The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR THOMAS J. CORCORAN Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: June 21, 1988 Copyright 1998 A ST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Education avy, World War II, Yalta Conference Foreign Service exam Consular Section, Barcelona, Spain 1948,195. Dual citi/enship Consular duties Saigon 195.,1950 Political structure of Indochina 1ientiane, 2aos 195. Duties at 3one,man post4 5orean conflict and 6S interest in 5orea Relations 8ith 2aos Political situation in 2aos 9ilitary and economic assistance Phnom Penh, Cambodia 1952 Relations 8ith French military Democrats v. French Hanoi 1954,1955 6S relations 8ith Hanoi Canadians and Indians 2and reform Registering 8ith government and leaving Hanoi DC9, 1ientiane, 2aos 1975,1978 Political situation Free/e on money Relations 8ith 6S Other foreign presence in 6S Rumors of coup 9orale at post 9inor crises Ambassador to Burundi 1978,198. 6S interest in Burundi Burundi>s relations 8ith the rest of the 8orld Tutsis v. Hutus Political situation and missionary activity 9edical aid Russian and Chinese in Burundi AID support from Washington Conclusion Greatest achievement Foreign Service as a career FS,1 3up or out4 INTERVIEW ": Mr. Ambassador, what inspired your interest in the Foreign Service( CORCORA : I suppose it 8as my major studies in college, in the first place, largely centered on history, and the fact that I did not 8ant to be a schoolteacher, after taking an education course 8hich included teaching high school. ": )here were you being educated( CORCORA : St. AohnBs College in Brooklyn, e8 York. Part of the education course that you had to take to Cualify as a high school teacher included actual teaching of classes. After a bit of that, I decided I didnBt 8ant that. Then I 8ent into the Navy in World War II and spent one tour in the South Pacific, one in the 9editerranean, and another one in the orth Pacific. During the 9editerranean tour, 8hich covered the invasion of southern France, I then 8ent on to another stay in Italy. We 8ent to the Soviet 6nion, to the Black Sea, to stand by for the Yalta conference, and to provide communications and support the delegation. ": )hat were you on( CORCORA : I 8as on the ship called the 6SS Catoctin. It 8as a combined operations headCuarters ship, later called an amphibious force flagship. During the first tour, it 8as Admiral He8ittBs flagship for the invasion of southern France, and then it 8as made available for this trip to Sebastopol during the Yalta conference. The delegates 8ere at Yalta, of course, across the peninsula. We did have the President on board one night before he fle8 back to the 9iddle East and back to the States. 9y role 8as purely non,diplomatic. I fired the salute on arrival in port. But it 8as an interesting experience. Then, of course, I added to an earlier tour IBd had in the South Pacific, a voyage largely to the Solomon Islands, Ne8 Caledonia, and Ne8 Dealand, 8orking back and forth on that circuit for a year. That 8as in an evacuation transport, a ship 8hich could carry in a battalion of 9arines, and 8as designed to remove the 8ounded from the battleground. 2ater on, they found airplanes could do it better. So these ships, all named for surgeon generals of the Navy, became regular transports. Then I had another tour in the Catoctin in the orth Pacific at just about the end of the 8ar. We took Admiral Barbey in to accept the surrender of the Aapanese in 5orea, and then later, of the Aapanese in North China. We took 9arines under General Rockey into 5orea, and Chiang 5ai,shekBs troops up from the south to north China. We covered the coast there for a fe8 8eeks, stopping in various ports. I even made one side trip to Peking, just for a couple of days, and a fe8 days in Shanghai before starting back to the West Coast 8ith a lot of American servicemen being repatriated. Then I stayed in the Navy for a 8hile. I had a regular commission for a fe8 years. I 8as navigator of a transport, the 6SS oble, for a 8hile. Then I 8ent into the naval intelligence school here in Washington, DC, 8hich has since gone out to the West Coast. About this time, I had taken the Foreign Service examination, 8hich I had taken once before, just before the 8ar started, 8hen I 8as 2. years old. I decided at this point, I 8as getting to be about 2E years old, that IBd better decide 8hat I 8anted to do. At this time, the amphibious force looked less attractive than the Foreign Service, 8hich 8as more of