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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR JAMES K. BISHOP, JR. Intervi

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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR JAMES K. BISHOP, JR. Intervi The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR JAMES K. BISHOP, JR. Interviewed by: Charles S. Kennedy Initial interview date: November 15, 1995 Copyright 1998 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born in New Rochelle, NY Holy Cross College; Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Entered Foreign Service A-100 course and consular training State Department - Press Office 1.60-1.60 Press Corps 1incoln 2hite Africa Bureau contacts President 3ennedy4s administration Auckland, New 5ealand - Foreign Service 6eneralist 1.63-1.66 Issues 1abor Party Communist Party 9aori Immigration policy Relations with neighbors Beirut, 1ebanon - Commercial Officer 1.66-1.68 Intrabank problem Consular duties Six Day 2ar Evacuation of U.S. citizens Riots and demonstrations Environment Arab-Israeli problem Yaounde, Cameroon - Economic/Commercial Officer 1.68-1.70 Peace Corps Environment 1 French influence U.S.-Cameroon relations President Ahmadou Ahidjo 9ilitary 2omen4s role Soviet presence State Department - Central African Affairs 1.70-1.70 David Newsom State Department - Officer in Charge, 6hana and Togo 1.70 6hana debt rescheduling Post- krumah 6hana State Department - Deputy Director, 2est Africa 1.70-1.76 igeria-U.S. relations Effects of 3issinger4s South Africa visit President Tolbert Senior Seminar 1.76-1.77 State Department - Director, Office of North African Affairs 1.77-1.7. Polisario issue Algeria economic potential 3ing Hassan of 9orocco 6ibraltar tunnel idea U.S. relations with Algeria and 9orocco Tunisian problems Human rights issues Palestine issue 1ibya4s Qadhafi Tripoli embassy closed Soviet military sales igeria - Ambassador 1.7.-1.81 1ibya4s Amischief-makingB in area Uranium Sahel drought USAID French presence Cice President 9ondale visit President 3ountche Andrew Young State Department - Deputy Assistant Secretary, African Affairs 1.81-1.87 2 Chester Crocker Horn of Africa importance 1ibya4s Qadhafi activities South Africa Chad-1ibya conflict Hassan Habre 6ambia coup attempt 1ibya 1.80 coup Sudan-U.S. relations imeiri Islamic fundamentalism Sudan 1.85 coup Somalia problems Siad Barre U.S. military assistance programs U.S.-5aire relations U.S. intelligence in Africa Congress-State Department differences 9 R State- ational Security Council differences U.S. apartheid debate Black Caucus Africa views Personalities 1iberia - Ambassador 1.87-1..0 Shultz-9cPherson 1iberia proposals Doe regime U.S. interests and facilities Economy Environment American-1iberians versus indigenous population 1iberian military Embassy staffing Frustrations U.S.-1iberia relations Anti-Doe measures Corruption AID U.S. programs Peace Corps 1iberia-Ivory Coast relations 1iberia- igeria relations Israelis Soviets Charles Taylor4s invasion 3 U.S. intervenes 1iberian Armed Forces atrocities U.S. humanitarian role in conflict U.S. chastises and warns Doe 2arehouse fire State Department - 1iberia Task Force April-August 1..0 Evacuation of Americans U.S. military problems AOperation Sharp EdgeB U.S. obligations to 1iberia U.S. mediation idea Doe4s AinvulnerabilityB potion 9onrovia carnage Protecting U.S. embassy and citizens ECO9O6 ejects Taylor forces from 9onrovia Doe tortured and killed Amos Sawyer AAbuja AccordsB U.S. support of Accords Roosevelt Johnson Another U.S. evacuation Chaos in 1iberia Somalia - Ambassador Sept. 1..0 E Feb. 1..1 Civil war Siad Barre, dictator Operation Desert Shield U.S. strategic interests U.S. military access rights Ogaden problem USAID Urban terrorism Security breakdown IraF woos Somalia Embassy staff 1ibya presence Diplomatic colleagues Relations with rebels Early evacuation Aideed, rebel leader U.S. embassy refuge 9ogadiscio chaos 1ooting 4 USS 6uam arrives U.S. 9arine rescue operation Embassy under fire Third country national protection Air evacuation Soviet ambassador4s gratefulness U.S. reception State Department - Assistant Secretary for Human Rights 1..1-1..3 Regional bureaucratization of human rights Arab-Jewish issues Assistant Secretary Richard Schifter Islamic fundamentalism Congressional interest Turkey and 3urds China4s human rights issues Colombia issues Shining Path guerrillas on-governmental organizations ( 6Os) Somalia famine 6ypsies issue 3urds Conflict resolution Post-Retirement 1..3- Declassification AID task force Inter-Action N6O INTERVIEW QI Let$s start with your background. Tell us something about that. BISHOPI I was born in New Rochelle, New York on July 01, 1.38. I came from a very Irish family--as Irish as JpaddyKs pig.J There was one exceptionI my motherKs family came directly from Ireland. Her grandparents came from Cork. Her paternal grandfather took exception to a remark made by a British policeman about his wife as they were crossing a river. He picked up the JBobbyJ and threw him into the river. Unfortunately, the policeman couldnKt swim and drowned. That made for a Fuick exit from Ireland for him to the United States which explains how my mother came to be born in Boston. 