Cowal, Sally Grooms
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Information Series AMBASSADOR SALLY GROOMS COWAL Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: August 9, 2001 Copyright 2005 A ST TABLE OF CONTENTS Bac ground Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois Ethnic Chicago Secondary education DePauw University' American University(s Semester Program Marriage Washington, DC' USIA 19,7.1970 Management trainee 0oung Officers Panel Inspection trip.Africa posts 1unior Foreign Service Officer Committee Office of Policy and 2esearch Entered the Foreign Service in 1970 New Delhi, India' Special Assistant, Public Affairs 1971.1973 Opening to China Branch USIA posts US Policy Ambassador 6eating US.India relations Environment India.Soviet relations Mrs. 8andhi Family Bangladesh Contacts with Indians Ambassador Moynihan State Department' FSI' Spanish language study 1973 1 Bogot:, Colombia' Public Affairs Boo Officer 1973.1974 Boo subsidies 2ange of titles and topics Local receptivity Country reading habits 2elations Latin American travel Anti.Americanism Bogot:, Colombia' Director, Cultural Center 1974.1978 Programs English language program Violence Economy Environment Foreign investment Drugs Transferred from FSO, USIA to FSO, State Department Tel Aviv, Israel' Cultural Affairs Officer 1978.1982 2elations with Israeli officials Israeli history Arab minority Israel(s sources of security World anti.Semitism Israeli culture Fulbright commission 1oe Califano(s visit Political reporting Culture and religion Lebanon 8olan Heights Palestinians Embassy/Consulate 8eneral points of view 8aza programs Aionist ideals Security Shah of Iran Egyptian ambassador Senator 8lenn visit Washington, DC' USIA' Director, 0outh Programs 1982.1983 Charlie Wic 0outh EBchange program 2 Summit of the 7 President 2eagan Private.Public sponsorship US youth vs Foreign youth attitudes American youth organizations Move into television New 0or City' USUN' Deputy Political Counselor 1983.198C Ambassador 1eane 6ir patric UN Organizations US financial support Vote counting US personnel Soviet delegation Organization of Eastern Caribbean States 8renada 6AL plane shoot.down Nicaragua Israel Vernon Walters Soviet 68B MeBico City, MeBico' Minister Counselor for Public Affairs 198C.1989 Ambassador 1ohn 8avin MeBican media MeBican labor unions 8overnment Drug traffic ing 2eagan Central American Policy 2elations US.MeBico trade Political Parties State Department' Deputy Assistant Secretary, Latin America 1989.1991 Fulbright Scholars Spirit of Houston Foreign Ministry NAFTA Bush.Ba er involvement US Agency representation Drug traffic ing MeBican Presidential Election Immigration Congressional interest US ambassadors 3 Caribbean developments Caribbean Community and Common Mar et Cuban American lobby Haiti 1amaica 8uyana Ambassador 1ohn Negroponte Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago 1991.1994 Ethnic groups Drug traffic ing Economy 8overnment officials Oil production Prime Minister A.N.2. 2obinson Carnival US Military Environment US commercial presence US assistance Political Counselor to US Delegation to 8eneva Conference 199C On Human 2ights AIDS Country financial contributions 2etirement 199C 8eneva, Switzerland' UN Program on HIV and AIDS 199C.1999 Director of EBternal 2elations US Presidential cooperation Congressional interest Fund raising Foreign government response UNISEF 0outh for Understanding Post 2etirement Activities 1999. Elian 8onzalez case Cuba Cuba Policy Foundation A2CA Foundation Cuban.American community Escapees from Cuba Population Services International 4 INTERVIEW ": Today is the 9th of August, 2001. This is an interview with % let me make sure I get the name spelled correctly % Sally, S-A-L-L-Y, ,rooms, G-R-.-.-M-S, Cowal. Is it pronounced Cowal0 COWALD It is. ": C-.-1-A-L. And this is being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, and I2m Charles Stuart Kennedy. And you go by Sally, don2t you0 COWALD I do. ": Sally, let2s get going, then. Could you tell me when and where you were born, and something about your family0 COWALD I was born in Oa Par , Illinois, in August 1944. My father was a second. generation immigrant from Bohemia, and my mother(s family was part Swiss and part Scotch Irish, and the Swiss were fairly recent immigrants. That was my grandmother, who was born in the United States, but to a family that had recently immigrated. So I(m sort of three.Euarters recent immigrant and one.Euarter DA2 FDaughters of the American 2evolution) type. ": 1ell, now, you say your father came from Bohemia. 