The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR PHILIP M. KAISER Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: May 4, 2005 Copyright 2006 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in New York City University of Wisconsin The depression and liberalism La Follette Balliol College, Oxford University (,hodes Scholar- Hitler and appeasement Byron .Whi//er0 White Ambassador 1oseph 2ennedy America First organi/ation Federal ,eserve System 133351342 Board of Economic Warfare9 Chief, Project operations 134251346 State Department9 Chief, ,esearch, Planning Division 1346 U and speciali/ed agency affairs State Department9 Bureau of International Affairs 134651347 Assistant to the assistant Secretary State Department9 Director, Office of International Labor Affairs 134751343 Labor leaders Dean Acheson World Federation of Trade Unions Trade Union Advisory Committee Labor Attaches Assistant Secretary of Labor for International Affairs 134351353 Communist activities European trade unions International Labor Organi/ation (ILO- David Dubinsky 1 Marshall Plan Maurice Tobin General MacArthur Committee for Free Europe 1354 ,adio Free Europe Special Asst. to the Governor of New York, Averill Harriman 13555135A Labor issues Election campaign Adlai Stevenson Sue/ Crisis (1356- elson ,ockefeller Professor, American University 135A51361 Presidential election campaign Ambassador to Senegal and Mauritania 136151364 Senegal5Mali split The French Environment Cuban Missile Crisis Peace Corps US aid Mauritania Mokhtar and Senghor ,elations London England9 Deputy Chief of Mission 136451363 Ambassador David Bruce Labor government Prime Minister Harold Wilson ,elations President 1ohnson and the British Bietnam War 2osygin and Biet Nam e WinCs Washington visit Bice President Hubert HumphreyCs visit 1ohnson5Humphrey relationship Charles de Gaulle Arab5Israel 1367 War London, England9 Chairman, Encyclopedia Britannica 1363 London, England9 Democrats Abroad 2 1immy Carter Presidential Elections Campaign 1376 Platform Committee Scoop 1ackson Carter and racial issues Ambassador to Hungary 137751373 ew Economic Movement 2adar Soviet Union Crown of St. Stephen Most Favored ation (MF - issue Economy Environment HungaryCs foreign relations ,elations with Moscow Ambassador to Austria 1373513A0 Chancellor Bruno 2reisky Spy Center US Embassy hostages in Iran Mauthausen concentration camp Simon Wiesenthal Soviet 1ews Yasser Arafat Post ,etirement 13A05 Professor, 1ohns Hopkins School of International Studies Board Member, British5American Ditchley Foundation Who ended the Cold WarE Comments on current Administration INTERVIEW Q: Today is the 4th of May 2005. This is an interview with Philip M. Kaiser. This is being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. I)m Charles Stuart Kennedy. To begin, when and where were you born* 2AISE,: I was born in ew York, Brooklyn, New York, 1uly 12, 1313. Q: Tell me something about your family. Let)s ta,e your father)s side first and then your mother)s side. 2AISE,: My father was born and brought up in a little village in the Ukraine. He came 3 to America after the 2ishinev massacres. I donCt know if youCre familiar with that. Q: I have heard reference to it. This is one of the pogroms of the c-ar. .ho was the c-ar at the time* 2AISE,: Nicholas II. The interesting thing about 2ishinev was that Teddy ,oosevelt was president and he attacked the ,ussians for this massacre. It got a lot of publicity. My father had an uncle here who immigrated to the United States in the 1AA0s, I think it was CA6 or CA7, the year before the big bli//ard in New York City, whose two daughters married very prosperous young men who were in the real estate business9 as we say in London, the property business. My father came over in 1303 and fell in love with the country. ot difficult, gave his circumstances. He had already fathered four kids. Q: This is your father* 2AISE,: Yes. He stayed awhile and brought his wife over, my mother, in 1307. She stayed a year and produced another child, but didnCt like it here. She thought it was not religious enough. She was very orthodox, very religious. She went back and said she wouldnCt return, and exacted from her husband, my father, a promise that he would follow her back. He had been in the lumber business with his father and brother there. He made a promise that he would try to accumulate, enough money to advance his interest back in the lumber business. But he made that promise reluctantly. His brother, who was apparently a pretty attractive character, but thatCs beside the story, died early in that year, unexpectedly. My father felt that