The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR ANGIER BIDDLE DUKE Interviewed by: John McKesson Initial interview date: April 4, 1989 Copyright 1998 A ST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background hildhood Education Interest in Foreign Service Brief overview of career Argentina/ Spain 1949-1952 First experiences as FSO Am,assador to El Salvador 1953-1953 Political and economic conditions President Osorio Opposition .S policy under Dulles Osorio meets Ar,en/0 President of 1uatemala hief of Protocol 1921-1925 Duties hemistry between leaders 3ohn Diefen,acker Shah Impressions of experience Dean Rusk and 1eorge Ball 1eneral de 1aulle at 3F56s funeral Am,assador to Spain 1925-1928 Succession to Franco .S military presence Franco6s personality Spanish view of .S 3uan arlos 1 Am,assador to Denmark 1928-1929 Effort to enlarge Danish role in NATO 9ood toward Americans Am,assador to 9orocco 1979-1981 Appointment Am,assador Richard Parker Arms sales and war against Polisarios onclusion Involvement in organi/ations after retirement ontinued support for Foreign Service INTERVIEW Q: Angie, do you think you might tell us something about your childhood and background' D.5E: I was born in 1915 in New York ity. 9y father died when I was seven years old; my mother remarried and we moved to Long Island where I went to school and grew up. And at the age of twelve prior to my 13th birthday I went off to St. Paul's School in oncord0 New Hampshire where I stayed for six years. I then went to Yale .niversity. During the summers we would visit my mother's brother0 Anthony 3. Drexel Biddle0 who was 9inister to Norway and su,seAuently Am,assador to Poland. (He was later our wartime Am,assador to the governments-in-exile in London. He died in 1922 when serving as Am,assador to Spain.C Q: Could you tell us a little about your education' D.5E: I regret to say I left Yale in my 3unior year0 always intending to come back0 but the war intervened and one thing led to another0 and I never did graduate. I did go to service schools and graduated from Officer andidate School at amp Lee0 Dirginia0 and I feel that life has given me a pretty good education. Although I regret not getting my degree0 I take inordinate pride in the honorary degrees that have been given me. Q: I gather that what attracted you to the foreign affairs field was the contact you had with your early mentors' D.5E: Yes0 it was the inspiration and examples of my uncle who was serving in the em,assies in Europe; my education in Epre-diplomatic studiesE at Yale0 my world-wide travels0 and of course my own experience during the war in North Africa0 England0 France and 1ermany. All that gave me a great feeling for service a,road. 2 Q: Could you tell us a bit about your career in the way of a brief overall summary' D.5E: I was appointed a Foreign Service Reserve Officer0 lass Four in 1949 and served with that rank as a secretary and consul in the em,assies in Buenos Aires and 9adrid. 9y career was changed through an extraordinary circumstance when the Senate Foreign Relations ommittee came to Spain in 1952 to negotiate the base agreement. I was made the control officer. The Senators maintained that they were so satisfied by the work that I was doing for them that I was offered the post of Am,assador to El Salvador; so I left the FSR ranks and became a political appointee of Harry Truman for a,out 13 months. And during the Eisenhower administration I was the president of the International Rescue ommittee0 the largest non-sectarian refugee organi/ation in the world. In 1920 I joined 3F5's campaign and was appointed hief of Protocol when he ,ecame President. I stayed on for a year under LB3 who sent me to Spain in 1925 where I remained for three years. He recalled me to be hief of Protocol again for six months and then appointed me to Denmark. 9y candidate0 Hu,ert Humphrey0 lost the election so I was out the following 3une0 1929. President arter appointed me as Am,assador to 9orocco in 1979 where I served until early 1981. Q: Perhaps you would like to begin by giving something about your experiences in your first two posts, in Argentina and Spain' D.5E: I would like to emphasi/e0 3ohn0 that I had close working experience with all sections of the em,assy in Buenos Aires. I was named staff aide to Am,assador 1riffis in Argentina and Special Assistant to the Am,assador while in Spain. I interacted with .SIA0 the Political Section0 the IA0 and all elements from the top to bottom which gave me a really significant opportunity to be su,stantively involved in the work of the Foreign Service and with the officers of the Foreign Service. This gave me a point of view of the Service that I think is somewhat uniAue0 and certainly stood me in tremendously good stead when I had the opportunity to have missions of my own. Q: We might perhaps at this point move on to your period as Ambassador to El Salvador- could you describe the political and economic conditions in the country when you arrived' D.5E: I had already had the experience of working at top levels in two large and active posts Eand I hit the ground running.E The president of Salvador at that time was 1eneral Osorio who was the undisputed leader of the military0 which maintained an uneasy but working alliance with the so- called oligarchy0 the land-owning0 coffee-growing class. This kept the country on0 let us say0 a politically peaceful and economically productive course but one that was stratified dangerously in terms of class structure. There was very little opportunity for social mo,ility or economic flexi,ility. Therefore our Point Four program was important. It was oriented towards widening credit for small business and to purchase family plots for farmers and coffee growers. And I think we were beginning to ,e successful. Salvador had a one crop economy0 coffee; and they began to expand from the export of raw bulk to process coffee and to the building of a decaffeinated coffee 3 plant and the packaging of coffee products. I think that if that AID policy had been continued and if it had been com,ined with social reform0 I think Salvador would have developed more peacefully0 social progress could have been instituted and the events of 1980-81 could have been avoided or at least moderated. Q: What do you attribute the fact that the social reforms were not implemented' D.5E: It was a wretched structuring of society0 the alliance between the landowners and the army. Higher education fell into the hands of the .niversity of El Salvador which in time became radicali/ed and the students' 9arxist ideas became infectious. The increasingly detached policy of the atholic hurch and li,eration theology also began to take hold and I think that the growing political agitation and mounting interest in social change and 9arxist promises did build on the evident injustices of society. In those eight years after Harry Truman I believe that the seeds of discontent were successfully sown making inevita,le the reform and revolutionary movement that started in 1980. Q: .ow would you assess President Osorio as a man and as a leader' D.5E: Osorio was not a charismatic leader; he was a shrewd0 smart career army officer who knew how to get along. He was an amia,le man0 and although not a brilliant leader0 he conveyed a sense that sound change was desira,le and eventually inevita,le. Progress was being made during his presidency. Q: Was there any possibility for you to be in touch with any opposition elements' D.5E: The opposition was not particularly in evidence. Ghile there may have been conspiratorial opposition0 I really cannot recall any overt surfacing. There were li,eral elements in the country. You may recall that this was the time Ar,en/ was coming into the fore and becoming a leader in 1uatemala. The social democratic ideas of Ar,en/ were spilling across the borders and inciting hopes for change in the rest of entral America. Salvador was not immune to that0 and there were some particularly bright and intelligent leaders on the moderate left0 some of whom occupied ca,inet positions under Osorio0 who tried to accommodate to this movement. Q: id you feel that 0S policy during the years you were there was basically sound or would you have felt that changes would have been preferable' D.5E: I thought that our AID program was pushing the country along and that the country was evolving and there were changes taking place. But when the administration changed0 3ohn Foster Dulles o,viously had much more interest in the East-Gest relationship than he did in Latin America. I don't think our policy was changed; it simply fell into total neglect and the AID programs dried up. This made inevita,le some policy change and that change took the form of maintaining the status Auo in Latin America while the administration settled in to structuring the policies of the old Gar. 4 Q: Were there any other significant events and developments during your tenure as Ambassador that you feel noteworthy and could comment on' D.5E: The most noteworthy was when President Osorio met with President Ar,en/ at the Salvadoran border.