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 EDWIN MCCAMMON MARTIN Interviewed by: Melbourne Spector Initial interview date: April 7, 1988 Copyright 1998 ADS TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born in Dayton Ohio Raised in Ohio New $ersey and Indiana Northwester University American University (hite House ) Central Statistical Board National Defense Advisory Commission 19,0 Plant Site Board Picking bom. targets in $apan EA Department of State 19,0 Occupation and surrender policy State advisor of Far Eastern Economic Affairs Chief Division of $apanese and 1orean Economic Affairs Personalities Reporting mission to Far East Douglas 2acArthur U.S. occupation program in $apan book 4i5uidating enemy 6assets7 Office of International Financial Development Affairs 19,2919,8 George 2arshall Esta.lishing Ruhr Coal and Steel Authority COCO2 mission The Attorney General7s list Office of European Regional Affairs 19,991902 2arshall Plan and NATO Chief SCFA NATO 6wise men7 4is.on meeting Paris France 190391907 1 4ord Ismay Harold Stassen NATO staff French reject EDC FSO Class 1 NATO coordination pro.lems 4ondon Great Britain 190791909 2inister of Economic Affairs Am.assador $ohn Hay (hitney Britain and the Common 2arket Nixon visit Economic Affairs 196091962 Deputy Assistant Secretary (hite House contact Airline and commodity issues Douglas Dillon Alliance for Progress Balance of payments deficit Development Assistance group Tokyo economic meeting ARA 19629196, Assistant Secretary Reorganizing ARA 4atin American inter9agency policy committee Cu.an 2issile Crisis Panama Canal Aone Broken relations Treaty negotiations Buenos Aires Argentina 196,91967 Am.assador President Illia and politics $uan Peron and Peronistas Coup d7etat US company pro.lems (ashington Draft U.S. for 4atin America Dominican Repu.lic crisis Bisit to 1ennedy family and others Social Framework Paris France 1967 2 Chief DAB mission Duties Travel OECD Bisit to Ghana Nigeria and the Ivory Coast Tidewater DAC meeting DAC coordination with UN UNDP CGIAG Beirut DAC meeting (orld Food Conference Food for Peace Rome meeting U.S. Conference positions Chairman (orld Hunger Consultative Group FAO antagonism (orld Bank ) 2cNamara Commission on (orld Hunger IDCA Projects for developing countries Study of economic functions of State Department Population Crisis Study American Institute in Taiwan Post ) Retirement activities Reflections INTERVIEW Q: Ambassador Martin has had a long and very distinguished career in the U.S. Government, the Department of State, and the Foreign Service. I will not recap here any part of that because we hope he will do it himself in his own words. han) you very much, Ambassador Martin. 2ARTINC Thank you. I appreciate the privilege of telling the story. 2y father was a D2CA secretary for most of his life. He had passed the bar exam but his first couple of cases were nasty divorce cases and he said EThis is not for me.E So he moved around for a few years before taking a jo. with the Dayton D2CA. Dayton Ohio was home for both my mother and father and I was born there in 1908 but we lived in Pi5ua Ohio a.out 30 miles north of Dayton for five years then in Pitts.urgh Pennsylvania. (e moved to Trenton New $ersey and then to South Bend Indiana and then .ack to Dayton where I graduated in 192, at just 16 from Steele High School as they had done earning an award for having the .est grades for a male .ut .ehind 3 females and in 1920 back to Pi5ua. ItFs an Indian name. 3 2y father was a broad9minded D2CA man who had scholarly interests and joined whatever Protestant church was in the neigh.orhood not narrowly minded in this respect. He had had the good fortune in a summer training camp at Silver Bay on 4ake George N.D. to be in the class of the very distinguished theologian Harry Emerson Fosdick who preached a social gospel which became my fatherFs approach. Q: You could ma)e that one today. We e,perienced some technical difficulties with the tape. Shall we go bac) and try to pic) up some of the gaps- 2ARTINC Des. Q: We are bac) in the happy days of the Epworth League. 