BOLIVIA COUNTRY READER TABLE OF CONTENTS Robert F. Woodward 1942-1944 Deputy Chief of Mission, La Paz Samuel D. Eaton 1947-1949 Consular/Economic Officer, La Paz Edward C. Ingraham 1948-1950 Political Officer, La Paz William B. Cobb Jr. 1949-1951 Commercial/Political Officer, La Paz Derek S. Singer 1954-1956 Country Director, CARE, Bolivia Hewson Ryan 1954-1956 Cultural Attaché, USIS, La Paz Gerald A. Drew 1954-1957 Son of Ambassador, La Paz Owen B. Lee 1957-1959 Minerals and Petroleum Officer, La Paz Patrick F. Morris 1958-1961 Deputy Director, USOM, La Paz Herbert Thompson 1958-1961 Chief, Political Section, La Paz William Lenderking 1960-1961 Assistant Information Officer, USIA, La Paz Patrick E. Nieburg 1961-1963 Information Officer, USIS, La Paz Roger C. Brewin 1961-1964 Economic Officer, La Paz Derek S. Singer 1962-1964 Peace Corps Director, Bolivia Charles H. Thomas 1962-1964 Consular/Political Officer, La Paz William D. Broderick 1963-1965 Economic Officer, La Paz 1965-1968 Deputy Director, Office of Bolivian-Chilean Affairs, Washington, DC Douglas Henderson 1963-1968 Ambassador, Bolivia David Lazar 1964-1967 Assistant Director for Operations, USAID, La Paz William B. Whitman 1964-1967 Consular Officer, Cochambamba 1 Richard McKee 1965-1966 Rotation Officer, La Paz Robert L. Chatten 1965-1967 Information Officer, USIS, La Paz Jack R. Binns 1965-1967 Junior Officer, La Paz Patrick F. Morris 1965-1968 Director, Office of Bolivian-Chilean Affairs, Washington, DC Aaron Benjamin 1966-1969 Project Officer, USAID, Bolivia Charles W. Grover 1966-1969 Political Officer, La Paz Anthony G. Freeman 1967-1970 Labor Attaché, La Paz Ernest V. Siracusa 1969-1973 Ambassador, Bolivia William Jeffras Dieterich 1970-1972 Director, Cultural Center, USIS, Santa Cruz Michael W. Cotter 1971-1973 Political Officer, La Paz David Jickling 1971-1976 Head of Public Administration and Education, USAID, La Paz Roger C. Brewin 1972-1974 Deputy Chief of Mission, La Paz J. Philip McLean 1973-1975 Economic Officer, La Paz William P. Stedman Jr. 1973-1977 Ambassador, Bolivia Theodore A. Boyd 1975-1977 USIS Officer, La Paz Scott E. Smith 1976-1979 Project Officer, USAID, La Paz David N. Greenlee 1977-1979 Political Officer, La Paz Howard L. Steele 1977-1980 Coca Crop Substitution Program, Bolivia Alexander F. Watson 1979-1981 Deputy Chief of Mission, La Paz William T. Pryce 1981-1982 Chargé d’Affaires, Deputy Chief of Mission, La Paz Charlotte Roe 1983-1985 Political/Labor Officer, La Paz 2 Frank Almaguer 1983-1986 South American Office, USAID, Washington, DC J. Philip McLean 1984-1987 Director, Office of Andean Affairs, State Department, Washington, DC Edward M. Rowell 1985-1988 Ambassador, Bolivia Thomas R. Carmichael 1986-1988 Cultural Affairs Officer, USIS, La Paz David N. Greenlee 1987-1989 Deputy Chief of Mission, La Paz James C. Cason 1987-1990 Political Counselor, La Paz Lewis Lucke 1992-1994 Project Development Officer/Deputy Mission Director, USAID, La Paz 1994-1996 Mission Director, USAID, Bolivia Frank Almaguer 1996-1999 Mission Director, USAID, Bolivia David N. Greenlee 2003-2006 Ambassador, Bolivia James F. Creagan 2009 Chargé d’Affaries, La Paz Susan Keogh 2009-2010 Director, Embassy Narcotics Section, La Paz ROBERT F. WOODWARD Deputy Chief of Mission La Paz (1942-1944) Ambassador Robert F. Woodward was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He entered the Foreign Service in 1932. Ambassador Woodward's career included Deputy Chief of Mission positions in Bolivia, Guatemala, Cuba, and Sweden. He was ambassador to Costa Rica, Uruguay, Chile, and Spain. Ambassador Woodward was interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy in 1987. Q: I wonder if I could then move us...I want to get you to La Paz, Bolivia. You were there from '42 to '44. If you could explain what you were doing, and who was the Ambassador, and what were the main things that you dealt with? WOODWARD: Since I was the deputy to the Ambassador, I dealt with everything of that nature, other than the protocol area. Our great objective was to keep the flow of raw materials coming from Bolivia which was tin, tungsten, cinchona, and rubber. We succeeded in that. The 3 Ambassador was a man whose previous experience was largely in relations with European countries (except for preceding jobs as Ambassador to Nicaragua, and Counselor of Embassy in Mexico City). His name was Pierre de Lagarde Boal, and he had been in charge of the European division in the State Department when he was sent to Mexico City, and then on to these other assignments. He was a very cultivated man. He had a background which combined both France and Spain, his ancestors had