The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Information Series AMBASSADOR JAMES DOBBINS Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: July 21, 2003 Copyright 2006 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born in Brooklyn NY; raised in New York Philadelphia Manila Philippines and Washington D.C. area )eorgetown University US Navy ,ntered the Foreign Service in 1.60 Paris France; Consular Officer and Staff Assistant 1.6011.6. Organi2ation for ,uropean ,conomic Cooperation 3O,CD4 5ietnam Peace Talks Student riots Youth events Ambassador Sargent Shriver Marriage State Department; Planning and Coordination Staff 1.6.11.01 Anti 15ietnam War protests Strasbourg France; Consular Officer 1.0111.03 ,nvironment Council of ,urope ,uropean Parliament New York City; US Delegation to the United Nations 1.0311.08 Speech writing for Ambassador 9ohn Scali Arafat visit Arab1Israel 1.03 War Multilateral Diplomacy State Department; Special Assistant to the Counselor 1.0811.06 ,uropean issues Counselor Sonnenfeldt D:tente policies State Department; Officer in Charge of French Affairs 1.0611.08 Nuclear proliferation US1French Relations Quadripartite Talks London ,ngland; Political1Military Officer 1.0811.81 Ambassador Kingman Brewster Missiles British government changes Margaret Thatcher regime Labor Party State Department; Deputy Assistant Secretary ,urope 1.8111.88 Sec State Alexander Haig Missile deployment Special Consultative )roup Weinberger1Schult2 relations NATO Richard Burt Bonn )ermany; Relations with the Russians 1.8811.8. AOstpolitikB US1)erman Relationship Terrorism Cultural relations )erman reunification State Department; Principal Deputy Asst. Secretary for ,urope 1.8.11..1 )erman reunification Secretary of State Baker President BushCs diplomacy )orbachev Maastricht Treaty )erman Unification )erman economy ,ast ,urope countries Relations with Russians Shevardnad2e )ulf War Former Yugoslavia conflict Ambassador to the ,uropean Community 1..111..3 ,uropean Union Balkans NATO expansion Uruguay Round The British ,uropean Unification Parliament of ,urope 3Strasbourg4 US commercial interests Ukraine Balkans Rand Corporation; Senior Fellow 1..3 State Department; Somalia Coordinator 1..311..4 US Policy Warlords Foreign participations State Department; Deputy Special Advisor for Haiti 1..411..6 President Aristide Abortive US military training mission landing Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti Toto Constant 3FRAPH leader4 Congressional interest Clinton administration policy Asylum seekers Caribbean Community Battalion Threat of force US Military Invasion William )ray 9immy Carter ,lections US Second Intervention National Security Council; Latin American Affairs 1..611... Political climate Clinton impeachment issue ClintonCs foreign missions Mexico relations Cuba Haiti Paraguay Bra2il North America Free Trade Agreement 3NAFTA4 Drugs Country relations Sec State Madeleine Albright 5ice President )ore Special Advisor to the President and Sec State for the Balkans 1...12001 Kosovars US Military options International Conferences NATO UN Bosnia model US Assistance limitation Milosevic US military operations Kosovo Security Council Resolutions Russians Albanians Russian coup Russian invasion of Kosovo Unseating Milosevic Serb1Albanian problems Doctor Bernard Kouchner NATO )reeks Dayton Agreement AStability PactB Montenegro Congressional support Russian policy Turkey ,uropean Union Baltic Nations Strobe Talbot State Dept. morale Albanian minority Administration transition Anti1Ballistic Missile Treaty State Department; Mission to Afghanistan 200112002 Representative to the Afghan Opposition Bonn Conference Replacement of Taliban Afghan refugees War Lords Iranians Pakistan Military Operations Tokyo Donors Conference Nation Building concept Russians Northern Alliance Kar2ai Afghan political groups )overnment formation ,thnic groups Anti1narcotic Rand Corporation; Chief International Security and Defense Policy Cntr; 20021 Clients and publications INTERVIEW Q: Today is the 21st of July, 2003. This is an interview with James Dobbins, D-O-)-)-I- N-S. And this is being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training and I,m Charles Stuart Kennedy. -ou go by Jim, I ta.e it, or James/ DOBBINS: 9im is fine. Q: 0ell, really, to start off, could you tell me when and where you were born and we,ll tal. a little about the family/ DOBBINS: I was born in Brooklyn New York in 1.42. Q: Can you tell me a little about on your father,s side and then we,ll go to your mother,s side. DOBBINS: Both Irish1American. My fatherHs father was a fairly prosperous senior executive in a large New York1based corporation and lived in BrooklynCs Park Scope. My father went to Brooklyn Prep Fordham I Holy Cross College and then Fordham Law School and became a lawyer for the 5eterans Administration