The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR L. BRUCE LAINGEN Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: January 9, 1993 Copyright 1998 A ST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in Minnesota St Olaf College, University of Minnesota U S Navy, World War II (oined Foreign Service 1950 West -ermany 1951.1953 0reis Officer Ham1urg, vice consul Teheran, Iran 1953.1955 Meshed, economic officer 2ehedi overthro3s Mossadegh Am1assador 4oy Henderson Political situation U S influence The Shah NEA 1955.1960 -reek desk officer Cyprus pro1lems 0arachi, Pakistan 1960.1967 Political officer Political situation Divided Pakistan India vs Pakistan 8ice President (ohnson visit President Ayu1 Soviets NEA 1967.1968 1 Director, Pakistan and Afghanistan Affairs National War College 0a1ul, Afghanistan 1968.1971 Deputy Chief of Mission Am1assador and Mrs Ro1ert Neumann Peace Corps Political Corps Political situation American —hippies“ NEA 1971.1977 Director of Pakistan and Afghanistan Affairs Pakistan split, Bangladesh formed Pakistan vs India Simla Agreement Bhutto Deputy Assistant Secretary 1977.1975 EUR 1975.1977 Deputy Assistant Secretary for Southern Europe Spain>s (uan Carlos Cyprus pro1lem 8alletta, Malta 1977.1979 Am1assador U S interests Mintoff 4i1ya and Qadhafi SCCE conference Teheran, Iran 1979.1980 Chargé d>Affaires Em1assy —protected“ by thugs Political turmoil Em1assy attacked and su1seAuently seiBed again Aftermath of revolution Functioning as an em1assy Iran Provisional -overnment Prime Ministre BaBargan Em1assy>s relative optimism U S CIran military issue Islamic fundamentalism IraA vs Iran 8isa applicants 2 Ayatollah 0homeini Shah flees Shah admitted to United States Em1assy endangered 8isit to Foreign Office Phone connection to State Department Em1assy overrun Destruction pro1lems Marine guards Confinement in Foreign Office Ramsay Clark D William Miller mission S3iss em1assy help U S freeBes Iranian assets President Carter>s threats Revolutionary Council>s po3er -hol1Badeh U S breaks up relations 3ith Iran Rescue mission fails Iran tires of hostages Algiers Accord Hostages com1ined, then released Comments on captors —Octo1er surprise“ Home reception Post errors 4essons learned National Defense University 1981.1987 8ice President National Commission on the Pu1lic Service 1987.1992 American Academy of Diplomacy 1993 INTERVIEW ": Today is January 9, 1992. This is an interview with Ambassador Bruce Laingen on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and I am Charles Stuart Kennedy. Bruce, I wonder if you could give me a little about your background -- where you came from, your education, etc. 4AIN-EN: I 3as a farm boy from Minnesota gro3ing up on a farm in southern Minnesota I am often asked 3hy I joined the Foreign Service and I give the ans3er that 3 3e couldnGt all be farmers I had some brothers and I began to look beyond that I 3ent to school at St Olaf College in Minnesota It 3as a li1eral arts school in that part of the country I served in the Navy in World War II and then took a Masters degree in International Relations at the University of Minnesota in 1979 ": ,hat did you do in the Navy. ,here did you serve. 4AIN-EN: I 3as a 8.12 Apprentice Seaman at the University of Du1uAue, Io3a, in 1973 ": /-12 meaning a reserve program for 12 weeks which turned you into an officer, or something like that. 4AIN-EN: Not Auite It 3as a program that picked up people at mid.term in their college career and sent them off to another college for six months In my case it 3as to the University of Du1uAue and from there I 3ent to Wellesley College in Massachusetts I am one of the early male graduates from Wellesley College The Supply Corps in the United States Navy had a branch of the Harvard Business School there and that 3as 3hy I 3as at Wellesley I spent another six months there as a Midshipman and then 3as commissioned as an officer in the Naval Supply Corps I served in the Pacific in World War II 3ith amphi1ious forces in the Philippine campaigns ": After the end of ,orld ,ar II, what attracted you towards foreign affairs. 