1 Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs History

Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs History Project HOWARD H. LANGE Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: June 20, 2000 Copyright 2004 ADS TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in Nebraska Uni ersity of Nebraska U.S. Air Force Taiwan - U.S. Air Force 1963-1967 Mainland China Uni ersity of ,ashington - Student 1967-1969 Entered Foreign Ser ice 1969 State Department - FS. - /ietnam Training 1969-1970 Dissent petition Hue1 /ietnam - Pacification Program 1970-1971 23am Son 7194 Tet En ironment 3aos Buddhists U.S. firms Saigon1 /ietnam - Political Officer 1972 En ironment Military situation Reporting the war U.S. military Ambassador Bunker Cease fire State Department - FS. - Economic Training 1972-1973 0 State Department - Office of Pacific .slands1 New 8ealand1 and Australia 1973-1975 South Pacific communism French Agricultural products Ronald Reagan Manila1 Philippines - Economic and Financial Officer 1975-1979 A.D Marcos U.S. interests :o ernment Taipei1 Taiwan - Chinese 3anguage Training 1979-1980 Beijing1 China - Economic Officer 1980-1982 Reporting problems Security En ironment Sichuan U.S. interests State Department - Regional Economic Affairs 1982-1983 State Department - EAP - China Desk Officer 1983-1985 Shipping Normalization of relationship Asian De elopment Bank [ADB] Reagan China isit Trading Ci il a iation Dam projects Chinese U.S. isitors State Department - FS. - Polish 3anguage Training 1986 ,arsaw1 Poland - Economic Counselor 1986-1989 Agriculture Solidarity Malta 1989-1992 Bush-:orbache summit 3ibya Pan-Am 103 :ulf ,ar 1 Economy State Department - Protection of .ntellectual Property Rights 1992-1994 ,orld .ntellectual Property Organization [,.PO] .ntellectual pri acy State Department - EAP - Taiwan Desk Officer 1994-1996 American .nstitute in Taiwan [A.T] Operating procedures Taiwan Policy Re iew Congressional interest Taipei representati es in ,ashington China relations 3ee Teng-hui@s Cornell Uni ersity isit 2Republic of China on TaiwanA Taiwan Relations Act Transit issue U.S. politics and Taiwan U.S. arms sales State Department - EAP - Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs 1996-1998 NSC policy role China isits Hong Bong Tibet China@s military eCports Chinese embassy Human rights Retirement 1998 /iews on U.S.-China relationship INTERVIEW Roots and EducationD Nebraska Eears Q: oday is June 20, 2000. his is an interview with Howard H. Lange. his is being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and raining. I(m Charles Stuart Kennedy. Do you go by Howard) 3AN:ED Ees. Q: Let(s start at the beginning. When and where were you born and can you tell me a 2 little bit about your parents) 3AN:ED . was born on No ember 41 1937 in a small town in Nebraska named Hooper1 which is about 40 miles from Omaha. My father and mother had both grown up on farms. My mother mo ed to Nebraska from South Dakota. They met when my father was going to chiropractic school. think he was ready to get off the farm. My mother was a nurse. They met and got married in 1926. My sister was born in 1927. Then they struggled through the Depression years in small-town Nebraska1 which was tough. Q: Was your father a practicing chiropractor at that time) 3AN:ED Ees. Q: I would think this would be very sparse pickings at that point. 3AN:ED .t was indeed sparse pickings. Can . tell a storyF Q: ,h, absolutely. We(re trying to get some social history in here, too. Please do. 3AN:ED My mother used to tell a story1 which she included in some recollections that she wrote up before she died. .n 1930 when the Depression was really beginning to deepen1 they mo ed from one small Nebraska town1 :ene a1 to another1 Hooper. At the beginning of the 2dirty thirties1A crops had failed in central Nebraska1 and there was ery little money in circulation at that time. My father1 e en into the G40s1 had no choice but to take some payments in kind - chickens1 canned goods and other commodities. Hust before they left :ene a1 my mother went around to isit all the people who owed money for treatment. She was ery pleased that she managed to collect I100 in cash. The remaining accounts recei able were of course ne er collected. The drought was less se ere further east1 around Hooper1 but those were ery hard years. Q: Where did you father(s family come from) 3AN:ED His father was the first child to be born in this country to my father@s grandparents1 who@d come from