Ambassador James Cowles Hart Bonbright
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR JAMES COWLES HART BONBRIGHT Interviewed by: Peter Jessup Initial interview date: February 26, 1986 Copyright 1998 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Rochester NY Harvard University Entered Foreign Service (1927) ,anton ,hina 1928.1929 /ice ,onsul Otta0a ,anada 1910.1913 Ambassador Hanford 5acNider Department of State ,anadian Affairs 1913.1941 Prohibition and the Bronfman Brothers St. 8a0rence 9ater0ays Sumner 9ells Under Secretary of State ,ordell Hull US neutrality 99II Brussels Belgium 1941. Ambassador Joseph E. Davies German Invasion Dunkirk Belgrade Yugoslavia 1941. Second Secretary Axis Pact and ,onciliation German Invasion Tito Budapest Hungary 1942. The Balkans 8ooking After British Investments 1 Internment To 8isbon Estoril Portugal 1942. Evacuation to US Department of State French Desk 1942.1943 De Gaulle and Free French /ichy and French Polities Ambassador 5urphy and North Africa 8andings Paris France 1943.1949 Peace ,onference ,affery and Other Personalities French Personalities French 9ines Observatories in the UN Department of State 1949.1955 Deputy Assistant Secretary Europe US. Russian relations: Kennan and Bohlen Dealing 0ith ,ongress Secretary of State Dulles 5c,arthy Era Bedell Smith Institute of Iberian Affairs 8isbon Portugal A Ambassador 1955.1958 SalaBar INTERVIEW $: Good morning, Ambassador Bonbright. )ou were going to give an oral history according to your style and wishes. I think it was January 19, 1903 when you were born. So i. you will proceed from there/ BONBRIGHT: Yes that is correct. Perhaps I could say a brief 0ord first about my parents. 5y father 0as one of four brothers 0ho came from Philadelphia. He 0as the youngest and had an unacademic start in lifeC I think he 0as expelled from six different schools so he told me once for seining the school pond 0ith a tennis net 0hich I thought 0as a perfectly good thing to do and very poor grounds for being expelled. His later education 0as completely self.made. His three older brothers 0ent to Yale and I think it 2 0as the second or third one..the third one died 0hile he 0as there. As a result of this tragedy his mother did not allo0 my father to go off to college. I never felt that this lack of a college education affected him adversely in any 0ay. He met my mother I think in ,olorado Springs 0hich is an odd place to be but my mother had gone out there to visit her sister 0hose husband 0as dying of tuberculosis and 0ho 0ent out there presumably for his health. There my father 0as 0orking..I donDt kno0 at 0hat..and there he met my mother. After her brother.in.la0 died she came back to Rochester 0here she and my father 0ere married and lived the rest of their lives. $: 0hat year was that, that they were married/ BONBRIGHT: They 0ere married on October 12 1898. They lived first 0ith my motherDs father James ,o0les Hart for 0hom I 0as named. I remember..I donDt kno0 0hy because I 0as very very young..being placed on his bed at one time just before he died. He 0as dying of cancer. I can see him though. I think thatDs the earliest recollection I have of anything. He 0as a fisherman and I think through him and also from my fatherDs side I got my great love for fishing 0hich has stayed 0ith me all my life. 5y mother 0as one of t0o daughtersC they 0ere 14 years apart. 5y mother 0as the younger. $: 0hat was her maiden name/ BONBRIGHT: Her maiden name 0as Isabelle Hart. She 0as Euite young 0hen they 0ere married having just turned 20. She 0as born in 1878 and my father in 1875. So she 0as 22 0hen her first child 0as born on 5ay 29 1900. That 0as my elder sister 0ho 0as also called Isabelle but for some reason 0as al0ays kno0n to us as Bin. 9e lived at first in my grandfatherDs house on Plymouth Avenue in Rochester 0hich 0as then a respectable old residential district in the city but 0hich no0 I am told has a number of red lights not connected 0ith traffic control. Shortly thereafter they moved to East Avenue 0here they built a house and 0here 0e lived until after the death of my father in 1914. As far as my o0n schooling is concerned I first 0ent to an establishment kno0n as the ,olumbia Preparatory School 0hich took young girls and boys until they reached about the age of eight or nine I think. I donDt remember too much of those