[Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | List of Subjects Discussed]
Notice Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview. RESTRICTIONS Opened June, 1979
[Top of the Page | Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | List of Subjects Discussed]
Oral History Interview with
July 8, 1976 by Richard D, McKinzie MCKINZIE: Ambassador Rockwell, I think many historians are interested in why people choose Government careers. You did go right out of Harvard, almost, into the Government. I wonder if you could explain what motivated you to choose a career in Government. Was it due to a youthful ambition? Were you convinced in college? What brings one into Government service? ROCKWELL: Well, in my case I think the main reason was that I've always been interested in foreign languages, learning them and speaking them, and I majored in Romance Languages at college. And when the time came to choose a career, I thought that the Foreign Service would be the most logical place for a person who was interested in languages and foreign affairs in general, as I was. I applied to take the examinations for the Foreign Service and fortunately passed both the written and the oral. MCKINZIE: Did you have, at that time, any world view? A lot of people who came into the State Department at that time now unembarrassedly called themselves "Wilsonians" or "realists" or some other kind. ROCKWELL: No, I think that would be going too far. I really didn't have any particular view at the time. I just knew I wanted to get started. MCKINZIE: So you didn't really have any particular desire to go to Panama, where you were going? ROCKWELL: That was just something that was decided without consulting me. But I enjoyed myself very much. It was an interesting time for me; it was during war. MCKINZIE: Of course. Were you involved in the very early aid programs for Central American countries in food or... ROCKWELL: No, maybe they hadn't been established in time. I was involved mostly in the problem of the military installations in the Canal Zone and our relations with Panama concerning them. MCKINZIE: You came back from Panama in 1944 and, as I understand, went to Ankara in 1946. What were your activities in the interim? ROCKWELL: I was in the Army. I came back and was drafted into the Army. I was on my way to Algiers, but since I was of a certain age and unmarried at the time, the Department, which was under heavy pressure to give up its position that its career officers should not be subject to the draft, gave in and decided that all unmarried career officers of a certain age could be subject to the draft. And therefore, I was drafted and went into the Army and finally ended up in OSS [Office of Strategic Services]. I did that for two years, mostly in London and France, and then returned to the Foreign Service in '46. MCKINZIE: By the time you came back into the Foreign Service, had you formed any personal views about what the future of the United States was going to be in international affairs? Did you anticipate at an early stage the cold war or that the Middle East was going to be a tension spot? ROCKWELL: Well, I think when I came back in 1946, I was under the influence of the philosophy that the main enemy was, of course, Nazi Germany, and that the Soviet Union had been on our side during the war. Accordingly, it was supposed to be hoped that cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union would continue. MCKINZIE: Were you in Ankara long before you were disabused of that? ROCKWELL: It wasn't long after my arrival in Ankara that the trouble erupted between Turkey and the Soviet Union over Kars and Ardahanz. It soon became apparent, at least within that context, that we were not on the same side with the Soviet Union. MCKINZIE: You were there at a very exciting time, because this was a period of the Truman Doctrine and the Greek-Turkish aid program. There must have been a great deal of political reporting which all Foreign Service officers... ROCKWELL: There was, indeed, and it was a period of very close relations between ourselves and the Turks. In a sense, it's rather sad to see what has happened to that relationship recently over the repercussions of the Cyprus problem and also because of the rather spectacular growth of Turkish nationalism. However, at that particular time, we were the number one friends of Turkey and, of course, the major provider of aid, too. MCKINZIE: There is always the question about why Turkey was included in the Greek-Turkish aid program, why Mr. Truman had chosen to portray the crisis in Turkey as equal to the crisis in Greece. There have been some revisionist suggestions that Turkey was brought into that discussion because, in that case, the threat was clearly Soviet, whereas, in the case of Greece, the threat was less than clearly Soviet. It seems it was coming from Bulgaria and from Yugoslavia. But at the time the two together made it popular to sell the American public on the idea that the whole thing was a Soviet problem. Is there any validity at all to that? ROCKWELL: Well, I think, as I recall it, the whole thing was sold essentially on the basis that it was a Communist problem, not necessarily a Soviet or a Bulgarian one. The monolithic idea of Communism was very prevalent in those days, that Communism in one country is equivalent to Communism in another country. My recollection was that the general public affairs description of the aid program was that international Communism was the problem in both countries. The Soviet Union was the