Library of Congress Interview with Mr. James Alan Williams , 2011 The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project JAMES ALAN WILLIAMS Interviewed by: Raymond Ewing Initial interview date: October 31, 2003 Copyright 2010 ADST [Note: This interview was not edited my Mr. Williams] Q: This is an oral history interview with James A. Williams. It's the thirty first of October, 2003. Jim, it's good to be starting on Halloween for this conversation. This is being conducted under the auspices of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center, and Jim this is our first session. I see that you were born in Washington, D.C. and a little bit later on you went to Princeton University. Did you grow up in Washington, or were you here as a war baby November of 1942? WILLIAMS: I'm definitely a war baby. My father went into the Navy soon after Pearl Harbor and I was part of his insurance policy to make sure there would be another generation. I grew up in Arlington though. My father got out of the military when the war ended. He stayed in the Navy as a civilian management analyst, so essentially he worked at the Pentagon and at main Navy down on Constitution Avenue when I was growing up, and my brother and I grew up in Arlington, Virginia. Q: Okay and you did go on to Princeton, class of 1964. Was it at Princeton, or even before, that you became interested in the Foreign Service? Interview with Mr. James Alan Williams , 2011 http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001743 Library of Congress WILLIAMS: I really became interested in the Foreign Service before Princeton. Living in the Washington metropolitan area you hear a lot, read a lot, breathe a lot of history, foreign policy, government affairs. So from a fairly early age I was interested in that. I majored in history and German literature at Princeton and wanted to have a career, either academics or foreign affairs that would enable me to continue that interest. And on the idiosyncratic side it just happened that my father and Graham Martin were college friends from Wake Forest. From the earliest I can remember my parents were in touch with Graham and Dot Martin, sending them care packages in Paris after World War II, corresponding with them when they were in Geneva and Thailand and Rome. So hearing about the Martins' adventures in the Foreign Service through perhaps a rose colored glass gave me a very early interest in that profession. Q: Graham Martin was our ambassador in Italy when I first arrived there in 1970. Of course, then he went on to Vietnam and certainly he'd had a very distinguished career. I'd also known him a little bit when he was a special assistant to the undersecretary for economic affairs, Douglas Dillon, in the late fifties. After Princeton you did a little bit of graduate study. WILLIAMS: I had a Fulbright scholarship for a year, for two semesters, at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. I spent two semesters there basically studying post-war German history, learning how to ski with my bride. We were married when we took that trip, and getting to meet a lot of people in Munich and renewing old contacts in Bonn which I had met the previous summer when I worked there on a scholarship. Q: Not with the embassy in Bonn. WILLIAMS: No, I was doing academic research. I got a scholarship from Princeton and lived across the river and worked in the SPD library on a project involving the elections for the German national assembly after World War I. Interview with Mr. James Alan Williams , 2011 http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001743 Library of Congress Q: Okay and when did you take the Foreign Service written examination? While you were in Munich or before? WILLIAMS: No, I took the written exam that summer I lived in Germany and studied in Bonn. That was the summer after my junior year. It was given in some huge room at the embassy in Bonn. A lot of people took it. I took it and was fortunate to pass, although very narrowly because I was always a good test taker. That particular day I rushed through the math section and could not understand why nobody else had finished, and only three minutes before the bell rang did I turn the page over and discover there was a second page. And I raced to finish it, did not of course, and barely passed, or even flunked that portion of the exam. That was something the oral examiners asked me about when I had the oral exam. Q: When and where did you have the oral? WILLIAMS: I had the oral the summer after I graduated from Princeton, before we went to Munich, in Washington, D.C. and passed it. But the thing they zeroed in on early was why were my scores on the written test generally pretty good except for math which was atrocious. I had to tell them it was because I'd been too careless to look at the whole test before I put my pen down. Q: Did you have to defer entry into the Foreign Service then to do the Fulbright in Munich, or did it all kind of work out, the timing the way you wanted it? WILLIAMS: They allowed me to do that with some reluctance. That was another part of the grilling and the oral exam, just when did I plan to come into the Foreign Service if I passed the exam. Was I really an academic who wanted to go on to the academic track or was I serious about wanting to come into the Foreign Service? I think their questions pushed me to clarify my own thinking on that point, and tell them truthfully that I planned to come into the Foreign Service if I passed the test after my Fulbright in Munich. Interview with Mr. James Alan Williams , 2011 http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001743 Library of Congress Q: And I see you did come in September of 1965 at age 22 if my math is right. WILLIAMS: That's right. That was not unusual at the time. Many of us were A.B. generalists with one or two years of post-graduate experience or as former Peace Corps volunteers. There were several of those. Some had masters degrees. There was only one Ph.D. in the class. He was the old man at 31, Ron Casagrande, a great guy. And it just worked out perfectly in terms of the timing. We came back on the ship. In those days you still took the ship to Europe and came back, at least the Fulbright grantees did. And we got off the ship in August and I came into the class that started sometime in September as I recall. Q: And you had the usual A100 orientation course at the Foreign Service Institute and what happened after that? I see your first assignment was to Ankara, Turkey. Did you have any language training or other specific preparation for that? WILLIAMS: Not at all. The A100 course was fairly straightforward. We visited various desks in the Department of State, including the German desk. We heard all kinds of lecturers, some good, some bad at the old Foreign Service Institute, and we had a fairly useful but short course in consular affairs, and that was the essence of my training. I had gotten off of language probation by passing the test in German since I had majored in German literature. I'd spent a summer in Germany. There was no language training, nor was there any request by me to go to Turkey. I, of course, wanted to go back to Germany and the system wisely decided not to send me there. When the announcements were made, you may recall the old style, for us at least, our class, we were in a windowless room and somebody like the DG (Director General - head of personnel) would come into the room and call out your last name. You would stand up in a more or less military brace and he would give you your assignment. You would say thank you sir and sit down. My name started with W I was at the end of the line. When he called out Williams I stood up and said, “Yes, sir,” and he said, “Mr. Williams you are going to Izmir,” and I said thank you sir and sat down without having a clue where Izmir was. I asked my wife where is Izmir Interview with Mr. James Alan Williams , 2011 http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001743 Library of Congress and she said I don't know. Somebody behind us thankfully whispered he thought it was old Smyrna and I did know what Smyrna was so I quickly figured out I was going to Turkey. It was a country that I had never particularly studied or shown any interest in or shown any desire to visit, and the system sent me there, for which I am eternally grateful. Q: And you actually did go to Izmir? WILLIAMS: No, that's another story. We were going to Izmir, the assignment was announced so I assume that the director general made it. Normally that was it. So dutifully my wife and I wrote the letters of introduction to the consul general and his wife, it was Lew Schmidt and his wife.