The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral Project AMBASSADOR ROBERT E. HUNTER Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: August 10, 2004 Copyright 2010 ADS TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born in Massachusetts, raised in Virginia and New Jersey Wesleyan University (Connecticut) Polaris Project Admiral Hyman Rickover London School of Economics (Fulbright Scholar) The White House; Assistant to Special Assistant S. Douglas Cater 196451235 Assistance to the President for Correspondence Speech writing Operations Democratic Party Conventions ietnam White House personnel 7eorge Mac Bundy Pres. Johnson8Bobby 9ennedy relations -ondon School of .conomics: Student and -ecturer 123551238 Thesis: Origins of North American reaty Alliance (NA O) .nvironment 7overnment Class system Presidential Campaign of Hubert Humphrey0 Speech Writer 1238 iews of Nixon Hubert Humphrey Humphrey8Johnson relations -ondon School of .conomics: Teacher8-ecturer 123851270 Institute for Strategic Studies he Military Balance Doctor of Philosophy thesis Pillsbury Lectures 1 British and French in Mid .ast Overseas Development Council (ODC) 12705127A James 7rant Personnel .conomic development and foreign aid Strategic thinking The US as Number one -ess5developed Countries (-DCs) American think5tanks Diplomacy and Policy5making Crafts USAID Office of Senator Ted 9ennedy0 Foreign Policy Advisor 127A51277 ,efugees Subcommittee of the Judicial Committee 9ennedy as Presidential hopeful The White House: National Security Council0 West .urope 127751281 Senator 9ennedy on issues Foreign policy issues Soviet Union 9issingerBs China trip Portugal Comments on Foreign Policy Issues in 1273 Presidential Campaign Jimmy Carter The Presidents Bush The White House: National Security Council (continued) 127751281 Comments on Changes of Administration BrCeCinski Division of country responsibility Nuclear policy in .urope US commitments to .urope President Carter Carter8Helmut Schmidt relationship .nhanced ,adiation Weapon (.,W) 7enscher Missile crisis 7ermany security US dependents in .urope US5Soviet military issues Helmut Schmidt Berlin Henry 9issinger Carter and Human ,ights 2 Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) Iranian Hostage Crisis The Carter Doctrine Operations The White House0 National Security Council0 Middle .ast 128151284 7ary Sick Camp David Accords Sadat to Jerusalem Israel8.gypt Peace Treaty Israeli settlement activity US engagement in Israel8.gypt peace treaty BeginBs goals Iran Hostage ramifications ,apid Deployment Joint Task Forces Arab5Israel Policy 7roup Palestinian -iberation OrganiCation (P-O) Arafat UN Security Council ,esolution 242 (UNSC,242) Don McHenry Andrew Doung Iran Hostage crisis Administration change Center for Strategic and International Studies0 .urope and the Middle .ast c12845c1222 David Abshire Personnel Operations The .stablishment Change of administration house5cleaning HunterBs ,ule re making War ,ecommendation re administration change Operations Center for National Policy National .ndowment for Democracy 9issingerBs EBalance of PowerF President ,eagan policies Soviet Union collapse Congressional role in Foreign Affairs 9issinger Commission on Central America Tip OBNeil IraG invasion of 9uwait iet Nam and US IraG invasion 7eorge H. W. Bush successes Foreign travel A Clinton 1222 Presidential Campaign and Administrations 12225122A American Israel Public Affairs Committee Speech writer for Clinton 7eneva Accords Multilateralism 7ennifer Flowers ClintonBs speeches Bosnia War NATO Warren Christopher ETransition projectsF Madeleine Albright Dugoslavia Sandy Berger Changes in Administrations Circumstance re appointment as Ambassador to .uropean Union Herman 9ahn Tony -ake Speech5writing for Christopher Brussels, Belgium: US Ambassador to the .uropean Union 122A51228 7ermany unification and NATO membership Bosnia War Commitment of US Power and Commitment Confirmation proceedings Pamela Harriman John Shalikashvili Partnership with Peace Personnel US leadership role ,econstruction of NATO he ,nited States is a European Power The International Institute for Strategic Studies NATO enlargement Travemunde Meeting North Atlantic Cooperation Council Colorado Springs NATO Defense Ministers Meeting Western .uropean Union8NATO relationship 7ermany and French policy Origins of d.tente. Helsinki Final Act JacGues Blot Berlin5Brussels Agreement of 1223 France re5enters NATO Military Committee NATO Command in Naples StabiliCing Central .urope 4 ,ussian Mafia 7eorge 9ennan Balance of Power strategy US leadership ENot invented hereF syndrome .uropean military independence Britain and Western Union NATO5,ussia Founding Act Personnel Basic strength of NATO United Nations Protection Force (UNP,OFO,) Dugoslavia breakup Britain policy re Dugoslavia NATO and Bosnia Dayton Accords North Atlantic Council Meeting on Bosnia Post57overnment Positions -ockheed5Martin0 Senior International Consultant Chair, Council for a Community of Democracies President, Atlantic Treaty Association (ATA) ,and Corporation Project on Presidential Transition 7eneral Comments Political orientation of EThink TanksF State8Defense cooperation INTERVIEW 0: oday is the 10th of August, 2004. his is an interview with Robert 2unter, middle initial3 HUNT.,: .. 