major exponent of international Communism. MCKINZIE: At this early stage, because this was the first American foreign aid program (with the exception of lend-lease), was there any talk among the people on post about whether this aid program was going to constitute intervention in the internal affairs of the sovereign nation? Aid does in a way, does it not? ROCKWELL: Well, no, there was not, to my recollection, largely because the sovereign nation so obviously desired the aid, and so obviously welcomed it without -- at that time at least -- there being an apparent concern on the part of the Turks with regard to the effect of that aid on their internal situation, or on our side either. MCKINZIE: Well, I perhaps posed the question too strongly. Was the suggestion made by some people that aid constituted intervention in internal affairs? ROCKWELL: Not to my recollection, no. Of course, it was just the beginning of our international aid effort. It took some time, perhaps, for some people to come to conclude that foreign aid could be considered to be a kind of intervention. But at that time, it seemed to me that the Turkish reaction was unreservably favorable. I don't recall any discussions in the Embassy of concern less it be considered intervention. Of course, the Greece-Turkey aid program itself, as I recall it, was quite popular in both countries -- with the governments of both countries. MCKINZIE: Yes. You consider that, then, just a normal tour, and when you came back you had no idea that you would be put on the Palestine desk? ROCKWELL: Well, what happened was that the Palestine situation was heating up. In the early part of 1948, the Department removed from its post in Palestine all married officers, and they sent in single people to replace them from surrounding posts. So, I went down to Jerusalem from Ankara in March, I guess it was, of '48 on temporary detail. MCKINZIE: How did you find Jerusalem at that time? ROCKWELL: Well, a very, very tense and difficult place. Obviously there was going to be an explosion, and everybody knew that. The British were preparing to withdraw, and it was really a very tragic time for everybody. We lost the Consul General, who was killed by a sniper and we lost two other members of the staff by shrapnel and various other accidents of war. MCKINZIE: By that time everyone had agreed that the possibility of conciliation and the possibility of resolutions in the United Nations was hopeless? ROCKWELL: That's right. There was inexorable progress toward the inevitable clash that everybody knew was going to come. MCKINZIE: Then your mission was simply a reporting one? ROCKWELL: Yes, largely, although, of course, when we became a member of the Truce Commission after the first fighting, then the Consul General had more to do than just reporting. He was a representative on the commission, together with France and Turkey, as I recall. MCKINZIE: Did you have steady and frequent communications with Washington? ROCKWELL: Yes. We had our own radio in the Consulate; we were able to get in constant touch with Washington. MCKINZIE: Were you given any instructions that were memorable during that period that you recall? ROCKWELL: I don't remember that we had any memorable instructions, other than those that came within the context of the Truce Commission itself which were handled by the Consul General, Tom Wasson. I must confess, I don't recall any particular one that was remarkably dramatic. MCKINZIE: Where were you physically during the fighting? ROCKWELL: Well, we resided in the YMCA and worked in the Consulate, which was right on the front lines between the Jewish New City and the Old City. I recall that one day, when I was going for lunch at the YMCA from the Consulate, I crossed a small street that borders the rear end of the Consulate, and I encountered Mr. Wasson coming from a meeting of the Truce Commission at the French Consulate General. And just as I crossed the road, I was fired on by a sniper, and I said to Mr. Wasson, "Watch out; this area" (which was within site of the Old City wall) "is covered by snipers." He said, "Thank you for the warning; I have my bullet proof vest on." So, I went on my way to lunch, and I subsequently learned that when he crossed that street he was fired on by the sniper, and the bullet struck him in the top of the shoulder where there was no plating. It went into him diagonally, and then hit the bullet proof vest on the inside and richocheted back into him. And he died in about three hours. But it was obviously the same man, and, judging from the angle of the bullet, it seemed to me he must have been in one of the abandoned buildings on the Israeli side, on the Jewish side, of the front line. He must have gotten in there somehow. MCKINZIE: Was there ever any discussion of pulling out the whole U.N.? ROCKWELL: This was the U.S. Consulate General. MCKINZIE: Yes, but I mean it was linked up with the peace commission. Was there ever any idea of moving them off site and getting them out of there? ROCKWELL: No, not to my knowledge. They brought in a new Consul General, and he took Mr. Wasson's place on the commission. MCKINZIE: Were you at all involved in those discussions? ROCKWELL: No, Mr. Wasson held those pretty close, and the subordinate staff was not particularly involved in it. MCKINZIE: The Department must have seen it a peaceful place to come back to after that. ROCKWELL: Well, I then went back to Ankara in July of '48, and then I was transferred back here in, I think, September of '48 and put on the Palestine desk, which