PAPUA NEW GUINEA COUNTRY READER TABLE OF CONTENTS Mary Seymour Olmsted 1975-1979 Ambassador, Papua New Guinea Har ey Feldman 1979-1981 Ambassador, Papua New Guinea Paul F. Gardner 1984-1986 Ambassador, Papua New Guinea E erett E. Bierman 1986-1989 Ambassador, Papua New Guinea (illiam Farrand 1990-1993 Ambassador, Papua New Guinea Richard (. .eare 1993-1996 Ambassador, Papua New Guinea /ohn Allen 0ushin1 1997-1998 0onsular2Political Officer, Port Moresby Arma /ane 4araer 1997-2000 Ambassador, Papua New Guinea MARY SEYMOUR OLMSTED Ambassador Papua New Gu nea (1975-1979) Ambassador Mary Seymour Olmsted was born in Duluth, Minnesota and raised in Florida. She received a bachelor's degree in economics from Mount Holyo e College and a master's degree from Columbia University. Ambassador Olmsted's Foreign Service career included positions in India, Iceland, Austria, Washington, DC, and an ambassadorship to Papua New (uinea. Ambassador Olmsted was interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy in 1992. -. That's an awful lot of responsibility, I would thin . Now you went out to Port Moresby. That was in June of '123 O6MS.E78 9es. -. As principal officer. So in other words, you were made Consul (eneral. Sworn in and so forth. O6MS.E78 9es. -. At that time, did you now that was going to become an Embassy3 O6MS.E78 It seemed quite likely. Papua New Guinea, in the be1innin1, was ob iously on the road to independence, and no one knew exactly when it would take place. But it seemed likely it would be within a year or so. -. Were you given any promises that you would have the slot3 O6MS.E78 No. I didn't ask for them. -. Well, I'm sure you didn't as for it. O6MS.E78 (ell, people do ne1otiate sometimes. -. 5es, I now, but I can't imagine you doing it. O6MS.E78 I knew enou1h about the way personnel matters operate. .he person who makes the commitments is usually someplace else by the time you want to call in your commitment. -. I'd love to hear more about the post. How many people were there3 O6MS.E78 I opened the post. .he 7epartment sent in an ad ance team consistin1 of the youn1 man who was to become our administrati e officer and another youn1 man who was sent out from the 7epartment. .hey looked around to try to locate both housin1 and office space for us. .hen my secretary went out a few days before I did. (hen I arri ed, we had a staff of two people, which was the administrati e officer and my secretary, and we mo ed into some rather shabby quarters o er a lunch counter and a bookstore. .here was no furniture in our quarters. (e had ordered office furniture from Australia, but ob iously it wouldn't 1et there for a couple of months. So we borrowed three battered desks and fi e chairs from the people we were rentin1 the space from. .hese were strai1ht chairs, not swi el chairs. As I say, these offices were a bit 1rubby. .hey were carpeted with lar1e squares of blue and bluish-1reen cheap carpetin1, and curtains were oran1e and white. .he offices were broken down into little rabbit warrens. .here were just a whole passel of these little rabbit warrens. -. Typical embassy. 67aughter8 O6MS.E78 9es. .he floors creaked when we walked across them. (e took out one of the walls to make a sli1htly lar1er office for me. (e did little shoppin1 locally. .hin1s were expensi e, and there wasn't ery much ariety. One day when we had three isitors and all of our staff of three were there, one person had to stand because we only had fi e chairs. So I told the administrati e officer, "For 1oodness sakes, 1o out and buy a few chairs locally and we can use them somehow," and we did. (e also bou1ht a lar1e hea y table to put out .elex on, 1ot the .elex installed, and that linked us up first with Australia and then later with (ashin1ton. (e felt a little bit more in touch with thin1s. .hen one day our shipment from .okyo arri ed. (hen a new post is opened, they always ask one of the lar1e embassies in the area to make up a shipment of thin1s that a new post will need and send them down. (ell, ob iously .okyo cleaned out its attic when it made its shipment for us. .his 1reat bi1 lift an arri ed and was opened up, and the thin1s were put in boxes in the reception room. (e opened them one by one, and the stationery, en elopes, and consular