1 Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral
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Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project GEORGE JAEGER Interviewed by: Robert Daniels Initial interview date: July 9, 2000 Copyright 2008 AD T TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in Austria, England and US “Kristallnacht” Nazi environment Separation from parents Evacuation to Holland and England Arrival in US US Army WWII St. Vincent College War experiences ”Return” to Vienna Harvard University Intern at State Department State Department; Department of Public Affairs; analyst 195141233 Intelligence briefings Information Policy staff 6c,arthyism .elations between SIA and State Foreign broadcasting Pu0lic diplomacy ,harles Burton 6arshall Policy Planning Staff Personalities nited States Information Agency/ Information Policy Staff 123341238 Eastern Europe Dulles shift from “containment$ to “li0eration policy SIA separates from State 6c,arthy hearings Policy Planning Staff Dean Acheson 1 State Department/ Secretary of the Estimates 9roup 123841238 Toio foreign40orn to join the Foreign Service Entered the Foreign Service in 1238 Estimates 9roup 6onrovia, Li0eria/ Third Secretary, ,ommercial Office 123841280 Environment SAID projects Industry Economy Li0eria’s “National Accounts$ Diamond trade 9overnment Tu0man “Young Turks$ 9anta 6ission Li0erian masks 9uinea visit State Department/ FSI, Ser0o4,roatian language study 128041281 Zagre0, Yugoslavia/ ,onsular/Political/Economic Officer 12814128A Environment ,onsul 9eneral Boe 9odson Agriculture ,onsular work Secret Police 6edia ,ommunism 9overnment Impending disintegration 9eorge Kennan Seizure of a mutinous American ship Trade Fair State DepartmentC Aviation Division, Economic Bureau 128A Atlantic routes disputes State Department/ Staff Assistant, European Bureau 128A41283 Duties E . components European 6ultilateral Nuclear Force D6LFE Issues (illiam Tyler .S. 6ission, Berlin, 9ermany/ Political Officer 128341287 2 6ission organization .elations with Allies Dealing with .ussians and East 9ermans Issues ,heck Point ,harlie Identity cards (illly Brandt Environment Bonn, 9ermanyC Political Officer 128741270 Environment S Am0assadors Em0assy staff Adenauer funeral Eleanor Dulles Non4Proliferation Treaty Political Parties Treaties and International Agreements Ostpolitik Prague Spring G Soviet invasion 9overnment DHtente 9erman domestic politics 6arriage State DepartmentC IN./ Office of Strategic G 9eneral .esearch 1270 State Department/ Staff Director, 9eneral Advisory ,ommittee 127041273 on Arms ,ontrol and Disarmament D9A,E Origins of committee Arms ,ontrol and Disarmament Agency DA,DAE ,ommittee mem0ers Helsinki negotiations Disarmament treaties and agreements Operations .elations with the (hite House 6oscow Summit (orking with 6c ,loy The National (ar ,ollege 12734127A Student body Program 6iddle East trip Personal honor 9eneva, Switzerland/ Temporary Assignment 127A41273 3 Negotiating the Helsinki Final Act ,onference on Security and ,ooperation in Europe D,S,EE “Baskets$ Negotiations Paris, FranceC Political Officer/Deputy ,ounselor 127341278 Environment Em0assy personnel S Am0assadors French East4(est relations Operations Brezhnev’s visit ,ommunist Party 6itterrand .elations with government Portugal Issues Kissinger visit President ,arter visit State Department/ FSI/ ,zech language study 127841272 State Department/ Foreign Service Inspector 1272 Iue0ec, ,anada/ ,onsul 9eneral 127241283 Environment Parti Iue0ecoise DPIE 9overnment Personalities The Iuiet .evolution Political Parties French ,onnection Levesque .elations .eferendum Pierre Trudeau ,yrus Vance visit Politics Vermont connection American films Trade agreements S Am0assadors ,onsular operations Travel Ottawa, ,anadaC Political ,ounselor 12834128A 4 Environment Issues .elations Brussels, BelgiumC Deputy Assistant Secretary 9eneral of 128A41287 NATO for Political Affairs Operations Duties Office organization Personalities Lord ,arrington Disarmament Issues International meetings Soviets 6issile deployment .eykjavik summit Arms control The French at NATO 9reeks and Turks Halifa- Foreign 6inisters 6eeting (arsaw Pact Environment 6iddle0ury ,ollegeC Diplomat in .esidence 128741282 Program ,anada .etirement .eflections on the Foreign Service ,omments and recommendations INTERVIEW Part IC A very lucky startK 1. From Vienna to Brooklyn and beyond. ": Let$s begin with personal background and the experiences that led you to a career in the Foreign ervice, and then, more or less chronologically, go through your various assignments. BAE9E.C I was born in Vienna in 1228, the son of Frederick Baeger, a gifted art Professor and rather successful Austrian painter who e-hi0ited among other galleries in Vienna’s prestigious MSezession’. 