The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project MARK TAUBER Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy and John Collinge Initial interview date: January 5, 2016 Copyright 2020 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Family Origins: Eastern European Jews Who Got Out in Time 1912-1919 ● Dad: US Army Scientist and The McCarthy Era 1952-1954 ● Mom works for Ma Bell 1948-1959 ● Three children: Mark 1959, Michele 1961, Alan 1964 A Feral Childhood 1959-1972 ● Long Branch, The New Jersey Shore ● Presidents visited. Garfield died. Oscar Wilde cavorted. Long Branch High School 1973-1977 ● And Then I Found Out About the Foreign Service ● Being a Gay Kid in the 1970s ● Part-time Work; Preparing for College Georgetown University School of Foreign Service 1977-1981 ● Social Life in the Arts Hall and Washington DC ● Gay Students Win Equal Access to University Facilities ● Coursework During the Cold War ● My Dorm as Finishing School ● Part-time Work and Internship at International Trade Administration Georgetown University Master’s Program in Foreign Service 1982-1984 ● Honors Program in International Business Diplomacy ● Internship in International Trade at Center for Strategic and International Studies ● Summer Study in France: A Transforming Experience Preparing for the Foreign Service 1984 ● “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” ● Foreign Service Test Results ● Personality Tests: The Fault is not in Ourselves, but in Our Stars 1 ● Foreign Service Orientation and Training: A-100 and ConGen Roslyn Kingston, Jamaica: The Visa Mill 1984-1986 ● The Anatomy of a Visa ● Colin Powell’s Advice on Visa Adjudication ● Personal Security in Jamaica ● Social Life in Jamaica ● Preparing for the Next Tour Costa Rica, First Political Cone Job 1986-1988 ● Iran-Contra Scandal Begins ● 150,000 Nicaraguan Refugees ● The Nicaraguan Civil War and Oscar Arias’ Peace Process ● The First Free Elections in Nicaragua ● Smith-Mundt and the Propagandizing of the American People ● Max Tower, Ace of Spies State Department, Washington, DC 1988-1993 Operations Center: 1988-1989 ● Watch Officer: How the State Department Works ● What VIPs need to know Secretary Baker’s Staff: 1989-1990 ● How a Memo Becomes a Secretarial Action ● What is the Foreign Service Anyway? ● Xeroxer to the Stars NATO Desk: Confidence and Security Building Measures in Europe (CSBMs) 1990-1992 ● Definition of CSBMs ● Brief History of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) --Where it all started: The Helsinki Final Act of 1975 --Congress Gets a Slot on the U.S. Delegation to the CSCE --1986: The Stockholm CSCE Review Conference. More CSBMs --Europeans Need More CSBMs as Pershing missiles arrive. ● 1990: Vienna Negotiations Produce More CSBMs ● CSBMs Versus the Conventional Forces Europe Treaty (CFE) ● Clearance Process: Getting to Yes. But More Often Getting to NO! ● The Alphabet of Clearers: EUR/RPM, JCS, OSD, OSIA, ACDA, NSC, IC 2 ● Free-Range Negotiators are Happy Negotiators ● The Beginning of Mediocre Performance Evaluations Nuclear Risk Reduction Center (NRRC) 1992-1993 ● This is Where You End up When You Insist on Going to Paris ● NRRC Watch Officer: Back to 24-hour Shifts ● Mailman for Arms Control Notifications GLIFAA -- Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies 1992-1993 ● Founding of GLIFAA in 1992 ● LGBT March on Washington with GLIFAA 1993 ● LGBT March Manifesto Pol-Mil Officer, U.S. Delegation to the OSCE Vienna, Austria 1993-1997 ● Vienna in the 1990s as Austria Moves Toward EU Membership ● CSCE: Diplomacy Among 57 Countries ● The CSCE and NATO Envy ● Stitching Together the OSCE ● Budapest Summit 1994: The OSCE: It’s Alive! It’s Alive! ● Open Skies Treaty: Redux or Reflux? ● How to Become Unpromotable ● At Last, the Negotiator in Full ● Fearless Leader’s Mancave in Azerbaijan Pearson Fellowship: Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Minority Staff (Democrats) 1997-1998 ● NATO Enlargement: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland ● Lessons Learned: Network to Get Work U.S. Embassy, Yerevan Armenia Chief of Political/Economic Section 1999-2001 ● Armenia at the End of the 20th Century ● Everyday Life at a 25% Differential Post ● U.S. Embassy Yerevan – The Special Embassy Program ● Chief of the Political/Economic Section ● Quotidian Disappointments and Daily Abrasions ● Adding LGBT Human Rights to Human Rights Report ● The Conflict Over Nagorno-Karabakh ● The Assassination of the Prime Minister – a Tragedy in Five Acts ● Dual-Use Exports to Iran ● Metsamor – Armenia’s Chernobyl? 