The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR EDWARD W. MULCAHY Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: March 23, 1989 Copyri ht 1998 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Interest in Foreign Ser ice World War II and military experience Mombasa, Kenya 1947-1949 Post reports Kenya,s resources Munich, West -ermany 1949-19.0 Working conditions Addis Ababa, 0thiopia 19.0-19.1 2limate and political history 2ultural di isions 3.S. policy toward 0ritreans Political factions Washington, D2 19.1-19.6 Sending Foreign Ser ice undesirables to Africa Mo ing toward decoloni7ation Athens, -reece 19.6-19.9 Southern 8hodesia 19.9-1961 Forming a federation go ernment 0merging African political leaders Washington, D2 1961-1967 Bureau of African Affairs 9ack and Bobby Kennedy Belgians in Africa Soapy Williams and 9oseph Palmer 1 Tunisia 1967-1970 Ambassador Francis 8ussel Lagos, Nigeria 1970-1971 Political situation following Biafran War American in ol ement in Nigeria 2had 1971-1974 Famine in 2had 0mbassy staff, 3.S. military, Peace 2orps 2had,s relations with France and Libya 8elationship with 2had,s president Washington, D2 1974-1976 African Affairs Kissinger,s attitude toward Africa 3.S. in ol ement in Angola crisis Tunisia 1976-1979 President Bourguiba Tunisia,s relations with Libya -eneral Ben Ali 2onclusion Ambassador in 8esidence, Atlanta 3ni ersity Implementing AID programs Haile Selassie,s reception Foreign Ser ice as a career INTERVIEW $: Mr. Ambassador, how did you become interested in forei n affairs( M3L2AHY: Strangely enough, through my father, who was a high school dropout. He was in the Na y in the First World War as a radioman, then known as a "wireless operator," with the armed guard on merchant ships, trained at Har ard, incidentally. He tra eled to many places and usually for pay they had to go to arious embassies and consulates and draw the salary owed to them. When I thought I'd like the life of a sailor, he said, "Oh, you don't want to be a sailor. You want to go to college and be something more professional." 2 "How about these consulates and embassies that you talk about isiting? How do you get to work there?" I said. I was about 16 at this time. "Well, I suppose you take a 2i il Ser ice examination or something like that. I don't really know," he said, "but we'll write to the -o ernment Printing Office in Washington and find out what it's all about." Lo and behold, a few weeks later came a brochure, which I ha e to this day, describing the terms of ser ice in the American Foreign Ser ice. $: This is about when( M3L2AHY: This would ha e been 19A6-19A7 when I was about halfway through high school. I chose to go to Tufts, for example, largely because I thought it would be a front door and gi e me entree to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy which had been established there in 19A1, the first class graduated in 19AA. I knew all about this at the time. I li ed in Malden, Massachusetts, which is next to Medford, where most of the campus of Tufts is located, Medford and Somer ille. I disco ered e en in high school that I was ery good at languages and I thought that was a good head start for life in the Foreign Ser ice. I also always had a keen interest in world affairs and geography was one of my fa orite subjects, as was history. I knew a great deal about the world outside of greater Boston. I e en had an Italian shopkeeper on a corner where my gang used to hang out teach me Italian from books I sent away for. This was while I was in college, not while I was in high school. I had good French, and going to a 2atholic high school, naturally had Latin and e en two years of classical -reek before I entered college. I ne er wa ered seriously in my desire to go into the Foreign Ser ice from that time forward. $: Did you feel that there was a problem since you hadn)t come from a fancy family( This was the reputation the Forei n Service had. M3L2AHY: I think I knew, certainly by the time I was part-way through college, that the Foreign Ser ice was less and less inclined to draw hea ily on upper-crusty people. I felt that, if they offered an examination, I stood as good a chance at the written examination at least as anybody else of passing it. I was always pretty articulate. That comes from being Irish, I guess, and also ha ing talents as a debater. I was captain of the high school debating team which won the 2ardinal's 2up in the Boston archdiocese two years running, and won oratorical pri7es and that sort of thing both in high school and college. I would take my chances at an oral examination. $: Did the war catch you up before this got goin ( 3 M3L2AHY: Yes, indeed. Within eight or ten weeks after Pearl Harbor, I enlisted in the Marine 2orps 8eser e and they had first call on me. I felt ery fortunate that they allowed me to stay three semesters and finish up my degree. I felt ery frustrated that after getting my degree in 9anuary of 194A instead of 9une on the accelerated program that we used to ha e during the war, they kept me waiting three long, weary months before I was called to go through boot camp at Parris Island to then the process at Buantico both before and after commissioning. The Marine 2orps was ery good. They ne er turned officers loose on the troops until at least three months after they had their commissions. $: How did you get into the Forei n Service( M3L2AHY: During the war I was wounded twice, the second time was at Iwo 9ima, and that summer, I was at the Brooklyn Na y Yard in the guard detachment when a circular was posted on the bulletin board in the officer's wardroom indicating that the first Foreign Ser ice examination after the war was to be gi en in September. I noted, also, that if you passed the examination, you would be released from the Marine 2orps. It was a two-day examination, a special examination for eterans. I took the examination at 2olumbia and waited until 2hristmas of 194., the war ha ing ended in the meantime, for news of whether I had passed or not. I found I failed it. I got a 67 instead of the reCuired 70 on the examination, but I'd been away from the books for close to three years at that time. It was not too great a surprise. So I had to kill time and, by that time, I had been gi en my own Marine detachment at a Na al Disciplinary Barracks, on Hart's Island a former New York 2ity prison for 1,.00 general court-martial prisoners, and a large command for a first lieutenant, a A.0-man detachment. They let me stay in the Marines until the following 9une and on the payroll until the middle of 9uly. I had a ery nice summer to recuperate from the war years. While I waited, the opening of the Fletcher School, where I'd been accepted, was postponed that year because at least half of the American students at Fletcher, some 10 of us or thereabouts, took the Foreign Ser ice examination at the Har ard Business School. That was the one I passed. $: ,hat sort of trainin did you get( As a new officer you say that the Marines didn)t turn second lieutenants loose on their troops until they had three months of trainin . How about the Forei n Service officers( M3L2AHY: We had approximately ten weeks of training at the Foreign Ser ice Institute at that time, which was located in an old apartment house on 2 Street. To report there in the middle of 9uly, work in an non-air conditioned building and li e in an non-air conditioned boarding house, I got a rather poor impression of the Potomac Dalley. $: It didn)t chan e when I came in in 1955, same buildin , same non.air conditioned and all that. 4 M3L2AHY: It was a good foundation that they ga e us. I really thought it was Cuite good. We knew by the middle of September where we were going to go and I had asked for an Arabic-speaking post with the iew to becoming an Arabist. $: Any particular reason for this( M3L2AHY: No, just a fascination with that part of the world and a desire to learn a language that I thought would be a ery useful one in the years ahead. I recei ed an assignment to Mombasa on the coast of Kenya. They said, "Well, we're sorry. There just isn't a acancy. They don't need a new third secretary or ice consul at any of the fairly few posts we had in the Arab world at that time. But we'll send you to Mombasa because we' e heard that in Swahili down there, there's a great deal of Arabic and you might start to become familiar with Arabic through Swahili." Anyway, I went to Mombasa by way of the 2ape of -ood Hope.