ERITREA COUNTRY READER TABLE OF CONTENTS Edward W. Mulcahy 1950 Vice Consul, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 1950-195 Consular Officer, Asmara Edward W. Clark 1953-1956 Consular Officer, Asmara John Propst )lane 1957-1960 Consular Officer, Asmara Charles E. Rushing 1960 Deputy Principal Officer, Asmara .amuel R. /ammon, 000 1961-1967 Consul /eneral, Asmara Clarke N. Ellis 1969-1971 Economic Officer, Asmara Arthur W. 3ewis 1973-1977 PAO, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Arthur W. 4ummel, Jr. 1975-1976 Ambassador, Ethiopia 5eith 3. Wauchope 1975-1977 Deputy Principal Officer, Asmara Arthur T. Tienken 1975-1977 Deputy Chief of Mission, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 3arry C. Williamson 1980-198 Acting Director, East Africa, Washington, DC Da8id A. 5orn 198 -1985 Ambassador, Ethiopia Joseph P. O92eill 199 -1993 Charg:, Asmara Claudia Anyaso 000- 00 Department of .tate/DOD Exchange, Joint Chiefs of .taff, Washington, DC EDWARD W. MULCAHY Vice Consul Addis Ab b , Ethiopi (1950) Consul r Officer Asm r (1950.1952) Edward Mulcahy was born in Massachusetts in 1921. He graduated from Tufts University in 194 , the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1947, and served as a first Lieutenant overseas from 194 to 1946 in the U.S. Marine Corps. His postings abroad included Mombasa, Munich, Addis Ababa, Athens, Southern, Tunisia, Lagos, and Chad. Mr. Mulcahy was interviewed in 1989 by Charles Stuart Kennedy. MU3CA4Y: This program in coming to an end within the next few months and 0'd just as soon go back to Africa. 0 got a pri8ate telegram from two friends of mine in African Affairs who asked if 0'd like to open a consulate at Asmara. 0 wrote back, BReady, willing and ableC sooner the better.B While 0 was in 5enya 0 learned a great deal about Asmara, about Eritrea and the ex-0talian colonies from some of my )ritish friends who had been in the military ser8ice up there in the campaign against the 0talians in East Africa. 0 knew what a delightful city Asmara was. On the map it looks dreadful, only this far away on the map from Massawa which is one of the hell- holes of the world climatically at least. )ut, Asmara is up at 7,600 feet and that's perpetual springtime there, about the same altitude as Mexico City. .o 0 jumped at the chance of going there. This was in December of 1919. )y the middle of January, 0 had my orders transferring me to Addis Ababa. We'd closed up our post at Amberg on January 10 and 0 was back in Munich. D: -hy were we opening a post there. -hy did we want one in Asmara. MU3CA4Y: We had had an Army group there, .ignal Corps, and Army .ecurity Agency, since Aust after Pearl 4arbor. The first Army group going out to establish a small communications station there were on board ship in Cape Town at the time of Pearl 4arbor. The )ritish, who had taken Eritrea from the 0talians, were occupying it by then with a ci8il administration--a corporal's guard of colonial ser8ice and 0ndian ci8il ser8ice types who'd left 0ndia and were out of jobs-- two )ritish regiments of battalion strength, 8ery small numbers of )ritish. They kept 0talian law and 0talian customs but, with minor changes in force and something like 80 ci8ilians and two regiments and few policemen, they ran this country of about a million and a half people. D: -as that part of Ethiopia at that time. MU3CA4Y: No, it was not, and what it was to become was the subAect of great dispute at the )ig-Ei8e Eoreign Ministers' le8el, the whole Fuestion of the ex-0talian colonies. The reason for the rush in getting me out there, canceling the home lea8e that 0 was well o8er-due for, was the fact that the United Nations Commission of 0nFuiry, on which we were not represented, was going out to recommend to the /eneral Assembly what the future of Eritrea should be. They wanted me to get out there and keep Washington informed on a daily basis if possible what the tilt of the report or recommendations of this U. N. Commission of 0nFuiry would be. 0t consisted of .outh Africa, )urma, /uatemala, Norway, and a number of people from the secretariat, including two Americans. 0 li8ed in the hotel, the principal hotel, where they li8ed and saw them at practically all meal times and entertained them o8er at the small military base, then called Radio Marina. There were about 75 Americans, counting dependents, at the base then. 0n the three years 0 was there it grew to 100 people. 0t ultimately grew to 5,000. D: That was Kagnew Station. MU3CA4Y: At that time it was called Radio Marina because it was located in a compound occupied before the liberation by the 0talian na8y. 0t was an 0talian na8al radio station that they took o8er. )ut the married people li8ed out in the town where8er they could rent houses. 