1 The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign

218 Pages·2013·1.27 MB·English

The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training
Foreign Affairs Oral History Project

AMBASSADOR KEITH L. WAUCHOPE

Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy
Initial interview date: March 8, 2002
Copyright 2007 ADST

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Background
Born and raised in New York state
Johns Hopkins University
US Army, Vietnam
Combat experiences
Viet Cong brutality
Jane Fonda
Marriage
Entered the Foreign Service in 1966

Department of State; FSI; French language training 1966

Hong Kong; Rotation Officer 1966-1968
Visa applicants
Macau
British
Communist campaign
China turmoil
Environment
Insurrection activities

Ft. Lamy, Chad; Political/Economic Officer 1968-1971
US AID
Development programs
Peace Corps
The French
Relations with neighbors
Israelis
President Francois Tombalbaye
Libya
Infrastructure
Drought
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Environment

State Department; Cultural Affairs Officer, Africa Programs 1971-1973
Student exchange programs
Soviet programs
Fulbright program
Other US programs
Foreign based University support

State Department; Haiti and Bahamas Desk Officer/Bahamas, 1973-1974
Netherland Antilles & French West Indies Desk Officer
Bahamas independence
Baby Doc
Haiti government
Haitian illegals
US Haitian organizations
Bi-lateral issues
Vesco affair
Bahamas AID project
Environment
Drugs

Leave Without Pay 1975

Asmara, Eritrea; Deputy Principal Officer 1975-1977
Italians
Uprising
Environment
The Derg
Ethiopia
Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF)
Kagnew Station
Relations with Embassy Addis Ababa
Security
Insurgency
Mengistu
Haile Selassie
Religious groups
Martial law
US facilities and offices ordered out
Evacuation

State Department; Sudan Desk Officer 1977-1979
Nimeiri
Relations
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Libya
Sale of F-5s
Horn of Africa
Muslim Brotherhood
Qadhafi
US missionaries
Idi Amin
Congressional interest
Tanzania
Falashas
US regional policy
Area economic potential

Bamako, Mali; Deputy Chief of Mission 1979-1981
US AID
Peace Corps
Soviets
President Moussa Traore
French
Relations
Environment

State Department; Chief, African Personnel Assignments 1981-1983
Assignment issues
Problems in African assignments
General operations
Open Assignment Process
Problem assignments

Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School 1983-1984
General Comments

State Department; Deputy Director, Francophone West Africa 1984-1986
“Coup of the Month Club”
Liberia coup
“Constructive Engagement”
UN support issue
Development objectives
French govt. support
Relations
Nigeria scam

Monrovia, Liberia; Deputy Chief of Mission 1986-1989
US historical relationship
Doe regime maneuvers
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Ethnic hostilities
Military
US investment
US ambassador’s prestige
Ambassador Ed Perkins
US programs
Secretary of State Shultz’s visit
McPherson economic mission
Operational Experts (OPEX)
Exile coup intentions
Corruption
Lebanese
Charles Taylor
American community
Peace Corps
Economy
Environment
Relations with populace

Ambassador to Gabon 1989-1992
The French
Bongo
Government
Street demonstrations
Security
French paratroopers
Parti Democraique de Gagon
Political Parties
Petroleum competition
US commercial interests
Coup
Gabon and Kuwait War
US objectives
Democratization
Relations with Bongo
Living conditions
Environmental issues
AIDS
Michael Jackson’s visit
Sao Tome Principe

State Department; Chief, Office of Performance Evaluation 1992-1994
Class Action and other law suits
Personnel issues
Department operations
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Information Management
Awards program
Discrimination (and reverse) suits
General comments

State Department; Special Projects Office 1995
Wife’s illness and death
General comments

INTERVIEW

Q: Today is March 8th, 2002. This is an interview with Keith Wauchope. This is done on
behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training and I’m Charles Stuart
Kennedy. Keith, let’s start kind of at the beginning. Could you tell me when and where
you were born?

WAUCHOPE: I was born at Manhattan Hospital in New York City on October 13, 1941.
My parents actually lived out on the south shore of Long Island at the time

Q: Okay, tell me a bit about, first of all on your father’s side, sort of where the family
came from and your father's education and what he was doing.

