Haney, Robert C
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project ROBERT C. HANEY Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: September 21, 2001 Copyright 2004 A ST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in owa University of owa$ Georgetown University$ Army University at Biarritz (Russian language training) U.S. Army, ,orld ,ar - .urope Paris, France - /ournalist 1012-1010 .mployee, Agence .urop3ene de Presse New 5ork Harold Tribune .nvironment University of owa - /ournalism nstruction 1010-1071 Paris, France - US S - Foreign Service Reserve Officer 1071-1077 French press Cohn and Schein 9cCarthyism Dien Bien Phu North Africa .uropean Defense Community :.DC; Radio Radio Luxembourg UN General Assembly De Gaulle Collaborators ,ashington, DC - US A - Public Affairs Officer - U.S. 1077-1078 ntelligence and Research - Soviet and Satellites Branch - Chief Stalin US A-State relations Belgrade, 5ugoslavia 1078-1022 1 Relations .conomy Soviets .nvironment Press law Tito Non-Aligned Conference Bomako, 9ali - US S - Public Affairs Officer 1022-1021 Restrictions Soviets and satellites .nvironment President Kennedy assassination 9odibo .conomy Gao trip Religion Saigon, Aietnam - /oint U.S. Public Affairs :/USPAO; - 1021 Deputy Chief 9ilitary Assistance Command Aietnam :9ACA; .nvironment Filming Press Barry Borthian U.S. media ,ashington, DC - US A 1021-1027 ,arsaw, Poland - US S - Public Affairs Officer 1027-1028 Ambassador Gronouski Gomulka Security .nvironment Foreign Service children CBig BrotherD Polish-Americans Contacts Anti-Semitism ,ashington, DC - US A - ntelligence and Research - 9edia 1028-10E3 Reaction Staff - Chief nspection teams Aietnam and foreign press 2 ndia nspection Team (US S) 10E3-10E1 New Delhi, ndia - US S - nformation Officer 10E1-10EE Nuclear weapons .nvironment Soviet and cultures Relations Soviets 9rs. Gandhi ,ashington, DC - US A - Speechwriting 10EE-1080 Retirement 1080 INTERVIEW ": Today is September 21, 2001. This is an interview with Robert C. Haney. This is being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, and I(m Charles Stuart Kennedy. Let(s start at the beginning. Tell me when and where you were born and something about your family. HAN.5: was born in 1021 in ndependence, owa, a town with a population of about 3,700. Both my mother and father had been to college. 9y father was an instructor in manual training at the local school. 9y mother was a housewife. She had been a teacher. 9y father was from Nebraska. He had been drafted into the Army during ,orld ,ar , but served only in the United States. He was of rish origin. 9y paternal grandfather was still alive when was growing up. He had been a blacksmith. remember going out with my father to light up the forge in the blacksmith shop behind my grandparentsI house. 9y mother was Norwegian. Unfortunately, did not learn Norwegian as a child because we were not living in a Norwegian community. She was born in the United States but did not learn .nglish until she was about 11 years old. She lived in a small town in owa called Roland, where the schools, churches, shops, everything and everybody was Norwegian. 9y maternal grandfather never did learn .nglish. 5ou couldnIt tell my mother had not always known it. ": Same with my family. My family spoke ,erman but then stopped when I came along. -here did your parents go to school. HAN.5: 9y father went to school through twelfth grade in Papillion, Nebraska. He went to college somewhere in that area initially and got a bachelorIs degree. n those days you could get a job teaching with just a bachelorIs degree. Now they push you to get a doctorate before they let you in a classroom. 9y father eventually went to summer school in ,isconsin, where he got a masterIs degree. 9y mother had a bachelorIs degree. 3 ": -here did she go. HAN.5: Somewhere in northern owa. ": -hat was Independence, Iowa, like. HAN.5: lived there until the age of 1E, when went off to the University of owa, in owa City. ndependence is a county seat. Following Cartesian principles, the surveyors had placed it squarely at the intersection of roads east-west, north-south. /ust before the Great Depression, when money got scarce, the state and perhaps the federal government provided the money to pave those roads. Our house was the last one on .ast 9ain Street, the main road running east-west. f you continued east on that road for 00 miles, you would come to Dubuque. Farther east on the same road - now U.S. 20 - youId come to Chicago, the Kbig town.K 9ost residents of ndependence had never seen the nearest big city. n about 