The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Information Series ROBERT THEODORE CURRAN Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: November 6, 1998 Copyright 000 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in Brooklyn New York Haverford College; Columbia (niversity; Middlebury Language School Russia travel and study (SIA e,perience Entered Foreign Service . 1012 Berlin 3ermany . Public Affairs Officer 1012.1017 Environment Russians McCarthyism Hungary uprising Amerika Haus E,change programs Stuttgart 3ermany . American Institute in T5bingen 6 E,ecutive Director 1017.1010 Environment Amerika Haus Property claims T5bingen (niversity 3erman refugees 7ashington DC and Beirut Lebanon . FSI 1010.1021 Arabic Language Training Course of study Environment Ambassador McClintock Religion Nabatia Beirut (.S. relations 1 Israel Amman 9ordan . Assistant Cultural Attach: 1021.1022 History Environment Arab Legion Nasser 3overnment Arab.Israeli relations CIA AID Cultural contacts Palestinians King Hussein 3lubb Pasha 9ohnson Plan Taiz Yemen . Public Affairs Officer 1022.1024 Environment (.S. interests Infrastructure Imam Ahmad Isa Sabbagh Soviets Mokha Robert Stookey Nasser Saudi Arabia 9ews Ambassador Pete Hart Oil Progress Chinese aid 9ames Cortada (AR aid (AR.Yemen war 3overnment Security (SAID Aden Students to (.S. Bunche visit CIA Naval visit Smithsonian at Marib Kennedy assassination 2 YAR 7ashington DC . (SIA . Near East Desk Officer/Special Assistant to Director 1024.1022 Cairo library 7ashington DC . (SIA . Assistant to Director 1022.1028 Leonard Marks Montreal E,po Foreign language lack Ni,on Me,ico City Me,ico . Press Attach: 1028.1070 Black Power problem Tlatelolco uprising Politics Rio 3rand islands Environment AID CIA Ambassador McBride Nelson Rockefeller visit Ni,on visit Cuba (.S. relations Immigration Cultural e,change State Department . E,ecutive Secretariat and Personnel Management 1070.1072 Duties Ni,on Kissinger Black September Dean Brown Security breach China visits Kissinger.Rogers relations SADI project State Department . Personnel Management 1072.1074 3rievance cases Middle East Hostage crises Khartoum murders Terrorism 3 Career management Kabul Afghanistan 1074.1077 Ruling family Daoud Environment CENTO Russians Opium AID projects 9ohn 3ivens Clans Peace Corps Missionaries DEA Tunnels China Ambassador Todd Eliot Kabul 3orge road Bamiyan Buddhas 7omen Taliban 9oint (SIA.State Task Force 1077.1078 (.S. International Communications Agency B(SICAC State/CENTO (SICA Problems (SIA . Near East/South Asian Affairs . Director 1078.1081 Camp David Palestinians Iran Teheran hostages Afghanistan Sri Lanka Israel Arabists Doice of America Morale Charles E. 7ick Ambassador 9oseph Reed E,change Program State Department . FSI . French Language Training 1081 Rabat Morocco . DCM 1081.1084 4 King HassanFs (.S. visit President Reagan Environment 7estern Sahara Algeria.(.S. relations Peace Corps Ambassador 9oseph Reed Secretary Shultz visit Personnel Shah to (.S. KingFs message to Reagan (.S. naval visits Tangier relay station DIP visits King Hassan relationship Lieutenant Taweel case Spy case Retirement . Munich 3ermany 1084 Radio Free Europe . Radio Liberty Observations on Foreign Service Family INTERVIEW INTROD(CTION It was a privilege to be asked to take part in the ADST Oral History Project. I am particularly grateful to Charles Stuart (HStuHI Kennedy for his patience and attention to our interviews. The history is divided into several sections beginning with my childhood and education/work e,perience before joining the Foreign Service. In the first section the influences of growing up in a rather parochial environment with religious parents and the uncertainties of a 7orld 7ar in the background seemed to have produced a sense of mission in me and many of my contemporaries. 7e really believed that we as Americans could change the world for the better and we believed that the (.S. had the human and financial resources to back up this crusade. As I reread what Stu Kennedy led me to relate there seems to be a great deal of emphasis on people and surroundings rather than policy . in the official government sense of the word. Therefore at the beginning of each segment I have added a few lines of introduction so that readers may acquire some background on the circumstances that led to a (.S. presence and policies in the areas to which I was assigned. 