Interview with Parker T. Hart
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Library of Congress Interview with Parker T. Hart The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR PARKER T. HART Interviewed by: William R. Crawford Initial interview date: January 27, 1989 Copyright 1998 ADST Q: Peter, what got you into the Foreign Service? HART: While I was nearing the end of my sophomore year in college at Dartmouth, I began to wonder what I was going to major in for my junior and senior years. A Rotary friend of my father—my father was a strong Rotarian in Boston—happened to sit with me at a dinner one evening and he asked me what I was going to do when I got out of college. I said, “I haven't the slightest idea.” He said, “What do you like to do?” I told him I liked to travel. I had had quite a lot of travel due to the generosity of my father and had gone on some rather remarkable trips by that time. So I told him that that's what I would like to do. He said, “Why don't you go into the Foreign Service?” I said, “What is it?” He then told me a little about it and said that he thought there was a booklet on examinations given. So when I got back to Dartmouth, I talked to my student counselor Interview with Parker T. Hart http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000484 Library of Congress and he brought out a copy of an old examination record which they published in those days. He said, “I think you have to major in political science.” Q: What were you majoring in at that point? HART: I wasn't majoring. In sophomore year you're still not majoring. At least it was true at Dartmouth at that time. So I made the decision to major in not only what we call government, political science, but also economics. They offered international law there and few other things that were obviously necessary, although they didn't have everything that I needed. When I got out of college, I hoped to take the exams. They didn't give them because we were in the Depression. There was a freeze on all employment. In fact, there was a cut across the board of 10% on Civil Service and Foreign Service salaries. So I went home to my family, my father and mother, in Medford, and signed up for courses at nearby Harvard and pursued these courses further. Still they didn't give an exam, and so I got a fellowship to study in Geneva, Switzerland. While I was over there, they gave the exam and I missed it. So I came home and took it the next year in 1937 and I was commissioned in 1938. Q: What were the foreign travels your father had made possible for you? HART: The first one was in 1927 to Panama where my sister and brother-in-law were posted. He was in the Army at Fort Sherman. That was one trip. The next trip was an exchange trip with Scandinavian students. I lived in Scandinavian homes during the summer of 1928. In 1929 I went out to the West Coast and traveled all around the United States. In 1930 I went to live in the home of a Japanese friend of mine in Tokyo who was returning after three years of study in the United States. I lived in his home in Tokyo for the summer and made trips around the country somewhat. That was the extent of my travels prior to my decision. Interview with Parker T. Hart http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000484 Library of Congress I had some more travels after that. My father sent my mother and me on a trip to Europe in 1931 and, therefore, there was a great deal of travel under my belt by the time I got started. It had stimulated me to want to know what makes the world tick a little more than the average student at that time. Q: Obviously, your father and mother must have had a strong interest in— HART: My father had a very strong interest in making sure I received the broadest possible education, but I don't think he had thought about the Foreign Service. He was a banker who had worked his way up from being a bank messenger with a relatively slender formal education, but he was self-made and self-educated and he wanted me to have these advantages. He loved to travel himself. He did a lot of it in later years. Q: Did you have siblings who had similar opportunities? HART: Not the same. I had two much older sisters. I was a late-comer in the family. One of my older sisters had married an Army officer and he was posted here and there and everywhere so that they got in a lot of travel. In fact, we almost converged once in Rio de Janeiro and later on in the Middle East. So it was around in the atmosphere but it was not something which characterized people's interests in those days as I remember them. Some of my father's friends thought I was making a great mistake to go to work for the government. He said, “You'll never earn any money there. You'll never get anywhere. You're just wasting your time, your life, and your patrimony to go into working for the government.” Q: Once you made your decision about majoring in political science and the related subjects, did you have any particular professor or professors whom you found particularly inspiring? HART: Yes. I would say more at Harvard graduate school than at Dartmouth, to be frank about it. I'm very loyal to Dartmouth, my alma mater. The professors there were good Interview with Parker T. Hart http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000484 Library of Congress but they were not particularly outstanding at that time, whereas at Harvard I had some outstanding teachers, particularly in the fields of history and the history of political theory. They were very, very good. Professor Charles Howard McIlwain was an extraordinary professor. He infused enthusiasm into his class about a subject which on paper looked rather dull but it turned out to be extremely interesting. It was one of the best courses I ever had. So I spent two years there with some very stimulating professors and a very fine atmosphere. Q: That was post-graduate work? HART: That was post-graduate, yes. I took an M.A. at Harvard in 1935 and then I went to Switzerland to study there. Q: Which was the school in Switzerland? HART: It was called the Graduate Institute of International Studies. In French it was known as L'Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales. It was bilingual. You could use either language in the course. So I lived with a French family, so as to learn better French, for the first half year and foe the second half year with a German family. Then I took some evening courses in Italian. It was a stimulating atmosphere. Q: How long did that last? HART: One year. I followed up with a summer in Germany and tried to improve my German by living with a German family there for a few weeks. I then came home. Q: That must have been helpful when you actually got into the Foreign Service because, by then, you had quite a bit of German under your belt. HART: That did make a difference because the usual probationary assignments—first post—were border posts in Canada and Mexico. They didn't have to invest very much Interview with Parker T. Hart http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000484 Library of Congress in you if you didn't work out. It was cheaper to bring you back and the whole operation was cheaper. In my case, they had in Germany and in Austria—which had just been taken over by Hitler as part of Germany—a tremendous back-up of Jewish applications for immigration visas into the United States. It was a perfectly enormous back-up. They desperately needed people to help and they preferred people who had some German. I was sent to Vienna and I was there for a year, a very memorable experience. I came home just as war broke out in Europe. Q: You then went on to Bel#m, Brazil, for quite a long time. HART: That's right. I had a very short assignment in the Department just a few months in the new Division of Cultural Affairs before I was sent to Bel#m. I was there for approximately three years, but I was asked to go first to Rio de Janeiro to be briefed on the embassy scene. It was all consular work and Jeff Caffery was the chief of mission at the time. I made some very warm Service friendships there, particularly with Phil and Minette Williams who became very close friends of mine. He took me under his wing as a fledgling and helped me get started. I then went back up to Bel#m. There I had been asked by the War Department to do some scouting on infrastructure and landing beaches. They were afraid that Hitler's forces—his Luftwaffe—which seemed to be invincible might come down to Senegal. There was an African program in the Nazi plan of conquest and they might cross over to Brazil and try to see what they could do there.