6y mother Emilie was one of Vienna’s early self4made women, 5 who had become business manager of a now long4defunct shoe factory, a jo0 to which she worked her way up through grit, resilience and intelligence from very modest 0eginnings. She married my father some time after his return from the Italian front in (orld (ar I where he had been an artillery Lieutenant in the Austrian4Italian standoff in the Dolomites, today’s South Tirol. 6y parents were a warm, conscientious, caring people, who formed me and brought me up in our modest but, by the standards of the time, comforta0le and sunny flat in Vienna’s 1Ath District. During summers, when my father had over two months’ vacation 4 the happy lot of Viennese professors in those daysK 4 we packed up paints, easels, books and mountain boots and went off to ,arinthia or East Tirol 4 sometimes staying in local inns, sometimes in “Pensions$ run by the village priestC Idyllic months, full of long, happy days of walking in the hills and mountains, swimming in ponds, or helping carry my father’s painting gear 4 in what was still a very unspoiled, isolated peasant world, much closer to the 12th than the 20th century. I clearly remem0er the e-citement when a very lofty4looking English family in a formida0le motor car, pro0a0ly a .olls .oyce, came through Paternion in ,arinthia one day in the late thirties, where we were staying in the local inn, stirring up dust and scattering the chickens. They spoke to me, patted me on the head and left me amazed at being confronted by people from another worldK In retrospect, I was a happy, secure and cheerful child 4 although an inveterate reader and a good, perhaps too dutiful student 4 who, to cite only one e-ample, asked for and got a three volume set of 9reek 6ythology for his 10th birthday present in 1238K Part of the motivation was that Austrian schools were highly competitive, and academic success was the key to getting into 9ymnasium and later into niversity. For e-ample, only eighty4some, out of a thousand applicants who wanted to enter the Seipel 9ymnasium in the year I applied, actually made the cut, and, by the second year, only thirty4three were leftK Even fewer normally made it through to graduation. The unmistaka0le lesson was that it was important to work hard, often memorizing and writing well into the night, if one didn’t want to take one’s chances in a world with few safety nets. As my mother insistently put itC “.emem0er, you are a Professor’s sonK$ In fact, it turned out to be a much better education than contemporary pedagogues might suspect. 6emorizing Schiller’s poems and pounding away at Latin grammar instilled a penchant for precision in language, thinking, and logical analysis, enormously helpful in later life in putting first things first and parsing comple- human and political equations. (hat’s more, reading the classics, with their endless assertions of virtues and vices, attending mandatory religion classes and regularly going to church led, if not to lifelong faith, at least to a lifelong quest for meaning and the moral imperatives which flow from it, human dignity and human rights. 6oreover, the sense of history instilled during those early years, however incorrectly and badly taught, laid the groundwork for an almost instinctive understanding in later years of the interrelating flows in time and space, which make up our world’s fast4shifting multi4dimensional continuum. 6 It was all part of another time, not destined to last. There were clear forewarnings, even for a childC 6y first came on a gray, cold evening in Fe0ruary 123A, I was not yet quite eight, when my parents took me along to some friends’ house for a late afternoon MKafe’ 4 I was to recite some poetry as part of the entertainment 4 when, on our way, we were suddenly caught up in machine4gun fireC Part of the fierce, long40rewing but unsuccessful Socialist uprising against center4right ,hancellor Engel0ert Dollfuss. This crisis was followed in Buly by a Nazi putsch orchestrated in Berlin, during which Dollfuss was assassinated. The an-ieties and tensions all this generated between Socialists, Austrian Nazis and the many caught between, was palpa0le even in the village inn in ,arinthia where we spent that summer where the question was no longer whether the Nazis would have their way but when. Although Anschluss to Hitler’s 9ermany was averted for another four years by Dollfuss’ successor, Kurt von Schuschnigg, the handwriting was clearly on the wall. Looking back, I certainly did not fully grasp the seriousness of these events even on the day, it was 6arch 2, 1238, when, on returning home from 9ymnasium, I found my alarmed parents listening intently to Schuschnigg’s a0dication speech on their tiny crystal radio set. Only four days later, on 6arch 13, standing on the sidewalk