been from both countries. He was married to a French women, and they had a house in France not far from Geneva. He had been in the French Air Force the beginning of World War I and had been wounded. He had a little limp from his wartime wound. Though a man of considerable erudition, he had, apparently, a few flaws in judgement. The first indication of a flaw in judgement (which I think is a fair name to give it), appeared shortly after my arrival. The Bolivian congress was coming to the end of its session and one of their last acts was to push through a revised labor law. The revised labor law had been promoted by some fairly liberal congressmen in the Bolivian Chamber of Deputies, and gave some additional benefits to the mining workers. For example, there were many women who worked in the mines. These were the so-called Cholas who were of mixed Indian and Spanish blood. They were identified by the fact that all the women wore derby hats, a rather peculiar custom in Bolivia. There were a lot of women mine workers. I don't know just what they did, I guess they hauled out the carts from the mines. The law provided, for example, something like two or three weeks of maternity leave if they were going to have a baby. There were some other provisions which were a little more generous than anything that had been done before by the big mining companies there. The big mining companies were not American, they were Bolivian. There were two big Bolivian mining companies, Patino and Aramayo, and then there was a Belgium-Jewish gentleman who was a very clever entrepreneur who worked a lot of very poor mines by combining his businesses. He arranged it so he provided the materials for getting the mines in shape to really work them. For example, the mine timbers. He would be selling timbers to the mines while he was extracting the ore and he combined all of these little functions so that he managed to make some money from mines that otherwise would not have been worked, and would not have been useful in the war effort. So we applauded his efforts, and he was given certain advance loans to help him out, as were the other mining outfits. There was one American company, the Grace Company, that had one or two tungsten mines. The Ambassador became quite concerned, I might say almost excited, because of the provisions of this mining law which was passed at the last moment of the session of congress. He went over to see the President, a man named Penaranda, General Penaranda, an army man elected President, as I recall, although they'd had many, many coups, and many short term dictators in Bolivia in their history. But this man, I believe, was an elected President. Ambassador Boal expressed alarm to him about these increased benefits to the miners because it would raise the costs of producing the minerals and this would make it more costly to the United States to buy the minerals for the war effort. The President was a rather wise old general, and he said, "Well, Mr. Ambassador, you don't have to really worry about that very much because we're going to have to come out with regulations to carry out the provisions of this new law, and I think we can arrange the regulations so there won't 4 really be a burden upon the buyers of the minerals." He was just sort of calming down the Ambassador. We had a Minerals Attaché who was a very practical man and he was called in by the Ambassador, and the Ambassador called me in. The Ambassador said, "I want you two fellows to go through this law, and pick out all the provisions which will increase expenses for the buyers of minerals if they are applied." The Ambassador seemed to expect that the law was going to be applied. Actually, the administration in Bolivia didn't pay very much attention to those details, but he was very apprehensive. He said, "I want a list of all these things to show the Department of State, and other agencies of the U.S. government, just what the sinister prospects are from this law." So we went through the law and I can remember sitting there with the Minerals Attaché as we were doing this and reading article after article which, if it had been applied, would to some extent increase costs. We got them all listed and while we were sitting there we said to each other, "This is just like Simon Legree to deprive these workers of these benefits. To report these things as an intolerable increase in cost was really enough to make our faces red." But the Ambassador had requested us to do it. We thought it was very bad judgement on his part. We thought he'd probably cross out some of these things but he took our whole list intact and put it in a telegram and sent it to the Department.