0: 4hat does that stand for3 HUNT.,: .dwards 0: And I5m Charles Stuart Kennedy and this is being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and raining. o begin, when and where were you born3 HUNT.,: The first of May, 1240 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 5 0: Can you tell me something about the Hunter family6 let5s start with the father5s side. HUNT.,: My father was in business, the family was from Huincy, Massachusetts. He was the first person in the family on that side to go to college, he went to Boston University. 7raduated the year the 7reat Depression began. Of course, that was a generation that was very much affected by the Depression and what happened afterwards. 0: 4here did the Hunters come from3 HUNT.,: Mostly Scotland, through Nova Scotia. Some Irish, some .nglish, some French, way back. The first ones that show up, on Ancestry.com, I learned only recently, were in Charleston, Mass. in 13A3, but we have no family lore on them I as Horatio said, I Edo in part believe itJF I know we had some come from Ireland to Massachusetts in the 1740s, and then the next generation left between 1774 and K81 to go to Nova Scotia, which indicates to me they were probably on the wrong side of the ,evolutionJ About the middle of the nineteenth century, they came back to the Huincy area. Some came directly from Scotland, Guarrymen. My grandmotherBs father was a barber. In fact, in the records it says he was a barber, a union organiCer, organiCed the barbers for Samuel 7ompers, and a bookmaker I IBm kind of proud of thatJ My grandfather, the first ,obert Hunter, had a house painting business in Huincy, next door to a guy who was trying to make a better ice cream, Howard Johnson. 0: How about on your mother5s side3 HUNT.,: My motherBs mother was from Illinois0 her people were in the US at least from the early 18th century, Tennessee, irginia. Some came from Ireland, others most likely .ngland. My motherBs father was born in Wales, Aberystwyth, on the 13th of March, 183A. The British records were kept in a building next door to the -ondon School of .conomics, so I got a copy of his birth certificate. He came to Dakota Territory with his brother in the late 1880s and was a cowboy, later a rancher. He was a banker, founder of the Black Hills ,oundup, which is still in existence, in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, on the Fourth of July every year, and he helped organiCe the ,odeo Association of America. He was mayor of Belle Fourche and a South Dakota state Senator, as a ,epublican, from 121251214. So my motherBs parents were genuine pioneers. Ironically, both my grandfathers went bankrupt in the 7reat Depression, in both cases in part because they refused to collect debts owed to them by people who had run out of money. 0: 7our South Da8ota grandparents were sort of the sod hut and all that3 HUNT.,: I donBt think at that point because they had gone beyond sod hutsJ But 7randpa .vans did start out as a cowpuncher after he emigrated from Wales. My mother, after university at University of Nebraska, came .ast and did her MasterBs at Simmons College in Boston. ThatBs where she met my father and they were married in 12AA, PatriotsB Day, in the chapel at Boston University. 0: 4hat was her field3 3 HUNT.,: 7eneral liberal arts, also business. My father was an .nglish major. 0: Did you grow up in the Boston area3 HUNT.,: No, because of the war, my father took a job in the government and that was at a munitions plant in southwestern irginia, in ,adford, irginia, which was built out of whole cloth in 1241, and we lived there for 10 years. 0: 4hat was Radford li8e3 HUNT.,: It was your usual rural kind of town. It was essentially farming communities around there. IBve had different experiences. My first 10 years were in a rural environment and then a suburban environment, northern New Jersey, and then urban environments after that, so IBve had kind of an exposure to all three main areas of American life. 0: Let5s tal8 about the farming environment. HUNT.,: We were isolated because we lived in government housing at this ordnance plant, which I think was one of the worldBs largest ordnance plants during the war. We were the Dankees in an area of the South in the 1240s0 in that part of the country, people were still fighting