The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR ROBERT MCCLOSKEY Interviewed by: Charles S. Kennedy Initial interview date: May 8, 1989 Copyright 1998 ADS TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Ne spaper ork Hong Kong 1955-1958 Refugee relief ork Bureau of Public Affairs 1958-1964 Far Eastern affairs Differences bet een Eisenho er and Kennedy Administrations ,im Haggerty Television .ro th of press corps /0 1ncident 2incoln 3hite State Department Spokesman 1964-1973 Dean Rusk and media /se of press Foreign Service and media President ,ohnson Coverage of 7ietnam 3ar Ni8on Administration 3illiam Rogers and press Henry Kissinger Ambassador to Cyprus 1973-1974 Situation on Cyprus 9akarios .rivas Relations ith /.S. Embassy, Athens Assistant Secretary, Congressional Relations 1974-1976 1 Henry Kissinger Turkish invasion of Cyprus 1974 Ambassador to Netherlands 1976-1978 Non-proliferation Neutron bomb Drug problems Staff of Embassy Demonstrations Ambassador to .reece 1978-1981 .reece and NATO Andreas Papandreou Relations ith .reece Base problems and negotiations 1ranian hostages .reek government and terrorists Karamanlis Retrospective INTERVIEW Q: Mr. Ambassador, could you give me an idea of how you got involved in the newspaper business& 9CC2OSKEY: 1 began ith a eekly ne spaper in Ne ,ersey, hile 1 as going through undergraduate school in the early '50s. Q: Where were you going to undergraduate school& 9CC2OSKEY: Temple /niversity in Philadelphia. 1 had gro n up in the city, spent a lot of time leaving it, but then ent back to it, to go to school. After graduation, 1 ent looking for a ne spaper job in several cities, and ended up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, here 1 orked for the Bethlehem .lobe Times, and as a stringer for the Associated Press. After having done all of the beats, 1 as looking for a larger orld. 1 anted to go to Europe as a correspondent and as steered to ard the Foreign Service. Q: (ow did you get steered in that odd direction& 9CC2OSKEY: A member in Congress, ho 1 used to cover up there in Easton, Pennsylvania, and ho 1 as chatting ith about ho nice it ould be to be an American correspondent in Europe, said, "3hy don't you think about the Foreign ServiceA" Then 2 that as the start of something that lasted about 06 years. Then 1 got back to ne spapering hen 1 retired from the Foreign Service in 1981, by going to the 3ashington Post as the ne s critic of the paper. But 1 as never very far a ay from the ne spaper business, or as ne s took on that a ful ord "media," because for something like ten or eleven years, 1 served as the spokesman for the Department of State. So 1 have some understanding of both sides of the street. Q: What was your first assignment in the Foreign Service& 9CC2OSKEY: To the American consulate general in Hong Kong, as an investigator in the old refugee relief program in 1955. Q: With Lorrie Lawrence and company& 9CC2OSKEY: 2a rence and others, yes. By a funny turn of events have been associated no for the last four and a half years ith an agency that used to be e8clusively a refugee agency, a private American agency, Catholic Relief Services. So 1 have a ay of returning to earlier concepts and pursuits. Q: While you were in Hong Kong, I wonder if you could just e,plain a little of what you all were doing -- I spea. as a former consular officer myself -- of consular wor. that was uni/ue, that Hong Kong operation& 9CC2OSKEY: Yes, in 1953 the Congress passed some ne refugee legislation that set Buotas around the orld for a period of three years. The total ran into several hundred thousand. 1n 3estern Europe, the Buotas ere broken up among individual countries. That's here the larger numbers ere. There as one Buota, ho ever, to embrace all of the Far East, and Hong Kong had its share. 1t as on the order of fifteen hundred to t o thousand, 1 believe, ho ere eligible for admission through the refugee relief program as part of the Hong Kong Buota. These ere mainly Chinese refugees from the mainland, ho had made their ay into Hong Kong beginning in late 1949 hen the communists took over. The refugee program began in 1953. The special refugee program ran until the end of 1956. Other than Chinese nationals, there ere a fe more of the more e8otic people of the orld, hite Russians, and others of European origin ho had made their ay into and lived in mainland China up until 1949 or the early '50s. 3e processed the applications for visas. The regulations ere that the individual or the family had to demonstrate that there as a sponsor in the /nited States ho ould look after the person or the family. 