WAUCHOPE: Okay, well, my father’s father came to the United States in the early
1880s. He was a young man in County Cavan, Ireland and was sent by his father down to
Trinity College Dublin to study for the ministry, the Presbyterian ministry. He and his
older brother Jack, who was also studying at Trinity, decided they didn’t want to become
ministers, so they quite literally ran away to sea. He and his brother first went off to
Australia and this trade between the UK, between England and Australia. After several
voyages in the 1870s my grandfather jumped ship and joined the Australian army. I was
told and that he stayed in Australia for only about six months or so, and then deserted the
army and signed onto another ship to Peru. He joined the Peruvian navy and stayed with
them for a while. He earned a naval rating, and then he deserted the Peruvian navy and
caught a ship to San Francisco. He came ashore in San Francisco and joined the U.S.
Navy.

Q: About when was this?

WAUCHOPE: He would have come to the United States in the early 1880s, I guess.
Having joined the United States navy, he became very intrigued with American
democracy and political issues. He ended up being the librarian at the Brooklyn Navy
Yard. Since he never had a college education, he started to educate himself through
reading the books in the library. He became persuaded that socialism was the most
rational system, so he became a socialist. When he got out of the navy he joined the
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American Socialist Party and he became a journalist for the socialist party, eventually the
editor of the New York Call. Prior to that, he worked for socialist publications in
Chicago, Erie, Pennsylvania and eventually in New York. The New York Call was an
influential socialist newspaper in New York and because of his stature as the editor and
because of his oratorical skills; in 1910 the socialists made him their candidate for mayor
of New York on the socialist ticket. I believe that it was at that time he changed his name
to Wanhope, W-A-N-H-O-P-E so as to be easier to pronounce for his supporters. In 1912
he was the socialist candidate for governor of New York. He was soundly defeated both
times, needless to say. Then in 1917 when the United States entered World War I, Eugene
Debs, the leader of the American Socialist Party denounced the war as a creature of the
“malefactors of great wealth” and called upon all socialists to refuse to participate. My
grandfather said that this position was wrong. He believed that if the Socialist Party
worked against the United States participation in the First World War, that the party
would in fact be destroyed because the war was a popular cause. As a result, my
grandfather was run out of the party. Eugene Debs went to prison and my grandfather lost
his job as editor, and, unable to find other jobs in journalism, he went back to sea. I guess
he remained at sea until the late ‘20s or early ‘30s when he finally was able to retire.

As my father’s family never had much money since my grandfather never made more
than $25 per week as a newspaper editor, my father ended up going to the New York
School Ship, which was the merchant marine academy for the State of New York at that
time. It was a two-year course and he received a certificate to sit for the third mate’s
exam. You had to be 21 to get your certificate as a third mate, which he eventually did. In
any event he went on and became a second mate, first mate and in seven years he made a
captain. He was a captain for seven years aboard the Farrell Lines ships - well, it was then
the American South African Lines - and then it later became the Farrell Lines. Its
principal business was with Africa, southern Africa. My father came ashore and married
in 1935. He was made the port captain for the company. He met my mother when he was
Captain of the S.S. City of New York, a small passenger liner. He had the chief steward
make sure that all the attractive, single ladies aboard this flagship vessel were seated at
the captain’s table and hence he met my mother. We’ll talk a little bit about her later.

When the U.S. joined the Second World War, he was called to active duty despite being
the father of three children. He had a naval reserve commission as a result of his training
at the merchant marine academy. He was brought in as a lieutenant commander and then
promoted to commander and captain. He was made the commanding officer of
Sheepshead Bay Naval Training Facility in Brooklyn, New York. He worked in that
position for about 18 months. He ran afoul of the left-leaning, in some cases communist,
labor unions. At their request he was removed, but as he had always wanted a sea
command. He commanded an attack transport in the Pacific for a period of about two and
a half years and participated in 21 amphibious operations. After VJ Day, he returned to
the United States where he rejoined the Farrell Lines. He had opened up its east African
trade just before the war, and after the war he was sent out to open its West African trade.
He was made the executive vice president and eventually in the 1960s, the president of
the company. It was that African connection that got me interested in that region of the
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world because in 1959 and again in 1960 I took cruises as a deck cadet aboard the Farrell
Line ships. The first voyage was to South Africa and the second to West Africa, and I
think that sort of gave me a flavor of that part of the world.

Q: Your mother’s background?

