The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project WARREN ZIMMERMANN Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: December 10, 1996 Copyri ht 2003 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA ale University; $ings College, Cambridge Teaching fellow at ale U.S. Army )ournalism Entered Foreign Service 1,-1 Caracas, .ene/uela 0 Consular Officer 1,-101,-2 Security Environment Cuba FSI 0 Serbo0Croatian 4anguage Training 1,-201,-5 Belgrade, ugoslavia 0 Press6Political Officer 1,-501,-8 8elations Anti0communists Ethnic divisions State Department 0 IN8 0 Soviet Policy 1,-801,70 Bre/hnev Doctrine C/echoslovakia Africa State Department 0 Office of the Counselor < Speech Writer for 1,7001,73 Secretary of State Secretary of State 8ogers $issinger NSC relations Moscow, USS8 0 Political Officer 1,7301,75 1 )ackson0.anik Amendment Economy Environment $remlinology $issinger visit Cuba China 8adiation State Department 0 Policy Planning 1,7501,77 Eurocommunism Soviets $issinger Paris, France 0 Political Counselor 1,7701,80 CIA Nuclear capability Africa 8elations Intellectuals 4eftists Neutron bomb Human rights Middle East Mitterrand Press $homeini Iran embassy hostages Afghanistan Madrid, Spain 0 CSCE 0 .ice Chairman, U.S. Delegation 1,8001,81 Goals Soviets NATO caucus $ampelman negotiations Poland Moscow, USS8 < DCM 1,8101,82 USA Institute 8elations Hot line Dissidents $GB Missiles Science 2 Dobrynin Security $A4 plane shootdown Dissidents Geneva, Swit/erland 0 Arms Negotiations 0 Deputy Chief 1,8501,8- Star Wars ABero optionC Soviets .ienna, Austria 0 CSCE 0 U.S. Delegation 1,8-01,8, Human rights Delegations Warsaw Pact Soviets ugoslavia < Ambassador 1,8,01,,1 Milosevic 8epublics Breakup $osovo Military Mirjana Markovic Mediation efforts War UN Bakur visit Press Bosnia State Department 0 8efugee Affairs 1,,101,,2 African refugees NGOs UN Haiti .ietnam 8esignation 1,,2 8and Corporation University teaching INTERVIEW 3 %: Isn't this when Hitler declared war on the (nited States) I may be wron , but anyway. This is an interview with Warren Zimmermann. My name is Charles Stuart Kennedy, and we are doin this on behal. o. the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Trainin . Warren and I are old friends goin bac/ to the 060s in Bel rade. Warren, I'd li/e to start with a bit about your family, when and where you were born. Could you tell me a bit about your family) BIMME8MANND I was born in Philadelphia in 1,32. My father was the youngest child of a German immigrant who actually came to the United States around the 1870s. He had been in the teEtile business as a young man in Germany, founded a teEtile plant in Philadelphia and invented some kind of process for making rugs. So he was relatively successful. My father went to the University of Pennsylvania and was a wool broker. He stayed in the business, so they had a comfortable house on the main line in Haverford. My motherFs father had been an opthamologist and dean of the University of Pennsylvania school of ophthalmology. So, I led what I guess was a conventional kind of middle class childhood. I went to private schools. %: Let's tal/ a little about your education because I thin/ it is important as we get into these oral histories to understand where you come from. Where did you go to private school) BIMME8MANND I went to a school called Haverford School which was in the town where I was brought up. It was a private boys school. %: Was It %ua/er or not) BIMME8MANND No, but there were a lot of Guaker kids in it because there was a strong Guaker influence in that area. Then for my last three years of school, I went away to a boarding school in Massachusetts called Deerfield Academy. It is in the western part of the state not far from Smith College and Amherst College. %: Now while you were at, particularly at Deer.ield, was the famous headmaster there at that time) BIMME8MANND es, the famous headmaster was there. His name was Frank Boyden. My senior year he celebrated his 50th year as headmaster of Deerfield, not just there but as headmaster of Deerfield. I was the editor0in0chief of the school paper and I wrote a long article, two page centerfold article. I had never done that before of course, about him and his eHually remarkable wife and their beginnings and so forth as simple New England people. %: Could you tal/ about, because I always try to catch a little social