1hat was the family name0 Do you know, or was it ... COWALD Well, of course, because it was my name. Actually, both 8rooms and Cowal are married names for me. So my maiden name was Smerz, which was originally spelled S.M.2.A, and to which my grandfather, who was the first one who went to school in this country, was told to add a vowel, so he added an He,I and he put it in the middle. So my maiden name is Smerz, S.M.E.2.A. ": Sounds like it meant something like snow or something like that in Bohemia, in C4ech. COWALD I don(t now what it means in Czech, and I unfortunately don(t spea any Czech. And those of you, and I gather you(re one of them, who spea 8erman, sometimes would confuse it with schmer4, and say ... ": Pain, yes. COWALD ... pain, and I had a professor in college who said that he had decided when he loo ed at the list of the class roster, before he had ever met any of the students, that if I C were a good student, he was going to call me good grief. And I guess he decided that I was, so that(s how I became nown. But I don(t thin it means the same thing in Czech as it does in 8erman. ": Now, tell me a little about your father. 1hat was he doing, and what do you know about his background0 COWALD Well, of course I now a lot about his bac ground, because he was alive until I was 40.something, so I new him well. My parents I guess, both of them might be characterized as children of the Depression. I mean, they hit their early maturing life just as the Depression hit, so I thin that very much characterized what they thought and what they did and the opportunity that they had or didn(t have in their lives. But my grandfather, who was also born in the United States, was the eldest of 10 children, and in Euite a poor immigrant family, and they had originally gone to Chicago. I mean, they had always been in Chicago. And as the eldest of 10 children, he went to wor when he was 10 or 11 years old because there were a bunch of ids behind him. He went to wor in the construction trades as a hod carrier, and then trained as a carpenter. Then he built his carpentry business into a general contracting business, and in fact became very wealthy. So that by the J20s, he was building probably C0 new houses a year, the sort of bungalow.ization of Chicago as the city grew and as many new immigrants came. And so one of my father(s earliest memories is being well off K I mean, driving a car, which would have been in 1920 more or less K 1920 or 1921. They had a car and he was the driver, because his mother was not well, and so he would ta e her to the grocery store. But this rather affluent lifestyle also came with the necessity of moving, as my grandfather would finish a house, or get it to the point where it could be sold, then his family would move out of it. But they always stayed in sort of the same neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. His mother died when he was 18 or 19, and he had already met my mother, because they had met as high school students. But very shortly after his mother died, his father lost probably a considerable fortune, I would say well over L1 million, that he had accumulated through this successful construction business. My father had been awarded a scholarship at the University of Chicago, which he got because he was the valedictorian of his Chicago public high school. The University of Chicago gave a scholarship to K I thin there were 18 public high schools at that time in the city K and they gave the valedictorian of each high school class a full scholarship to the University of Chicago. But, nonetheless, he had to drop out because it was not only the college tuition, but the necessity of then helping eep the family together. So he dropped out after a year at the University of Chicago, wor ed a few years, and then went bac to school, I thin mostly at night, at what was called the Armor Institute of Technology, which became IIT. He got a more technical education so that he could help , his father in the building trade. He studied architecture and construction and mechanical engineering. Then, of course, li e many men of his generation, he got caught in the war. Because he had a mastoid as a child, he was 4.F, so didn(t serve in the armed forces, but did serve in a defense plant. And it was the Chrysler Corporation. One of their automobile assembly factories got turned over into a war production factory, and they were ma ing aircraft engine parts, and my father was the designer of the pac aging into which the propellers would go and whatever it was they had to ship out to the Pacific. So he spent the war, which accounts for my birth in 1944. I had an older brother, who has also died, but he was born before the war in J39, and then I was born in J44.