after the Second World War and during the War he was in Army Intelligence. And my motherHs family was a somewhat less prosperous large Irish1American family but of the same milieu basically. Q: 0hat was her maiden name/ DOBBINS: Bent. Q: I ta.e it from what you,re saying it was a Catholic family. I mean ... DOBBINS: Yes both sides were Catholic. Q: How Catholic was it/ DOBBINS: I think they were I well they were quite Catholic but of a very tolerant sort. I mean they werenHt militantly Catholic. But they were devout Catholics. Q: How big was your family/ DOBBINS: My mother had 11 brothers and sisters so she came from a large family. My fatherHs was smaller. He had two brothers and I had five brothers and sisters of whom one died in infancy. And I have two brothers and two sisters who are still living. Q: 0ell, you grew up as a small child in Broo.lyn Heights was it/ DOBBINS: I spent the first few years during the Second World War living in Philadelphia which was where my father was stationed with the Army counter1 intelligence actually. Then we moved back to Brooklyn where my father worked for the 5eterans Administration and then he was transferred to the 5eterans AdministrationHs office in Manila and we spent five years from 1.83 to 1.88. Q: So when you were 11. About 11 years old/ DOBBINS: Yes about 11 to 16. Q: 0ell, let,s tal. about the time that you were in the States, in elementary school and at home. 0hat were your favorite things to do/ DOBBINS: Oh thatHs hard to say. I mean just the usual things children did in that time. We lived in a inner suburban neighborhood in Brooklyn. We walked to school and back. It was a parochial school and half the kids in our neighborhood went to the public school. They were 9ewish. And the other half went to the Catholic school. They were Catholic. That was pretty much how the neighborhood was divided. So it was stick ball visits to Coney Island or a little further out to the bigger beaches out on the island on the weekend. It was a very pleasant completely normal and unstressed childhood. Q: Did you have interests, say, in reading or in other things/ DOBBINS: Those mostly developed after I left New York and went to the Philippines. I wouldnHt say I was a great reader at 10. But by the time I was 12 or 13 I was. Q: 0ell, you went to the 2hilippines and you were there from ,33 to ... DOBBINS: Fifty1eight. Q: So this would have been 4 you were just in high school by then, weren,t you/ DOBBINS: I actually had two years of elementary or what now might be called junior high and then three years and a little bit more of high school. Q: 0hat were the Philippines li.e from your impression of them at the time/ DOBBINS: Well this was very much the sort of early post1colonial era. The Americans were very popular. They liberated the Philippines and then theyHd immediately given them their independence so the credibility was very high. The standard of living for expatriates was very high. My father I think was a )S110 3)eneral Schedule 104 and we had a swimming pool a tennis court and five servants and a chauffeur1driven car. And we would travel out and back. At that time the government paid first1class for everybody who worked for the government. First1class travel. So we would travel out in a Pullman car three days across the country by train and then 21 days across the Pacific in a large very comfortable ocean1liner with stops in Hawaii and 9apan and Hong Kong. And that would be repeated every couple of years when we came back on home leave. So it was a very idyllic and pleasant experience which everybody in the family enjoyed. Q: 0ell, as a .id, did you have much contact with Filipinos your age/ DOBBINS: Well the first two years I went to a Filipino school. My parents wanted me in a Catholic school and the only American school there was non1denominational. It was the American School which in effect was an international school although it was called the American School. For two years I went to De La Salle which was a school for middle and upper1class Filipinos and Spanish. The old Spanish I wouldnHt say they were necessarily aristocracy although they probably thought of themselves in those terms were there. It was taught in ,nglish. Then for the last three years I went to the American School which was international and it had a few Filipinos but relatively few. But it did have non1Americans. Q: In those schools, you say you began to be a reader, what sort of things did you en5oy/ DOBBINS: Oh I think the usual sorts of things Tar2an ,dgar Rice Burroughs sort of series initially spreading beyond that as one got a little older. BoysH adventure1type stuff as a rule. Q: In high school did you get to go out in any e7tra-curricular activities, or anything li.e that/ DOBBINS: A little bit. I was on the swimming team. I think that was the only varsity sport I did.