shortage of everything in Paris, there were no taCis to take us to the embassy. It was dark by that time, raining and cold, a typical October. .e waited at the curb surrounded by our twelve pieces of luggage and waved at every passing vehicle. Finally, an American military Jeep stopped and took us to where weDd been assured in .ashington there would be hotel reservations for us. But the embassy had never heard of us and besides, they said there were no rooms in the whole city. Again we were rescued by our baby, whose obvious need compelled the sergeant to discover one available room for one night, he said. Another Army vehicle was summoned and we rattled off to a fleabag hotel where there was no heat or food. Never mind, we had a roof over our heads. Their skimpy breakfast tasted like haute cuisine even though the coffee was made of Lord knows what. .e were finally allowed to stay in that room for about a week while waging the battle for onward transportation. Finally, having discovered which Frenchman was in charge of all personnel travel, an ample gift of American cigarettes procured two tickets to Madrid and we were off. .hen we reached the frontier at Hendaye, the conductor eCplained that the border was still closed after the war and we would have to get out of the train. So out we got, counting luggage still numbering twelve pieces. The only mode of transport was a donkey cart, which we thought would take us to the neCt railroad station which was in the Spanish town of IrFn. But nothing doing. .e were dumped in the middle of a bridge and told we would have to walk to Spain if we really wanted to get there. So Albert walked to the customs shed and came back saying he would carry the luggage while I walked across with the baby in his basket. The Spanish officials were not in a hurry and besides, they were feeling mean in those days because we hadnDt allowed Hitler to win the war. Finally we got ourselves to Madrid by train, where it was warm and sunny, and we were met by someone from whatever diplomatic mission we had there at the time. I was like a 3 child in a candy shop when he took us to the Ritz Hotel, where we signed in to a luCurious room with a real bathroom. France seemed very far away. At the end of a train ride to Algeciras and a ferry ride across the Straits of Gibraltar, the finale of a three-week journey, we arrived at our destination, Tangier. Several members of the legation staff were there to greet us. They told us right away that housing would be difficult because the population of the international zone, which was Tangier then, was bloated with individuals left over from the war. It was said to be a refuge for Nazis of several nationalities who preferred not to go home and for smugglers. Since there was an open money market meaning that the value of all currencies was floating and could be traded at varying rates during a single day, this was a self-evident result. Besides, the zone had a free port which imported goods from all over the world duty-free, providing many opportunities. The house we finally found had a fascinating garden full of plants mostly foreign to me, but no heating or hot running water. All the hot water we ever had came from a tank on the side of the wood-burning stove in the kitchen and whatever heat came from a tiny fireplace in the living room where we huddled for about three months each year. Furnishing the house was the neCt challenge, which was solved by renting things from a variety of people who were known to someone who was known to somebody. Soon I was pregnant again. I opted to stay there with my family and chose the British missionary hospital where there were pretty good doctors and as long as no emergency arose, an adeEuate staff and eEuipment. As it turned out, there was nothing fancy reEuired, only a couple of whiffs of chloroform administered by means of some kind of sEueeze mechanism over which I had full control. Much later, what I found out was that the medical people and the holy people had had a falling out, the holy people insisting that it was incorrect of the medics to accept European patients since they had all been sent there to convert the local population. The medicsD argument that the Europeans pay and that was good moved the holy people not at all. They had locked the door of the room intended for me and the key was nowhere to be found. Finally, the doctor and Albert broke down the door with their shoulders, which, of course, wrecked the door but gave me a place to lie down. There was never a day in Tangier without a surprise. At the end of a highly educational three-year tour we were assigned to Calcutta, which caused me to leave Tangier a month or two ahead of Albert so I could get all the shots and buy clothes for several years for myself and two children then aged two and three. Everything I have ever known about India came from the reading I did during that period. As it turned out, we went to Budapest instead, a welcome change, eEuipped with immunity to innumerable eCotic diseases and forty-eight pairs of summer shoes.