5 R.T. Curran Frankfort Michigan 9une 2000 %: Today is the 6th of November 1998. This is an interview with Robert Theodore Curran, and you)re known as Ted. Well, to begin with, could you tell me when and where you were born, something about your family and early years- C(RRAN: Thank you. ILm very pleased to do this and I appreciate your courtesy. I was born in 1031 in Brooklyn New York. My mother and father were missionaries in China before I was born. They spent eight years there and came back I think for two reasons: one the situation in China was so unsettled in the L20s it was hard to raise a family there; my father did finish his term of service but also I think he wanted to move on professionally. He was a doctor physician and he felt a great call for service and wanted to come back to the States and do some medicine here. %: What denomination- C(RRAN: He went to China under the Congregational Board and he was basically a Protestant. His own father was a revivalist minister in the L80s and L00s. Both his mother and father died when my father was very young and my father survived with a very strong spiritual component which I think he passed on to me and my brothers. I grew up in what I think we would call a Dictorian house in Brooklyn. It was five stories high one room wide: two rooms deep per level. Even though my father was receiving very modest compensation . my father went into medical education and he once told me he never made more than N11 000 a year which doesnLt sound like much now but in the L30s and in the midst of the Depression it was certainly a comfortable income. %: I have to say that when I graduated from college in 19.0 I was asked what I hoped I would be receiving, and I said /10,000. C(RRAN: Big difference in peopleLs perspectives. And the things that I remember most about that era in Brooklyn were first of all that it was very clearly a white world. People of color people of other ethnic backgrounds were hardly visible e,cept for Italian immigrants who used to pick up bananas from the docks in Manhattan and put them in pushcarts and push them over the Brooklyn or the Manhattan Bridge and go through our neighborhoods and I can still hear them yelling H0anan, Banan.H And my mother and we had a full.time maid would run out and buy bananas. And speaking of the maid current households would be terribly envious to know that we had a Finnish lady who could speak pretty good English but it was I would say on an FSI standard of about a 3/3. She worked si, and a half days a week. She did all the cooking all the cleaning all the laundry and all the baby.sitting and of course lived in the house. I think she was paid 6 N20 a month. So that was a pretty good deal for my mother. Also the thing that I think surprises certainly my children and many people now is that in the 1030s in Brooklyn horses were still very much in evidence delivering milk and ice for e,ample. In our house we had an old icebo, and a man would come in through the back yard and push a block of ice into the old wooden icebo,. Of course frozen food was unheard of let alone television or some of the things that weLre all so used to now. I also remember the electric cars that used to do a lot of deliveries and the sound of them still when I occasionally drive an electric golf cart that sound is still the same and it really brings me back. Our family . and many families . had a very settled routine in those days. I went to a little Ouaker school in Brooklyn called the Brooklyn Friends School. My father was a very early riser and we had a serious family breakfast before we went off on the dayLs routines and we had a very set routine for every evening. There was a regular menu every particular night of the week. Monday was I think hamburgers; Tuesday was hot dogs; 7ednesday was hash; Thursday was liver; Friday was fish; and Saturday and Sunday were slightly more elevated type meals . ham or roast beef. But it was I mean . on todayLs standards . quite spare. My brothers and I dreaded Thursday night because we hated liver which is a fairly common PhateQ for kids. The Sunday routine also was unvaried. 7e went to church usually twice on Sunday Sunday morning and then Despers in the afternoon. Then we would come home and from somewhere in his background my dad used to love to have crackers and milk for a first course Sunday night and then he would pop corn and weLd eat popcorn and maybe have some cheese with it and then a little fruit for dessert and then everybody went to bed very early after listening to 9ack Benny on the radio. %: 1h, yes. C(RRAN: The Second 7orld 7ar made quite a change in our family life. My brothers who were considerably older than I was were studying at Harvard and Princeton and both enlisted in the war. One served with MerrillLs Marauders in Burma was seriously wounded but fortunately survived.