my earlier interest. I took the 8ritten examination on board ship, in Norfolk. I took the oral examination here in Washington and 8as notified of my appointment, and the Navy released me. I 8ent back into the Naval Reserve. I came to Washington for the Foreign Service course. This 8as early 1948, the time of the Fdo nothingF Congress. We 8erenBt commissioned in the Foreign Service until about April B48. At that time, the Foreign Service had about E.. or some Foreign Service officers. This 8as the end of the old period. The next Act 8as just being set up. ": The new Foreign Service Act, yes( CORCORA : Of 194E. But my first post, more or less just picked out of a hat, I guess, 8as Barcelona, Spain. I 8as told that I could go to 2isbon, Barcelona, or Canada. Canada didnBt seem like the Foreign Service. Barcelona seemed more interesting, so I 8ent there. I spent a little more than t8o years in a small traditional consular post. At that time, 8e had files going back to the Spanish Civil War in the consulate. They had the background of the Catalan independence movement and of the Carlist monarchist movement 8hich had a long history there, plus the largest American chamber of commerce outside the 6nited States, although it 8as inactive and had been inactive since the civil 8ar. Its membership 8as still open because of the textile production in that area. We also had a lot of dual nationals 8ith very complicated citi/enship, because they or their fathers or grandfathers had been born in Puerto Rico. The Treaty of Paris, 8hich meant to the 6nited States and Spain the end of the Spanish,American 8ar, had a special provision for people 8hose fathers or, I think, grandfathers had been natives of the Iberian peninsula. They could take an oath of allegiance and retain their allegiance to the cro8n of Spain, and some of them did. So eventually, they and their children 8ere both American nationals and Spanish subjects. This made for some great complications if they traveled back and forth, and 8ould maybe spend too much time in one place or the other. So that 8as an interesting part of the 8ork there. We had the usual run of consular 8ork. I recall that a train fell off an embankment, about 9. meters, landed on the 8alk belo8 and killed 22 people, one of 8hom 8e heard 8as an American. I had to go do8n there and retrieve his body, 8hich I found by looking at shoes, 8hich seemed to be the best 8ay to tell an American in those days ,, rubber heels on a pair of shoes. That became a very complicated matter, because the man 8as a commercial traveler and his company and his next of kin both had an interest in 8hat had happened to him and the disposal of his estate. That took some time. We had not much trade 8ith Spain in those days. We had things like capers in brine, for example, and plaster images of saints and things of that sort, 8hich 8ere exported in great Cuantities, largely to Puerto Rico. We also had the French and the British consulate generals involved 8ith us in the preservation of German assets in Spain, 8hich 8ere the spoils of World War II. So 8e had to administer, collect rents, and that sort of thing. We had a small amount of visa 8ork. I think the Spanish immigration Cuota 8as something like 2.. a year. That 8as a pretty long 8aiting list. ": I want to concentrate mainly on your time in Indochina, because this is where you did spend, I can almost say, an inordinate amount of time for a Foreign Service officer. How did you get into this particular corner of the woods( CORCORA : That started in Spain. The consulate 8as inspected by Foreign Service inspector Wilson Flake, 8ho asked me 8here I 8ould like to go next. I said that having started in a consular post and learned Spanish, IBd like to go to a diplomatic post 8here I could use French, 8hich I had already studied in school for many years. He said, FFine.F Shortly thereafter, I got orders to Saigon, 8hich had not been a diplomatic post 8hen 8e 8ere discussing this, but 8hich had been converted from a consulate general to a legation right about that time in 195.. ": I,m confused. How was Indochina divided up then( I thought Hanoi was sort of the center. CORCORA : In the French period, 1ietnam 8as really in three parts. You had the empire of Annam, the middle, 8hich had a French resident. ": That was Hue( CORCORA : The capital of Annam 8as Hue. You had North 1ietnam (Tonkin), 8hich 8as largely under military administration, although it 8as technically under the imperial cro8n, but 8as run by the French Army.