years and 0hat I do remember I donDt remember too fondly. $: 0hy is that/ BONBRIGHT: I just 0asnDt a very good pupil. I had a great distaste for reciting and speaking up in class that sort of thing. That stayed 0ith me all my life. IDve al0ays 3 detested speech.making. IDm very bad at it. I really donDt remember learning anything much there. From that school I 0ent on to a private school called the Kalbfus School. I remember 0e had a little slogan FAre 0e happyG 9ell I guess. K.A.8.B.F.U.S.F That gives you an idea of the kind of school it 0as. It 0as run by a very robust and hardy man. I remember 0hen 0e had our morning recess he 0ould come out on the steps of the school look in and since the school had no bell 0ould put t0o fingers in his mouth and emit the most piercing 0histles that could be heard half0ay to Albany. I donDt think I got too much out of that school either. ,ertainly as a preparation for going a0ay to boarding school I didnDt get much out of it. 5y family decided to send me to St. PaulDs School in ,oncord Ne0 Hampshire mainly because a couple of their friends had gone there. $: 0ere those the early years o. St. Paul1s, or had it been going for some time/ BONBRIGHT: It had been going for some time. In fact it 0as founded in 1853. I first 0ent in the fall of 1913 0hen I 0as 11 years old. $: Did they have an Episcopal minister as the head/ BONBRIGHT: Indeed they did. The Reverend Samuel Smith Drury 0as one headmaster or Rector for all my time there and he 0as a very a0e.inspiring man. He 0as not greatly loved and some of the parents and students thought he 0as much too heavy.handed and harsh. On looking back at it I think he 0as a very good headmaster and gave the kind of no nonsense leadership that should be given to boys. But I 0as lucky to get in. The rule 0as that to get in you had to have a passing grade of 30H on four examinations 0hich doesnDt seem like a very high standard to meet but it seemed a0fully high to me then because on those four examinations my highest mark I think 0as 31 and on the other three I failed. So I can only conclude that at that period..1913..they 0ere desperate for pupils. Any0ay I got in and eventually adjusted so that 0hile I 0as never an A or even a B scholar I slo0ly improved as I 0ent along 0ith the result that at the end of it I 0as able to graduate and pass the college board examinations for Harvard. $: 0ere there any outstanding teachers at St. Paul1s in those days/ BONBRIGHT: There 0ere some Euite extraordinary people I think. The head of the lo0er school 0here I 0ent in as a boy of 11 0as a man named Henry Kittridge 0ho 0as the son of the great Harvard Shakespearean professor. He and his young 0ife 0ere really delightful fine people and he 0as very bright. He later served briefly as Headmaster the first layman to hold the position. Other good teachers 0ere /aughan 5errith 9illard Scudder and Henry ,hittenden. $: )ou must have entered in the first form, didn1t you/ 4 BONBRIGHT: No I entered in the second form. I 0as there for five years graduating from the /Ith Form in the spring of 1921. $: During vacations you1d go home to Rochester/ BONBRIGHT: Yes I al0ays 0ent home to Rochester. Oddly enough although there 0ere a fe0 automobiles at the time 0e al0ays traveled in big horse.dra0n carryalls into ,oncord Ne0 Hampshire 0hich 0as a couple of miles a0ay 0here 0e took the train to Boston. $: Did you participate in some sports there/ BONBRIGHT: Everybody participated in something but I didnDt participate at a very high level. I 0as very small 0hen I 0ent a0ay to school and I still only 0eighed 120 pounds 0hen I 0ent to Harvard so in football I 0as tossed around by the 0ind. I learned to like hockey very much but I never got too good at it. I had very 0eak ankles and I 0asnDt very fast but I did play on the Harvard freshman team. 9e 0ere beaten by Yale so that 0as the end of my hockey career. I also 0as particularly fond of baseball but that had a very lo0 priority at St. PaulDs as everybody 0as supposed to go in for ro0ing. $: 0ho was the great rival o. St. Paul4s then55St. 6ark1s/ BONBRIGHT: 9e really didnDt have any. 9e didnDt play outside the schools 0hen I 0as there only intramural athletics. As soon as he arrived each boy 0as immediately taken into t0o so.called clubs. One 0as for ro0ing. You 0ere either a Halycon or you 0ere a Shattuck named for Dr.