1 the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR MICHAEL H. NEWLIN Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: September 29, 2006 Copyright 2007 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born in North Carolina Raised in North Carolina and Panama Canal Zone Harvard University Entered the Foreign Service in 1952 Frankfurt, Germany, Rotation Officer 1952-195. Marriage Environment Cohn and Schine McCarthy period Oslo, Nor0ay, Political Officer 195.-1951 2uislings Environment U-2 Missions or0ay-Russia relations Pacifist Movements obel Pri4e State Department, United Nations Affairs, 5IO7 1951-1983 Indonesia/West Iria Ells0orth Bunker Cuban Missile Crisis Adlai Stevenson Arab-Israel issues Yugoslav defector Paris, France: Brussels, Belgium, Political-Military Officer, USRO 1983-1981 De Gaulle press conferences Ambassador Thomas Knight Finletter Ambassador Harlan Cleveland SACEUR leaves France 1 Multilateral Force ICBMs Vietnam ATO Nuclear Planning Group Soviet threat Khrushchev orth Atlantic Council e0 York City, USU , Senior Political Advisor 1981-1972 Charles Yost George Herbert Walker Bush Duties of the office KissingerAs China visit Recognition of Mainland China Bangladesh War Arab-Israel dispute U Thant Secretary Waldheim Kinshasa, Deputy Chief of Mission 1972-1975 Mobutu Copper mines Inga-Shaba electrical transmission line Belgians Environment Berusalem, Consul General 1975-1910 Ga4a status Settlements moratorium issue US employee problem Mayor Teddy Kollek Relations 0ith Embassy Tel Aviv Diplomatic Immunity in Israel issue Camp David Arafat and the PDO Israeli leaders SadatAs visit Relations 0ith Israeli officials Danny Kaye visit VIP visits State Department, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, IO 1910-1911 Arab-Israel Iran hostages e0 Reagan Administration 2 State Department, Office of the Director General 1911 FSO Candidates Oral EEamination Ambassador to Algeria 1911-1915 Iranian hostage release 2adhafi Intelligence eEchange Soviet MIGs TWA plane hijack Vernon Walters President Bendjedid visit to Washington Polisario Environment Economy State Department: Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for 1915-1911 Consular Affairs Boan Clark Personnel Degislation President Clinton passport application file issue Manila visa problem Protection cases Iran Contra Beirut hostages Iran hostages Ollie North Achille Dauro Congressional testimony Vienna, Austria, Resident Representative to U Agencies 1911-1991 Agencies and their functions Kurt Waldheim orth Korea Israel Smuggling and drug trafficking on-Proliferation Treaty IraFAs 0eapons of mass destruction Soviet collapse Maureen Reagan Retirement 1991 Post Retirement, Retired annuitant State Department, 1991 Bureau of Political/Military Affairs unn-Dugar Program 3 Cray computers U Special Commission on IraF 5U SCOM7 Russians and IraF France and IraF IraF and biological 0eapons IraFAs nuclear 0eapons program TariF A4i4 Search for IraFAs nuclear 0eapons ChinaAs Nuclear Program Ka4akhstan US-Soviet cooperation Da0yers Alliance for World Security 5DAWS7 Bupiter Corporation INTERVIEW Q: This is tape one, side one of an interview with Michael H. Newlin. This is being done by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, and I am Charles Stuart Kennedy. Today is September 29, 2006. Do you go by Mike or Michael or what? EWDI : Mike is fine, Stu. Q: All right, let,s start at the beginning. -hen and where were you born? EWDI : I 0as born May 18, 1928 in Greensboro, North Carolina. I lived in Greensboro until I 0as approEimately ten or eleven years old, and then 0e moved to a small to0n in North Carolina, Sanford, 0here my father 0as CEO of a small company that built rail0ay motor cars. That, as 0e got closer to the 0ar, it became clear that metal and other materials 0ere hard to get. The stockholders sold the company 0hile my father 0as in South America on a sales trip, and so he found himself basically 0ithout a job. But he had contacts because he had built one of the trains that 0as being used by the Panama Canal Railroad company. He 0as hired by the railroad company to come and 0ork as a mechanic on one of the trains that he had built. So 0e moved to the Canal Zone, Balboa, shortly before Pearl Harbor, and I 0ent to high school there. Q: I want to go back a bit. Tell me what do you know about the background on let,s say your father,s family first? EWDI : My middle name is Holt, and my great, great grandfather 0as at one time before the Civil War one of the richest men in North Carolina, Michael Holt in a place called SaEapaha0. Michael Holt had the idea of