4AIN-EN: 4ike I said, I decided 3e couldnGt all be farmers so I had to look beyond the farm My real attraction, I suppose, to the outside 3orld started 3ith the United States Navy in World War II in the Philippines I came back from the Philippines and left the Navy in 1976 I did a Masters degree at the University of Minnesota in International Relations and during that time spent a summer in S3eden as a student in a student summer program at the University During the process of looking beyond the farm, joining the Navy and serving in the Philippines and that session in S3eden, I thought the Foreign Service looked rather attractive The outside 3orld looked very attractive Indeed, I took my first Foreign Service exam 3hile I 3as a student in S3eden in 1977 I took it in Helsinki, repeating it later a second time in St Paul ": ,as it the good old three and a half day e0am. 4AIN-EN: Three and a half days, yes I failed the language ISpanish) three times before I joined the Foreign Service I had to take the Foreign Service exam t3ice ": 1ou joined the State Department first before joining the Foreign Service, didn4t you. 4 4AIN-EN: When I came to to3n in 1979 from Minnesota, half 3ay through my Foreign Service exam process, 3aiting to complete it and looking for a jo1 in Washington, I found a jo1 in INR as a research analyst for Scandinavia for the better part of a year, 1efore the exam process 3as completed I joined the Foreign Service in late 1950 ": Looking at INR in those days. The Cold ,ar was just really beginning to crank up. There was the 1948 C7echoslovak business, the Korean ,ar started in 1980. ,hat was our interest in Scandinavia. Did you feel that Scandinavia was sort of a backwater. 4AIN-EN: Oh, it certainly 3as a back3ater, and yet it 3as one of those areas that the government felt, given our experience in World War II, that 3e got into that affair 3ithout adeAuate kno3ledge, background information and data a1out the 3orld out there So they began these complicated and very extensive research projects of every country on earth I 3as 3orking in that program in INR I forget no3 exactly 3hat the name of it 3as ": National Intelligence Studies. 4AIN-EN: Yes, NIS So I 3rote extensively for the better part of a year on Scandinavia the S3edish judicial system, the Danish judicial system, etc contri1uting to 3hat 3as destined to become a very massive program 8olume after volume of National Intelligence Studies 3hich presuma1ly 3ould eAuip us better as a country 3ere 3e ever to get involved again in a major fracas As you said, that al3ays loomed on the horiBon, increasingly so as 3e got into the 0orean affair ": 1ou came into the Foreign Service when. 4AIN-EN: I came into the Foreign Service in Novem1er, 1950 At that time the military government program in -ermany 3as still in existence, run largely in terms of out reach in the districts ": ,e had the Kreis Officers Program then. 4AIN-EN: Yes, the 0reis Officer Program The State Department 3as taking over some of the responsi1ilities of local government in -ermany from the Army and I 3as a mem1er of the 0reis Resident Officer class that began in Novem1er, 1950 Therefore I didnGt take 3hatever the basic course 3as at the time .perhaps it 3as called the A.100 course even then I took instead a some3hat modified course because it 3as destined to lead us to become 0reis Resident Officers 0ROs We 3ere a class, I think, of 32 We 3ent through the course 3hich 3as an intense program of -erman language study and to some degree a look at -erman culture, etc I 3ent off to -ermany in the spring of 1951 The entire class bundled a1oard the former French and no3 defunct French liner Decross This class of 32 officers, most of 3hom 3ere married, I 3as not, occupied most of the first class Auarters on that ship It 3as nine 5 days, nine leisurely days to party, to prepare, if you 3ill I had on board my green Chevrolet converti1le, as did others We got to 4e Havre, off loaded and drove to our posts, beginning 3ith a program in Frankfurt, -ermany, at the headAuarters of the military government What 3as it called, I have forgottenL ": HICOM. 4AIN-EN: Yes, the High Commission in Frankfurt From there 3e 3ere farmed out to our assignments for the next t3o years At that point, for reasons that I suppose I 3ill never fully understand, some of us 3ere diverted to other programs I never became a 0RO I think I 3ould have made a rather lousy -auleiter Most of my colleagues did 1ecome 3hat 3e joking called -auleitersM i e the NaBi term for those district governors ": Gauleiter being district leaders under the Third Reich. 4AIN-EN: Exactly, that is 3hat they 3ere called then -au 3as a local district and the leiter 3as leader in that area I 3as diverted from the program to the Displaced Persons Program and 3ent off to Ham1urg, -ermany and served t3o years operating out of the Consulate -eneral there in the British Bone, not the American Bone I spent the first year issuing visas virtually non stop to the end of the Displaced Persons Program ": I wonder if you could give a little picture of the isplaced Persons Program.