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 ALAN G. JAMES Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: December 20, 1994 Co yright 1998 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY Williams College, Yale Law School U.S. Army, WWII Entered Foreign Service 1,5. Frankfurt, /ermany0 1reis Officer 1,5. 2unich, /ermany0 Admin. 3 Political Consular Officer 1,5101,54 2cCarthyism Personalities5 Wood, Thayer and Lightner Local politics CIA Department of State 1,5401,42 Staff Secretariat Secy. State Dulles Sue7 and Hungarian Crises European regional affairs ATO 8emoval of strategic weapons from Turkey and Italy ational War College 1,4201,43 Paris, France0 US European Command :E CO2) 1,4301,47 De /aulle and NATO US forces expelled from France 2ove to /ermany France, Paris0Political Counselor 1,4701,48 De /aulle "disappears" Embassy news of de /aulle 1 Ambassador Bohlen England, London0Political Counselor 1,4801,74 C7ech crisis Duties 0dealing with the British Political developments 2alta Ambassadors Annenberg and 8ichardson Counselor for reports and analysis Department of State0Law of the Sea Conference, 1,7401,8. Executive Assistant Treaty Baghdad Conference 1,77 Ambassador 8ichardson 8etirement 1,8.01,,5 LOS Delegation Staff Board of Appellate 8eview :State) INTERVIEW %: If we could start off with your background. Could you tell us when and where you were born, and a little about your family) AA2ES5 I was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1,2.. I went to public school in Brooklyn. At age 13, I went to prep school in Tarrytown, New York, at Hackley School where I stayed for five years. Before graduating I was accepted at Williams but did not go there until the next year. 2y father was a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and had long hoped I would go there. I was happy at Hackley and wanted to finish. He was Buite understanding. We did agree, however, that it might be a good idea for me to take an extra year at Exeter before going to Williams. This I did. I entered Williams with the class of 1,C3 in September 1,3,, at the outbreak of war in Europe. Like our generation everywhere, we lived our college years under the shadow of war, first in Europe and then in the Pacific. %: Just to get a little feel about that, what was the attitude of the faculty and parents and others of the student body about this war in Euro e) ,ermany and Britain were going at each other, particularly in France. Did you feel that this was something we could avoid) /as /illiams internationalist or isolationist) AA2ES5 Williams had a long internationalist tradition, a sense that the United States is involved in the world and cannot remain indifferent to major threats to the peace and 2 safety of our friends and allies. When war broke out in Europe in September 1,3,, the Williams community was by and large sympathetic to the allied cause. With the Battle of Britain, Williams became even more committed, believing that the British were fighting for our freedom as well as their own. The Faculty, certainly the most respected members, beginning with President Baxter, were outspokenly pro0British. If there were isolationists on the Faculty they were not vocal. The student body, drawn heavily from the internationalist eastern United States accepted, with little urging by the Faculty, that the British were fighting for the United States as well as themselves. The college newspaper, The Williams 8ecord, reflected majority student opinion and adopted a consistently pro0 British stance. %: I might add, for the record, that I went to /illiams from 1940 to 120, so we1re s eaking about our alma mater. Just to get a little slice of this life, did you notice a division u to June 22, 1941) /ere there young Communists or Faculty members, who subscribed to the Communist disci line, who were saying we shouldn1t be involved because of the ,erman3Soviet Pact) Or did you notice that) AA2ES5 I do not recall that there were any young communists at Williams in my day. I also doubt that there were any communists on the Faculty. President Baxter took a very grave view of any teacher who was so ideologically committed to communism that he could not teach objectively. He probably would have seen to it that any teacher he suspected of being subject to communist discipline was sent packing. So it seems to me unlikely that any members of the Faculty or the student body took the position that because the Na7is and Soviets had appeared to make common cause, the United States should not support Britain. %: Did the military catch you before you finished, or how did it work out) AA2ES5 Students had the option to enlist in the Army reserves and not be called up until after graduation. Probably other services offered a similar option. I canDt remember. Enlisting and finishing college was considered an orderly way to feed people into the armed services which could not, as we were told by Dean /regerson, absorb masses of recruits at once. I enlisted in the Army reserves in August 1,C2. Our class graduated on February C, 1,C3, five months early, since we had accelerated by going to college during the summer. I was ordered to Camp Upton on Long Island in 2arch 1,C3. %: Could you tell me a bit about what your military service was like) AA2ES5 It was not very eventfulE for the most part it was boring, except for the terrifying experience of being bombed by /erman planes off the coast of North Africa in October 1,C3 as our convoy was making for Tunisia. I ended up in the C1Cth SBuadron of the ,7th Bomb /roup :Heavy, B017s). I was a clerk in sBuadron operations. I joined the sBuadron in North Africa in October 1,C3 and sailed with them to Italy in November to occupy a base closer to targets in Italy and Austria. 3 2y boredom was relieved in part by a lively correspondence with my esteemed history professor at Williams, 8ichard A. Newhall, an eminent scholar and teacher who wrote elegant, informative letters which have since been published in a book titled " ewhall and Williams College5 the Papers of a History Professor at a New England College." 2r. ewhall seemed pleased when I wrote him that I had read CarlyleDs "French 8evolution" during the 30week sea voyage to Tunisia. He wrote that he had read 2otleyDs "8ise of the Dutch 8epublic" on a troop ship that took him to France in 1,18. %: /as that the 2th Air Force then) AA2ES5 No, it was the 1Cth Air Force. And, curiously enough, I must skip ahead, the commanding officer of the ,7th Bomb /roup, of which the C1Cth SBuadron was a part, became my boss some 2. years later when I was his political advisor at U.S. European Command. %: Then you finished u the war in Italy) AA2ES5 Yes. I wrote to President Baxter who was terribly well connected in wartime Washington where he did some government work on leave from Williams :he won a Pulit7er pri7e in history for "Scientists against Time," a history of science and the war) to ask his help in getting transferred to the Historical Section of the Air Force. I did not anticipate being discharged very soon and I thought I could put my education to better use by transferring to the Historical Section. President Baxter delivered and I was assigned to a unit to work on a history of Air Force operations. I left Italy in Auly 1,C5, and once I got back to the States, I had enough points, because of the ,7th Bomb /roup participated in so many campaigns, to be mustered out almost immediately on my return. I felt somewhat apologetic, having been put into this, kind of shoehorned in, through President BaxterDs intervention. But, nevertheless, I accepted my discharge and out I went. %: After you got out in 1942, what did you do) AA2ES5 I went to Yale Law School. 2y father had long hoped I would be a lawyer, and I suppose I thought law school would be good training for whatever career I chose. I had had good grades at Williams and one of my history Professors, Charles 1eller, gave me a good recommendation to his friend Ashbel /ulliver, Acting Dean of the Law School. I was accepted with no more formalities and spent two instructive and thoroughly enjoyable years under a number of great teachers. %: Charlie Keller was my mentor at /illiams, too, in the history de artment. He had served, I think, at 7ale in China for a while. 7ou mentioned your father. /as your father a lawyer) AA2ES5 No. He was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, into a coal mining family. At a rather advanced age, I guess 22, he went to Exeter, and when he graduated he was 25. He 4 had to work his way through Exeter and graduated in the class of 18,1. He wanted to go on to Harvard to study medicine, but had family obligations and had to go to work. He ended up in New York City and became a stock broker. Thanks to his acumen and prudence he rode out the Depression fairly well. We were modestly well off, at least we could afford to do a good deal of traveling, even during the Depression. We spent many summers in 2aine. I was taken abroad, to Europe, when I was four years old, and again when I was seven.