The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR CLINT A. LAUDERDALE Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: August 16, 1994 Copyright 1998 A ST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in West Te as Tarleton State (Branch of Te as A"M) University of California at Berkeley Entered Foreign Service 1962 Me ico City, Me ico 1962.1964 0isa and administrative officer Protection of US citi1ens 2io de 3aneiro. 2egional Officer 1964.1967 Brasilia problems Military dictatorship Economic conditions (inflation) AID Brussels, Belgium. 7SO 1967.1970 NATO " Common Market University of Michigan. Management training 1970.1971 State Department. Management officer. EU2 Bonn, 7ermany 1972.1975 Security 2elations with 7ermans Problems and issues Kissinger Madrid, Spain. Administrative Counselor 1975.1979 Franco and Succession Spanish military 1 US bases State Department . Director of 2ecruitment " Appointments 1979.1980 Affirmative action vs. Merit System 2ecruitment Case system State Department. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Personnel 1980.1984 Minority 2ecruitment Women's Class Action suit Foreign Service Act of 1980 Limited career e tensions (LCE) Past management issues INTERVIEW ": Could you tell me a bit about your background& We were discussing beforehand that you are into genealogy, so about your parents, where you were born, a bit about that first. LAUDE2DALEA Bes. I was born September 14, 19C2, in West Te as, on a farm. I grew up there. Those were the Depression years. I guess we were a poor family, although we weren't any poorer than our neighbors. ": Was that part of the Dustbowl or were you able to... LAUDE2DALEA No. That was further north, in Oklahoma. Of course I was born in the Depression, but by the time I got to be a teenager it was in the War years. Still, I came from a modest, poor farm family in West Te as. We were a large family. After I got out of high school, during the Korean War, which started in 1950 and I graduated from high school in 1950, I went off to college for one year. I had a hard time... ": What college did you go to& LAUDE2DALEA I went to one in east Te as called Tarleton State, a branch of Te as A " M. But I was poor, I had no source of income, I couldn't get a job so I was a little unhappy. My grades were okay, Bs mostly. So after a year in college I figured I was going to get drafted in the end, so why struggle. So I signed up in the Army, went to Fort Ord, California for basic training. Didn't want to go to Korea, by the way. ": You were there in 1951 then, in Fort Ord& LAUDE2DALEA Bes. 2 ": We were neighbors. I was at the Army language school in Monterey at that time, as an Air Force private. LAUDE2DALEA Well all of the graduating basic training classes were off to Korea. I think everybody west of the Mississippi went to KoreaD So I was a little unhappy about that, how am I going to get out of thatE Fortunately I made a good score on the Army tests, so they called me for an interview and offered me an assignment in intelligence, which I snapped up immediately. So they sent me east to Baltimore to go to intelligence school. ": /olabird& LAUDE2DALEA Bes, it's interesting that you should know that. Then at Fort Holabird I got the word that anybody who volunteers for overseas will get it, so I said okay, I volunteer for 7ermany. So I did, I got it and served in 7ermany for two and a half years. ": Where were you in 0ermany& LAUDE2DALEA Wuer1burg. Beautiful, nice place. ": 1aro2ue city. But then it was still pretty much in ruins I guess. LAUDE2DALEA It was pretty much in ruins, poverty stricken. When I first arrived in 7ermany I remember that we used to ride the streetcars free, because we were occupation forces. And during the time I was there they signed the Consensual Agreement which gave 7ermany its sovereignty, so then we had to start paying 10 pfennigs to ride the streetcar. I got married when I was there. In those days you could only get married when you were going home, so I got married a couple of months before going home. Came back, went to California, where I had been before . I had a sister who lived in the Bay Area . and enrolled in Berkeley. When I had gone to school before, I majored in mathematics. I had a good math score on the tests. But after three years away from mathematics I was a little concerned about trying to pick that up again. In the meantime, discovering the overseas world, I heard about Embassy.Bonn, the foreign service, so I said, FThat's for me.F So I went to see a professor at Berkeley and asked what I should study to be a foreign service officer, and he said, FPolitical Science.F So I did, 7ot my degree, took my e am. ": You3re talking about the Foreign Service e4am& LAUDE2DALEA Bes. ": That was a three5and5a5half day e4am& 3 LAUDE2DALEA No, it was all day. I took it three times actually. The first time when I was still a junior. I failed it. The second time I took it I passed the written, but when I went for the oral I told the Board . we had three e aminers . that my son was a diabetic. I wanted them to know that right up front. Anyway, I didn't pass. So I took it again. The ne t year they didn't give the e am. So I had to wait two years, took it again, passed it again, went to the oral. At the end of the oral, the e aminer told me something I didn't know before. He said the last panel turned you down because your son is a diabetic, but you did such a good job that we're going to recommend you for a waiver. So anyway, I got past that hurdle. ": This was in 196....& LAUDE2DALEA The first one must have been in about '56, because I graduated in '57. Then the second one was in '58, and the third one must have been in 1960. In the meantime, after I got my degree I went to graduate school for a little while and then I went to work. I found a job in the federal government, 7S.7, came to Washington, was later transferred up to Boston, and I took the oral that year, I guess it was '61 by then, in Boston, that's the one I passed. In the meantime I had prospered in my civil service career and I got an offer of employment as an FSO.8. I had just gotten promoted to 7S.12 and I was just making G10,000 a year, or close to it. FSO.8 would have been about G6,000. I was also by then about 28 or 29. So I said, that's a little junior for me, but I would take an FSO.7. They said No, we can't do that, and so I said, okay, adios. A couple of months later I got a letter that saidA FWe've made some internal policy changes and we're going to adjust a lot of FSO.8s to FSO.7s, and we can offer appointments to new FSO.7s, and you're one. We'll offer you a 7. I got the ma imum step of a 7, which was G7,500. So I only had to take a cut of G2,500. It took me five years to get back to G10,000D That was in 1962. ": It3s interesting how the system does change and does work. LAUDE2DALEA Could I tell you an out.of.seHuence storyE ": Sure. LAUDE2DALEA Later, when I was DAS for Personnel, and Phil Habib, who had been Under Secretary of State and was retired but was working in and out on various projects, and he worked on a recruitment committee for Secretary 0ance. He came to see me one day, upset, he was chairman of the 2ecruitment and Employment Committee, to do a study. He had been a professor or something at Stanford after retirement, and three of his graduate students, in his graduate seminar, took the FSO e am and failed the oral. They passed the written but failed the oral. And he told meA FClint, there's something wrong with this e am if three of my best students failed it.F And I said, FHow many times did they take itEF And he said, FWell, once.F And I saidA FWell, I failed it twiceD The answer to your students is, take it again.F Since he had passed the first time he thought everybody did, but I told him half the people in the foreign service didn't make it the first time. Try, try again. 4 ": You came in in 362, right& Did you go to the A5100 course& Can you give just a feel for what your group was like and maybe what their outlook was like at the time& LAUDE2DALEA My class, based on remarks by the course coordinators .. we had two at the time .. my class was older than the average class had been. I think I was the first class that they took in FSO.7s, that may have been the reason. Because the previous class had been just FSO.8s, and I guess some of the older people turned them down.