The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project JAMES ALAN WILLIAMS Interviewed by: Ray Ewing Initial interview date: October 31, 2003 Copyright 2010 AD T TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born in isconsin, raised in Virginia Princeton University Fulbright Scholarship, Munich, Germany Entered the Foreign Service in 1965 Ankara, Turkey, Rotation Officer.Staff Aide 1966-1969 Ambassador Parker Hart Peace 0rops 1urds 0ypress Relations Terrorism Fleet visits Economy State Department, Operations 0enter 1962-1969 Operations State Department, Petroleum Officer, Arabian Peninsula Affairs 1969-1930 ARAM0O Officer personnel US Embassy, Saudi Arabia Persian Gulf oil 5emen 6eddah desalination plant Office of Saline aters State Department, Staff Aide to Undersecretary 6ohn Ir8in 1930-1932 Personnel Office Environment Secretary of State Rogers Operations 1 Henry 1issinger Relations 8ith NS0 Family 0hile State Department, FSI, Greek language training 1932-1933 Nicosia, 0yprus, Political Officer 1933-1935 Relations Reporting Political Parties EO1A and EO1A-Beta 0ivil ar Makarios.Grivas rivalry Security Greek 6unta Greek political developments Greek.0ypriot relations Nikos Sampson Recognition issue Ambassador Rodger Davies United Nations Special Representative Greek.Turkish troop rotations Archbishop Makarios Enosis Dimitriou brothers Local press reporting 0oup London-Zurich Accords Turkish invasion Turkish enclave Partial evacuation 0ease fire UNFI05P US policy Refugees 0erlides Embassy attacked Ambassador Davies and local employee killed Family 0anadian troops Ambassador Dean Bro8n Ambassador Bill 0ra8ford Bonn, Germany, Economic.Political Officer 1935-1939 Energy 2 International Energy Agency (IEA) Ambassador Hillenbrand Internal Political Affairs (FRP) VIP visitors Reporting Nazi criminals Helmut Schmidt Political parties Terrorism Embassy organization President 0arter visit State Department, 0yprus Desk Officer 1939 0yprus Embassy State Department, Turkey Desk Officer 1939-1922 Terrorism Suleyman Demirel Turkish military coup US vie8 of coup US economic and military assistance Protection of Turks from terrorism Turk-Greek aid levels US Ambassadors to Turkey National ar 0ollege 1922-1923 Overseas tour State Department, Office of United Nations Political Affairs 1923-1925 6eane 1irkpatrick Operations 0oordination 8ith regional bureaus UNES0O Major issues NATO consultations Personnel Voting Practices Report President Reagan Relations 8ith hite House Berlin, Germany, Political Advisor 1926-1990 Relations 8ith Embassy Bonn Environment US Army role Relations 8ith Allies Auadripartite Agreement 3 Mission organization Allied 1ommandatura La Belle disco bombing Terrorism Berlin politics National Green Party US Embassy in East Germany Major Nicholson tragedy Embassy.Military relationship Berlin all East Germans in 0zechoslovakia Germans flee East Berlin Soviet Missions Relations 8ith Soviets President ReaganCs DMr. Gorbachev, tear do8n this 8allFG Berlin restrictions relaxation Dismantling Berlin all Ambassador Vernon alters Operations Budget issues Athens, Greece, Deputy 0hief of Mission.0hargI dCaffaires 1990-1994 Ambassador Michael Sotirhos Defense and Economic 0ooperation Agreement (DE0A) Prime Minister 0onstantine Mitsotakis President 1aramanlis Operations Terrorism Security Environment PLO US bases phased out 0yprus President Bush visit Ambassador Tom Niles AmbassadorCs residence State Department, Ambassador, Special 0oordinator for 0yprus 1994-1996 Personnel Operations Greek-Turk meetings in London Greek.0ypriot negotiators Presidential Envoy for 0yprus, Richard Beattie Richard Holbrooke European Union interest 0lerides.Denktash Ne8 5ork meetings 4 Turkish Prime Minister Tansu 0iller Ambassador Albright State Department, Director, Officer of 0areer Development and 1996-1999 Assignments Organization 0omputerization Operations Voicemail Director General National ar 0ollege, Deputy 0ommander and International Affairs 1999-2002 Advisor Operations National Defense University 0ourse of study Evaluation INTERVIEW JNote, This intervie8 8as not edited my Mr. illiamsK ": This is an oral history interview with $ames A. Williams. It(s the thirty first of October, 2003. Jim, it(s good to be starting on Halloween for this conversation. This is being conducted under the auspices of the Association for Diplomatic tudies and Training at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center, and Jim this is our first session. I see that you were born in Washington, D.C. and a little bit later on you went to Princeton /niversity. Did you grow up in Washington, or were you here as a war baby November of 10122 ILLIAMS, ICm definitely a 8ar baby. My father 8ent into the Navy soon after Pearl Harbor and I 8as part of his insurance policy to make sure there 8ould be another generation. I gre8 up in Arlington though. My father got out of the military 8hen the 8ar