WAUCHOPE: Yes. Well, she was from Baltimore by origin and her father was an Irish
immigrant as well. In point of fact, both of my grandfathers were born in Ireland, one in
Northern Ireland, in County Cavan and the other one in Mayo. Her father had come to the
United States to be a seminary student, but then chose not to pursue the seminary. He
ended up, as far as I understand it, a traveling book salesman. My mother’s mother was
quite young, a good deal younger than he was and my mother remembers him being gone
quite a bit of the time. Nonetheless, she was brought up by her mother in Baltimore. Then
when she was about 20 years of age she decided to go to New York. She had already been
working by that time for a shipping company; she completed high school, but didn’t go to
college. In New York she worked as various jobs as a secretary or executive assistant in
shipping and later in advertising. She had some interesting experiences in that process.
While working for a temporary agency, she worked for Lowell Thomas one evening
recording in short hand his interview with Jimmy Doolittle over dinner. Through this
agency she ended up working for Osa and Martin Johnson who were called explorers, but
were entrepreneurs in filming exotic places.

Q: Oh yes, hell’s a popping. Wonderful comedians. I saw them in New York.

WAUCHOPE: Yes. Oh, you’re thinking of Olsen and Johnson.

Q: Oh, no, no. This is Osa and Martin Johnson. Oh, yes.

WAUCHOPE: Osa and Martin Johnson. Right. They made adventure movies.

Q: Flying those amphibian planes and all that.

WAUCHOPE: That’s right. Exactly. They flew some of the very first amphibians and
they flew them over to Africa. In 1933 I believe it was my mother was now their full time
secretary back in their apartment in New York while they had a place just outside of
Nairobi, which was their base of operations in East Africa, their aircraft flew out of that
area as well. My mother was doing their income tax, very few people had to pay income
tax at that time, but they made enough money from their movies and lecture tours and
books that they did in fact have to pay. My mother sent them a telegram saying it was
awfully difficult to do their taxes without being able to talk to them about their expenses.
Their records were apparently in something of a shambles. So, they said, “Well, why
don’t you come out?” By return telegram they said “a ticket is being arranged for you. It’s
at such and such a location”. So, she went out on the S.S. City of New York, which was a
ship that my father was the captain of. She met my father and there must have been an
attraction. She spent a year in Nairobi from 1933 to ’34, and then returned to New York
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aboard the same ship accompanied by a cheetah and several other animals the Johnsons
were sending to zoos in the U.S. Some time shortly thereafter my father and mother
married and settled in an apartment in New York. So, they both had their own exposure to
Africa in one form or another.

Q: Particularly in an era when this was just really very exotic. I can remember seeing the
Martin Johnson films?

WAUCHOPE: Yes, Martin and Osa Johnson. He was the photographer and she was the
hunter. She was the one that used to shoot the specimens.

Q: Yes and seeing these movies and all.

WAUCHOPE: Congorilla was one of them. She wrote a book called I Married Adventure
that won the National Book Award in 1941. He was killed in a commercial air crash in
1938, I think it was. They were both in the plane, but he was killed and she was severely
injured but survived.

Q: Well, were you an only child or did they have other children?

WAUCHOPE: No, I had an older brother and was my sister and myself. My brother was
born in ‘36, my sister in ‘38 and I was in ‘41. We grew up in Long Island as I say, my
father went to Sheepshead Bay and we moved to the base from our home we just bought
on Long Island to live at Sheepshead Bay. When my dad went to sea in the Pacific the
family returned to our home in Lloyd Harbor, just north of Huntington, New York on the
north shoe of the island. We lived right next door to the elementary school; we went to
that school. Then in my own case I went to military school, Stanton Military Academy,
for a year and I didn’t like it. So, I then went on to the Boston Latin School in Boston,
which is a public school, and from there I went to Johns Hopkins University.

Q: Let’s talk a little about early education.

WAUCHOPE: Sure.

Q: As a small child or young child, what in elementary school, any subjects kind of
appeal to you particularly?

WAUCHOPE: History in particular. History and geography were particularly appealing to
me. Something I should have said again in the connection with my father and the Farrell
Lines. In April of 1949 my father called my mother from the office and said, “We have
some ships being chartered by the American Hawaiian Lines and they’re going to be
going around the world. Would you like to take the kids on a trip around the world?” My
brother was 12, my sister was 10 and I was seven and my mother jumped at the chance
and said fine. He said, “Well, you missed the sailing from New York through the Panama
Canal, but you’re going to go across country by train and meet the ship, the African
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Planet, in San Francisco.” The ship sailed from there to Tokyo, to Vietnam, to Hanoi and
then up the river to Saigon and then on to a port for Bangkok, Thailand and then from
there the ship reverted to control of the Farrell Lines and went along the East African
coast and down to Capetown. We went into the interior of Africa in Mozambique,
Rhodesia and South Africa and rejoined the ship again in Cape Town. So, at age seven, I
had some practical exposure to the world, the greater world at that time.

