The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Information Series DOUGLAS EUGENE PIKE Interviewed by: John Hutchison Initial interview date: February 1989 Copyright 1998 AD T TABLE OF CONTENTS Bio s etch War time army duty Recruitment as Army civilian employee 1950 Assigned to O inawa additional journalistic e(perience On to )orea with UN ,ivil Assistance ,ommand News Editor of Army.s Far East Networ /FEN01 To yo Returns to U.S. Attempted at writing a boo Bicycling in Europe Flashbac to period of Russian studies and Russian language training during university years at University of ,alifornia Reporter on Washington Star 4 5raduate wor at American University Entry into USIA 1957 In study at American University, studies methods of communication Especially in places that are less developed USIA Foreign Service at last1 Saigon Following upon his study of communication methods Pi e begins analy8ing techni9ues used by :ietcong in motivating support for their cause Pi e finds little interest either at USIA or from U.S. Ambassadors in his analysis of :ietcong methods Americans were sent to :ietnam with no nowledge or understanding of :ietnamese culture or politics 1 Ellsworth Bun er was first U.S. Ambassador who ever too USIS nowledge of :ietnamese people seriously North :ietnam was determined to fight indefinitely1 people in field recogni8ed this1 Washington did. Focus was on 9uic victory Pi e granted sabbatical to study at MIT with idea of earning a Ph. D. Persuaded to write a boo on :ietnam, The War and the :ietcong communication techni9ues Boo ma es Pi e national Authority on :ietnam Pi e identifies :ietnam conflict as a new type of war and subse9uent world terrorism as simply an e(tension of such a war into politics With Ambassador 5raham Martin.s arrival there was serious interest in what and how the enemy was thin ing and planning. Martin directs Pi e to set up interagency organi8ation to study and analy8e other side.s thin ing Pi e ordered bac to Washington 1972 Twenty tons of gold left on than son Nhut Airport Tarmac when Saigon evacuated Watergate damaged U.S. Presidency.s inability to help :ietnam probably led to resumption of war by Hanoi and caused downfall of South )issinger and all top U.S. Officials badly sha en by sudden impending fall of South :ietnam The thoughtful cynicism of the :ietnamese The ,arter administration begins; Assignment at State ends Pi e goes to congressional Research Service After ,ongressional Research Assignment Pi e goes to International security agency /ISA0 at Department of Defense under Michael Armacost Pi e offered position to set up Indochina study center at University of ,alifornia 1980 Evaluation of East West center in Honolulu for UISA 2 USIA has been remiss in failing to study and devise new techni9ues in communicating with foreign cultures where though processes differ from our own, and have unfortunately not had directors who understood this need INTERVIEW ": This is John Hutchison interviewing Doug Pike at the University of California in Berkeley. I)m going to ask him to give us a short sketch beginning with where he was born, what his education was or whatever the milestones are on the way to his duty with U IA and then we)ll get into the U IA aspects of it. Doug. PI)E1 I was born in ,astlelight, Minnesota, July 27, 192A. My father was a house contractor, a builder. My mother was a schoolteacher before she was married. IBm an only child. I was raised in Minnesota and in North Da ota, went to high school in Minot, North Da ota. I went into the Army at the age of 17 in the last days of World War II or 19A3 I believe. Ces, I thin so. I served in the South Pacific in the Army and in the PhilipD pines and then went on to Japan. I was in the first contingent of troops that landed in Sendai, Japan after World War II. ": ,hat sort of duty did you have- PI)E1 I was in the Signal ,orps. I began as a highDspeed radio operator, was trained at ,amp 5rant, Illinois. I had one year in the Army Speciali8ed Training Program /ASTP0 at Michigan State University, then to radio school at ,amp ,rowder, Missouri. In the South Pacific our unitDDit was called an EJ radio unitDDwas as ed to contribute people to publishing a newspaper called the 5uinea 5old. It was an Army newspaper. So I was assigned to that as a reporter and a combat correspondent. And then when I went to the Philippines. I was seconded by my unit to The Daily Pacifican which was the newspaper of the Army in the Philippines. ": That would be a little bit like tars and tripes was in Europe. PI)E1 Right. And when I went to Japan I then was assigned to Stars and Stripes in To yo as the Eighth Army correspondent covering the Eighth Army in Co ohama. Then I went home from JapanDDFebruary 19AE. I had three combat stars. The point system determined departure date. ": I remember it well. I spent three years in Europe. PI)E1 So then I went bac to school, to the University of Minnesota and the University of North Da ota. But I dropped out of college after about a year and a half, went to wor for 3 a radio station of which I was part owner. Five of us went into this venture in 5rand For s, North Da ota. It did not wor out and we lost our shirts on the deal. So I was then recruited. I went to O inawa as an Army civilian to wor first in the Public Information Office, 1950. Then came an opening on the Ryu yuan Review which was the local newspaper published by the Army. ": Did you in the course of this period ac/uire some foreign languages at school or in Japan- PI)E1 No. When I got to O inawa I began studying Japanese. I too that 100 hour, 1,100 word and phrase course which the Army offered to anyone who wanted it. The editor of the Ryu yuan Review died at the time I was there. So I found myself the only trained journalist on the scene. It was one of those things that happens. In civilian life in journalism, of course, you would move up very slowly. I found myself overnight editorDinDchief of a 25,000 copies a day newsD paper, a daily newspaper. I wanted very much to get to )orea. The )orean War was on at the time. I had applications in for jobs in )orea. After about a year, I was hired by the United Nations in )orea, an organi8ation called UN,A,, UN ,ivil Assistance ,ommand. This was a public information office job. I traveled up and down the peninsula and wrote stories about civil affairs, relief and rehabilitation wor , nonDcombat, nonDmilitary stories. ": 0ou were still a civilian yourself. PI)E1 I was still a civilian wor ing for the UN. I decided I should go bac to school; and I didDDto the University of ,alifornia where I got a bachelor of arts degree. ": That was here in Berkeley- PI)E1 Here in Ber eley. Later, to jump ahead on my education, I had a year and a half at American University in Washington, D, where I got a masterBs degree. Still later, much later, I was at MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a year. My intention was to get a doctorate. IBll come bac to the reasons why that got sidetrac ed at the time. Basically because it was a choice of either writing a boo on the :iet ,ong or pursuing a degree and everyone there advised me to write the boo . IBll come bac to that in a minute. After I left U.,. Ber eleyDDI was still there after graduationDDI was offered a job by the U.S. Department of Defense, in To yo as editor of the Far East Networ News /FEN0 Service. It was also a civilianDDDepartment of the Army civilian job. I was about to get married at the time to a Myrna Johnson who was from Dassel, Minnesota, also a A journalist. To yo seemed li e a very good place to get married, have a honeymoon, get a marriage started. So we went off to Japan for two years. I was the FEN editor at what was called Pershing Heights, which is now the military head9uarters of the Japanese Self Defense Force. I was chief editor of the news operation for the Far East Networ . It was a standard radio news operation. ": This was for troops or for Japanese- PI)E1 It was in English for U.S. Troops. It was li e the AFRSDDArmed Forces Radio ServiceDDas it was called in Europe and in Asia it was called FEN, the Far East Networ . ": It was probably popular with English speaking Japanese as well. PI)E1 We new the Japanese listened. And IBm afraid we oftenDDI was politically unsophisticated at the time. I reali8ed that much later when I went to wor for USIA. We broadcast a lot of stories in To yo that must have given the Japanese a warped view of America. Let me see. After two years we decided to go bac to the mainstream in the United States. We had saved enough money for me to do some writing and for us to do some traveling. So we did two things.