ended. He stayed in the Navy as a civilian management analyst, so essentially he 8orked at the Pentagon and at main Navy do8n on 0onstitution Avenue 8hen I 8as gro8ing up, and my brother and I gre8 up in Arlington, Virginia. ": O3ay and you did go on to Princeton, class of 1041. Was it at Princeton, or even before, that you became interested in the Foreign ervice2 ILLIAMS, I really became interested in the Foreign Service before Princeton. Living in the ashington metropolitan area you hear a lot, read a lot, breathe a lot of history, foreign policy, government affairs. So from a fairly early age I 8as interested in that. I majored in history and German literature at Princeton and 8anted to have a career, either 5 academics or foreign affairs that 8ould enable me to continue that interest. And on the idiosyncratic side it just happened that my father and Graham Martin 8ere college friends from ake Forest. From the earliest I can remember my parents 8ere in touch 8ith Graham and Dot Martin, sending them care packages in Paris after orld ar II, corresponding 8ith them 8hen they 8ere in Geneva and Thailand and Rome. So hearing about the MartinsC adventures in the Foreign Service through perhaps a rose colored glass gave me a very early interest in that profession. ": 5raham Martin was our ambassador in Italy when I first arrived there in 1070. Of course, then he went on to 8ietnam and certainly he(d had a very distinguished career. I(d also 3nown him a little bit when he was a special assistant to the undersecretary for economic affairs, Douglas Dillon, in the late fifties. After Princeton you did a little bit of graduate study. ILLIAMS, I had a Fulbright scholarship for a year, for t8o semesters, at the Lud8ig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. I spent t8o semesters there basically studying post-8ar German history, learning ho8 to ski 8ith my bride. e 8ere married 8hen 8e took that trip, and getting to meet a lot of people in Munich and rene8ing old contacts in Bonn 8hich I had met the previous summer 8hen I 8orked there on a scholarship. ": Not with the embassy in Bonn. ILLIAMS, No, I 8as doing academic research. I got a scholarship from Princeton and lived across the river and 8orked in the SPD library on a project involving the elections for the German national assembly after orld ar I. ": O3ay and when did you ta3e the Foreign ervice written e:amination2 While you were in Munich or before2 ILLIAMS, No, I took the 8ritten exam that summer I lived in Germany and studied in Bonn. That 8as the summer after my junior year. It 8as given in some huge room at the embassy in Bonn. A lot of people took it. I took it and 8as fortunate to pass, although very narro8ly because I 8as al8ays a good test taker. That particular day I rushed through the math section and could not understand 8hy nobody else had finished, and only three minutes before the bell rang did I turn the page over and discover there 8as a second page. And I raced to finish it, did not of course, and barely passed, or even flunked that portion of the exam. That 8as something the oral examiners asked me about 8hen I had the oral exam. ": When and where did you have the oral2 ILLIAMS, I had the oral the summer after I graduated from Princeton, before 8e 8ent to Munich, in ashington, D.0. and passed it. But the thing they zeroed in on early 8as 8hy 8ere my scores on the 8ritten test generally pretty good except for math 8hich 8as 6 atrocious. I had to tell them it 8as because ICd been too careless to look at the 8hole test before I put my pen do8n. ": Did you have to defer entry into the Foreign ervice then to do the Fulbright in 6unich, or did it all 3ind of wor3 out, the timing the way you wanted it2 ILLIAMS, They allo8ed me to do that 8ith some reluctance. That 8as another part of the grilling and the oral exam, just 8hen did I plan to come into the Foreign Service if I passed the exam. as I really an academic 8ho 8anted to go on to the academic track or 8as I serious about 8anting to come into the Foreign ServiceL I think their Muestions pushed me to clarify my o8n thinking on that point, and tell them truthfully that I planned to come into the Foreign Service if I passed the test after my Fulbright in Munich. ": And I see you did come in eptember of 1045 at age 22 if my math is right. ILLIAMS, ThatCs right. That 8as not unusual at the time. Many of us 8ere A.B. generalists 8ith one or t8o years of post-graduate experience or as former Peace 0orps volunteers. There 8ere several of those. Some had masters degrees. There 8as only one Ph.D. in the class. He 8as the old man at 31, Ron 0asagrande, a great guy. And it just 8orked out perfectly in terms of the timing. e came back on the ship. In those days you still took the ship to Europe and came back, at least the Fulbright grantees did. And 8e got off the ship in August and I came into the class that started sometime in September as I recall.