Hargrove, James W
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR JAMES W. HARGROVE Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: March 25, 1999 Copyright 2 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born in Shreveport Louisiana and raised there and Houston Texas Sewanee Military Academy Rice University U.S. Army - )orld )ar II - European Theater Private business in Shreveport Louisiana Repu,lican Party Local school board )hite House Conference on Education .900 Federal funding for education Sputnik 1ixon-2ennedy Election Texas Eastern Treasurer International Pipelines European operations Algeria - .930 Em,assy contacts 1atural gas Environmental concerns 2ennedy-5ohnson era Lyndon 5ohnson 6eorge Brown Post Office - Deputy Assistant Postmaster 6eneral .939-.972 Background of appointment )inton Blount Postmaster 6eneral Converting to independent agency Union9s control :5unk mail; value 1 Universal Postal Union Private Business in Texas .972-.973 Am,assador to Australia .973-.977 Background of appointment President 6erald Ford Political changes in Australia Sir 5ohn 2err Admiral Rickover 1uclear su,marine visits issue 6eorge Bush and CIA A1ZAC Treaty Economic relationship USS Enterprise visit issue Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser 1ational Party Socialist Party 6ough )hitlam Local politics Staff Local press CIA Cape Carnavon operation Soviet relations Australia9s foreign relations China 1auru Coral Sea Day Visiting dignitaries Post-am,assadorial Career President of Asia Society Private business Appendix Australian help to U.S. INTERVIEW $: Today is the 25th of March, 1999. This is an interview with Ambassador James ). Hargrove. This will be done in Houston, Texas, on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies, and I,m Charles Stuart Kennedy. )ell, can we start at the beginning- )hen and where were you born- 2 HAR6ROVE: I was born in Shreveport Louisiana in .922. $: Can you tell me a little about your parents- HAR6ROVE: I could tell you a lot a,out them. My mother is still living but she's 98 A years old and not in a good mental situation. My father was in the gas business when Texas Eastern Transmission Corporation was formed a corporation that bid on the Big Inch and the Little Big Inch pipelines from Texas to the East Coast. He participated in the founding with a group of others and shortly became president of that company. I went to work for it at its inception after I got back from the war and stayed with them for 22 years. $: I.d li/e to go bac/ a bit. )here did you go to grammar school and all- HAR6ROVE: I went to the first two years of grammar school in Shreveport and then we moved to Houston with the company United 6as that my father was with. I continued here at Montrose Elementary School and then in the high school portion of my education I went to Sewanee Military Academy in Sewanee Tennessee. $: )hat sort of things interested you, as far as, oh, sports, reading, extracurricular activities 0 particularly before you went to the military academy- )e.ll go to the military academy in a minute. HAR6ROVE: Bou mean in elementary schoolC $: 1lementary schools, yes. HAR6ROVE: I don't think I was an academic overachiever in elementary school but we had a very fine group of friends which has stayed together. It's amaDing how many of those people we still see all the time. I participated in sandlot foot,all and that sort of thing with the rest of the kids there but I didn't have any particular interests beyond that. I remem,er one time I had to have a chemistry set for Christmas. $: 2ilbert.s chemistry set. HAR6ROVE: 6il,ert's. I was very concerned because it cost E.0 and I didn't think that they ought to spend E.0 on me. But they did and I used it a,out two or three times and decided I really wasn't going to be a chemist. $: )e all went through that with Mr. 2ilbert. HAR6ROVE: Then I remem,er a model airplane too that I put together. It didn't fly. $: These were balsa wood ones which you put on the table and glued together and then they always seemed to curve in the wrong direction- 3 HAR6ROVE: Exactly. It was a big airplane a big model and I thought it was going to come fully assem,led and it did not come fully assem,led. $: That rings bells with me. During your early years, your father being from Louisiana and in the gas business, did the name Huey Long ever appear at the dinner table- HAR6ROVE: I don't