The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project CONGRESSMAN STEPHEN SOLARZ Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: November 18, 1996 Copyright 001 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born & raised in New York City Brandeis University, Columbia University Political campaign (ietnam )ar ew York Assembly 19,9-19.4 Frustrations Podell indictment 0lection to Congress 19.1 Foreign Affairs Committee 2embership )ar Powers Act Bipartisanship Issues concerning (ietnam Refugees Boat people Seniority Operation schedule Overseas missions U.S. ambassadors Arab-Israel relations Foreign Service personnel Foreign 6eaders Anwar Sadat Yit7hak Rabin 8ing Hussein Anwar Sadat 2iddle 0ast Observations 1 Israel insecurity P6O 9Palestine 6iberation Organi7ation: Cyprus, Greece, Turkey Congressional interest Committee staff assistance Hubert Humphrey Henry 8issinger Shah of Iran Issues 9Continued: South Africa Black leadership 9Africa: Cyprus embargo Rhodesia African ational Congress Pan African Congress Africa policy 9U.S.: Apartheid U.S. Scholarship Program in Africa Sanctions 9South Africa: 2andela incarceration Zimbabwe Zaire Chairman, Subcommittee on Africa 19.9-1980 )estern Sahara 2orocco Polisario Jewish community Algeria Camp David Agreement Jordan visit Chairman, Subcommittee on Asia & Pacific Affairs 1981-1992 Afghanistan Pakistan Taiwan Philippines 2arcos (isit to the Philippines U.S. policy President Cora7on AAuino U.S. aid to Philippines China Tiananmen SAuare China and 2F B2ost Favored NationC 2 8orea Cambodia DReagan DoctrineE 8hmer Rouge Pacific Islands Interior Committee orth 8orea visit 8im Il Sung Foreign ambassadors India Caucus Sri 6anka Special 0missary to Cambodia AS0A 9Association of South 0ast Asian Nations: meeting INTERVIEW %: Today is November 18, 1996. This is an interview with Congressman Stephen Solarz. It(s being done on behalf of The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training and I(m Charles Stuart Kennedy. Can we start at the initiation? Tell me when and where you were born and something about your family. SO6ARZ: I was born September 12, 1940 in New York City at )omenGs Hospital. It was at the height of the Blit7 of 6ondon, which peaked three days later. 2y parents were actually divorced a few months after I was born. 2y father brought me up. )hen I was about six, he married the woman who had been my nurse and then I lived with him and her in an apartment in 2anhattan. In 1910, his marriage to my stepmother was annulled and I then moved to Brooklyn to live with my aunt and her two sons, who were both older than I was. She had been widowed the year after I was born. 2y father went to live with his parents in Brooklyn. %: ,hat was your father(s type of wor-? SO6ARZ: He was an attorney. He actually just died a few weeks ago, two weeks short of his 90th birthday. %: ,here did you go to school? SO6ARZ: I went to the public schools in New York City, PS 8. in 2anhattan until fifth grade, when I went to move to Brooklyn, and then I went to PS 19I, and then Andreas Hudde Junior High School, and then 2idwood High School. I then went to Brandeis University for my BA and Columbia University for an 2A in public law and government. 3 %: Because we(re focusing on foreign affairs, in high school or even earlier within your family or something, did you get much e/posure to foreign affairs? SO6ARZ: Not really. I did grow up in a family that was politically very conscious and there was always a lot of talk about American politics. 2y father was a captain in the Tammany Hall Democratic Organi7ation in 2anhattan. But I canJt say that there was really much of a focus on international issues. 2y first real involvement and interest in foreign policy was due to the (ietnam )ar. In fact, I managed one of the first peace campaigns for Congress in the country in 19,, when I managed the campaign of a fellow named 2el Dubin, who ran against the 22 year incumbent, Abe 2ulter, who was a strong supporter of the war. Dubin was an opponent of the war. A funny thing happened on the way to )ashington. Our candidate lost, albeit very narrowly. I met the woman who became my wife during the course of the campaign, so it wasnJt a total loss. Then two years later, I ran for the state legislature against the dean of the Assembly, who had been there longer than anybody else and was elected to the State 6egislature. %: I(d li-e to go bac- just a touch. Broo-lyn and the whole New 1or- thin-, you thin- of as being very strong ethnic enclaves which often mean that you get much more of a feeling about other countries, more or less from where the people came. ,ere you getting any of this in high school or not? SO6ARZ: Not really. First of all, the neighborhood I grew up in was overwhelmingly Jewish. )hile