Miles Pendleton
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project MILES S. PENDLETON, JR. Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: June 22, 1998 Copyright 2001 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in Ne Jersey and Massachusetts Yale University; Harvard La School Teacher abroad )hana - Adisadel College - Teacher 19.2-19.0 1nvironment Travel Soviets Public contacts British Littauer School for Public Administration - Professor 19.0-19.2 1ntered Foreign Service 19.2 Tel Aviv, Israel - Consular Officer-Staff Assistant 19.8-1920 1nvironment Case studies Ambassador 7al orth Barbour Travels Black September Si8 Day 7ar Bujumbura, Burundi 1920-1922 Hutu-Tutsi tribes U.S. interests 1nvironment 1conomy Ambassador Thomas P. Melady Belgians Missionaries R anda 1 Revolt and massacres Kabila Department of Defense - National Military Command Center 1922 Vietnam State Department - Operations Center 1922-1923 Macomber Khartoum mission Terrorism Operations Agne resignation Yom Kippur 7ar Kissinger missions Middle 1ast Peace Conference Joseph Sisco State Department - Special Assistant to Deputy Secretary of State 1920-192. Robert Ingersoll Operations Kissinger Duties Turks invade Cyprus Larry 1agleburger Ni8on resignation Human rights report Brussels - NATO - Political Officer 192.-1929 Tapley Bennett Foreign missions Spain Joseph Lums President Carter Soviet Union )reece-Turkey National 7ar College 1929-1980 State Department - United Kingdom Desk Officer 1980 Falklands 7ar Secretary of State Haig U.S.-UK relationship British pressure Latin American group Belgano torpedoed Jeane Kirkpatrick U.S. and 7estern Hemisphere 2 NATO State Department - Northern 1uropean Affairs 1980-1982 )renada Falklands Ambassador John Le is Ambassador Charlie Price State Department - Office of Israel and Arab-Israel Affairs > Director 1982-1983 Lebanon invasion Sharon Ambassador Sam Le is AIPAC Jerusalem visit Phil Habib Begin Je ish ?settlements“ U.S. aid to Israel ShultA-Assad meeting Marine barracks disaster Lebanon Human rights Bibi Netanyahu 7orkload Moshe Arens Peace process Senator Biden U.S. policy Israeli military PLO Terrorists Israeli environment State Department - 18ecutive Assistant to Under Secretary for Political Affairs 1983-1985 Mike Armacost Issues ShultA-7einberger relations 7hite House CNSCD relations Africa Bureau relations Soviet relations Congressional relations 7orkload London, 1ngland - Political Counselor 1985-1989 3 1nvironment Ambassador Charles Price Prime Minister Thatcher Neil Kinnock NATO 1uropean Community Cuba Arms control Central America John Major COD1Ls 1mbassy organiAation PanAm 103 Illness Paris, France - Political Counselor 1989-1993 Ambassador 7alter Curley Mitterrand Political parties 1conomy Statism Protestants Culture French vie of France President Bush policies Relations )erman unification Maastricht referendum )erman relations NATO )ulf 7ar IraE Terrorism Peres de Cuellar Dick Cheney French military Madame Mitterrand Yugoslavia 1astern 1urope French culture Official contacts Industrial 7ar College - Professor 1993-1995 State Department - Bureau of Oceans, 1nvironment, and Science 1995-1992 Forests 4 Trade issues Oceans Food crops Retirement 1992 Attachment Summary statement INTERVIEW Q: Today is the 22nd of June, 1998. This is an interview with Miles S. Pendleton, Jr. But you)re called Kim. P1NDL1TON: Right Q: This is being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, and I)m Charles Stuart Kennedy. ,-ay, Kim, let)s start. Can you tell me when and where you were born. P1NDL1TON: Yes, I as born on March 22nd, 1939, in Montclair, Ne Jersey, here my father and grandfather had lived. My grandfather built a house there in the early 20th century but orked in Ne York City. Q: Can you tell me something about your parents. P1NDL1TON: Sure, I think that in many respects they ere typical of a certain element of suburbia at that point. My father as a graduate of Andover and Yale after graduation, ho had gone on to Cambridge University in 1ngland. Then, because it as the depths of the Depression, in G33 he ended up orking as an engineer for his father, rather than for somebody else, in Ne York City, here the Pan Am building as later built. After 7orld 7ar II, he ent to Massachusetts to run a oolen mill in Lo ell. The mill as o ned by a Canadian firm and e all moved to Andover. The president of the Canadian firm as my fatherGs best friend from his days at Cambridge. So I gre up thinking that Toronto as the capital of the orld, and hen Toronto called, you saluted - hich most Americans