once again was not with any consultation. MCKINZIE: I take it that you did have to work very closely, then, with the U.N. mission. I wonder if you could talk about the relationship between the desk officer and the U.S. mission at the United Nations? ROCKWELL: Well, I think you should understand that the desk officer was at the bottom of the totem pole, and the decisions and major undertakings in relationships between the Department and the mission were carried on at the Assistant Secretary and higher level, although, of course, the desk is supposed to produce most of the supporting papers. But I was not personally involved in conversations with the mission. They were carried on in the light of the situation at the time -- the creation of the State of Israel and all the problems that arose thereafter. Of course, there was a great deal of high level interest in the problem, notably in the White House. People like David Niles were very heavily involved. MCKINZIE: How did one ascertain that David Niles was heavily involved? The name comes up frequently in discussions. ROCKWELL: A memorandum written by him would filter down, press interviews given by him would be read, and rumors were very rife of the influence of David Niles, some of which may have been exaggerated. His position was, of course, appropriate to his intervention in this affair, because he was supposed to be a specialist on minorities in the White House at that time. But the reason I'm telling this is to underscore the fact that the desk officer often didn't know what was happening. MCKINZIE: The desk officer was, however, in a position to assess his colleagues on the same level and the level above. President Truman, in his memoirs, talks about two things, what he called "striped pants boys" and "anti-Semitism" in the Middle Eastern Division. Loy Henderson seems to have been a victim of that. I think some retrospective comment, assessment of that, would be appropriate. ROCKWELL: Well, I dare say the use of the term "striped pants boys" didn't have any reference to any one individual but merely to the State Department people as a whole. It seems to be a term which still exists, together with another one that has been used in the past, "cookie pushers." Although, of course, if there ever was a person who was the epitome of the appearance of what might have been considered the "striped pants" type, it was Dean Acheson, but I think that the term was usually taken to refer to the career officers of the Foreign Service. But I would not attach any particular significance to President Truman's use of that term. I think President [Richard M.] Nixon himself has used the same thing in internal discussions of people in the State Department. With regard to the charges of anti-Semitism, I'm not aware of anybody at that time whom I considered to be prejudiced in that sense. There's no doubt that Loy Henderson felt very strongly that the situation in the Middle East was going to become very, very complicated from the point of view of U.S. relations because of the creation of the State of Israel; that he opposed the instant recognition of Israel at the time; and that he felt that our interests in the Arab world were larger than they were likely to be in the State of Israel. Whether Loy Henderson was anti-Semitic in that feeling, it's hard to be certain of, because one never knows what goes on in the inner-most circles of a man's mind. But I have never heard him speak in a way that I judged to be anti-Semitic. Insofar as he opposed the more extreme claims and positions of the Zionists, I suppose that it would be fair to say that he was anti-Zionist. But I don't think that President Truman was correct in not separating anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. As I say, I don't remember anybody who was in the Near Eastern office at that time whom I considered to be anti-Semitic. But those, of course, who are strongly in favor of Israel and its purposes tend to confuse the two. I think it would probably be fair to say Loy Henderson was anti-Zionist. MCKINZIE: Of course, by the time you were on the desk, Israel existed. But in the course of the day-to-day bureaucratic laundry that had to be taken in and out, there had to be some underlying assumptions about the whole thing. One gathers from reading that there was concern that this disruption in the area would give the Soviets a chance to make some advances, that the instability in the area, which was very, very strategically important, could cause problems, and that it might deny the United States important future resources. Secretary [James] Forrestal, I gather, was very concerned that oil might be denied to the United States by the Arabs. If those were the components then, what was their proportion in the mix? That is what is difficult to tell from the records. Was there one overridingly important consideration in people's minds as they tried to cope with the day-to-day crisis? ROCKWELL: I would say that the overriding consideration, as I understood it at the time, was that the U.S. had a great many interests in the Arab world, notably the oil, but also the existence of a part of the world where the U.S. had long had an influential role, through missionaries, in educational institutions, such as the American University in Beirut and the University of Cairo. And the people who were concerned about those interests felt that, in view of the strong feeling of the Arabs concerning the establishment of Israel, our unquestioning support would be bound to alienate the