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 RICHARD T. McCORMACK Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: January 2, 2002 Copyright 2007 ADS TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in Pennsylvania eorgetown University University of Fribourg, Swit%erland Project Head Start The Peace Corps Saigon, Vietnam( Philco-Ford, Head of Operations Research 1,-. Recruiting Tet Offensive Herman /han 0i1on Campaign Staff, New 2ork( Foreign Affairs 1,-. Biafran 3ar President Ni1on Rogers vs /issinger 0i1on4s China initiative Education in black schools in N2C The Ni1on 3hite House 1,-.-1,71 The Ash Council lobal Satellite communications 0ational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 7Advice to Senior Political Appointees on 8anagement Of the Bureaucracy9 Political appointees vs career personnel Assessment of President Ni1on Council of International Economic Policy 8onetary policy 7Enemy Lists9 Special Assistant to overnor Scranton (Intelsat Negotiations) 1,-, Congressional Campaigns, Republican 1,71, 1,74 Creating Research Triangles The 3hite House( OPEC issue 1,74 7Spokes in the 3heel9 staff reporting arrangement Treasure Department( Deputy to the Assistant Secretary 1,74-1,75 OPEC Results of 1,73 Arab-Israel 3ar Soaring Oil Prices and OPEC Commodity Policy Initiative American Enterprise Institute 1,75-1,77 Candidate Reagan4s Philadelphia 3ord Council Speech Carter election 3illiam Baroody Institute4s policies 7Soviet Political and Economic 3arfare( Challenge and Response9 Staff of Senator Helms 1,77-1,.1 Trilateral Commission Senator Helms4 policies Iranian revolution Southern Africa Department of State( Assistant Secretary for Economic and 1,.1-1,.2 Business Affairs (Acting) Bapan4s economic rise Te1tiles Alan3allace Department of State( Assistant Secretary for Economic and 1,.2-1,.5 Business Affairs and Under Secretary State-Defense relations Agriculture issues Iran Soviet Union US Trade deficit Bapan US-USSR 7Convergence Theory9 Soviet in the Third 3orld Oil issues International banking US debt management Airbus European Economic Community U.S. Ambassador to the Organi%ation of American States 1,.5-1,., Boseph /raft article 8e1ico cooperation The roup of Eight Caribbean Basin Initiative Use of economic sanctions 0icaragua Senator Helms Chile 7The 3ashington Consensus9 Iran Contra Peru Elliott Abrams Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs 1,.,-1,,1 Administration transition problems Principal -7 Economic Summit Coordinator International Economic Policy Bapan issues European Union lobal Trade in Agriculture Agriculture trade subsidies US labor mobility The euro Houston Economic Summit Paris Economic Summit Special Drawing Rights Soviets European Bank for Economic Development US Policy 8aking Process President eorge Bush Sudan famine relief program Israeli economy Bapanese finances 0on- overnmental Career 1,,1- 3oodrow 3ilson Center Private sector consulting 8ember of delegations to foreign meetings Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) List of Policy Papers authored by Ambassador 8cCormack INTERVIEW Q: oday is January 2, 2002. his is an interview with Richard . McCormack. (hat does the stand for* 8cCOR8AC/D Thomas. 8y full name is Richard Thomas Fo1 8cCormack. Q: McCormack. his interview is being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and raining, and I am Charles Stuart Kennedy. Can we start at the beginning then. (hen and where were you born* 8cCOR8AC/D I was born in Bradford, Pennsylvania, an oil town in the northern part of the state where my family had been living since the middle of the 1,th century. Q: In what year were you born* 8cCOR8AC/D 1,41. Q: 1,41. So your family was from that area, both sides of the family* 8cCOR8AC/D 2es. 8y father worked with Dresser Industries, and my mother was from one of the old pioneering oil families in the region. Q: Now your father McCormack, was that Irish or Scottish* 8cCOR8AC/D 8y grandfather, 8ichael Bennings 8cCormack, was of Irish origin. His mother was of English heritage. Q: Do you know when they came over* 8cCOR8AC/D Sometime in the middle of the 1,th century. Q: How about your mother0s side* 8cCOR8AC/D Some of them came during 3illiam Penn4s time( other branches came later in the 1.th and 1,th centuries. Q: 1h, boy. hey weren0t Quakers though* 8cCOR8AC/D No. As far as we know, her family was a mi1ture of English, Scotch, and erman. Q: (hat about your father, what sort of education did he have* 8cCOR8AC/D A high school education. He was a self-educated man, with a formidable intellect and wide interests. Q: And your mother* 8cCOR8AC/D After graduating from high school in Bradford, PA, she attended a school in