The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR THOMAS J. MILLER Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: April 19, 2010 Copyright 2011 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born in Illinois, raised in Illinois and Louisiana University of Michigan Field Studies in Thailand and Laos Army Volunteer Research study Joined the Foreign Service in 1976 State Department: Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) 1976-1977 South East Asia analyst Operations National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) Philip Habib State Department: Special Assistant to the Undersecretary of State for 1977-1979 Political Affairs Operations Philip Habib Richard Holbrooke American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) David Newsom Indochinese refugees Geneva refugee Conference Soviet troops in Cuba Chiang Mai, Thailand; Vice Consul 1979-1981 Family Temporary assignments Refugee camps Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) Laos government Narcotics Joyce Powers murder Domino Theory 1 State Department: Political/Military Officer: Israeli-Palestine Affairs 1981-1983 Lebanon War Office personnel Israelis bomb Osirak facility American Jewish lobby Israelis invade Lebanon Sabra and Shatila PLO State Department: Bureau of Congressional Affairs; Middle East 1983-1984 Marine barracks bombed (Temporary Duty) Chief of Staff to Special Envoy to Middle East, Donald Rumsfeld Staff members Lebanese government Syria Ambassador Reggie Bartholomew Iran-Iraq War Barak Commission Begin resignation US Lebanon policy Soviets The Gemayels May 17, 1983 Agreement PLO King Hussein Ambassador Paganelli US troops in Lebanon European forces in Lebanon Hosni Mubarak Gulf States State Department: FSI: Greek language training 1984-1985 Athens, Greece: Political Officer 1985-1987 Ambassador Robert Keeley Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou Relations Greek foreign policy US aid TWA 847 Terrorism and murders Government Environment Relations with diplomatic corps 2 State Department: Director, Regional Office: Counterterrorism 1987-1989 Operations Aircraft bombings Jerry Bremer Office organization Inter-Agency coordination Israel Terrorist gangs Travel advisory lists Greeks and terrorism Relations with Greek desk Abu Nidal 9/11 North Korea IRA State Department: Director, Office of North African Affairs 1989-1992 King of Morocco US Ambassadors Voice of America (VOA) Moroccan Jews Consular protection cases Secretary of State George Shultz Algerian elections Tunisia PLO Libya Pan Am 103 Qadhafi Libyan/US relations Ambassador Bill Wilson Chad Gulf War Arab “street” vs. governments Soviets US oil interests Barbara Walters Qadhafi interview State Department: Director, Office of Israeli and Palestinian Affairs 1992-1994 Israeli housing loan guarantees Palestinian leadership Environmental working group Middle East Nuclear Free Zone Israeli nuclear weapons Israeli/Capitol Hill connections 3 Israeli espionage Arabists Palestinian militant groups Palestinian state Rabin Israeli parliament Russians in Israel Jackson-Vanik Amendment Sharon Abu Nidal Jordan/Israel relations Intifada Norway secret talks Syria/Israel relations Hafez al-Assad and son Athens, Greece: Deputy Chief of Mission 1994-1997 Ambassador Tom Niles Prime Minister and Mrs. Andreas Papandreou Greece/Soviet relations US military bases Terrorism Greece-Turkey island dispute Cyprus Political parties Turkish army US Greek lobby Greek media US military assistance programs Macedonia Papandreo/Holbrooke meeting Greek parliament Greek financial problems US aid Embassy attacked Member, Cyprus Negotiations Team 1997-1999 Turkish policy Rauf Denktas Richard Holbrooke Clerides Nikos Sampson Cypriot Americans Cyprus Green Line Sovereignty issue 4 Ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina: 1999-2001 Elie Wiesel Dayton Accords Kosovo Military intervention Balkan War UN involvement Peace Implementation Council US aid to Bosnia USAID Russians Saudis Bosnia access to ports Nation-building issue Srebrenica Religious leaders Ethnic groups Hagganah Ambassador to Greece 2001-2004 Prime Minister Costas Simitis Olympics Terrorism US policy Immigrants Greek financial problems European Union Turkey Albania Macedonia US military presence NATO Iraq War resignations Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) Retirement 2004 Plan International: Chief Executive Officer Wife’s career United Nations Association (UNA) Projects and activities Dimitris Koufodinas case Independent Diplomat Sudan INTERVIEW 5 Q: Today is the 19th of April 2010, with Thomas J. Miller. This is being done on the behalf of the Association of Diplomatic Studies and Training. And I am Charles Stuart Kennedy. Do you go