bringing the machine to the cotton rather . than the cotton to the machine, and he built a dam on the Ha0 River and opened up one of the first mills there. Of course that 0as burnt and the dam blo0n up by Sherman during the Civil War. Q: I hope you will appreciate the fact that my grandfather was an officer with Sherman. EWDI : Well let it be said for the record that even though I have born a southerner, I am glad the Civil War came out the 0ay it did. So the family basically, until my father came along, never recovered from this blo0. His father, I think, 0orked on the railroad in an office job. As a young man, my father 0as 0orking just simply as a mechanic building automobiles. It 0as rather ne0 in those days, still in the roaring 20As. He 0as obviously very good as a mechanic. Then this company in Sanford needed somebody 0ith skills, and he had both technical and the managerial skills to build these trains. They ran either on gasoline or diesel. But they ran on railroads, and they 0ere very efficient. They filled a niche. He 0ould go to South America and get an order for one, and come back and then build these trains, and then take them and assemble them. It 0as remarkable that this small company in North Carolina built 0orld class products. One 0as built for the President of Argentina. He unfortunately died right after I graduated from high school in 19.3. It 0as 0hile I 0as in high school, and they said the deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Panama, Mr. Bohn B. Muccio, 0ill come over and talk to the class about the foreign service. That 0as ho0 my interest in the foreign service got started. Q: -ell let,s go back on your mother,s side. -hat can you tell about your mother,s side? EWDI : My mother 0as born up in the hills of North Carolina in a place called Mount Airy at that time, very tiny little to0n. Then her father Mr. Bames Brady 0ent to Greensboro and opened up a sort of boarding house cum hotel called the Bland0ood in a very nice section of to0n. He 0as apparently a very successful businessman. Unfortunately he 0as murdered one night. He 0ent do0n to try to get one of his employees out of the jail and somebody cut his throat and robbed him. My mother then lived 0ith my grandmother in a house in Greensboro. My father happened to take a room in their house because there 0ere just the t0o 0omen living in this big house, and that is ho0 they met. Q: Did your mother go to college or not? EWDI : My mother did go to college. She 0ent to State College 0hich 0as then a female institution. She did, I think have a college degree. Q: -hat do you recall about .reensboro or Sanford in North Carolina? EWDI : I do have some recollection of Greensboro, and it 0as very favorable. We 0ere near, the place 0here 0e lived, Spring Garden Street, 0as near the state college for 0omen at that time, and they had a training school to teach teachers. It 0as very 0ell eFuipped. So I 0as enrolled in first grade, and the teacher then called my mother one day and said, HMrs. Ne0lin, I am sorry to have to tell you this, but Mike cannot read.I My 5 mother thought my goodness, I have given birth to an idiot. She said, HI donAt understand that. He seems like a bright enough boy.I The teacher said, HWell have you been reading to him, Mrs. Ne0linJI She said, HYes. I read PilgrimAs Progress, Beo0ulf, and then some Greek myths.I HWell that is probably it. He is too bored 0ith Back and Bill Went Up the Hill.I I remember that fondly. Q: At Sanford, where you moved. How about there. In the first place these two places in North Carolina, did you have, did segregation intrude on you at all to your knowledge or not? EWDI : Well it 0as the typical situation at that time. My nanny in Greensboro 0as a black 0oman named Mamie. Mother said that 0hen Mamie died she 0ent right straight to heaven. One thing I remember as a boy in Greensboro during the depression 0as in the evenings Fuite often they 0ould get a knock on the back door, and there 0ould be a 0hite man there saying, MaAam, do you have some 0ood that needs splitting, I need something to eat. Well 0e didnAt have any 0ood to split, but they gave him a meal. Q: I remember we were in South Pasadena, California near the railroad tracks in the 00,s. -e would make sandwiches. Speaking of reading, did you find you were much of a reader as time went on? EWDI : In grade school I read Dos Passos USA. As 0ell as some other good books. Q: Did you get caught up in any of the kid books, Tom Swift? EWDI : Oh I read Dr. Doolittle. Dofting. Hugh Dofting. Mother didnAt appreciate the literary Fualities. She didnAt kno0 0hat it 0as all about.