9y fatherKs folks were also Irish. His family had moved from Ireland to Newfoundland where they continued their fishing profession. 9y grandfather Patrick was a dory fisherman; his father had been knocked off his boat in the Bay of Fundy and had drowned. So my 5 grandfather was an orphan at a young age, as his mother died a couple of years after his fatherKs death. She may have been a 9icmac Indian; we are not certain. Her name was 1e Croix; one version of family history believes that she was French-Canadian; the other version has it that she was Indian. In fact, my grandfather was rather dark skinned as is my father and his brothers. Patrick went to sea as a youth; he never went to school. His older brothers fished alternatively out of Newfoundland and Boston, which is what Patrick then did. Ultimately, he fished primarily out of Boston and when he reached marriageable age, he married a girl he had met at the annual J ewfieJ-- ewfoundlanders--Ball. 2hen he proposed, she said that she would not be the widow of a fisherman; if he wanted her, he would have to find employment on land. So he became a carpenter, which was what he was when I knew him. 9y mother moved from South Boston to 9edford, where she met my father on Carberry Street in Fulton Heights where both lived. They were childhood sweethearts; they ultimately married and moved to New York--where my father had lived just before his marriage. 9y father was a high school graduate who supported his family through the depression-- since my grandfather was jobless for two or three years in those desperate times. After graduation, he went to work in a lumber yard owned by a friend; he studied accounting at night. 2hen the opportunity came, he went to work for a wholesale lumber company in ew Rochelle- Plunkett and 2ebster-1umber Company. He retired from that company at the age of seventy-five. 9y mother had left school to work; I am not sure she ever returned to get her high school diploma. This was always a murky issue in family discussions. Once she was married, she began to have children. I came along a year after the marriage. Then followed soon two brothers and then five other children, who died shortly after birth. So my mother was busy raising us. Both my parents were very involved in civic affairs. 9y father worked forty hours per week for the lumber company and probably another thirty for the Community Chest, the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts and other volunteer organizations. He ultimately became the chairman of the Board of Education in our town. He was also very active in church affairs and the parochial schools. 9y mother worked closely with a pre-school for poor kids in our town. 9y parents also played a little golf, when they had time. One of my first jobs in the Foreign Service was to work in the news office. One of my tasks was to write biographies of people who were being appointed as ambassadors. It struck me then that at least one-third of the career appointees had gone to Princeton. In those days, that usually meant that the education was financed by the families. Another third were graduates of other Ivy 1eague schools. There was not the diversity that was true for my entrance class. From age three to twenty-one, I was in Catholic schools. I started with Dominican nuns, until we had a falling out and I was shipped off to Irish Christian brothers, who my family thought might be able to deal better with my transgressions. I went to Iona 6rammar 6 school, then to Iona high school in my town--both were within walking distance from my house. I got a good education--the Brothers were excellent teachers. Then I attended Holy Cross College in 9assachusetts--a Jesuit institution--which was in something of a slump at the time. That is, the educational level was not Fuite up to my expectations. A number of us set up a school within a school to acFuire some of the knowledge that we did not believe the formal educational system was providing. For example, Holy Cross reFuired thirty-two hours of Thomistic philosophy without ever having us read St. Thomas AFuinas. Instead, we read manuals prepared by the Jesuits; we had eight hours of theology which was filtered through some brain dead Jesuits. At Holy Cross, in addition to this reFuired philosophy and theology, I studied social sciences which became my major. 2ithin that broad spectrum, I concentrated on American history and to some extent, Russian and diplomatic history as well. 6iven the work-load generated by the reFuired theology and philosophy courses, there wasnKt as much time for my major as I might have been given at other institutions. I lived in great part of course in a Catholic world.
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