Derian, Patricia
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project PATRICIA DERIAN Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: March 12, 1996 Copyright 2 14 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born in New York City$ raised in Washington, DC, Virginia and California. Life in segregated Danville, VA Palos Verdes College$ University of Virginia ,arriage Husband.s medical practice/ various locations in U.S. Birth of sons 0ecruitment of nurses 1ackson, ,ississippi/ Accompanying husband c1234 Segregation environment ,ississippians for Public Education ,edgar Evers assassination Participation in civil rights movement Foreign travel 6p218 Early political activity 6,ississippi8 c1273-1277 1234 Democratic Party Convention ,ississippi delegation National Committeewoman Democratic Party of the State of ,ississippi ; 1immy Carter meeting Democratic Policy Council Averell Harriman Laos and Cambodia resolution Southern 0egional Council Henry Wallace Deputy Director, 1immy Carter campaign staff 612738 ACLU Committee member State Department job offer ,ississippi political and social environment 1 1oan Braden State Department/ Coordinator/ Assistant Secretary for Human 1277-1283 0ights and Humanitarian Affairs History and personnel of office ,ark Schneider 0oberta Cohen Stephen Cohen Security process Amnesty International yearbook Christopher interview Congressman Donald Fraser Establishing bureau Dealing with bureaucracy ,ember, Committee on Security and Cooperation in Europe 6CSCE8 Controversy Argentina visit$ meetings and conditions @Disappeared onesA Argentina murders and atrocities Admiral Emilio ,assera ,aBwell Chaplin ,ilitary justification for its actions El Salvador visit$ meetings and conditions Cissinger ,aBwell Chaplin Dealing with the press Israel eyes Patagonia Chile ,eBico Cuba Wayne Smith American Interests Section, Havana Fidel Castro meeting Cathleen Cennedy interview with Castro Duatemala Panama US military views of human rights Deneral ,cAuliffe icaragua Sandinistas/ASandalistasA SomoEa Ambassador Lawrence PeEEullo View of democracy Charlie Wilson Bolivia American detainees 2 Drugs Uruguay Deneral observations BraEil Torture methods Secretary Vance Ireland I0A @knee cappingA P.,. Thatcher visit British Foreign Office Dermany Turkish workers Berlin wall @daisy cuttersA East Dermany Churches Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe 6CSCE8 Dante Fascell Canadians Foreign Service training Soviet bloc nations 1eane Cirkpatrick 0ight wing dictators Tom Watson Controversy Sakharov family Soviet 1ewry Philip Habib ,iddle East @1erusalem 1500A Israel Shah of Iran Averell Harriman Hodding Carter 0oberta Cohen David Corn Ambassador William Sullivan 0eporting on Human 0ights Congressional views on Human 0ights 0eport AleBandra 1ohnson South Africa Saudi Arabia 1oe Alsop @baEaarisA turn against ShahA Hal Saunders Pakistan 3 Embassy destruction Hia meeting Environment INTERVIEW %: This is an interview under the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training with Patricia Derian. Today is March 12, 1996, and I*m Stu Kennedy. To start with, could you tell me something about your family background, DE0IA / Well, my father was the first foreigner to be in my mother.s history in anybody.s memory. That is, he came from ,ontana. She came from Virginia, from Lynchburg, Danville, towns in Southwest Virginia. ,y @foreignA father was named 0onald Thomas 1eremiah ,urphy. He was called Harp, because he liked Harp beer. %: And also Harp was often a word for an Irishman. DE0IA / Because of the beer, though. The first time I went to London I was so impressed with the wonderful, great people and how sturdy they were. It said @CourageA everywhere. ,y grandfather was named 1eremiah 1oseph ,urphy. He was recruited as a very young man, probably 18 years old, from Ireland to be a TeBas 0anger. He might have been born during the Civil War. He went there and was a big success. He was 3.5A and had a great big mustache. Then the fellow who started Anaconda came from ,ontana and recruited him to come and work in the police department in Butte, because Butte had an enormous infusion of Chinese miners and they had more Chinese in Butte, ,ontana at that period than any other place outside of China. They had a lot of Eastern Europeans who came also and these were not immediately congenial. Well, I went there for a year and a half, somewhere around when I got married the first time. Never remember when I actually got married but I think it was 1252. In any case, I lived in the coalfields. We can talk about that later. Anyhow, my grandfather had been married and had three children and his wife died. So he married a woman from upstate New York, who lived in a house called @the house of seven gablesA. She was the mother of my father. Her name was Delia Wall ,urphy. She was very mean. She was a secret drinker who sent the other three children away. The two daughters became nuns and the son became a businessman. In order to entice my grandfather to come from TeBas to ,ontana, this man, whose name was Nathan ,arcus, gave him a big interest in a copper mine. So it made him probably the most comfortable police officer in the entire world. So, anyway, she was an abusive and unpleasant parent. ,y grandfather was always trying to make up for that, to compensate to my father for this terrible situation. 