3 ● Corruption ● Touring Armenia’s Beautiful Historic Sites ● The End of Political Cone Work Romanian Language Training (6 months) State Dept. Romania Desk (6 months) 2001-2005 Cultural Officer, U.S. Embassy Bucharest, Romania 2002-2005 ● Romanian Language Training – Harder Than You Think ● Arrival in Bucharest: The U.S. Embassy and the Public Affairs Section ● Scene Setter for Cultural Affairs ● Legacy Programs: Journalism, Civics Textbooks, Dispute Resolution Training ● Fulbright: The Flagship of U.S. Exchange Programs. ● Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation ● Regional Conferences: Privatizing the Arts; Promoting English Language ● Holocaust Remembrance Programs ● An Almost Visit from Francis Ford Coppola ● American Corners: From 0 to 9 in Three Years ● Ambassador Initiatives: Archeology and Historic Preservation ● Mapping Historic Romania ● Engaging Youth: Flag Day and Friday Night at the Movies ● The Blooper Reel Cultural Affairs Officer U.S. Embassy, Budapest, Hungary 2005-2008 ● The Most Beautiful City on the Danube ● The Embassy Community and the Public Affairs Section ● Key Embassy Goals for 2005-08 ● Returning a Historic Property to Hungary ● The Advent of Blackberrys and 24/7 Communication ● “Murdering your reputation is a form of suicide.” ● Resurrecting Your Reputation ● Writing Evaluations That Get Promotions ● Save the Males ● The Fulbright Alumni Roadshow ● The IVLP Program and the Trash Whisperer ● The 50th Anniversary of the 1956 Uprising ● Holocaust Remembrance: Training Teachers and Honoring Carl Lutz ● The Ambassador’s Award and Mini Concerts ● Acting Section Chief and Award (!) ● The Blooper Reel 4 Industrial College of the Armed Forces, Washington, DC Master’s Degree Program in National Resource Strategy 2008-2009 ● Military Culture and Expectations ● First Semester: Leadership, Logistics, Media Studies ● Team Sports and Myers-Briggs: Are You Kidding? ● Gee, Maybe This Guy Isn’t All Hot Air ● Second Semester: Military Acquisitions, Iraq, more Media Studies Public Affairs Officer 2009-2012 U.S. Embassy San Jose, Costa Rica Part 1: The Regency Period 2009-2010 ● Building Staff and upgrading technology ● Delegating responsibility. “We’re all public diplomacy officers now.” ● The Inspector General’s Report: Surprisingly Good News Part 2: The Ambassadorial Period 2010-2012 ● Visit of Secretary Clinton for Pathways to Prosperity Ministerial ● The TEDx Talk: Students Love STEM ● Shiny Objects: The Embassy PR Packet ● Maximum Exposure: Ambassadorial Appearances ● The Costa Rican Gay Pride Parade. Wait, What? ● Tighter Security and Disaster Rehearsals ● Moving on to the Office of American Spaces Director, Office of American Spaces Bureau of International Information Programs, Department of State, Washington, DC 2012-2013 ● The Bureau of IIP: Not Long for This World ● What Exactly are American Spaces? ● The Lame Duck ● An Inspector Calls ● Review of Executive Direction: Deeply Flawed ● American Spaces: Pretty Good 2013 and Beyond ● Retirement ● High School Teaching? ● Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Epilogue 5 INTERVIEW Family origins: Eastern European Jews Who Got Out in Time Q: Let’s start at the beginning, when and where were you born? TAUBER: I was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, just enough past midnight to arrive on Easter Sunday, March 29, 1959. According to family lore, it was still cold enough for a few snowflakes to fall. My parents had been in their house for 3 years when I came along. My younger sister was next, in 1961, and my brother in 1964. Q: What do you know about the Tauber side? TAUBER: My grandparents were the first generation of immigrants to this country, so I am a third generation American. My mother’s parents came from what is now Belarus and my father’s parents came from what is now Poland. Both have done their DNA checks. Mom is 100% Eastern European Jewish. Dad is 97% Eastern European Jewish and – get this – 3% Irish! That might account for his blue eyes and light brown hair. No one knows where the Irish connection came from. Q: Ok, let’s stick to your father’s side to begin with. What were they doing? I assume the name Tauber, coming from Eastern Europe, they were Jewish? TAUBER: Correct. Except that my paternal grandfather arrived at Ellis Island with the surname “Teiberer.” The immigration officials changed it to Tauber, ostensibly to make it more pronounceable. No such luck. I’ve heard my last name pronounced as Tayber, Tober, Tawber, and Toober. Q: So, what were they up to? TAUBER: All my grandparents arrived between 1918 and 1923. My paternal grandfather was a house painter, my paternal grandmother worked in the apparel assembly industry – the rag trade. They lived first in Manhattan, and then, after the Depression hit, they moved to the Bronx where my father was born. 6 Q: Were there any tales that came out of the Cossacks coming in and all that sort of thing? It’s one of the great American stories about the Jewish experience in middle Europe. TAUBER: Certainly there were all kinds of official and unofficial anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe and Russia, but my grandparents did not relate any stories of getting caught up in pogroms. But they knew there was no future in Europe for them. They left Europe the very first moment they could, basically in search of better jobs and a better quality of life. They were young, in their late teens or early 20s. They had an anchor relative who filed appropriate papers and they all came, everybody on both sides of the family, with only one exception we know of. That was my father’s maternal grandfather. After a great deal of genealogical research, we recently learned that he lived long enough to perish in the Holocaust.