3ife was 8ery nice there. We had an APO, a commissary, officers' club, sergeants' club, enlisted men's club. 0t was a 8ery nice post. 0f anyone fouled up, they got sent home as punishmentG Politically, the thing was difficult, because e8erybody, including the maAor powers, had their own 8iew of what should happen. We and the )ritish fa8ored the partition of Eritrea when the Moslem northern part of the country where the people were largely nomadic in any case going to the .udan. Most of the tribes spent part of their year in the .udan and then mo8ed back into Eritrea during the wet season. The 0talians fa8ored recei8ing it back as a trust territory. 0n the case of .omalia they recei8ed their old colony back in the form of a trust territory. They fa8ored that for Eritrea. The .o8iets fa8ored a trust territory directly administered by the United 2ations, by the .ecretary /eneral. .uch a thing ne8er happened. We ga8e up the idea. Ethiopia wanted to annex the whole thing as a pro8ince, as its new pro8ince. The population was di8ided about e8enly, maybe slightly more, maybe 5 H or 53H were Coptic Christians, who spoke Tigrinya, the language of the people in the nearby pro8idence of Tigre in Ethiopia. The northern Moslems spoke a language called Tigre, but they also spoke fi8e other languages, mutually unintelligible one to the other, for the most part. They were .emitic languages in the northern half of the territory. Along the coast there were islands of barely related 4amitic languages. )ut they spoke Arabic among themsel8es, fairly good Fuality of Arabic, as a lingua franca. While 0 was there 0 learned 0talian, which 0 needed e8ery day. E8erybody needed 0talian. That was the real lingua franca of the country. After 0 had a good grip on that, 0 went on to Arabic. 0t was the colloFuial Arabic of the Red .ea area and a 8ery useful form of Arabic, close to the classical. Those two languages would get you just about all o8er the country and nearby parts of Ethiopia. There was a great deal of 0talian still spoken in Ethiopia in those days. My record shows an assignment at Addis Ababa. Duite true. 0 had to be assigned someplace until 0 had a consulate open in Asmara, so 0 was attached to the embassy at Addis Ababa, where 0 spent a couple of weeks in early Eebruary of 1950 and where 0 called on the Emperor in top hat and morning clothes, borrowedC 0 didn't own those myself. Ambassador /eorge Merrill Iand later Ri8es Childs) at Addis Ababa and their staff were 8ery generous in their support most of the time that 0 was in Asmara running it as a two-man post with one Eoreign .er8ice female clerk in carrying the administrati8e load for me. D: How did it wor/. -ere you under our embassy in Addis Ababa. MU3CA4Y: Until Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia on the 15th of .eptember, 195 , Asmara was an entirely independent consulate and 0 reported directly to the Department of .tate. D: How did the embassy in Addis Ababa feel about Eritrea. MU3CA4Y: They were Fuite loyal. They used to ha8e people o8er there from time to time and they had been doing what reporting there was on Eritrea a8ailable in the Department's files. )ut 0 think they were probably sympathetic to the Emperor's 8iew that there ought to be a connection with Ethiopia. 0 think also they thought it would be a lea8ening and possibly a good example for Ethiopia to deal with a democratically elected, autonomous, internally autonomous, Eritrea. 0, frankly, thought that, too. 0 firmly belie8ed that that would ha8e been exactly the best thing for Ethiopia and that the empire, which it indeed is, could thri8e if run as a series of autonomous regions under a federal constitution, for example. D: Did you feel that you had any role in developing any policy towards this. The federation came. Did it come without our pushing or pulling or ob0ections. MU3CA4Y: 0 had regular consultations with the United Nations 4igh Commissioner who e8entually was sent out there, Don Eduardo Anze Matienzo, a distinguished former foreign minister of )oli8ia, a 8ery fine, erudite, cultured gentleman. Anze Matienzo was a good friend. We had a good personal relationship. 0 also had a close relationship with his Principal .ecretary who was an Austrian, an old employee of the 3eague of Nations, Ransho8en-Wertheimer, and with all the key members of his staff whom 0 saw freFuently. Asmara was a city of only all told 50,000 or 60,000 people, about 15,000 0talians and 1, 00 )ritish, 0 suppose, counting dependents, and not counting a ,000- man )ritish battalions and a 8ery, 8ery small American community.