1022, think it was, work crews brought road building equipment - graders and steam shovels and rollers - and began to work on the grade that went up to the bridge and over the creek in the pasture next to our house. ( n those days, the word KbulldozerK would have conjured up an image of a Spaniard in knee pants with a black beret and waving a cape.) The paved road became a highway, and that really changed the nature of the relationship between town and country. Suddenly we were opened up to the world. Those were the years when mention of Chicago made you think of gangsters and the St. AalentineIs Day massacre. From time to time it was rumored that a black touring car had come speeding into town, burning the only stop light at the intersection of our two roads and fleeing west to ,aterloo. Gangsters, we thought. ndependence was the center of a farming community. There were probably as many students who came in from the farms to our schools as lived in town. There were about E7 students in my high school class of 1038. ": Did you have brothers and sisters. HAN.5: had a brother who was five years younger than and who is now dead. ": At home, was there much reading or sitting around talking about the world and that sort of thing. HAN.5: News about the United States, and occasionally the world, came mainly from radio station ,HO in Des 9oines, the state capital, which was also where our daily newspaper came from. ,hen became old enough, was a Kcarrier salesmanK for The es Moines Register. used to get up at 1:30 a.m. every morning and go down to the post office steps to pick up the bundle of newspapers trucked in from Des 9oines overnight. Id pack my bag, get on my bicycle, and deliver the paper before most people were awake. 1 ,HO was the outlet for KDutchK (Ronald) Reagan, who was their sportscaster. ": -as Independence connected by railroad. HAN.5: 5es. t was the llinois Central, which ran from Chicago through ndependence and on out west. donIt know what its western terminal was. ndependence had an opportunity to grow when Luaker Oats sought to establish a plant there. But the farm community thought that our town was a nice, quiet place and wanted to keep it that way. So Luaker Oats went south to Cedar Rapids. .arlier, a railroad more important and bigger than llinois Central wanted to run through the town. But the town fathers, many of whom who had been farmers, decided against it. think my hometownIs heyday was in the late 10thMearly 20th century when it had a kite- shaped racetrack outside the town. t was shaped like a figure eight. t was a harness- racing track. The soil was particularly good for that, and there was an enormous barn next to the track that was still standing in my day. Harness racers came from as far away as Australia to race there. The local hotel was originally built to accommodate racing fans from far and wide. A horse-drawn trolley ran from the hotel down the middle of the cobblestone street and out to the racetrack. As a boy, was crazy about flying. would occasionally get my chance to ride in a Ford trimotor when the local Ford dealer arranged for one to visit ndependence, landing in a flat pasture outside the town. A 20-minute ride cost N1. From the air, you could still see in a cornfield the trace of the kite-shaped racetrack. ": Let/s take the primary school. Do you recall any teachers or sub0ects that you particularly liked and disliked. HAN.5: liked all of the subjects took. even put up with Palmer method penmanship. 9y father was on the faculty. He taught manual training and mechanical drawing. So felt a little pressure to keep my grades up. ": And your mother being an e12schoolteacher. HAN.5: was monitored, yes. ": In high school and before, were there any sports or activities that you were particularly interested in. HAN.5: 5es. The high school had a football team that played local teams from nearby towns. tried out for football and broke my nose. ,e also had a basketball team that once went to the state championships held in Cedar Falls, where there was a normal school with a big gymnasium. remember going to the first game of the championship. ,e lost. The only other time was ever in that gymnasium was some years later when went to a recital by /an Paderewski. 5ou can tell Im a name-dropper. 7 ": -ere there any particular books or genre of books that you got involved with. HAN.5: read almost anything could get my hands on. ,e had an old-fashioned mahogany china closet that stood in the room we called the Kparlor.K But the china closet didnIt hold china - it was used for bookshelves. t held a whole set of KiplingIs works.