1 believe there had to be a certificate from the 2abor Department that sho ed there ould be ork available to the individual or the family leader, mother or father. Q: What was your impression of government operations of that sort and at that level& 3 9CC2OSKEY: 1 had the sense that the Buotas ere not very ell balanced around the orld on that particular program. 1t got me to ondering for the first time, 1 suppose, ho much politics played in humanitarian issues. Surely, there ere greater populations ho ere made refugees as a result of 3orld 3ar 11 in Europe than there ere in the Far East, particularly ith regard to China from 1949 on. 1 had the sense, and this is hindsight, understand, that if this is the ay government is run, it's damn near as chaotic, at times, as putting a ne spaper together. That specific program brought in a lot of people, ho stayed for only the life of that program, and then left government. But it orked, ho ever untidy it as at times, and again from that vantage point, that part of the orld could have used many more numbers than ere allotted to it. Q: I say this because I started out in 1900 as a refugee relief officer, and in Europe a significant proportion were given to refugees who, of all places, were in Italy, which was not a refugee place, and to he Netherlands, mainly because of Congressional pressures from people who had relatives there. How did you end up in the press business, starting off in this other field& 9CC2OSKEY: 1 had a desire to stay longer in Hong Kong. 1 arrived there in 1955, and this program e8pired ith the legislation at the end of 1956. 1 had undertaken to learn Chinese. 1 as Buite satisfied and, in fact, sought to stay on there as a /S1A officer. That did not ork, not because the people there didn't ant it, but the people in 3ashington couldn't agree on it. 1 came back, and as assigned to the /NESCO relations staff, hich made me seriously consider leaving and getting back into the ne spaper business. But 1 stuck it out for about a year, hen 1 as asked hether 1 ould be interested in joining the staff of the office of ne s in the Department, and said, "Yes, 1 ould." And that's the beginning of a long association ith the ne s operations of the State Department. Q: his would be about 307& 9CC2OSKEY: This as '58. Q: What type of wor. were you doing, initially, in the department news, and where did the office of news fit within the departmental framewor.& 9CC2OSKEY: 1t as a component of the Bureau of Public Affairs. That having been established, 1 believe, in the early '50s hen Archibald 9ac2eish, the American poet, critic, and riter, 1 think, as the first Assistant Secretary. The office of ne s over the years, hile it remained a part of the Bureau of Public Affairs, got to be the tail agging the dog, because the person ho served as the spokesman for the State Department as much more involved in the mainstream of departmental activity, day in and day out, than as the assistant secretary for public affairs, although he as the immediate senior officer. 4 1t as like that until 1 proposed to then Secretary of State Rogers, in 1969, that the office of ne s be made an integral part of the office of the Secretary of State. That took place and remained that ay until the Carter Administration, hen it as deemed orth taking back and making it a component of the Bureau of Public Affairs, and 1 believe it is still that ay today. Q: What were you doing initially& 9CC2OSKEY: The office of ne s had a geographic breakdo n among the staff. There ere those ho follo ed the Far East, European affairs, the rest of the geographic bureaus, in addition to the functional bureaus, the emphasis, ho ever, being on the geographic bureaus, hich as here the ne s as focused. 2incoln 3hite as the director of the office of ne s, and the spokesman for the department at the time. 1 orked for him. 9y area of my atch as on Far Eastern affairs. The practice as, and, 1 guess, still is, that the department officially holds an open, on-the-record briefing everyday. That, ho ever, is not the end of it for reporters, as 1 think you kno , spend their hole days at the State Department orking the same hours as you and 1 did hen e ere there.