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THE RULE OF LAW ORAL HISTORY PROJECT The Reminiscences of Joseph P. Hoar Columbia Center for Oral History Columbia University 2013 PREFACE The following oral history is the result of a recorded interview with Joseph P. Hoar conducted by George Gavrilis on March 13, 2012. This interview is part of the Rule of Law Oral History Project. The reader is asked to bear in mind that s/he is reading a verbatim transcript of the spoken word, rather than written prose. VJD Session One Interviewee: Joseph P. Hoar Location: Washington, D.C. Interviewer: George Gavrilis Date: March 13, 2012 Q: This is George Gavrilis. It’s March 13, 2012. I’m here in Washington, D.C. with General Joseph P. Hoar for the Columbia University Oral History Project on the Rule of Law. Thank you for doing it this morning. Thank you for making yourself available for the whole day. We’re hoping to do two sessions and talk about a number of things. In a preliminary conversation we had over the phone—and before I hit the record button—we were talking about a number of things, including your—I suppose a good way of putting it is many hats—the many hats you wore in your career. You’ve been in the military. You’ve been stationed a lot of places around the world. You’ve worked in the private sector. You’ve worked with think tanks, and you’ve also been very outspoken in your views on a number of issues that the Rule of Law Project intersects with. So I’m hoping to talk about all of these things over the next few hours with you. But I would like to start with something that you did very recently that is quite relevant. We spoke—I think it was in early February—and you told me you were going to be going on a trip to the Middle East, and that it was a trip that is, in many ways, work-related, and intersects directly with your experiences before. So I would love it if you would be able to tell me a little bit about that trip. Hoar -- 1 -- 2 Hoar: Sure. The program is under the rubric of the Capstone [Military Leadership] Program. It is an outgrowth of the Goldwater-Nichols [Defense Reorganization] Act of 1986, which included a statement that said, “All newly promoted brigadier generals and rear admirals must attend a course to better acquaint them with joint operations.” This requirement has been in place for some time—obviously since 1986, when the law was enacted—and it’s under the aegis of the National Defense University over at Fort McNair, here in Washington. It has evolved to be a five to six-week program, with class work in Washington—down in Norfolk, where the joint forces command is—and then an international trip. Some years ago I was asked, on short notice, if I could fill in as a “senior mentor” for a Middle East trip. I had been interested in doing this earlier, but at the time the person who was running it said, “Well, you can’t just pick and choose what you want to do. We want you here in town. If you’re here in town, then we will allow you to make the trip.” Long story short, I filled in on short notice to act as the senior mentor for the Middle East trip and have been doing so ever since. The trip I just completed was either my eighth or ninth. I should say that the Middle East trip is just one of several that’s run by the school. There’s a South Asian one; there’s a European one; there’s a South American one, and so forth. But this is the one I’ve chosen to be a part of because of my own professional experience and because I’ve also maintained relationships out there, because of my consulting business, that brings me out there on business from time to time. The three countries that we visited were Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia. This was a departure from previous years, which had normally included five countries and had been a little bit Hoar -- 1 -- 3 longer—two or three more days. But in recognition of the reduced funding that’s available in this fiscal year, the course has been set back somewhat. I argued vigorously that Tunisia was an interesting place to go but wasn’t very valuable to these guys—that we should have continued to go to Egypt, as we had been doing for several years. But apparently somebody over on the joint staff had decided it was too dangerous. I had been in Cairo in October, and in a city of nineteen million people you can manage to stay out of Tahrir Square—and stay out of trouble—if you want to. The whole idea was to go and visit these countries, listen to the U.S. mission there. The ambassador talked to people in foreign affairs and the military side of the business and other things that might be of interest. In Jordan—the first country on the tour this time. Because I’ve known the king for, I don’t know, twenty-five years or so—when he was a young major in the Army. We always get to see him if he’s in town, which is wonderful. He’s the only head of state that anybody sees on any of these trips, so it’s kind of a kick. They all get a picture with the king, which makes everybody feel good when they go back and have to debrief on how they spent a couple of hours with the king. Q: Tell me about him. Hoar: Well, he’s a marvelous guy—and I really mean this. I was a great fan of his father. I have a story—the ending of which I’m not sure is true but I think it’s true—about his father, who was an extraordinary leader; who had more sense of the granularity of his own society and how to rule that country than you can ever imagine—because there’s no money out there, George. Hoar -- 1 -- 4 There’s always the need to try to figure out a way to get a few more bucks to run the place. He, of course, made an unfortunate misstep after the invasion of Kuwait when he attempted to bring a negotiated settlement to the invasion and get the Iraqis to withdraw. At the same time he was attempting to do that with the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries, what was going forward here in Washington was General [H. Norman] Schwarzkopf [Jr.] came up to Washington—it must have been the fourth or fifth of August. The attack on Kuwait was the night of the first or second of August—and briefed a plan that nobody in Washington had seen yet, but we had worked on for really about a year and a half down at CENTCOM [United States Central Command]. Mr. [Richard B.] Cheney and the chiefs—I was there because I was what we call the operations deputy. I attended all the tank meetings with the commandant of the Marine Corps, but I was his backup—not allowed to speak unless spoken to. You could comment on the time of day, but nothing substantive. So I heard Norm Schwarzkopf give the brief. Mr. Cheney was present—secretary of defense at the time—and said, “Let’s go see the president.” So they went that afternoon to see the president, the president said, “Take it to King Fahd [bin Abdulaziz Al Saud].” So they flew out that night. Schwarzkopf didn’t even have a toothbrush with him. He had flown up that morning from Tampa with just his clothes on, and they left. The next midnight they briefed King Fahd in Jeddah, and he said, “Do it,” and we were off and running. Poor old King Hussein [bin Talal] was in the midst of trying to figure out a negotiated settlement. He took it personally. He said a few things that he probably regretted afterwards, so for a while he was on the outs. Hoar -- 1 -- 5 But the story that I think is best about him is there is a law in Jordan that says you can’t defame the monarchy. So there’s a guy who is head of the engineer union there that went ahead and defamed the democracy. I don’t remember exactly what his words were. He was tried and put in jail for some period of time. After being in jail for two days, the king got in his car, drove down, got this guy out of jail, pardoned him, and drove him home, and presented him to his mother. Now if that isn’t pretty smooth stuff, I don’t know what is. This was the kind of granularity that he had. The ability to do—which is also a great part of Arab culture—the ability to do something that’s unexpected, that’s generous, that puts you one-up among your interlocutors. You start by a gracious move. That’s how he ran that country. Q: And this trip, when you met his son, did you get the sense that that is something he passed on to him? Hoar: I think so, in one sense. The trouble is that the nature of the country has changed a great deal.