Finney, John D
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project JOHN D. FINNEY, JR. Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial Interview date: December 21, 2004 Copyright 2018 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born in Indianapolis, Indiana July 31, 1939 BA in American History, St. Louis University 1957-1961 MA in American History, St. Louis University 1961-1962 PhD in American History, Georgetown University 1962-1967 U.S. Army Combat Engineer 1962-1962 Entered the Foreign Service 1966 Arequipa, Peru—Vice Consul 1967-1968 Monitoring Communism and the capture of Che Guevara Lima, Peru—Political Officer 1968-1970 University and youth radicalization The Alliance for Progress and liberation theology Peruvian military coup and Standard Oil controversy Life in Peru Rosslyn, VA—Student 1970-1971 Vietnam training center experience Phan Thiet, Vietnam—Province Senior Development Officer 1971-1972 CORDS security situation in Binh Thuan province Land reform implementation, irrigation, and banking Corruption and elections Tuy Hoa, Vietnam—Deputy Province Advisor 1972-1973 CORDS security situation in Phu Yen province Close encounters with death Personal opinion on Paris Peace Accords and Vietnam War Washington, DC—North Vietnam Desk Officer, East Asia Bureau 1973-1975 Upholding Paris Peace Accord and defeat of South Vietnam 1 Udorn, Thailand—Consul General 1976-1978 Upholding American relations and monitoring Vietnamese refugees Visiting Thai countryside and military government President Carter’s influence and CIA intelligence Yellow Rain and American MIAs Bangkok, Thailand—Political-Military Officer 1978-1979 U.S.-Thailand Security Relationship and Sino-Vietnam War Lusaka, Zambia—Political Counselor 1979-1981 President Kaunda and Zambia’s situation Economic and social ordering of Zambia Regional conflicts in Southern Africa Declared persona non grata and forced to leave Washington, DC, National War College—Student 1981-1982 Washington, DC— Pol Mil Bureau 1982-1984 Deputy Director, Regional Security Affairs Israeli-Lebanon War erupts Preparation for invasion of Grenada and invasion operations Washington, DC—Director SEA Affairs, Intl. Security, Office Sec. Defense 1984- 1985 Elections in Grenada Washington, DC—Deputy Director Philippines Desk, East Asia Bureau 1985-1987 1986 Philippine election and exit of Marcos John Kerry defies the Filipino military Honolulu—Political Advisor (POLAD), Commander-in-Chief PACOM 1987-1989 Security issues in PACOM zone of operations Working with CINCPAC leadership Manilla, Philippines—Political Counselor 1989-1992 Attempted coup against President Aquino of the Philippines Military basing negotiations with Richard Armitage Washington, DC—Director, Thailand and Burma Affairs 1992-1994 Thailand’s military, economy, and drugs Aung San Suu Kyi returns and the failed democratization of Burma Dealing with the Burmese government Washington, DC—Pol-Mil (PM) Bureau 1994-1995 Director, Defense Relation/Security, 2 Arms sales around the world Washington, DC—Pol-Mil (PM) Bureau 1995-1996 Director, Security Relation/Policy Resource Washington, DC— Pol-Mil (PM) Bureau 1996-1999 Political Advisor to Chief of Naval Operations Admirals, regions of concern, and role of civilian political advisor War games on Kosovo Balkan instability Threats faced by the U.S. Navy and global relations Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina—Political Advisor to Division North 1999-2000 Divisions and tensions within Bosnia and Herzegovina War criminals and political risk of continued presence Bounty hunting and perceptions of NATO allies Refugee return and protection Behavior of the American military Russian brigade cooperation and NATO threat of use of force General atmosphere of Bosnia after Kosovo campaign Foreign brigades and intelligence gathering Washington, DC—Pol-Mil Bureau 2000-2001 Coordinator for State Dept. Political Advisors Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina—Political Advisor to Division North 2001-2001 Washington, DC—Political Military Task Force on 9/11, Ops Center 2001-2001 Coordination with military branches and foreign allies after 9/11 Need for more cooperation between DOD and State Planning for the war in Iraq Marginalized civilian roles in the lead up to Iraq War Invasion of Iraq Kabul, Afghanistan—Political Advisor to Commander in Kabul 2003-2004 Initial outcomes in Afghanistan Retirement 2004 INTERVIEW [Note: This interview was not edited by Mr. Finney. 