donGt tend to do. My mother as adopted by a Virginia farm family hen she as about nine years old after a very difficult childhood during hich she had never been to school at home along the rural Virginia-7est Virginia border. It as a coal mining environment and a difficult family life. She as fortunately adopted by a farm couple, the oman of hich - my adoptive grandmother - had been a schoolteacher in Ne York City. She taught my mother to read and rite. My mother eventually ent to S eetbriar College near home in Virginia, here her father as on the board of overseers. Fortunately, they had some 5 ealthy Ne York relatives ho said hen she graduated, HYouGve done so ell eGre going to give you a car.H And she said, HNo, I ant a truck. I ant you to fund me to go to graduate school and learn ho to be a social orker.H And so she as briefly a social orker, but she made the mistake of meeting my father on a golf course in Iuogue, Long Island. My fatherGs family had a summer house in 7esthampton Beach, Long Island. They got married, and my mother eventually became a successful real estate agent, but only after e ere a kind of HOAAie and HarrietH family for many years in Montclair and Andover. Q: .ou say you were born in )39. 0here did you live after New Jersey2 .ou say you moved up to Massachusetts eventually.. P1NDL1TON: Yes, e moved to Andover, Massachusetts, practically onto the campus of Phillips Academy, here a number of the people ho ere on the faculty ere close friends of my parents, some of them going back to the time hen my father as a student there - and also from his class at Yale. Q: 0ell, how long did you grow up there2 P1NDL1TON: 7e moved there hen I as si8 years old, and the last time I as there as last eekend. Ho ever, all our family members have died or moved a ay from Andover. Q: So you went there in )352 P1NDL1TON: G0., I think. Maybe I had just turned seven. It as right around my birthday. Q: I too- the Summer Session at Andover. I thought that the war was never going to end in the summer of )35. I too- a course in physics there in order to get ready to go into the military and get a better job. And then somebody too- a rather large e6periment in physics7i.e., the atomic bomb7and dropped it, and that ended my having to go into the military. But it)s a beautiful campus. P1NDL1TON: It is. Q: Still is2 P1NDL1TON: I ent to the memorial service for my fatherGs closest friend last Sunday, so I sa the campus. It remains one of the most handsome campuses in the nation, ith everything from a major art gallery to an archeology museum, along ith 1,100 students. Q: Did you go to Andover2 P1NDL1TON: I did. 6 Q: Before you went to Andover, where did you go to school2 P1NDL1TON: I ent to the public schools in Andover. In those days the to n as Euite small, about 11,000, and the high school asnGt particularly vigorous, although later it produced Jay Leno. In the C00s and C50s, you tended to kno pretty ell early on if you ere going to head eventually to ards the Academy, or - if you ere a girl - Abbot Academy. The t o academies are no joined. That tended to be a sort of a divider in the community that perhaps asnGt entirely healthy. Q: 0hile you were in grade school and before you went to the Academy, what were your interests2 P1NDL1TON: 7ell, I developed a real interest in sailing early on, and that as in part because my first summer in the to n of Andover I got polio, and I spent many months in ChildrenGs Hospital in BostonCit as in my neck and backCand then a year of doing e8ercises to recover, et cetera, ith my mother being a trooper about making me do them and guiding me. And I did recover, but hile I as a ay, the baseball team that lasted all the ay through ninth grade as formed, and I asnGt in any danger of being on it. The public schools had a sailing program run by some volunteers, and I started doing that. I had a keen interest in hiking, camping, biking, skiing, and tennis - along ith a strong interest in reading. I liked to travel, but I never ended up going out of the country other than to Canada until after I graduated from college. So it as in a ay a provincial e8istence on a hill here, because of the Academy, many people tended to have a healthy orld-vie . Q: Let)s tal- a bit about the reading. Can you thin- of any boo-s that you particularly en5oyed. They don)t have to have been seminal boo-s in the world or anything, but any authors or anybody li-e that2 P1NDL1TON: 7ell, I ent to libraries freEuently, either a Phillips Academy or do nto n. Q: There)s a nice little library downtown, because I used to use that, too.