The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR RICHARD W. TEARE Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: July 31, 1998 Copyright 2 6 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio Harvard University Entered the Foreign Service in 1959 Passport Office trainee, New York and Washington DC 1959 Frances Knight Marriage Barbados; General Officer 196021902 /o ernment 4isa fraud Politics Economy En ironment ,anila, Philippines. Consular Officer 190221905 4isa and passport fraud En ironment State Department, FSI. 4ietnamese language training 190521905 Saigon, 4ietnam. Political Officer 190521907 Ad isory Program 4ietnamese Army creation Use of Air Tactical Support 8ocal attitude toward war 4ietnamese /o t. capabilities War progress State Department, INR. Analyst, South 4ietnam 190721909 South 4ietnamese Delegation to Paris Peace Talks War Progress Estimating the enemy’s strength 1 4ietnam go ernment 4ietnam elections State Department. 4ietnamese Desk Officer 190921971 Speaking engagements “4ietnamization” Escort duty Cambodia Paris Agreement State Department, FSI. Spanish language study 1971 ,exico City, ,exico. Political Officer 197121973 Politics Anti2)ankee Relations En ironment Na Trang, 4ietnam, Deputy Principal Officer ATD)) 1973 ,onitoring the Cease Fire ,ilitary operations Feeding people and road building En ironment AID programs 4ietnamese military ,exico City, ,exico AResumed posting) 197321975 Donald Patterson murder 4ientiane, 8aos. Political Counselor 197521970 Prince Sou anna Phouma En ironment US assistance Fall of 4ietnam Dependent e acuation Pathet 8ao Security Terrorism Pol Pot /o ernment in Phnom Penh UN High Commissioner for Refugees ,IA’s Reparations demand Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for East Asian 197021977 And Pacific Affairs 2 State Department, INR. Cambodia Project 1977 State Department, FSI. Director of Political Studies 1977 Human Rights The National War College 19772197C State Department. Deputy Director of Philippine Affairs 197C219C1 Relations President ,arcos and Imelda ,ilitary Bases Agreement US Ambassadors Benigno ADuino State DepartmentE ,icronesian Negotiations AActing Director) 19C1219C3 UN Trusteeship for the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands US Negotiating Team US policy Trust Territory history US law firms negotiating teams Office of ,icronesian Status Negotiations Congressional interest European interest Islander capabilities Wellington, New Fealand. Deputy Chief of ,ission 19C3219C0 8amb /o ernment ANFUS Elections Nuclear ship isit issue Political Parties Relations Australians Antarctic Program Canberra, Australia. Deputy Chief of ,ission 19C0219C9 Relations US Defense Facilities Political Parties En ironment Immigration policy Indonesia Trade Common ,arket 3 APEC Financial crisis State Department. Director, Office of Indonesia, ,alaysia, 19C921992 Brunei and Singapore Affairs US 8abor Union interest Human Rights Dili ,assacre AID Programs Indonesia ASEAN US military facilities in Singapore Philippine military bases IraD in asion of Kuwait Singapore politics Ethnic ,alaysians Sultan of Brunei Ambassador to Papua2New /uinea 199321990 Accredited also to Solomon Islands and 4anuatu US commercial interests US military interests Gapanese memorials Crime Peace Corps En ironment /o ernment Organizasi Papua2merika Summer Institute Trade AID Economy Relations Australians Bougain ille Ethnic groups Politics 4anuatu politics Foreign Policy Ad isor to the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, Honolulu 19902199C US presence in Okinawa China Closure of Philippine bases El Nino 4 India INTERVIEW %: Can we start& Could you tell me something about when and where you were born and about your family& TEAREE Cle eland, Ohio, February 21st, 1937. ,y father was an architect at that time working for the go ernment, later for most of his career in pri ate practice. ,y mother had taught for a little while but did not work while my sister and I were growing up. I li ed from age three or so through high school in the suburb of 8akewood which is the first one west of Cle eland. I graduated from high school there. %: Could you tal) about your early schooling& TEAREE Well I don’t know that there is a lot to be said. It was essentially like e eryone else’s. One of the interesting angles though was that the high school I went to was brand new in 191C just at the time of the flu epidemic. It had a lot of newly hired faculty and some of them who had taught my parents and my parents’ siblings were still there when I got there thirty years later. %: During the war, World War II, did this cross your hori,on or were you too young& TEAREE Oh, no, ery