youGre absolutely right that Brooklyn is preeminently a collection of distinctive neighborhoods, each with its own ethnic identity, there was limited interaction between the neighborhoods. So, while obviously there was a large Italian, Polish, and other communities in Brooklyn, I had very limited contact with them. So, I canJt say that what subseAuently became an abiding interest in foreign policy and foreign affairs was due to my upbringing. It really began with my concerns about what was happening in (ietnam, which I began to follow very closely, particularly after 19,1 when it looked like we were bogged down in a seemingly endless conflict at a great price to the country in blood and treasure, without it being at all clear to me that the survival of western civili7ation depended on keeping the communists in (ietnam at bay. Then, of course, I got involved in this campaign for Congress in 19,,. %: By this time, you would have been 6. SO6ARZ: Right. %: ,here did you go to college? SO6ARZ: I went to Brandeis. %: ,hat was your ma0or there? 4 SO6ARZ: Politics. %: Had the political bug bitten you at this point? SO6ARZ: I had from a very early age been very interested in politics. In fact, I had wanted a career in government, not necessarily in elective office, but in government. It just as easily could have been an appointed office, but the way the fates turned out, it was in elective office. %: 1ou graduated in about 196 ? SO6ARZ: Yes. %: Before you got engaged in this campaign of 1966, what were you doing? SO6ARZ: I was a graduate student at Columbia working my way through graduate school. Then I got involved with this campaign. SubseAuent to the campaign, I got married, remained in graduate school, got a job teaching part time at Brooklyn College in the School of General Studies, and then decided in 19,8 to run for the legislature. %: 1our congressman that you were supporting in 1966 was running on an anti34ietnam3 SO6ARZ: He wasnJt the congressman. He hoped to be the congressman. %: ,here did you see the support coming from within the congressional district? SO6ARZ: It was absolutely fascinating. This was a district in which there had been no legacy of insurgency whatsoever. It was overwhelmingly democratic. The democratic organi7ation controlled the politics of the community. There hadnJt been a significant challenge to the congressman from the time he was first elected. So, there was no legacy of insurgency in the district on which to build. But during the course of the campaign, I learned the truth of an observation (ictor Hugo once made to the effect that Dthere is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.E By the end of the campaign, we had attracted and mobili7ed over 1,000 volunteers who came out on behalf of our candidate, primarily because of their growing concerns about the war. %: ,ho were the volunteers? ,ere they mainly young college types? SO6ARZ: No. There were some of those, but primarily middle aged, middle class people, a lot of professionals, schoolteachers, small businessmen, housewives, people who were increasingly concerned about what the war was doing to the country and who saw in this campaign an opportunity to express their concerns in a meaningful way. %: ,hat was your candidate(s thrust as far as what was he saying he would do? SO6ARZ: He wasnJt calling for a unilateral American withdrawal from the war. He was in essence calling for negotiations and an end to the bombing. There was a feeling at the 5 time that we werenJt doing enough to seek a political solution to the conflict in order to facilitate an American withdrawal without unilaterally bugging out. %: ,hat was your feeling? SO6ARZ: I believed entirely in what our candidate was saying. 2y view was, first of all, that I had never had any romantic notions about the (iet Cong B(ietnamese CommunistsC and certainly not the North (ietnamese. I had few illusions about the fate that would befall South (ietnam if the communists triumphed. To me, the real issue was whether what we were paying in blood and treasure was worth the objective of preventing a communist takeover. Of course, the main argument being advanced by the administration was that if South (ietnam fell, the other countries in Southeast Asia, like a series of dominoes, would fall as well, and that sooner or later weGd end up fighting, as President Johnson once put it, Kin San Diego.K If you accepted that proposition, then obviously it was important to make a stand in South (ietnam. I didnJt accept it, however, because it seemed to me that what was primarily moving those who were fighting against the government in South (ietnam and the United States was nationalism and that the communists for a variety of historical and other reasons, had gotten the franchise on the nationalist issue.