Library of Congress Interview with Ambassador Keith L. Wauchope Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR KEITH L. WAUCHOPE Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: March 8, 2002 Copyright 2007 ADST Q: Today is March 8th, 2002. This is an interview with Keith Wauchope. This is done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training and I'm Charles Stuart Kennedy. Keith, let's start kind of at the beginning. Could you tell me when and where you were born? WAUCHOPE: I was born at Manhattan Hospital in New York City on October 13, 1941. My parents actually lived out on the south shore of Long Island at the time Q: Okay, tell me a bit about, first of all on your father's side, sort of where the family came from and your father's education and what he was doing. WAUCHOPE: Okay, well, my father's father came to the United States in the early 1880s. He was a young man in County Cavan, Ireland and was sent by his father down to Trinity College Dublin to study for the ministry, the Presbyterian ministry. He and his older brother Jack, who was also studying at Trinity, decided they didn't want to become ministers, so they quite literally ran away to sea. He and his brother first went off to Australia and this trade between the UK, between England and Australia. After several voyages in the 1870s my grandfather jumped ship and joined the Australian army. I was told and that he stayed in Australia for only about six months or so, and then deserted the army and signed onto Interview with Ambassador Keith L. Wauchope http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001660 Library of Congress another ship to Peru. He joined the Peruvian navy and stayed with them for a while. He earned a naval rating, and then he deserted the Peruvian navy and caught a ship to San Francisco. He came ashore in San Francisco and joined the U.S. Navy. Q: About when was this? WAUCHOPE: He would have come to the United States in the early 1880s, I guess. Having joined the United States navy, he became very intrigued with American democracy and political issues. He ended up being the librarian at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Since he never had a college education, he started to educate himself through reading the books in the library. He became persuaded that socialism was the most rational system, so he became a socialist. When he got out of the navy he joined the American Socialist Party and he became a journalist for the socialist party, eventually the editor of the New York Call. Prior to that, he worked for socialist publications in Chicago, Erie, Pennsylvania and eventually in New York. The New York Call was an influential socialist newspaper in New York and because of his stature as the editor and because of his oratorical skills; in 1910 the socialists made him their candidate for mayor of New York on the socialist ticket. I believe that it was at that time he changed his name to Wanhope, W-A-N-H- O-P-E so as to be easier to pronounce for his supporters. In 1912 he was the socialist candidate for governor of New York. He was soundly defeated both times, needless to say. Then in 1917 when the United States entered World War I, Eugene Debs, the leader of the American Socialist Party denounced the war as a creature of the “malefactors of great wealth” and called upon all socialists to refuse to participate. My grandfather said that this position was wrong. He believed that if the Socialist Party worked against the United States participation in the First World War, that the party would in fact be destroyed because the war was a popular cause. As a result, my grandfather was run out of the party. Eugene Debs went to prison and my grandfather lost his job as editor, and, unable to find other jobs in journalism, he went back to sea. I guess he remained at sea until the late '20s or early '30s when he finally was able to retire. Interview with Ambassador Keith L. Wauchope http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001660 Library of Congress As my father's family never had much money since my grandfather never made more than $25 per week as a newspaper editor, my father ended up going to the New York School Ship, which was the merchant marine academy for the State of New York at that time. It was a two-year course and he received a certificate to sit for the third mate's exam. You had to be 21 to get your certificate as a third mate, which he eventually did. In any event he went on and became a second mate, first mate and in seven years he made a captain. He was a captain for seven years aboard the Farrell Lines ships - well, it was then the American South African Lines - and then it later became the Farrell Lines. Its principal business was with Africa, southern Africa. My father came ashore and married in 1935. He was made the port captain for the company. He met my mother when he was Captain of the S.S. City of New York, a small passenger liner. He had the chief steward make sure that all the attractive, single ladies aboard this flagship vessel were seated at the captain's table and hence he met my mother. We'll talk a little bit about her later. When the U.S. joined the Second World War, he was called to active duty despite being the father of three children. He had a naval reserve commission as a result of his training at the merchant marine academy. He was brought in as a lieutenant commander and then promoted to commander and captain. He was made the commanding officer of Sheepshead Bay Naval Training Facility in Brooklyn, New York. He worked in that position for about 18 months. He ran afoul of the left-leaning, in some cases communist, labor unions. At their request he was removed, but as he had always wanted a sea command. He commanded an attack transport in the Pacific for a period of about two and a half years and participated in 21 amphibious operations. After VJ Day, he returned to the United States where he rejoined the Farrell Lines. He had opened up its east African trade just before the war, and after the war he was sent out to open its West African trade. He was made the executive vice president and eventually in the 1960s, the president of the company. It was that African connection that got me interested in that region of the world because in 1959 and again in 1960 I took cruises as a deck cadet aboard the Farrell Line Interview with Ambassador Keith L. Wauchope http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001660 Library of Congress ships. The first voyage was to South Africa and the second to West Africa, and I think that sort of gave me a flavor of that part of the world. Q: Your mother's background? WAUCHOPE: Yes. Well, she was from Baltimore by origin and her father was an Irish immigrant as well. In point of fact, both of my grandfathers were born in Ireland, one in Northern Ireland, in County Cavan and the other one in Mayo. Her father had come to the United States to be a seminary student, but then chose not to pursue the seminary. He ended up, as far as I understand it, a traveling book salesman. My mother's mother was quite young, a good deal younger than he was and my mother remembers him being gone quite a bit of the time. Nonetheless, she was brought up by her mother in Baltimore. Then when she was about 20 years of age she decided to go to New York. She had already been working by that time for a shipping company; she completed high school, but didn't go to college. In New York she worked as various jobs as a secretary or executive assistant in shipping and later in advertising. She had some interesting experiences in that process. While working for a temporary agency, she worked for Lowell Thomas one evening recording in short hand his interview with Jimmy Doolittle over dinner. Through this agency she ended up working for Osa and Martin Johnson who were called explorers, but were entrepreneurs in filming exotic places. Q: Oh yes, hell's a popping. Wonderful comedians. I saw them in New York. WAUCHOPE: Yes. Oh, you're thinking of Olsen and Johnson. Q: Oh, no, no. This is Osa and Martin Johnson. Oh, yes. WAUCHOPE: Osa and Martin Johnson. Right. They made adventure movies. Q: Flying those amphibian planes and all that. Interview with Ambassador Keith L. Wauchope http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001660 Library of Congress WAUCHOPE: That's right. Exactly. They flew some of the very first amphibians and they flew them over to Africa. In 1933 I believe it was my mother was now their full time secretary back in their apartment in New York while they had a place just outside of Nairobi, which was their base of operations in East Africa, their aircraft flew out of that area as well. My mother was doing their income tax, very few people had to pay income tax at that time, but they made enough money from their movies and lecture tours and books that they did in fact have to pay.