Rochester, N2. Q: (ell then, any brothers or sisters* 8cCOR8AC/D I had one brother who died recently. He was a supervisor at a large business in Bradford --- a very bright man and immensely kind. Q: Did you grow up in Bradford* 8cCOR8AC/D 2es. Q: alk about Bradford a bit. (hat was it like in the 340s and 350s* 8cCOR8AC/D Bradford was a wealthy town. In fact on a per capita basis, it was supposedly the third wealthiest city in the country when I was growing up. This five-mile by five-mile area produced two billion pre-inflationary dollars worth of oil by the early 1,704s. Some of it sold for fifty cents a barrel, and some of it for OPEC prices. The good thing was that the money was spread throughout the community. There were originally many medium-si%ed farmers who became oil producers, which is what some of my ancestors were. One big surge of oil production came beginning in the 1.70s with natural production. Then in the late 1,20s, they discovered water flooding, and another third of the oil was e1tracted over the ne1t 30 years. So you had two shots of wealth that came into that community during different generations. The second infusion of wealth came after many families had become better educated. There were about 17,000 people in Bradford at the height of the prosperity. The town was surrounded by mountains and trees, just an idyllic place for a boy to grow up, with the Allegheny River flowing a few miles away. Bust a very lovely place. They had outstanding teachers in the local school system. Children were rarely sent away to school. 8ost bright youngsters stayed in Bradford and received a superb college prep education. Q: (ell in school, in elementary school, can you think of any teachers that particularly inspired you or turned you off* 8cCOR8AC/D 2es. 3hen I was asked to address the graduating high school class in 1,75, I mentioned a whole list of these people, such as 8iss arnet Bradley in the first grade who took all my initial 7C4s9 and 7D4s9 and turned them into 7A4s9 by the year4s end. Q: In one year* 8cCOR8AC/D In one year. There were teachers like Bill Olson who took a shy, stuttering sophomore and turned him into a pri%e-winning e1temporaneous speaker in the 3estern Pennsylvania region. Every night for months he asked me to come in after school and practice. I was so shy when he started that I would flush just standing in front of the room. But night after night he pressed on. Of course I owe him an enormous debt. Then there were history teachers such as Harriet Titus and several outstanding English teachers, tremendously dedicated people who cared about us and who worked with us when we were having difficult years. In those days, many intelligent women from good solid families went into teaching. They were highly dedicated people. 3hen I was in high school, my father suggested that maybe the foreign service would be an interesting career for me to think about. He wrote to the State Department for a little pamphlet that described careers in the foreign service. Eventually, I decided to go to eorgetown and take a closer look at 3ashington, D.C. Q: 5o back. (ere there things you were particularly interested in* I am thinking about reading or sports or something like that. 8cCOR8AC/D 2es. I was very interested in history and in current affairs. I used to read 0ewsweek every week from cover to cover. Q: (here did you get your news in Bradford* 8cCOR8AC/D From .ewsweek basically, the odd .ew 6ork imes, in discussions with my father who was e1tremely interested in global affairs, and with my friends in our champion debating society. Q: Can you think of any sort of books that particularly impressed you* 8cCOR8AC/D As a child, I spent much of my time in the local public library. I read all of Churchill4s books on the Second 3orld 3ar, which of course, were fascinating to me. There was one book, he American Past, which I often read in my grandmother4s house, a book that covered American history from colonial time to 1,45. There were few children4s books in my widowed grandmother4s house where I spent a lot of time as a child. I must have read that book 15 times as a boy, to the point where it became a part of me. In fact I still have the book and I read it to my own young children. It is a great big thick book with pictures and articles about early America. Q: (hat about the area around Bradford* During the 8rench and Indian (ars, was this sort of an historical area* 8cCOR8AC/D Further south in Fulton County, we had 3alter ancestors killed in the French and Indian 3ar. But the area in 8c/ean County surrounding Bradford was one of the last settled parts of the east. Some of our people came into this almost pristine valley in the 1.304s.