northern :ermany. They came in 1852 to northern .llinois1 at that time outside of Chicago but now absorbed by the city. My father@s mother@s family came from southern :ermany in the 1840s1 li ed in ,isconsin for se eral years1 and stopped in the Nebraska in the 1870s1 before most of them mo ed on to California. The 3ange family1 father and sons1 were farmers and laborers in .llinois. .n the late 1870s1 the parents and three sons1 including my grandfather1 mo ed to Nebraska and bought land from the Burlington and Missouri Ri er Railroad1 whose tracks had reached Clay County by 1871. Q: What kind of a farm) 3AN:ED .t was a general farm. They raised wheat1 corn and oats1 which before farm 3 mechanization was important as horse feed. worked on the farm one summer when . was a teenager. There was a pond on the farm1 and as a boy . hunted duck there with my father and his friends. The pond is now in federal hands1 the 23ange 3agoon Federal ,aterfowl Production Area.A ,e also hunted pheasant in the 1940s and G50s1 but wildlife seems less plentiful today as trees in fencerows and shelterbelts ha e been remo ed to make way for center pi ot irrigation systems. .t happens that . still ha e 80 acres of the farm1 which passed from my grandfather to my father to my mother to me. .t now raises corn1 soybeans1 and grain sorghum in rotation year to year. Much of the land around it is irrigated1 but .@ e kept it a dryland farm. Q: How about your mother(s background) 3AN:ED Her family goes way1 way back in this country. Her maiden name was Dawes. The first Dawes in this country came to Massachusetts in 1635 as a 15-year-old boy. And about fi e generations on1 there was ,illiam Dawes1 a patriot who on April 18-191 17751 rode with Paul Re ere. She was a proud member of the DAR1 Daughters of the American Re olution. Her father went from Ohio to South Dakota in the early 1880s1 and she grew up on a farm in southeastern South Dakota1 just north of the Missouri Ri er. Q: .our mother was a nurse/ what sort of education did she get) 3AN:ED She was a teacher for a short while. At that time1 a couple of years of what was called normal college qualified you to do that. She taught in one-room rural schoolhouses in South Dakota for a couple of years. Then she and a sister went into nurse@s training in Hastings1 Nebraska. E en though she wasn@t a full-time nurse after she was married1 she kept acti e at it throughout her life. She was ery acti e in the Red Cross1 as a staff member and as a olunteer. Q: And your father was a chiropractor. What was the education) 3AN:ED At that time1 there were only a couple of chiropractic schools in the United States. The first was the Palmer School of Chiropractic in Da enport1 .owa1 and that@s where he went. He had earned some money in Chicago and continued to work waiting table during chiropractic school. He completed training in two years1 graduating in 1927. Q: Do you have brothers and sisters) 3AN:ED . ha e a sister1 who li es near Seattle. Ten years separate us1 so in those early years she was sort of a second mother to me. Q: What was it like growing up in Hooper) 3AN:ED ,ell1 first of all . ha e to tell you that it@s pronounced Hoo-per [as in hooker1 not blooper]. .t is thought to ha e been named after Samuel Hooper1 a post-Ci il ,ar congressman from Massachusetts1 who had railroad connections. Hooper was a railroad 4 town in the Elkhorn Ri er alley1 established in 1871. .t is today about the same size it was when . grew up there1 which is about 800 people. ,e stayed there until . was through the second grade. Then my father mo ed us to 3incoln so that my sister could go to uni ersity. The only way she could go was to li e at home because the family couldn@t afford to send her away to school. So from then on . li ed in 3incoln. Q: What was Lincoln like) 3AN:ED 3incoln is the second-largest city in Nebraska1 after Omaha. .t@s much bigger now than when . was there1 1201000 to probably 2501000 now. There were only three public high schools in the whole city at that time. .n some ways it was a bit of an insular eCistence1 partly because the country at that time was more insular and less di erse. ,e had a few black families in 3incoln1 some Hispanics1 and no Asians at all. Now that@s all changed1 along with the rest of the country. spent summers working on the farm or working in town. Q: What was school like) 3AN:ED My elementary school and middle school were in walking or biking distance of our house.

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