this ended his commitment, that it was no longer valid. Obviously he was looking for an excuse and unfortunately he made that clear to his wife. She still persisted until her father, who was still alive, my grandfather, said, GYou are a very moral person, a very ethical person. Surely you know that your proper place is with your children, is with your husband.0 Apparently it was under his pressure that she decided to come back here in 1303. Q: She had left the children behind* 2AISE,: No, she brought them with her on the first visit. ICm not sure. ThatCs a good Huestion, and there is nobody around who could answer it. She had one child while she was here for a year. That was her sixth child. When she came back, she brought all of her children and settled in Brooklyn. ThatCs where I began. Q: .here did you ran, in the children* 2AISE,: I was the ninth of ten when. Q: Did your father stay in the lumber business* 2AISE,: No, he was a house builder, a contractor, and real estate. He prospered, particularly before World War I. He was wiped out by the real estate crash in 1327, I think. ThatCs the one that we anticipated, the Wall Street crash when the 2ennedy pair 4 got out of the market. He wasnCt poor for the 1323 crash. I remember, by the way, we lived in a nice middle class community in Brooklyn with private homes and so on. I remember fathers of good friends of mine jumping out of windows during the 1323 crash. Q: Oh my 0od. 1ou were born in 1313, so you)re really too young to remember .orld .ar I * 2AISE,: I have one memory. ItCs very interesting. One of my older brothers was a World War I participant. He was in the Argonne, and a lot of his buddies were lost there. One of the very first things I remember is going with my mother to greet this brother when he returned from World War I: It would have been 1313. I was already five or six years old. Q: How Jewish was your family* How about the nine children* I mean how Jewish how observant were you* 2AISE,: I was brought up very observant. I broke away at the University of Wisconsin. I donCt think I could have done it, I donCt think I could have married Hannah if my mother were alive. She was not 1ewish. SheIs a direct descendant of Governor Bradley. Incredible, remarkable. Q: .ell, I mean this is America. 2AISE,: Her name was Greeley, thereCs another good American name, distantly related to Horace Greeley. My wifeIs first cousin, Dana, who was a wonderful guy, was head of the Unitarian Church. A great friend of 2ennedyCs, married Adlai Stevenson. Adlai was a Unitarian. I went to a parochial school from six until I was 13. I went to a school, which taught Hebrew half a day and the regular curriculum the other half of the day. I was bilingual in Hebrew when I was 13 years old. Q: .hat about 1iddish* 2AISE,: Good Huestion. My parents communicated in two languages. The main one was Yiddish, the other one was ,ussian, Ukrainian. When they didnCt want the kids to understand, they talked in Ukrainian or ,ussian. My father picked up English in the community. My mother9 I cannot remember my mother communicating with me a single English word. I have no recollection of any English communication between my mother and myself. I got snooty as soon as I learned Hebrew9 I got very snooty about Yiddish because as a kid, Yiddish was the language of foreigners. I am very annoyed with myself. ItCs a wonderful language. I got enough so that it helped with my German. Yiddish is now a big subject at universities and colleges. It is a very rich language, basically from German, of the 1600s originally. ItCs a terrific language. My Yiddish is not what it should be. 5 Q: 1ou went to a temple school* 2AISE,: Well, no, it was separate. There was no temple connection. It was a school, built to attract students who were interested in Hebrew. The curriculum was tough. It was A:00 to 12:00, four hours, in Hebrew and 1:00 to 5:00 was the legal curriculum for your regular studies. Q: Broo,lyn, one thin,s: the ,ids all playing out in the streets. How about for you* 2AISE,: There were playgrounds about a mile away or a little more, but we played a lot in the streets. Which reminds me: the ball would get lost in the hedges of one of the houses. One of us would go look for the ball and if it wasnCt found within 30 seconds or 45 seconds, the rest of us spontaneously would yell out, GFor heavens sake pick up the ball and look for it afterwards.0 This is very interesting. This phrase, as is apparent, stuck deeply in my mind. There were diplomatic situations where in fact thatCs how you resolved a dilemma. You picked up the ball and you looked for it afterwards (laughter-.