Library of Congress Interview with The Honorable John R. Countryman , 2011 Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR JOHN R. COUNTRYMAN Interviewed by: David Reuther Initial interview date: November 19, 2001 Copyright 2010 ADST [Note: This interview was not edited by Ambassador Countryman] Q: This is a Foreign Affairs Oral History Program interview with John R. Countryman. Today is November 19, 2001 and we are in Washington DC. This interview is being conducted under the auspices of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. I am David Reuther John can you give us some personal background, where you were born, what's hometown. COUNTRYMAN: I was born in Brooklyn, New York, January 25, 1933. My father was a photo and art editor. At the time, he was working for the Associated Press. My mother was an immigrant from Czechoslovakia, the Czech portion. She came over when she was about 11. They met in Omaha, Nebraska. My father was offered a job in New York, they came, and I was born in Brooklyn. I spent my youth in Brooklyn, and in Mt. Vernon, New York. For about five years from the age of about three to nine or ten, I was a model in New York. I was also in the movies in California. I was in Hollywood. I made about 18 movies, including one with Shirley Temple called The Bluebird [Editor's Note: Twentieth Century Fox released this movie in 1940]. I came back and acted on the New York stage. Interview with The Honorable John R. Countryman , 2011 http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001696 Library of Congress About that time I think both my parents and I decided a normal childhood was to be preferred, so we settled in Garden City, a suburb of New York out on Long Island. I went to grammar school and the graduated from Jesuit military prep school St. Francis Xavier High School in 1950. I attended Fordham University and graduated in 1954 with a bachelor in English. I received a Fulbright Fellowship to the University of Berlin. I was one of the first Fulbright students to the University of Berlin after the war. After a year there I spent three years in the Air Force flying airplanes. I was with the Strategic Air Command, flew mainly tanker airplanes, KC-97s and KB-29s, but also did B-47s and B-52s. I had always wanted to be in the Foreign Service. I will come back and touch on my early interest in that, but decided that with an English major and although my German was fairly fluent, I didn't have a background in political science or economics to pass the tests, so I accepted an assistantship in English at the University of Miami in Florida after I got out of the Air Force. There I not only got a masters in English, but on the side studied for the foreign service exam. I passed it in 1961 and came on active duty in the Foreign Service in 1962. Between graduation from the University of Miami and entering the Foreign Service, I was a city side reporter for the Danbury, Connecticut News Times. My interest in the Foreign Service came from...it is interesting...my godparents who were dear and close friends to my parents. My godparent was a fellow by the name of Thomas Paprocki who was an Associated Press sports cartoonist [Editor's Note: from 1943 to 1955]. He was a man that I thought of as not only as my friend but also like an uncle that I didn't have. Out of the clear blue sky one time, they were at our house for dinner, and he said, “John whatever you do in life, you ought to think about being a diplomat. I think you should be in the diplomatic service.” At that time I knew very little about what that meant, but because Tom Paprocki had said so, it was something that got my special attention. Of course, being in Germany after the war and being a Fulbright, I had a chance to travel around and see foreign places, so his comment kind of struck a bell with me. Interview with The Honorable John R. Countryman , 2011 http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001696 Library of Congress Q: Let's look into that with a little more detail. When did the Fulbright program get started; shortly after the war right? COUNTRYMAN: Yes. It was named after Senator Fulbright. The idea of the Fulbright program was that so many of these countries in Europe owed the United States money. If they were going to pay it back, they would pay it back in hard currency. The Fulbright grants gave these countries to pay their debts by giving the United States an opportunity to send say 1,000 students per year to study in their country under the Fulbright program. The students would be vetted by a joint commission of the United States and German, French, Italian, British representatives. The terms of it would be that the individual would be given a full scholarship to the university that they selected and were accepted at, and also a stipend in local currency. That was used then to cancel that portion of what was owed to the United States. It meant that all those countries, which were operating after the war with soft currencies in comparison to the dollar, were using their own currency rather than American dollars. Q: Now this is a very competitive program. You went there out of Fordham? COUNTRYMAN: Yes. Actually I had applied to study English Literature at the University of Leeds. I got a special letter, not a form letter, from the Fulbright commission shortly after I applied that said, “We have your application. You are competitive. We will put it through the normal process, but because there is no language barrier for England, we have a surplus of applications. We see however, that you have a fairly good background in German, and we are looking to fill some extra slots in Germany. Your project, which is to study the little magazine, the little literary magazine in England, could very easily be done in Germany, and might be very interesting to see the growth of the little magazine after the war. Would you like us to put you down for Germany?” So, I said, “Yes.” Q: Now your German comes from high school and university? Interview with The Honorable John R. Countryman , 2011 http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001696 Library of Congress COUNTRYMAN: High school and university. I had really very good teachers, but I learned it the old way. In other words I could write an essay on Goethe but probably could not say, “Please close the door after you turn out the light.” Q: The research vocabulary rather than the useful vocabulary. Now you were in Berlin at the Frei University? COUNTRYMAN: Yes, the Frei University. I was there from '54-'55. Q: What was Germany like in those days? The occupation was over. COUNTRYMAN: No, the occupation...we were still there in Berlin. The occupation was still very much in force. We had, Berlin itself was divided in four sections, British, French, American, and Russian. Evidence of destruction was all over, I mean very huge areas particularly in the East. In the West they cleaned it up, but you still found the skeletons of buildings and tremendous amount of destruction still to be seen. I could go into the east section of Berlin, but we were not allowed to travel into East Germany. I did eventually get a special permit from the Russians to visit Sans Souci, the palace of the Kaisers in Potsdam, but that was only one day down and back. Q: What were your living arrangements? COUNTRYMAN: I lived in a home with a widow by the name of Frau Karla Kluge. Her husband was Kurt Kluge who was a very well known kind of second rank novelist in the 20s and 30s. He wrote a book called Der Herr Kortum [Editor's note: Lord Kortum, published Stuttgart, 1938] which was the story of a kind of bumbling academic who is guilty of malapropisms but somehow comes out with the truth, and is very ingratiating. Kluge was a very cultivated man. He was a sculptor and an historian, and had an extensive library in the house where I rented a room. On the wall outside it said “Kurt Kluge Achie,” the Kurt Kluger Archive. He had a lot of personal papers. He was a civilian assigned to the German general staff. You will recall when the Germans invaded Belgium Interview with The Honorable John R. Countryman , 2011 http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001696 Library of Congress over the Albert canal, there was a supposedly impregnable fort called Eben-Emael. The Germans landed paratroopers on top of it, dropped in charges and stormed in. The Albert canal fell and they moved on. Well Kurt Kluge was assigned to the German historical section of the general staff. They used to have all throughout the war...the Germans would have an historian right there at the battle site to write it up for history. He died of a heart attack on the battlefield. He was not shot, he just had a heart attack. He was an elderly man and passed away. It was a very nice place to live because I had my own literally private library in the house. Q: Fascinating. So you then graduated from Fordham. Did you go into the Air Force after that? COUNTRYMAN: I was in ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) in college, so I had a three year obligation which was deferred for that Fulbright year.