• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Library of Congress Interview with Ambassador Richard C. Barkley Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR RICHARD C. BARKLEY Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: May 12, 2003 Copyright 2004 ADST Q: Today is May 12, 2003. This is an interview with Richard Barkley, and this is being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. Is there a middle initial in there? BARKLEY: Yes, a “C.” Q: Richard C. Barkley. All right so, did I mention this is Charles Stuart Kennedy. Anyway, you go by Dick. BARKLEY: I do. Q: Let's start at the beginning. Could you tell me when and where you were born, and then we will talk a little about the family. BARKLEY: Yes, I was born December 23, 1932, in Chicago, Illinois. However the family was living in Rockford, Illinois, at the time. Mother went to Chicago for the birth because my uncle was a doctor. Interview with Ambassador Richard C. Barkley http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001320 Library of Congress Q: I was 1928 in Chicago. Let's talk what about the Barkley side, you father. Do you know sort of where the Barkleys came from and then your father. BARKLEY: Well, so many of us, we are not exactly sure how long ago they came over. Obviously they are of English extraction. My father was born in Denver, Colorado in 1904. His father, I think, was born in Montrose, Colorado. I don't have the full records of that. I don't exactly know the date. But the family had come west from Massachusetts. I don't know exactly when. Q: What was your family doing in Colorado? BARKLEY: Well, my grandfather was a salesman for the Great Northern Stove Company. What his father did, I do not know. He died very early, and my father lived with his grandparents in Denver. Grandmother remarried after that, and my father went off to sea as a young man. Although he was too young, he joined the Navy. When they found out, he was released from duty. At that time his mother had remarried and was living in Chicago, so he moved to Chicago, lived at the YMCA, worked first for Western Union and then got a job at the John Hancock Life Insurance Company as a clerk. He worked for the John Hancock Life Insurance Company for the rest of his life until retirement at 63. He died shortly after retirement. Q: On your mother's side, what was your mother's maiden name? BARKLEY: My mother's maiden name was Boddiger, Chrystal Boddiger. She was born in 1906 in a little town called Polo, Illinois, which is very close to Dixon, Illinois. Her father was a small time farmer, but he speculated and did day jobs. Anyway she grew up there, and after high school she was a teacher in a little one room schoolhouse near Polo, Illinois. Then she went on to be college, she studied at Benoit College for a year or so during which time she met and married my father. Interview with Ambassador Richard C. Barkley http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001320 Library of Congress Q: Your father had not gone to college? BARKLEY: No. He didn't finish high school on time, but he did finish high school when I was a young man. My mother actually did not finish college until she was 54 years old, when she got her bachelors degree. She became a teacher; she got a teaching certificate and taught on and off throughout most of my life. Q: Then basically you grew up in Rockford? BARKLEY: No, when I was born we were living in Rockford, Illinois which I think is the second largest city in Illinois right now. Then my father was transferred, I think it was about 1936 or '37 to Milwaukee. We lived in Milwaukee for seven years and in 1943 he was transferred to Detroit. Housing was difficult to find at that time so my mother, my sister and I lived for a year with my grandfather in Polo, Illinois. Then we moved to Detroit in 1944 and there I went to grade school, high school and then on to Michigan State University. Q: In elementary school, you were going mainly to the Milwaukee school? BARKLEY: Well, I started off in the Milwaukee school district. You know I don't remember too much about that. The memories really began very strongly when I lived in this little town of Polo from '42 to '44. A small boy in a small country town is pretty wonderful. Q: No schooling there? BARKLEY: I don't think anybody thought about it. They had a fairly good school system, a very strong emphasis on the basics. You had smart kids, dumb kids. You didn't have in those days, gifted and talented and disadvantaged. You just taught everybody. The Detroit school system I think was really quite good at that time. I certainly had no complaints. I remember in high school we had some rather advanced kind of a courses. I did very well in high school. Then of course because we were not a particularly wealthy family, and my Interview with Ambassador Richard C. Barkley http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001320 Library of Congress sister was two years older, when it came time to go to college, we went to state colleges. I went to Michigan State. Q: Well in Detroit, do you recall any particular interests that you had in school. BARKLEY: Oh yeah, like every kid I was interested in sports. I was a little guy, so being interested in sports was not particularly realistic, although I played them with great vigor. But I loved football particularly. I was scrappy but not large enough to be of much use. I went out for football, and when it became clear I wasn't going to excel, I became more interested in my studies, and I did all right. I particularly liked the liberal arts. I recall that I always loved history and literature. I didn't particularly like math. Sounds like a foreign service officer. Q: Were you much of a reader? BARKLEY: Always. Our whole family, my mother, even my father were very intense readers. I hardly recall a time through my life that I didn't have a book in my hand. Q: Was your family where did they fit in the political spectrum? Do you recall? Were they interested in politics in table talk, that sort of thing? BARKLEY: Both of them came very much out of the middlewestern Republican tradition, which I think was at that time not unusual. There was a large association even in those days with the Civil War. My great grandfather fought in the Civil War. They were certainly as conservative as they came although they were I think forward moving. When they moved t the city, there were some changes, as this certainly seemed to be a more fertile area for democratic activities, with large minority groups and labor unions, particularly in a place like Detroit, which was very strongly democratic. I do recall my father at one time telling me that he had voted for Roosevelt, but he didn't talk very loudly about it. I think throughout that era generally speaking he was a conservative republican, out of tradition more than conviction I think. Interview with Ambassador Richard C. Barkley http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001320 Library of Congress Q: What about, you know Detroit from the '30s on had become sort of the goal of many African Americans leaving the south and going up to work in the automobile and other industries and all that. Was your school dominated by African Americans? BARKLEY: No absolutely not. Interestingly enough the Detroit school system which I grew up in clearly reflected a very broad racial demographic patterns in the city. I lived at that time in what was sort of the extended northwest corner of the city. The center city was much more dominated by African American kids. My school was one of the few that had as far as I know, no African American kids. Today, however, there are no non African American schools. So it was caught up in the transitional phase at that time. Almost all the schools we competed with, however, were very integrated with one or two exceptions, I went to Redford High School. There was another great competitor called Cooley which also had very few black or African American. Almost all the western and central city schools were very largely represented by African Americans, but there were few that were totally African American. There was a mixture. The city was in transition. You pointed out there was a movement of African Americans or blacks as we had called them at one time into the factories of the north. I think it was mostly into Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland. During the war there was a larger influx because the war industries were expanding. The needed the workers etc. It was seen as a great period of opportunity for African Americans, and indeed in the '40s that led into clashes with white workers, and there were some riots. Q: Yes, in '44 there was a big riot in Detroit wasn't there? BARKLEY: That's right. Of course the unions were quite active at that time. The Detroit auto industry, particularly Walter Reuther was one of the major organizers, a man of enormous intellect and stature, who came out of more the labor tradition of Europe.

Load more

  302

Copy Link