2ARTINC The Epworth 4eague of our 2ethodist church speech was when I was going to high school in Dayton Ohio. I think I was descri.ing a speech I made at its annual dinner in which I was reflecting to some extent things my father had said the waste of money in advertising which does not produce a product anyone uses. How much better off every.ody would .e if instead of advertising there were other cheaper means for people to know where they could buy this or that at what price. It would be a highly economical reform. And that was perhaps my first going on record99I was 1, or 10 at the time99of my views on this su.ject. 2y fatherFs .rother was also a D2CA secretary in the Chicago area and lived in Evanston Illinois had two children considera.ly older than I was that I admired and that led me to decide to go to Northwestern University from which they had graduated. I managed to get a scholarship paying my tuition of G200 for which I did some work in the Chemistry 4a.. I lived with a 2rs. Tomlinson who had been a high school friend of my motherFs in Dayton and married a Northwestern graduate who was then an officer of the leading Evanston .ank. I cut the grass kept the furnace going in the winter and helped her with some of her outside activities to pay for my board and room except for lunch. I then had to stay in Pi5ua for a year .ecause my father was ill. I worked part9time and took courses at the high school in pu.lic speaking and shorthand. Then I went back to Northwestern and graduated in 1929. I waited ta.les in my fraternity house Phi Delta Theta and did various other things including working in the pu.lic li.rary half9time for a year. Then my senior year I was half9time in the personnel office interviewing freshmen a.out how well they were getting along and what pro.lems they had. In addition I had a fair num.er of outside activities. 2y junior year I was on the de.ating team and a mem.er of Delta Sigma Rho the de.ating fraternity. At the end of my junior year I made Phi Beta , 1appa. I had three letters in tennis at which my father an enthusiastic player started me at 8. 2y coach was an English professor whom you had to beat to be a.le to be kept on the s5uad. (e got one racket restringing a year. Otherwise we paid for everything that was re5uired. 2y senior year I was a mem.er of an elected honorary society Deru of 10 male students which started the first menFs union and I was secretary9treasurer of that. I was president of the D2CA my senior year also. 2y father having been a D2CA secretary may.e helped me. I won the election by the vote of the retiring president. (hen I worked in the personnel office I learned that on the Entrance Intelligence Tests given by Northwestern because its President was a psychologist who had produced the intelligence and related tests used to help make wise assignments of the soldiers coming into our military for the first time during (orld (ar I I had made a score of 99H out of 100 possi.le the grading .eing on the .asis of your rank among the 700 or 800 freshmen taking the test. Not because I was a Repu.lican as I voted in F32 for the Socialist candidate Norman Thomas .ut for the political experience I served as a poll watcher in the F32 election for the Repu.lican candidate for Congress from the North Shore Chicago area. He won. After graduation in 1929 I stayed as a graduate student in political science and economics Imy majors were political theory and pu.lic law basically but government regulation of .usiness especially so economics was importantJ. The D2CA connection got me into my first pro.lem with the anti9communist movement in the United States. In 1932 I helped the student D2CA arrange a meeting of students on the depression pro.lem so serious then in the light of the upcoming election. As its speaker I got the head of the leftist but not at all communist Farmer94a.or Party of 2innesota. There was a woman in Evanston who had a reputation as an anti9red lo..yist and she got the local American 4egion to protest the meeting alleging the speaker was a communist. The University canceled it. I arranged to get a leading Chicago lawyer to make a speech at the Garrett Theological Seminary which is on the Evanston campus but a wholly separate institution on the value of freedom of speech. The chairman of the political science department of Northwestern chaired the meeting. It was well written up in the Chicago Tri.une. (4aughsL To pay my way as a graduate student I was proctor which meant living with and helping with special education programs for the Austin Scholars named for the man that funded their program. Ten high school seniors from all over the country were picked each year to train as business executives. They got G000 a year for four years and G1 000 for a year a.road .ut they couldnFt join fraternitiesM they had to live together separately. I spent three years as their advisor being paid G1 000 a year.