think we talked a,out him at the dinner ta,le but it was very much a su,ject for discussion. I remem,er my grandfather who lived in Shreveport had been one of those people who when Huey first came on the scene thought he was great going to be a savior and then he got disillusioned very Fuickly and became a very bitter enemy of Huey Long. I'm afraid that he was pleased that Huey didn't live through the assassination. And of course I roomed with Huey's son. $: Ah, well, that.s interesting0 HAR6ROVE: At Sewanee. $: 0because, well, why don.t we move to Sewanee- )hy Sewanee- HAR6ROVE: My mother and also later my father were very active Episcopalians. Sewanee of course is an Episcopal school and the high schools in Houston were not the ,est academically so both my older brother and I and su,seFuently my younger brother went to Sewanee Military Academy. I was there for three years. $: This was from when to when- HAR6ROVE: It was from .933 to .939. $: )as the feeling at that time that a war was imminent that the 4nited States would be in- )as this sort of a subtheme at the school, or not- HAR6ROVE: )ell not so much. But there was a lot of military training at the school. Hitler was doing a lot of speaking and I was on the de,ate team I remem,er and we used to get up at four or five o'clock in the morning to listen to him to see what he was going to say. It was o,vious that something was going to happen sooner or later but I don9t think there was any feeling of imminence of war. $: )hat sort of things were you doing at Sewanee besides military training- HAR6ROVE: I was particularly interested in languages and took French and had some Spanish also did all of my Latin such as there was there but my real concentration was in English and English composition. $: Did extra0curricular activities 0 sports0 HAR6ROVE: Foot,all some basket,all but I never was any good at basket,all. I was 4 pretty good for the center of the foot,all line to get beat up by the bigger boys but- $: That.s what the center.s for. HAR6ROVE: That's right. $: Huey Long is somebody who sort of dominates part of an era, and being with his son, did you feel any of this in your0 HAR6ROVE: This was his second son Palmer. It was not Russell. $: Russell was... yes. HAR6ROVE: Russell became senator you know. Palmer was my age. Russell was a little older. Palmer came to Sewanee and he still lives in Shreveport. I don't want to hurt his feelings - he was not the highest academic achiever at the school and in fact he credits me - or did the last time I had any conversation with him - for getting him through Latin because he wouldn't have gotten through it otherwise. But he was pleasant. He married a very nice girl in Shreveport and they've been living over there I suppose still are. $: Did Huey Long ever come up there or anything- HAR6ROVE: Oh he came up on political trips but I never met him personally. $: )hen you were getting out at Sewanee, what were you thin/ing, university and all that- Did you have any thoughts of where you thought you0 HAR6ROVE: Bes I had Rice in mind the whole time. My father had gone to Rice - didn9t graduate because he left and went into the army in the First )orld )ar. And my older brother had gone to Rice and so that's what I was looking at and that's what I did. $: So you went into Rice in .39, I guess. HAR6ROVE: Right. $: And how long were you there- HAR6ROVE: My graduation year was .943 and of course the war had happened by that time and I was in an accelerated program to try to get through before I got into the army. I completed all the coursework and went into the army and came back for graduation. $: )hen did you go into the army, then- HAR6ROVE: Active duty was in .943 in Fe,ruary. 5 $: In the army. HAR6ROVE: In the army right. I was sent to what was then called the ASTP. $: 7h, yes, Advanced Special0 HAR6ROVE: Army SpecialiDed Training Program. They sent a group of us to the University of )isconsin and taught us languages and culture of different areas. I had never had any 6erman. I had studied Spanish and French and a little Portuguese and even one semester of 5apanese but I had never had any 6erman. )hen I got up there one of the first things they did was to give us a Fuestionnaire and one of the Fuestions was I)hat language do you want to studyCI And I said )ell this is a,surd. I'm supposed to ,e very high priority because I've had some Portuguese and they want Portuguese speakers.