The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project JAMES McCARGAR Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: April 18, 1995 Copyright 1998 ADS TABLE OF CONTENTS Family background in California 920- 94 Public schooling in San Francisco Educated at Stanford Entry into Foreign Service 94 - 942 Cram school Oral e(am Interest in Russia Soviet Union- travel to post 942 Itinerary, -ra.il, Africa0 1iddle East Peregrinations through Soviet Union Soviet Union- 2uibyshev 942 Ambassador Standley Soviet Union- 1osco3 942 Duties of Tommy Thompson 4ife in 3artime 1osco3 2remlinology Soviet Union- 5ladivostok 942- 943 Trans-Siberian rail3ay 4iving conditions Angus 7ard Soviet Union- 1osco3 943 A night in 4ubyanka prison Report on conditions in 5ladivostok 942- 943 Romantic interlude 1 Santo Domingo 943- 944 Trujillo Refugee settlement- DORSA 1ilitary Career 944- 948 ONI Aleutian Islands Soviet ships Soviet attack on the 2urile Islands Returning of Red Army prisoners Sinking a Soviet ship Hungary- -udapest 948- 947 The Pond Conditions in Hungary Communist pressure tactics Reaction to the Truman Doctrine Escape net3ork Cardinal 1inds.enty Romanian royals US military corruption in -udapest Italy- Genoa 947- 948 American role in the 948 Italian elections The Pond- from State to CIA Office of Policy Coordination 948- 950 Chief of the Southeastern European Division National Committee for Free Europe Albania 2im Philby Guy -urgess Sumner 7elles Carmel Office France- Paris 950- 954 Promotion difficulties From Embassy to COCO1 Resignation from the Foreign Service Nation Committee for Free Europe 955- 977 Assembly of Captive European Nations European Director for Political and Social Programs 4yman 2irkpatrick Interrogation in the Department 2 INTERVIEW Q: oday is the 18th of April of 1995. his is an interview with $ames McCargar. It(s being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies. I(m Charles Kennedy. Could we start by your telling me a bit about your early bac)ground* Something about your family, when you were born, where you grew up. 1cCARGAR, I 3as born in 920, a year 3hich no3 seems beyond the ken of most of the current population0 3e didn't have 5CRs. I 3as born and brought up in San Francisco. I 3ent to public schools there. Q: Your parents* 1cCARGAR, 1y mother died 0 days after I 3as born. 1y father 3as a banker, one of the principal figures at the time in San Francisco's Crocker -ank. In 927 or 928, he left the -ank, describing himself thereafter in ,ho(s ,ho as an "industrialist" -- a term since fallen out of use. He 3as on a number of boards of directors. He 3as also President of the company that built the first bridge across San Francisco -ay -- a good distance south of the City, at the Dumbarton strait, or narro3s. It no longer e(ists. He 3as closely tied up 3ith shipping in San Francisco and 3ith Ha3aiian interests. Q: Matson Lines, Dole, that sort of thing* 1cCARGAR, The 1atson 4ines, yes, Dole, no. In place of the latter 3as the Ir3in Estate Company and Foundation. The Ir3ins 3ere one of the si( "missionary" families in the Islands. Paul Fagan, 3ho 3as the son of my father's close friend and banking colleague, Aames Fagan, after 3hom I 3as named, had married Helene Ir3in. Paul Fagan became President of the Ir3in Estate Company and Foundation, and in due course my father became a principal advisor there. The Foundation did a lot of charitable 3ork, but the Estate Company of course had considerable properties, both in the Islands and in California. Among the latter 3as the San Francisco baseball team of that day. In his later years, my father 3as al3ays going to baseball games. I once asked him "7here did this baseball enthusiasm come fromB" CI did so because he 3as a great golfer0 I'd never heard him talk baseball.D He said simply that Paul Fagan 3as very enthusiastic about the team -- leaving it to me to understand that that meant that he too 3as therefore an enthusiast. Q: .e was loo)ing after his interests. 3 1cCARGAR, I got the point. -ut there 3as more to his definition of "industrialist" than that. There 3as, in fact, something that 3as to have a major effect on life in this country -- and else3here, for that matter. -oth my parents 3ere born in California, 3hich in 920, 3hen I 3as born, 3as rather unusual. -y no3 it isn't unusual at all. 1y maternal and paternal grandparents had all come across the plains. 1y paternal grandfather came 3hen he 3as 8 years old, in 858. His father had already come once to California and then gone back, I believe to Io3a, to purchase cattle, 3hich he then drove across the plains, deserts, and mountains, 3ith my grandfather in to3. 