The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project KEVIN J. MCGUIRE Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial Interview Date: August 13, 2014 Copyright 2016 ADST Q: Today is 13 August 2014 with Kevin J. McGuire. Kevin and I served together in Greece back in the ‘70s. Kevin, let’s start at the beginning. When and where were you born? McGUIRE: I was born in New York City in Jackson Heights on January 28, 1943. Q: OK, right in the middle of WWII. McGUIRE: It was indeed. Q: Let’s get a little family history. What do you know of your father’s side, where the family came from and how they got to the United States and what they had been occupied doing? McGUIRE: My father’s family came to the United States in the mid 1830s from Ireland, from the Cavan-Fermanagh area and worked on the Erie Canal. The family lived in upstate New York until the late 1800s when our branch moved to New York City. Q: Now let’s go back to your grandfather. What was he up to? McGUIRE: My paternal grandfather died long before I was born. He was a local government worker of some kind. He may have been in the fire department. I am not sure. Q: And your father? McGUIRE: My father was an employee of the Australian Consulate in New York City when things were going well. Unfortunately he had a drinking problem and things did not go well for very long. So from the late 40s on we saw less and less of him. He ended up as a dock worker and really played no role in the family, provided no assistance at all. Q: How about your mother’s side? McGUIRE: My mother’s maiden name was Kelly; her parents migrated to New York City from the Galway area of western Ireland. I don’t remember the exact time frame but it would have been around the 1880s. My maternal grandfather also died young. I believe 1 he was with the department of sanitation. My grandmother was something of a wheeler- dealer and one way or another she managed to invest some money in real estate, which is how the family ended up living in a private home in Jackson Heights by the time I arrived. Jackson Heights was not an elite area but the family had reached the point where they could move into reasonably attractive housing close to the center of New York City. My mother was the first one in the family to go beyond high school. She became a New York City school teacher. Education was something that was uppermost in her mind. For my brother and myself that was clearly the way to move up the ladder. Q: So she was the force in the family. McGUIRE: Absolutely. Q: How did you interact with your mother? McGUIRE: The family was small and close. Our aunt lived with us so there were two adults and my older brother and myself. My mother took her work very seriously. She was the sole bread winner. She had a very serious case of asthma, so things were difficult for her. She took great interest in our school work. I can remember being resentful during the summer vacations when I was in the first and second grade because I had to go in for what seemed like hours a couple of times a week in order to practice writing, reading and math. So my brother and I were inculcated with a sense of doing well in school. My brother got a scholarship to Regis High School which still is one of the best high schools in New York. I went to Bishop Loughlin which was a Diocesan scholarship school. We went to first class private schools; we didn’t pay any tuition. We started working full time in the summers from age fourteen to get ready for college costs. Q: As a kid in the early years of schooling were you much of a reader? McGUIRE: Yes, this is something both my brother and I enjoyed. We both did very well in school. There weren’t any rewards at home for doing well; it was expected. Q: It sounds like you had a firm mother’s hand. McGUIRE: We did. Q: Who was older your brother or you? McGUIRE: My brother was four years older. Q: How did you work with him? Was he your role model or was it competitive? McGUIRE: A bit of each. We have three sons. My second son has some personality traits very similar to my own. When you have an older sibling you are behind the curve so to speak at the dinner table. There are intelligent people discussing issues that are maybe a bit above your head so you develop some skills to get some face time, humor, timing, 2 maybe a touch of irony. My brother and I got along well. He certainly set a high standard academically and in that regard he was a role model rather than a competitor. We were pretty close when we were younger but four years is a big difference and we took different paths as we got older. The Foreign Service was not an easy place to maintain contacts with friends and relatives during much of my career. There were no e-mails, no Facebook, et al.; even telephoning could be difficult. Home leave provided opportunities to see people you were close to, and the occasional visit to one’s post from family and friends helped, but maintaining ties was not easy. Q: So when you were a kid do you remember some of the books you were interested in reading? McGUIRE: I can remember walking up to our local library during the summer months when I was in the third or fourth grade. I remember the Dr. Doolittle books, and a fictional series on baseball that I loved. My uncle got me started on Kenneth Roberts when I was around 10 and I think I read everything he published. I loved Mark Twain. I also would pick up things my brother was reading. There was usually something by Normal Mailer or James Jones lying around as I got a little older. I would grab whatever was around. In high school we had a wonderful exposure to a wide range of great reading. Our house was also full of newspapers. Every day we got the New York Times, the Herald Tribune, the Journal American and the World Telegram and Sun. And we had a news magazine or two as well. Q: I assume you were Catholic. Was the Catholic Church an important factor in your life? McGUIRE: We went to mass every Sunday and I did a lot of extra things like First Fridays and Lenten observances. Both the Kelly and McGuire families were active practitioners. I went to public school for two years where my mother taught. Then I switched to the local parochial school where my brother was already enrolled. Loughlin High was Catholic and Holy Cross as well. I remain a practicing Catholic to this day. Q: As a young boy were you tempted to go into the priesthood? McGUIRE: No, I never considered that. Q: Where did you family fall politically? McGUIRE: My mother was registered as an independent. That was because she was in the public school system and she felt that if you put down Democrat that might rebound against you. We would discuss politics at election time when I was young. She was usually a supporter of the Democratic party, but not always. She was initially opposed to the teachers’ union. This would have been in the 1950s. She felt that the union might have a negative effect on education. But then the union did some things in defense of the teachers on salaries and working conditions, and did so without adverse impact on the quality of education. So her view of the union changed, and she became a proponent. As I 3 said the house was filled with newspapers, with various political orientations. We had them and we read them, and that led to some interesting discussions. Q: How about the radio? Was that something that you remember? McGUIRE: I can’t remember much radio coverage of the political scene. We had a TV fairly early on. I can remember Douglas Edwards and the newscasters of that era. We listened to Edward R. Murrow fight McCarthyism. We used to watch the news around dinner time and usually caught the 11 pm news before bed time. Q: Well did you have any sort of favorite radio or TV shows that you watched? McGUIRE: As a kid, we watched the early comedy shows, Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, George Burns, Jackie Gleason and Lucille Ball. The Tonight Show started with Steve Allen in the 1950s and my brother and I used to watch him, and Ernie Kovacs. Q: Well in Jackson Heights as a kid did you get into New York much? McGUIRE: Yes. The Empire State Building was visible from our street and Jackson Heights was a quick subway ride from downtown. It was a great place to grow up. When I was a youngster my mother would take us to Central Park, to the zoo and the wonderful museums or to a show for a special occasion. When I was in high school friends and I would go down to Broadway and you could catch a play for a buck or two.