Fraser Wilkins Oral History Interview –JFK #1, 2/23/1971 Administrative Information Creator: Fraser Wilkins Interviewer: William W. Moss Date of Interview: February 23, 1971 Place of Interview: Washington, D.C. Length: 19 pp. Biographical Note Wilkins, Fraser; Ambassador to Cyprus (1960-1964); Inspector General of the Department of State and the Foreign Service (1964-1971). Wilkins discusses the relationship between the United States and Cyprus, his role as the Ambassador to Cyprus, John F. Kennedy’s [JFK] interest in foreign affairs, and Lyndon B. Johnson’s involvement with Cyprus, among other issues. Access Restrictions No restrictions. Usage Restrictions According to the deed of gift signed March 8, 2017, copyright of these materials has been assigned to the United States Government. Users of these materials are advised to determine the copyright status of any document from which they wish to publish. 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Transcript of Oral History Interview These electronic documents were created from transcripts available in the research room of the John F. Kennedy Library. The transcripts were scanned using optical character recognition and the resulting text files were proofread against the original transcripts. Some formatting changes were made. Page numbers are noted where they would have occurred at the bottoms of the pages of the original transcripts. If researchers have any concerns about accuracy, they are encouraged to visit the library and consult the transcripts and the interview recordings. Suggested Citation Fraser Wilkins, recorded interview by William W. Moss, February 23, 1971, (page number), John F. Kennedy Oral History Program. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION JOHN F. KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY Legal Agreement Pertaining to the Oral History Interview of Fraser Wilkins Interviewed by: William Moss In accordance with the provisions of Chapter 21 of title 44, United States Code, and subject to the terms, conditions, and restrictions hereinafter set forth, I, Fraser B. Wilkins, hereby give, donate, and convey to the United States of America all my rights, title, and interest in the recording and transcript of the personal interview(s) (hereinafter referred to as Materials) conducted with William Moss on February 23, 1971, for deposit in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. This assignment is subject to the following terms and conditions: (I) The transcript and recording shall be available for use by researchers as soon as they have been deposited in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and reviewed by archives staff for information that would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy and/or information the protection of which is essential to the Nation's security. (2) I hereby assign to the United States Government all copyright we may have in the Materials. (3) Copies of the recording may be provided by the Library to researchers upon request. ( 4) Copies of the Materials may be deposited in or loaned to institutions other than the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. (5) The Materials may be placed on the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library's web site. .~e>Jl- f~~BJJ~ lcoJ!Y ' Donor ~. Director for Presidential Libraries Fraser Wilkins Table of Contents Page Topic 1, 12 Wilkins’ first encounter with John F. Kennedy [JFK] in India, 1951 1, 9 Wilkins as a Foreign Service officer in India 2, 13, 19 JFK’s personality 4, 8 Wilkins as the Ambassador to Cyprus 4 Cyprus 11 JFK and President Makarios of Cyprus 14 Lyndon B. Johnson’s trip to Cyprus 18 Conference in Cyprus, 1961 Addendum Name Index Oral History Interview with FRASER WILKINS February 23, 1971 Washington, D.C. By William W. Moss For the John F. Kennedy Library MOSS: Mr. Ambassador, let me ask you, to begin with-­ you said that you first met John Kennedy in India, is that correct~ Would you describe that please for us? WILKINS:, Yes, that's correct. The first thing I want to say is that as a Foreign Service officer, I was a very small cog in a very large Department of State Foreign Service machine; naturally my relationship with a man like President Kennedy was rather brief and re­ mote. But I remember that I went to India in 1950, when Loy Henderson was ambassador, as political counselor. There was a change of ambassadors in 1951 when Chester Bowles took his place. If I remember correctly, President Kennedy, who was then a congressman, came on .a visit with his brother, Robert [F. Kennedy], and one of the sisters, later Mrs. Stephen Smith, a regular CODEL [Congressional Delegation]. -2- ,,, Ambassador Bowles was away. Loyd Steere was charge, and he called me up that morning and said, "Fraser, are you free for lunch today? The reason I ask is I'm tied up and we've got this congressman coming with his relatives. Could you take care of them?" I said, 11 Well, I think we can do it. 11 And so I talked to my wife, and we decided to arrange a lunch with Indian food. I thought we should give them something Indian to eat, being in India. I hadn't realized it would be John Kennedy and Robert and his sister until they arrived. It turned out they were very much the worse for wear because they'd been traveling through the Near East and were having the usual tummy trouble. The last thing they wanted was an Indian lunch. we had an Indian curry, rice ~nd papaya, and all during lunch both Jack and Robert Kennedy kept pushing pieces of the curried chicken and the papaya underneath the lettuce so they wouldn't have to eat it. That morning President Kennedy had been to see [Jawaharlal] Nehru. His conversation about his talk with Nehru was interesting to me because Kennedy struck me as a person who was an accomplished politician, who was de­ veloping an interest in foreign affairs. I mean, he wasn't quite sure of his grasp, as I sensed what he was saying. He mispronounced names in talking about the Indians. I hoped he didn't do that when he was talking with Nehru. But still his interest was genuine. We talked at length about the politics of India. Robert we;s on the edge of his chair all the time. He looked like he'd just graduated from college. He had a crew cut and seemed a touch football type. You could see he was trying to. get in on the conversation all the time and was competing with his brother. MOSS: Do you remember anything of a substantive nature of the conversation? -3- WILKINS: Not really very much. I think he was impressed by Nehru because he was a very impressive man and he did things in style there in his office. Nehru spoke at length about American assistance in wheat and also about Korea, the settlement of that problem. Kennedy was much impressed with Nehru's position on these matters. Also at that time, the United St2tes was hoping that in re- , - turn for wheat shipped to that country, India would release / manganese ore, which was needed in defense production. And Nehru was reluctant to do this because he thought that this was contributing to the development of nuclear weapons. MOSS: And was this a topic of conversation at the luncheon? WILKINS: As far as I know. I've sort of forgotten the details. After all, this was twenty years ago. MOSS: Yes, I understand how it is. WILKINS: And I haven't thought much about it since then. MOSS: Are there a~y other incidents from that visit that stand out? WILKINS: Well, I do remember that after the Kennedy group left--they went on to Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia; it was a round-the-world trip. Later we got back newspaper reports saying how dis­ pleased Kennedy was with the level of representation through­ out the Middle East. Everywhere he'd gone most of the ambassadors were absent. This was not unusual because most ambassadors went on home leave in the summer. I think Mr. Bowles himself was back in the United States on consulta­ tion. I remember saying to my wife, "No matter what you do you can't win," because here we'd had an interesting con­ versation and a very pleasant day--in spite of the curry--and still the Kennedys were critical about the Foreign Service and the State Department. It seemed like a bad break. -4- MOSS: All right, let's move on then. You wee ap- pointed Ambassador to Cyprus in the [Dwight D.] Eisenhower Administration, so you were there when Kennedy was elected and when he became President. WILKINS: That's right. I ought to explain a little bit about Cyprus, just for the record. There had been trouble between the British, v..hohad been in control of Cyprus since 1878, when it was taken over from the Turks.