1y great-grandfather didn't come for gold, but settled in northern California to farm. Actually, my paternal grandfather, for a brief time, 3as sheriff of -utte County in northern California. There's a story about him 3hich is possibly apocryphal. He became a dentist and died in 898, at age 50. CI found out rather late in my life, thanks to a lengthy obituary in, as I recall, he Pacific Prohibitionist, that he 3as 3ell kno3n as a vigorous and generous prohibitionist. As the years go by it seems that I have come to resemble him physically much more than my father, but his vie3point on liEuid refreshment has never been part of my makeup -- nor 3as it of my father's.D The story about my paternal grandfather 3as that he had gone to 5irginia City in Nevada, 3here the Comstock 4ode 3as still pouring forth its riches 3hen he 3as a young man Cuntil 888 it produced half of all the silver mined in the United StatesD. There, reportedly, he practiced dentistry in order to earn enough money to go the University of California's Dental School in -erkeley. 7hether this is apocryphal or not, I can't say. As for the historical aspect of my father's interests, in 925 a man 3hom he kne3 slightly came to see him at the Crocker -ank, seeking financial backing for a young man named Philo T. Farns3orth, an electrical engineer from Utah 3ho had some ideas about television. After much discussion, e(amination, and consultations, my father, Aames Fagan, and some associates started to back him -- as a personal, not a Crocker -ank, matter. The backers provided Farns3orth 3ith space for a laboratory on Green Street just belo3 the -ay side of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco -- plus F ,500 a month, of 3hich F200 3as for Farns3orth. CA plaEue commemorating the building's historical role has been stolen so often that the City of San Francisco finally embedded a large bron.e version in a massive granite boulder in the street.D In 928, at the laboratory, I first sa3 television. It 3as a very foggy day. A camera on the roof 3as pointed at the Russ -uilding, then a prominent local skyscraper, invisible in the fog. On the screen t3o floors belo3 in the lab, ho3ever, 3e could see everything very clearly. 1y father and his associates began a long series of technical, legal, and financial negotiations and arrangements. Among the technical 3as one 3ith G3orykin at RCA, one of the other great scientists 3orking on television -- it being recogni.ed that, because of its primacy in broadcasting at the time, RCA 3ould ultimately be essential. Then there 3as a technical collaboration 3ith Philco in Philadelphia. In 938 or 939 the backers and Farns3orth bought the Capehart Company at Fort 7ayne in Indiana Cat the time maker of the premier U. S.-made record-playing machinesD from U. S. Senator Capehart. This became the Farns3orth Radio and Television Company. As the 3ar clouds gathered, the 4 Federal Government, 3hich had given its go ahead to television production, issued instructions to the potential television manufacturers to drop television and fulfill the large defense orders coming from 7ashington., Farns3orth immediately s3itched to 3ar production, I believe mostly radar. After the 3ar there 3ere hearings before the Federal Government as to 3hich television system 3ould be chosen for the United States Cas similar choices 3ere made by foreign governments then and later -- hence the lack of uniformity in television transmission throughout the 3orldD. Farns3orth 3as one of the three systems competing. The Federal choice did not go to Farns3orth and that, in effect, 3as the end of the Company. 1y father got everybody out of it -- himself last. -ut to my astonishment, about 992 -- an item in he ,ashington Post caught my eye. As you no doubt kno3, each State is allo3ed t3o statues of outstanding citi.ens in the Capitol, 3hether in the Rotunda, or Statuary Hall, or both, I don't kno3. Utah, after all these years, still had only -righam Houng immortali.ed in the Federal Capitol. Utah 3as entitled to another statue of a distinguished native son. A referendum had been held in Utah, and, by Aove, today there is a statue of Philo T. Farns3orth in the Capitol. I. Your schooling* 1cCARGAR, I attended a public grammar school -- Grant School -- in San Francisco, 3hich no longer e(ists physically Chaving been erroneously condemned by the City and unnecessarily demolished to the benefit of some real estate developersD. -ut there are an e(traordinary number of Foreign Service Officers -- if you can ever research it, but perhaps it's not 3orth it -- 3ho 3ere alumni of San Francisco's Grant School. Q: 0rant* 1cCARGAR, Grant, Ulysses S.