4 In any case, my father went to the University of Virginia for the last two years of college and for law school. He met my mother, who was one of ten children. Her name was the worst name in history/ 0uby Purcell Hardiman. I think my grandmother was so wonderful, had twins and named them ,arvin and ,elvin, so names were not her strong point. In any case, they eloped, much to the consternation of both families. ,y mother.s family had been in Virginia since the Year One and they were all Baptists. ,y father was a Catholic, nominally, but it didn.t matter. Everybody came to grips with the reality. ,y grandfather hired an airplane, this was 1227, so it was a very little airplane, and flew from ,ontana to Charlottesville, which is where my Dad was in school. He got off the airplane with his Dladstone bag and he went into the little house that my parents had rented, pulled down all the shades, opened his Dladstone bag and took out his giant gun and put on it on the table and then he took out what he thought would be enough money for them for the neBt year. ,y mother was deeply impressed with that because as Virginians they had never seen a lot of actual cash and maybe not any. Also as Virginians for them the Civil War was The War, or at least until my Uncle Curtis ran away to World War I and was gassed. So anyhow, they got married and my mother had to promise to raise me as a Catholic, raise any children who came and I was born a couple of years later and my sister came 12 years after. I was born in 1222, August 12. I was not told until I was about 14 that I was not fully Virginian. I was born in ew York City, a real scandal. What happened was my mother obviously knew she was pregnant and I.m supposed to be born in early October, somewhere in that time. So they went to New York for the previews. They used to preview the new season.s plays in August. During an interval my mother went into labor, which was a great shock and then got to the hospital and had identical twin daughters, which was an absolutely astonishing shock. Unfortunately, the other baby died of a diarrhea epidemic. 0eaching back into the past, that.s the way things were. They had separated us in two different nurseries, a thing I never knew, I.m a nurse, too, I never had known to happen. Usually they put the two in the same bassinet but for some reason they didn.t and in that nursery they had a little eBplosive epidemic of diarrhea and a good many babies died and they tore the hospital down. Anyway, my father was a lobbyist for Anaconda in Washington, in the Investment Building; and we lived at The Westchester IEd/ located at 400 Cathedral Avenue in Washington, D.C., The Westchester was four buildings built in 1230 and open for rentals in 1231. The whole project was not completed due to the Depression.J ,y mother had a house that belonged to her in Danville, we lived in Danville, too, we would go there from time to time. %: I think it*s interesting that your father was so closely associated with Anaconda on the law enforcement and then lobbyist side and you later getting involved in civil rights, because Anaconda was sort of the devil as far as the labor movement was concerned in that period that you were growing up. DE0IA / Oh, it.s true but growing up in that time, nothing like that touched children unless they were part of it. If we had lived close to the mines, perhaps. What I did know was that the Chinese workers had tong wars in Butte and my father and his friends would 5 go up on top of the police station and throw brickbats down on them. Not a charming story about your father but it was a weird and biEarre time. The problem was between the two groups. I do know that when I went to my grandmother.s house some years later, after she died, you could put your ear to the ground and you could hear miners talking underneath. The whole of Butte was just resting on top of the mines, very interesting. In any case, then it was time for me to go to school. ,y mother felt that her responsibility to raise me as a Catholic was kicking in and she was very leery of the whole idea.