Q: Oh boy.

WAUCHOPE: It was in the period immediately after the war, so that you saw the
desolation and economic ruin. My mother had a sister and her husband living in Tokyo.
He was with the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission doing studies on the effects of the
A-bomb. He had learned Japanese, and he had a MD and a PhD in chemistry. So, we saw
the Japanese economy in ruins; there almost no civilian vehicles and every main street
had old GI canvas tents along the curbs with people selling all manner of junk like
friction cars made out of painted beers cans. I was also impressed going up the Saigon
River by all the French and Japanese vessels that had been sunk by both sides. In most
cases you could only see the masts and smoke stakes. As a portent of things to come, we
also had three Foreign Legionnaires aboard with Bren guns to protect the ship from Viet
Minh guerillas who had fired on previous ships going up the river. This is about as
exciting as it can get for a seven-year old boy.

Q: Yes, the Saigon River.

WAUCHOPE: There you go.

Q: Sort of at the dinner table, having everybody doing this, was there a lot of talk about
the world and all?

WAUCHOPE: Oh, absolutely. My dad made a point, even though he came home until
almost 8:00 from commuting from New York, of all sitting down to dinner with the
family together. So, in conversations around the dinner table, my father would talk about
what was going on in his company and events in the world, and try to draw us in the
conversation. He signaled that he valued our opinions and expected us to be aware of
what was going on in the world. It was a very stimulating sort of thing I found.

Q: How about reading?

WAUCHOPE: Yes, this was before the days of television, which of course was a great
watershed event in kids’ education, or lack thereof. We had both an old version of
Britannica and the World Book Encyclopedia. I spent a great deal of time I remember as a
kid reading the encyclopedia and reading a lot of the history there. I remember that for
each country it had sort of a text and picture outline of the major historic events, and so I
remember going through all that. I knew about the Sino-Japanese War in 1895 all from
reading those books. I read a fair amount and I read mostly nonfiction primarily.
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Q: How about when you, any books that may stick in mind, particularly in your earlier
years?

WAUCHOPE: Well, I read a great deal about the Civil War. Even to this day is a matter
of great interest to me. I don’t know that I can cite any particular book, but I did a lot of
reading on the Civil War.

Q: The books by, I want to say, Stillness at Appomattox.

WAUCHOPE: Right, I read all the Bruce Catton books.

Q: Bruce Catton books.

WAUCHOPE: That’s right, Glory Road, Mr. Lincoln’s Army. That’s right. Yes, I read all
of Bruce Catton’s books. They were very readable books.

Q: They were the first readable books that came out after the war. The Douglas Freeman
books were a little heavy going.

WAUCHOPE: Heavy going, indeed.

Q: I got those in high schools, but wow.

WAUCHOPE: Lee’s Lieutenants and all that, yes, that’s true. These were much easier to
go through and at that point my brother had gone to military school, the Stanton Military
Academy. We used to drive through Virginia on visits to see him. We used to stop and
see the battlefields. My mother would take the time to try to give us the chance to see the
battlefields. We knew something about the Civil War, so we could talk about it. My
brother was always very interested in the military. He attended VMI for almost two years,
and then he didn’t like it. He literally walked away from it. He joined the Marines as a
recruit and did a six month enlistment. He later was able to qualify for a competitive
appointment to West Point. He graduated in 1962. Having been in the Marine Corps as a
recruit at Parris Island, and having joined the Virginia National Guard at 17 ½, the
military was his life. Because of his prior service in the Marines, he was able to obtain a
commission in the Marine Corps when he graduated from West Point. He was always
spoiling to get into combat, so when he was assigned to Okinawa, he volunteered to go to
Vietnam. He won the Bronze Star for an action while he was TDY as an advisor to the
Vietnamese rangers. When he returned to Okinawa, his unit had been sent to Chu Lai on
the coast of the northern part of South Vietnam. He hadn’t been there more than a month
when he was killed in June of 1965 along with four other Marines in his unit. He led his
detail to secure the rear area of the anvil position in a larger Marine sweep operation. His
troops came under sniper fire from VC hidden in tunnels, and he was killed trying to
steady his troops and return fire.

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