Booth, Robert

The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral history Project ROBERT BOOTH Interviewed by: Mark Tauber Initial interview date: October 18, 2016 Copyright 2019 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born in Johnson City, Tennessee October 29, 1952 BA in Political Science, University of Tennessee 1970–1974 Entered the Diplomatic Security Service 1974 Washington, D.C.—Special Agent 1974–1975 Protecting Foreign Dignitaries Comparison to Secret Service Beijing, China—Special Agent 1975–1976 The Chinese expel U.S. Marines Social life Pollution Geneva, Switzerland—Special Agent 1976–1977 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty Tokyo, Japan—Assistant Regional Security Officer 1978–1980 KGB officer defects A car crash Presidents’ visits to foreign countries Washington, D.C.—Secretary’s Detail 1980–1981 Security training Friendship with VP Bush Protection measures Washington, D.C.—Special Assignments Staff 1981–1986 Investigations into homosexuality Investigating Diplomatic Security officers Washington, D.C.—Special Assignments Staff Acting Chief 1986 1 Diplomatic Security officers assaulted in Germany The Office of the Inspector General cases Investigating fraud Irwin Scarbeck counter-espionage case Port-au-Prince, Haiti—Regional Security Officer 1986–1987 Violent incidents and a dangerous environment Staph infection Washington, D.C.—Branch Chief of Overseas Training 1987–1990 Teacher training at Georgetown The class curriculum Dealing with ambassadors Washington, D.C.—Head of the Special Investigations Division 1990–1992 The green book Stopped investigating homosexuality Audited by the Inspector General Paris, France—Deputy Regional Security Officer 1992–1995 Embassy security briefing Relationship with the French police Language training New ID system Washington, D.C.—Office of Counterintelligence Branch Chief 1995–2002 Concern about position Improving interagency contacts Arrival of the director Coordinating with the CIA 9/11 Washington, D.C.—Acting Director 2002 Retirement September 2002 Post retirement activities Washington, D.C.—Diplomatic Security Training Center Contractor 2002 Washington, D.C.—Office of Counterintelligence Contractor 2003–2012 INTERVIEW Q: Where were you born and raised? 2 BOOTH: I was born October 29th, 1952 in Johnson City, Tennessee. My father, at that time, was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Rio de Janerio as a Foreign Service Staff Officer. The State Department regulations at the time were that spouses, and they were almost always women back then, of embassy officers were to return to the United States to give birth. Accordingly, my mother traveled to Johnson City, Tennessee which was my father’s hometown, and 10 weeks later I was on the SS United States, along with my older brother Thomas, heading out to my father’s next posting which was at the embassy in Bonn, West Germany. Q: Very interesting. Now yes, the rule to have the baby delivered in the U.S. is fine, but did your father still have family there, is that why your mother went to Johnson City? BOOTH: Yes, absolutely. The rest of his family members were there, his brothers, and other relatives so that they could take care of my mother whose English was still a work in progress. Q: OK, so just one step back for a second. So, your father’s hometown was Johnson City. What kind of work was he involved in before he met your mother, and so on? BOOTH: He was born in 1909 in Johnson City. His full name was Ernest Wendell Booth. He was the son of Cornelius Booth who was a professor of English at Sewanee University. As a young adult growing up in the time of the Depression he did not finish high school and worked as a millwright in a little shop outside Johnson City until 1941. When war was declared he immediately volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army and was assigned to the 3rd and 20th Armored Divisions which deployed through the European theater of operations. At war’s end he found himself serving in the army of occupation as a Military Police Officer and volunteered to stay behind as part of the “army of occupation” because he was not married. His primary job was working with a squad of soldiers to locate and arrest members of the Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel) who had shed their uniforms and were trying to hide and blend in with ordinary German citizens. One method was for his squad to hike into a local forest and look for secluded cabins, discreetly surround the structure and wait for evening to fall. If the cabin’s chimney suddenly started to produce smoke, there was good reason to believe that it was occupied. At the right moment they would storm the cabin and if they found military aged males inside they would be ordered to remove their shirts and to raise their hands over their heads. If they discovered a blood group tattooed in the right armpit it was a clear indication that they were members of the Waffen-SS. In those cases my dad and his squad would detain the suspects and escort them to the nearest U.S. military detention facilities. Apparently, it was during one of these turnovers that somebody mentioned to my father that they were looking for people to join the Foreign Service as security/ communications personnel. And my dad, from my recollections of what he told me, was ready to experience the world beyond leave small town USA and so he said, “Yes, I would like to consider that.” As a result, he returned to the United States and undergo a security background investigation conducted by the FBI. While waiting for the FBI to 3 completer their inquiry, he got a job as a guard at the Mellon Gallery. I have one picture of my father in his security outfit at the Mellon Gallery. Q: Oh for heaven sakes. BOOTH: After his security clearance was approved, he was hired by the State Department and immediately assigned to the U.S. Legation in Budapest. It was there when he was working with three other… Q: Wait. So now this assignment to the Legation was what year? BOOTH: I think it's around '46 or '47. Q: So it was right after the War? BOOTH: Oh right after the war. So apparently my dad and two or three others at the U.S. Legation were recruited or volunteered to be involved in a program where the American Government was trying to sneak royalists out from the previous Hungarian government under the noses of the occupying Russian forces. According to my father these fugitive royalists were being snuck into the U.S. Legation and put into wooden caskets that were identified as containing the remains of American airmen whose planes had been shot down over Hungary during World War II. The caskets would be driven to the Hungary/Austria border and then turned over to U.S. authorities in Vienna. Eventually the Russians, after a couple of such trips, discovered what the U.S. government was up to and my dad and his colleagues were declared persona non-grata and forced to leave Hungary. During his assignment to Budapest he had met my mother Maria Elizabeth Sebok and they had started to date and had become quite a couple. They were not married, but as a result of the Russian declaration of persona non-grata they quickly married, which gave her protections, although not yet U.S. citizenship. As a result, she became a ward of the U.S. government and was shipped off to Austria by train for protection until my dad could pack up join her and, after a short stopover in Washington, D.C., traveled by ship to Italy to take up his next assignment at the to the U.S. Embassy in Rome. Q: OK, let me just go back one second. Since your grandfather was a teacher at Sewanee, do you trace your heritage back to settlers? Do you go that far back? BOOTH: The furthest we’ve gone back certified is Hiram Booth who was in the Tennessee 3rd Union Cavalry, during the Civil War, Union. As far as we know he was a shopkeeper. We haven’t really gone much genealogy research beyond that. Our DNA testing suggests German-English background. That’s as far as we go. 4 Q: Because you know, there are always a few people with these incredible stories that go back almost to the Revolution. They’re part of the initial wave of settlers that go beyond the Appalachians and begin settling in that unknown territory, and all of those stories. Alright, so we’re back to Europe. Your father has just gotten married to his Hungarian bride. They get her out to Austria and he’s assigned to Rome, but how is her status regularized? BOOTH: Oh, she had to come to the United States to become a U.S. citizen. She tells a funny story. She fell in love with chocolate milkshakes. Sometime during her stay in Washington, DC she lived in hotel close to the State Department and had milkshakes breakfast, noon, and dinner. And she tells the story with a great smile on her face that at one point after like her 10,000th chocolate milkshake she got sicker than anything. And she had never touched one since. While residing in Washington, DC she prepared for the citizenship test. She passed, and her oath of allegiance was administered inside by the Secretary of State inside the Main State Department building. I apologize I don’t remember exactly who it was. I believe it was Dean Acheson. Back then it was a privilege accorded to the small number of Foreign Service personnel who had non-U.S. citizen spouses.

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