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Library of Congress Interview with Michael P.E. Hoyt The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project MICHAEL P.E. HOYT Interviewed by: Ray Sadler Initial interview date: January 30, 1995 Copyright 1998 ADST Q: The time is approximately 2:14 PM, the 30th of January 1995, Las Cruses, New Mexico, Breland Hall, campus of New Mexico State University, Department of History. He is a retired foreign service officer. Let me begin by noting that Mr. Hoyt has a rather unique background as a foreign service officer. He is one of only a handful of FSOs who has received the Secretary's Award for his performance as head of the American consulate in Stanleyville, Congo (now Kisangani, Zaire) when he and his staff were held hostage of the rebel Simbas for 111 days in 1964. Let me begin by discussing, if you would, when did you become an FSO, the Department of State, was this an interest of childhood? Why don't you explain why. HOYT: Okay Ray. I always had an interest in foreign affairs, having lived in Europe as a very young child, having an outlook which looked overseas and appreciated what was going on overseas and during the war, of course, I was very conscious of it. I went to college and then went into the Air Force for 4 years, married just before I got out, and went to the University of Illinois. I was earning a Masters Degree and found myself with a very large family and decided that I would not stay on for the doctorate and instead try to get a job. Exams were being offered for the Federal internship program and for the foreign Interview with Michael P.E. Hoyt http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000536 Library of Congress service. This was in early 1956. I passed the foreign service exam and passed orals and offered a job. By that time I thought it was a very good idea. A princely salary of $5,000 a year looked pretty good. So I entered the foreign service in October 1956. Q: Michael, let me come back. You've indicated that you, in a sense, kind of grew up overseas. Was your dad in the military? Where were you overseas? HOYT: My father was a theoretical nuclear physicist and taught at the University of Chicago. He had long vacations and sabbaticals. He would take off almost half a year and go to Europe and consult with the physicists over there. Several times my parents would leave my sister and me at a farm outside of Lausanne, Switzerland. So my early years, up to about 5 years old, I spent a lot of time overseas. Q: Did you pick up any language? HOYT: French was my first language but I soon lost it. I had to really study hard to relearn it after I got into the service. Q: Was your father involved in the Manhattan Project? HOYT: Yes. Q: He was at college? HOYT: He was at the University of Chicago. He was working on it but at the same time he was trying to keep the Physics Department going. He spent a lot of time working on the project. Q: He knew Fermi and Teller, that group. HOYT: That's why we're here in New Mexico, because I spent a lot of time with my mother and father after he retired to Los Alamos. In fact, I met my wife living in Espanola. Interview with Michael P.E. Hoyt http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000536 Library of Congress Q: When did your dad come to Los Alamos? HOYT: We came right after the war. We'd come summers. Q: 47, 48 HOYT: We would come summers and then after he retired. Q: So you did get a taste, in terms of spending time in Switzerland and so forth. I was looking at your curriculum vitae. You went to the University of Chicago, you received your undergraduate degree in History. The queen of all of the disciplines. I see you and I both appreciate it. Then you went on to receive your MA in Modern European history. What did you do your thesis in? HOYT: It was on the Rhineland crises. Q: Oh really, the diplomatic history. HOYT: Yes, it was on specifically on the diplomatic exchanges between England and France during the Rhineland crises, the week or so after the invasion until it became clear there would be no intervention. Q: Who's your thesis director? HOYT: I can't remember. Q: You obviously, with your background, with your experiences overseas, you were married and you decided that you would be a foreign service officer. The training that the State Department gives to it junior foreign service officers before they go off. Any notable colleagues in your class at the Foreign Service Institute, that you can think of? Interview with Michael P.E. Hoyt http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000536 Library of Congress HOYT: We were the largest entering class. Q: Oh really, how big was it? HOYT: I think it was something in the 50s. There were entering classes almost every month in those years. Ours was the largest ever, up to then and since. We had a lot of ambassadors, McNeil comes to mind, ambassador to Costa Rica. He resigned under pressure under the Nixon administration when tangled up with the Assistant Secretary, Elliott Abrams. Other ambassadors include: Terry MacNamara to Gabon and Cape Verde; Goodwin Cooke to Central African Republic; Everett Briggs to Panama and Honduras; Harry E.T. Thayer to Singapore. Q: After you have done this, your first post was as Third Secretary with administrative / consular duties at the US Embassy in Karachi, Pakistan. Did they make you learn Urdu? HOYT: No. Let me back up a bit because there was a very unusual circumstance with my class. There developed a keen shortage of administrative people, particularly in the budget and fiscal side of the administrative sections of the embassies. They were really desperate and decided to haul out a bunch of us, about a half-dozen of this class. I guess they thought it was so large that they could make accountants out of some of us. It was very unusual; they did it very apologetically. They sent us for 3 months to a budget and fiscal school. Q: Where was this? HOYT: At the State Department. Q: At the Foreign Service Institute, as a special course. So you had a bunch of CPAs running you through the course. Interview with Michael P.E. Hoyt http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000536 Library of Congress HOYT: I couldn't balance a checkbook at that point. Of course we were very disappointed because we wanted to go out, at least as consular officers, start our real work. So here we were, not only on the administrative side — of course under the Wristonization program all the administrative people were made foreign service officers. Q: This was the Wristonization program. HOYT: This was the ultimate Wristonization, and they never did it again. They were very apologetic. I'm sure it affected my career because I was working in a field where FSOs just never went. I went to Karachi and made an accounting assistant. I audited travel vouchers. I was also assistant disbursing officer, writing checks and counting money. Q: You weren't particularly fond of all of this. HOYT: No, I wasn't. I later rationalized that it did give me some basic grounding in the running of an embassy. I think that was the good side of it. There was a lot of bad side. Because at that point they also had a program whereby junior officers would rotate jobs in their first assignment. They would spend 6 months on consular duty, 6 months in the economic section, 6 months doing administrative work, etc. But the instructions went out that we were not to be a part of that. I had to stay 2 years in the Budget & Fiscal section. I did manage to go down and relieve the consular officer on several occasions and enjoyed that very much. As I say, I got a fairly good grounding on the fiscal side of the administration of embassies and consulates which, I think, stood me a good stab when I later on headed 4 consulates or embassies during my career. I regretted it; it was a setback, but I did learn from it and did benefit. Interview with Michael P.E. Hoyt http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000536 Library of Congress Q: Given the events of 1947, 1948, what had occurred, the splitting of Pakistan and India. The religious disputes, the problems with India, had they begin to surface at this time? HOYT: Let me address that, this was '57 to '59 and of course Karachi had born the brunt of the refugees—the Moslem refugees that fled from India. At that point the city was very very overcrowded. It wasn't evident then what is going on in Karachi now. People who are now causing the problems seems to be those ones that did come from India. They were not assimilated. We could tell this even then amongst our friends, a number of them had fled. Q: Did they isolate themselves from the remainder of the community? HOYT: Not particularly. A lot of them were wealthy businessmen, and they came and established businesses in Karachi. I think that created some tension. It's a big city but I don't think it was ever reconstructed to accommodate all those people.
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