definitely. I entered kindergarten I think right after Pearl Harbor. So I remember stepping on cans for example to conser e metal for the war effort and I remember ration books. I particularly remember on the morning of D2Day my motherH we must ha e been out of school already because it was a weekdayH and my mother woke me up to tell me that Allied forces had landed in Normandy. That was pretty excitingI %: Oh, yes. In elementary and as you moved into high school did you do much reading& TEAREE I did of arious kinds. I remember the ,ariette no els. %: Oh, yes, Richard and Jac)& TEAREE )es that sort of thing. And I read some more serious stuff. I remember reading Schlesinger’s Age of Gackson. %: 0ood 0od1 TEAREE Well by this time I was a junior or senior in high school. 5 %: Still, we studied that in college1 TEAREE Well, I don’t know how I got into it. I worked on the school newspaper. That was probably my most time consuming acti ity or the acti ity to which I de oted the most time. I became editor of the front page, there were four pages, and chairman of the editorial board by my senior year. %: 2our senior year would have been 352 or so& TEAREE ’53 to ’55. %: The Korean War was over by this time but had been going on while you were in high school. TEAREE )es in fact I remember i idly also the day that the news came out in church, it was a Sunday, that the North had in aded the South. %: June 25th, 195 . TEAREE Precisely. Certainly that colored the thinking of e eryone who was coming up toward draft age. That led me in fact to apply for a student deferment. I think it led a lot of people to apply for student deferments during the latter part of the J51s. As it turned out I don’t think I e er would ha e needed one because my draft board had a good cross section of people to draw from and they always getting people olunteering for the draft as opposed to enlisting which meant a shorter commitment. So I don’t think they would e er ha e gotten around to calling me. %: At La)ewood High, other than the war did you get involved at all or interested in foreign affairs& TEAREE I think I was to some degree, but certainly not spectacularly. I also liked American history. I didn’t take world history for some reason but I remember reading a book on world history, skimming it, on the e ening of the College Board examinations so I would be a little better eDuipped for that. One teacher who had some influence on me was a woman named ,argaret Warner, who did teach the whole range of social studies. She just died this year in her mid 91s, I read. ,y mother sent me a clipping about it. She was one of those people who had built up a lot of money and I think she donated se eral hundred thousand dollars to churches and charities. %: When you applied to college where did you want to go and where did you go& TEAREE I applied to fi e places, Har ard, )ale, Columbia, Dartmouth and Oberlin and Oberlin was really to please my mother and her family because they had all gone there. I 6 didn’t want to go there, it was too close to home. I wound up being accepted at all of them and my father’s income was such that I was abo e the line for scholarships. But I had the point that this income fluctuated and Har ard offered me something called a National Scholarship that was honorary. It carried no money at the time, but could ha e brought a stipend if the family’s situation had changed. That sounded ery appealing. Also Har ard, I thought, had the classiest literature of any of the fi e, including its acceptance letter, so that is where I went. %: 2ou were at Harvard from when to when& TEAREE From ’55 to ’5C. %: What was Harvard li)e in 357, when you got there& TEAREE I think it was pretty sDuare compared with what it later became in the J01s. In fact I think the whole country was pretty sDuare. This was the Eisenhower era, after all, and we wore jackets and ties certainly to lunch and dinner, and I think e en breakfast, although we wore chinos with them. E erything was pretty buttoned up or buttoned down, depending on how you look at it. I don’t think there was any great political ferment on the campus. I think the cutting edge people were those in the arts and I was not really one of them. %: Did you ma8or in any particular thing& TEAREE I majored in English and in effect minored in history and this was in keeping with my journalistic thoughts or interests. And in fact I went into the competition for a position on the newspaper, The Har ard Crimson, in the fall of my freshman year. I had barely started on that when I got the grades from my first mid term exams and they were not ery good so I thought I had better drop out of the Crimson competition and concentrate on my studies.