by Tom? MILLER: Tom, yes. Q: OK, Tom, let’s start at the beginning. When and where were you born? MILLER: I was born in Chicago on December 9, 1948. Q: Let’s talk about your family. What do you know about the Miller side, your father’s side of the family? MILLER: Well, it’s a very small family. My dad was an only child, born in Detroit, had kind of an unhappy childhood. He was sent to military school in high school. Very tenacious. I knew my grandparents pretty well. Q: What were they up to? MILLER: They were from Detroit, and this is the hardcore, original Detroit. They moved on to Florida when I was a little kid, to St. Petersburg. My grandfather owned a hardware store. He was an accountant. He had gone to college. My dad had gone to college but never graduated; this was during World War II, so he dropped out of the University of Michigan. But my grandfather graduated from, I think, the University of Detroit. And by the time I was old enough to realize anything, they had moved to Florida and he opened a hardware store with his brother-in-law, which I am told never really prospered. My grandmother was an extremely domineering, very take-charge, very bossy kind of person. We liked her, when we were young. I have three other brothers, and so our memories are memories of childhood. And that was basically it. Q: How about on your mother’s side? Where did they come from? MILLER: My mom is from Chicago. She’s still alive. She’s 86. My dad passed away in 2000, when he was 77. My mom had one brother. She was born to a very well-to-do family in merchandizing, stuff like that. They had a really, really big company. And she grew up in Chicago, went to private schools and all that kind of stuff. I knew both my grandparents there. My granddad on that side passed away I think right before he was 60. And my grandmother passed away when she was 97, about 13 years ago. She was a very nice lady. I remember her, obviously, a lot better than I remember my granddad. But he was a nice guy, from what I remember. Q: Did your mother go to college? 6 MILLER: My mom went to University of Michigan, and that’s where she met my dad, and they both dropped out to get married when my father enlisted. They got married in 1944 and they got divorced in 1976. Q: Did your father get involved in World War II? MILLER: Yes, my dad was a tech sergeant in the Pacific. He did radio stuff. And if I can just diverge for a second, I read many, many years later—it was actually right before I went over to Bosnia as ambassador in 1999—I read The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw. And I remember seeing my dad, and it turned out he lived in San Mateo at the time. After he divorced my mom, he remarried—he had been in love with one person his entire life, and this was a Japanese woman, and he married her in 1977. And they lived happily ever after until they both died. But I went and saw my dad in 1999, and it turned out to be the last time I ever saw him alive, right before I went to Bosnia. And I had just read Brokaw’s book, and I asked him, “Why didn’t you ever talk about the war?” He was one of that generation that came back and just resumed their lives or got on with their lives. And I expected some dramatic answer and he said, “You never asked.” He then proceeded for the next the hour and a half to talk, and my wife had a video and she took it all in. He told us about the war—and he was not a hero, he was just a normal grunt in the South Pacific. The sad thing is, when he died, we went to pull the video out to look at it and it had melted. So we don’t have that record. I met Tom Brokaw in 2004, during the Olympics, and I told him that story. He did a piece on me for a feature at the NBC News entitled “Tough Guy from Chicago.” I was the ambassador there, and I told him this story and he asked me to write him a piece that he would put in an additional, one of the further editions, but he never did. Q: Did you grow up in Chicago? MILLER: I grew up in Chicago for the first five years—actually, in the Chicago suburbs. Q: Where? MILLER: Highland Park, which is on the North Shore. I think, when I was born, I’m not sure we lived in Chicago. I think the family lived in Highland Park or maybe had moved there very soon after I was born. And then we moved to New Orleans for four years, so my dad could—my mom’s family was very wealthy, and he wanted to make his own mark. So he set out on his own to make his own mark in the import business, and we moved to New Orleans. And he joined a company and became a vice president eventually and did very well. And then he went back to Chicago after he had done his thing and showed that he could do it himself. We moved back to Glencoe, Illinois, which is one suburb south of Highland Park.