3 Q: Today is December 21, 2004. This is an interview with John D. Finney, Jr. This is being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, and I’m Charles Stuart Kennedy. John, let’s start with a little background. When and where you born? FINNEY: I was born on July 31, 1939, in Indianapolis, Indiana. My parents are a St. Louis family, but they were living in Indianapolis for a year. I was born there in St. Vincent Hospital, and then I returned a year later with my parents to St. Louis and grew up in St. Louis, in West St. Louis Country in a suburb of Kirkwood about 17 miles outside the city. Q: Let’s first talk about your father’s side. Where did the Finneys come from and what you know about them. FINNEY: On my father’s side, the Finneys are direct descendants of Bernard Finney who came from Ireland to St. Louis in 1831, and he married a lady also an Irish immigrant in 1834. Bernard Finney and his young wife had, I think, 11 children. One of them was John D. Finney, my great-grandfather who became a judge in St. Louis in the 1870s. He founded the St. Patrick’s Society in St. Louis and was a graduate of St. Louis University, which is a Jesuit university in St. Louis founded in 1818. My great-grandfather had seven or eight children one of whom was my father’s father, Paul Finney. Then my father was born in 1907 and grew up in St. Louis, the Kirkwood area—that’s West St. Louis County—and he was a child of the depression. He went to a Jesuit high school, St. Louis University High School. He won a four year college scholarship but then had to drop out of college in his junior year because of the depression to support his family: his mother and father and five brothers and sisters. That was my father. Q: On your father’s side again, your grandparents. What were they doing? FINNEY: My grandparent, Paul Finney, he died in 1944 when I was five years old, so I have no remembrance of him. He was a white collar worker in one of the merchant houses in West St. Louis County as a small businessman. He lost his job, my father told me, during the depression in late 1929, 1930. He never was able to find a full time job thereafter, and that is one of the reasons that his son, my father, had to drop out of college in his third year to help support his family. My mother’s maiden name was Glancy. She was the daughter of a Thomas Glancy who was a fairly prominent owner of the Marquette Hotel in St. Louis in the late teens and through the 20s. He, my mother told me, walked out of Batavia, Ohio, barefoot at 14 years old in the 1880s or so to look for his fortune. He came to St. Louis, and he was a very gregarious and well-spoken individual, somehow got an education, and he became a very successful hotel owner in St. Louis. He was related to the Glancys of Detroit who were involved in the early founding of General Motors. My mother told me that her father—my maternal grandfather—had some substantial amounts of General Motors stock in addition to the Hotel Marquette which was the last hotel that he owned in St. Louis. Sorry to say that when the depression came, like my father’s family my mother’s 4 family was also devastated. My grandfather lost all of his hotel properties, lost all of his General Motors stock in the depression, and he died about 1946 or 47. I have some memory of him, but he never had a full time job thereafter, either. Q: What about your mother? FINNEY: My mother went to Sacred Heart Convent School in St. Louis. Then she went to a Sacred Heart College in Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Like my father she had to withdraw from college in her second year, again because the depression wiped out all of her father’s funds. I have a twin brother and then I have another brother and two sisters. There was a third brother who died shortly after he was born, so there were six children in all, five survivors, and our parents were forever marked by the depression. They had come from, I would say middle class families, maybe my grandfather on my mother’s side upper middle class as a hotel owner, but they were devastated by the depression. So my mom and dad were essentially supporting their own families before they met and married and had us children. Q: As you grew up was the depression in a way bigger than World War II for a family, would you say? FINNEY: It was big. The big folk memory was that my grandfather, my father’s mother, had been a man of very substantial means. For example, when my mother graduated from eighth grade they went on a two month tour of Europe. So he was a man of very substantial means and country clubs and fine convent schools, Catholic schools, for my mother, so losing that was, of course, a major blow. My grandfather on my father’s side was a hard working business man and never had a lot of money, but even that was lost. So the depression had a huge impact on the collective memory of my mother and father. Now World War II, of course, provided the means for my father to work his way through all of this and produced a recovery of the economy in St.