history, tal/ a little bit about the educational system and your impression and what you got out o. Deer.ield. 4 BIMME8MANND I would say that I was eEtremely well educated at Deerfield. It was a no0nonsense kind of education. ou were eEpected in English for eEample to know how to write a sentence and to know how to write a paragraph and understand what grammar was. 4ooking back I think it was the single most important thing that I brought with me into the foreign service was a clear grounding in pure eEpository writing. I credit Deerfield for that. It was also a school because the headmaster himself was a sports addict. He was coach of the football, basketball, and baseball teams right up into his 70s. It was a school that believed in the kind of an English tradition of combining sports with studies, so I was inclined that way, too. That has always stayed with me also. %: Did you get much in the way o., let's see you were there durin , what, the early 050s) BIMME8MANND I was there from F2, to F51. %: Were you gettin much in the way o. world events at that time) BIMME8MANND We thought we were, but in fact we were ama/ingly innocent about what was going on in the world. I remember I took the Herald Tribune on a daily basis which is what you were supposed to do if you wanted to keep up with current events. Every year I would take the Time current affairs test. %: I won in my fourth forei n year. BIMME8MANND I did miserably on it. I was terrible on the Time current affairs test, so I really didnFt know much about what was going on in the world. I was going to be an English major I figured and I probably didnFt need to know very much. %: Well, how about history) BIMME8MANND I took a couple of history courses at Deerfield. American history I hated. In fact that turned out to be the reason why I failed the foreign service eEam the first time around because I didnFt know any American history. I had never taken a course in it at college since I had hated it so much in school. I loved European history and while I was an English major at ale, I minored in history, took a lot of history courses. Curiously just to finish this, after I failed the foreign service eEam, and the eEaminer said it was because I didnFt know enough American history. %: We are tal/in about the oral e5am. BIMME8MANND We are talking about the oral eEam. I went back and threw myself into a study course of American history, a home study course. Of course I immediately began to reali/e I loved it. I have been a history buff both American and European ever since. %: I have to as a footnote, I was an oral e5aminer at one point in the 070s and I was one o. those guys, i. you didn't /now your American history, the hell with you. 5 BIMME8MANND Actually I think that is right. I really do think you need to know American history. I think I should have failed, and it had the right effect on me. I learned it. %: Well, a.ter Deer.ield, you went to 7ale, is that ri ht) BIMME8MANND I did. %: 7ou were at 7ale from when to when) BIMME8MANND I was at ale from F51 to F5-, which was the period of time which ale upperclassmen when I was there referred to as the time of the silent generation. We were the silent generation. There was no war. The $orean war was wrapped up. .ietnam hadnFt happened yet. We were not great rebels in any political or foreign policy sense. %: So you didn't have the leavenin o. havin a lot o. veterans in. I graduated in 1950 .rom Williams and we had a lot o. in fact, the ma8ority o. the school was veterans. By that time you have sort o. gone throu h the veterans. BIMME8MANND es, we had been through the veterans, and the big thing was getting a student deferment by staying in school as long as you could. %: A student de.erment re.erred to the dra.t which. BIMME8MANND ThatFs right. As I recall, the draft still eEisted, and as long as you were in school you wouldnFt have to go into the military. I look back at that period as one of which I am not at all proud because looking after 20 years later, it does seem to me that if the military eEists, and certainly there was the draft, people should go in. It is a good thing to do. %: Well, what was your concentration durin that time) BIMME8MANND I started off at ale wanting very badly to make the ale Daily News, the campus newspaper which came out every day and had been doing that since the 1,th, century. My freshman year I tried out for the news.