forms, and seals and rubber stamps and all kinds of thin1s that we needed, and there were paper clips. (e couldn't 1et any paper clips locally. Runnin1 an office without paper clips is a bit of a challen1e. .hey also sent our fla1s. .hey sent one fla1 that was nineteen feet lon1, and we had to open it up throu1h the doors of three offices to see what siAe it was. I'm sure it was the lar1est fla1 in all of Papua New Guinea. (e found exactly one use for it all the time that I was there. -. Was that for the Fourth of July3 O6MS.E78 9es. 9es, we strun1 it up on the Bicentennial Fourth of /uly. So we were busy sortin1 those thin1s out and makin1 acquaintances around town. I knew it was important for me to 1et out and make calls, which I did, and become acquainted and let people know that the Americans were here and in business. It was quite clear we could not start operatin1 our consular office for some time, because we just weren't set up for it. (hen people came in to ask for consular ser ices, we just had to tell them, "0ome back maybe in October and we'll be able to help you then." So little by little, we did 1et established. Our shipment of office furniture arri ed from Australia after a few months, and we had swi el chairs and real desks and desk lamps and all sorts of thin1s that made us feel that we were comin1 up in the world. So you can see there are a series of steps that we took, one by one. -. 5es. 5ou got the entire e9perience. O6MS.E78 9es, and it wasn't until the end of the year that we really felt that we were fully operational. By that time, I think we were. Other personnel arri ed. .he political officer came, to be followed a few months later by the economic officer, who was also to do the consular work, and then the second of our two secretaries arri ed. .hat was the 1roup that manned the ship until after independence. -. At that time it was Papua New (uinea, and not the Solomon Islands, is that correct3 O6MS.E78 I was assi1ned to Papua New Guinea. .he Solomon Islands is a different political entity. It was under the British. I was told I would be responsible for handlin1 whate er came up in connection with the Solomon Islands, and I should 1o o er there from time to time, and which I did. -. Is it very far away3 O6MS.E78 .he small plane that connects them is nearly a four-hour fli1ht. .hat is, from Port Moresby. -. Where did you live3 O6MS.E78 I li ed in Port Moresby, on the side of a hill o erlookin1 the 0oral Sea, an absolutely spectacular iew of the cur in1 coastline and the little islands dottin1 the harbor. From my patio I could look 180 de1rees around the horiAon. Below me at the left, there was a fishin1 illa1e on stilts built out o er the water. .o my ri1ht there was the cur e of Pa1a Hill. I was in a ery modernistic house which was built by a Greek 0ypriot who, accordin1 to the story, had arri ed at Papua New Guinea practically penniless and was a soda-jerk at one of the downtown department stores initially. Bein1 an educated man and, I think, quite cle er and quite determined, he e entually 1ot into more lucrati e work and did quite well for himself financially. He built this as a bachelor's pad. 9ou could see that a bachelor had built it, from many of its shortcomin1s. But it was an interestin1 house. .he ceilin1 was se enteen feet hi1h in the li in1 room on one side slopin1 down to about four feet on the other side. .here were fi e walls to the li in1 room, three of which were 1lass, which 1a e a ma1nificent iew of the 0oral Sea and the coastline. -. Who ept the house for you3 O6MS.E78 I hired a house boy named 4isini, who stayed with me all the time I was there. He had only a little trainin1. I talked to some Australians about ser ants. 6ady 0le eland was one who warned me that you can do worse with ha in1 someone who is trained in a way you don't like than in hirin1 someone with limited trainin1 whom you can train the way you do like. So I took the latter choice. .his youn1 man, I'm sure, was still in his teens when he first came to me, and spoke ery little En1lish. I had an Australian friend who had been a rubber plantation owner in Papua New Guinea for many, many years before he retired, and he had had a plantation in the area where my house boy came from, and he spoke the lan1ua1e.