attitudes of the Arabs towards the United States, thereby giving the Soviet Union a field for penetration at a time when our feelings toward the Soviet Union were extremely black and white, as you know. Therefore, I would say that the major concern was not so much the oil itself, but the attitude of a whole region, which a number of these people who were expressing these views had been associated with in the past in the form of educational efforts, missionaries, or the old Near East hand's philosophy, which really had very little room for consideration of an independent Jewish state. MCKINZIE: Did a person at the desk level at that time come into contact with these types? ROCKWELL: Well, insofar as they were here in the State Department yes, of course -- Loy Henderson, George Allen, Gordon Merriam. Gordon Merriam, I think, was the son of a missionary, or may himself have been a missionary at one time. MCKINZIE: What about the outside pressure groups who tried so hard to influence people in Congress, people in the U.N. delegations, perhaps people in the White House? Did those people ever manage to get ahold of people in the Near Eastern Division? ROCKWELL: They kept in contact, oh, yes. I remember Si Kenan was very active at that time. But usually the more prominent people went higher up. They were calling on the Secretary, calling on the White House, calling on the Assistant Secretary. MCKINZIE: Were you usually invited to those meetings? ROCKWELL: Yes, usually we went there as note takers. MCKINZIE: So that was one way you kept in touch with what the Secretary knew and was thinking about policy issues in the area? ROCKWELL: Yes. But the meetings usually turned out to be rather stereotyped. I mean, they would say one thing, our side would say another, and they were not particularly productive meetings, because everybody knew what the purpose was. MCKINZIE: Could you talk a little bit about aid and the Middle East after Israeli independence? This was a period when Europe was benefiting from the Marshall plan, Latin-American countries were clamoring for it, and, of course, in 1949 Truman announced Point IV. In the Middle East, you had a situation in which there were adversaries vying, I take it, for aid. Could you talk about the general reaction in the Middle Eastern Division toward that? I take it it creates some special problems in providing aid to Israel. ROCKWELL: Of course, in regard to the Middle East, the majority of the aid was going to Greece and Turkey. Then there were other Middle Eastern countries who were allied with us at the time, such as Iraq in the Central Treaty Organization. Iraq, in particular, received military aid from the United States. But with regard to the others, I don't recall particularly those problems that you just mentioned. Countries like Saudi Arabia and Lebanon and Syria were not receiving any aid of any consequence, to my recollection. Jordan was one that was a problem, because of its proximity to Israel and the fact that the Arab Legion had been really the only effective invader of Israel. And, of course, later on you got into the problem of the Aswan Dam in Egypt, which was a fascinating mix-up in itself. But at the beginning of the time that I was on the desk, from '48 to '52, I don't recall that aid to the Arab states was anything that got very serious. MCKINZIE: Edwin Locke, who I think had rank of Ambassador at that time, went to the area in 1952 and came back and presented a report which recommended a great deal of aid, saying that there was going to be social revolution, if it wasn't forthcoming. The recommendation was ignored almost summarily, but I wonder if you recall that report? ROCKWELL: Well, I think I had probably left the desk by that time. I don't recall the report. I went to Madrid in June of '52. MCKINZIE: I believe this might have, in fact, been a little bit later. Were there people who were talking about the effects of what they called the "revolution of rising expectations," the fact that technology, the knowledge born of World War II, was going to create social circumstances wherein there would be revolution if there wasn't increased living levels? Was that at all a concern? ROCKWELL: Not during that early period, I don't recall. There was so much on the political side of things -- I mean, the aftermath of the fighting and the U.N. resolutions and the truce supervision and all that. I think people's minds and activities and energy were largely taken up with trying to produce a stable political situation as far as was possible. So, in that early period, I don't think that aid was really terribly prominent as a subject of discussion. Of course, there was always the Johnson plan, but that came a little later -- this effort to contribute toward peace by working out a cooperative use of the water of the Jordan. MCKINZIE: What was your own feeling about the resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem, with which you had to deal? Did you have a personal position on this aside from the Department's position? ROCKWELL: Well, my personal position was that it was unrealistic to expect the Israelis to receive all the Palestinians who wished to return and live in peace with their neighbors. One, they could never be sure that they were sincerely wishing to live in peace with their neighbors, and two, they could easily be overwhelmed by a flood of people coming back to circumstances which no longer existed. I'm afraid I was rather cynical about the official position about that, which was, of course, that we supported the idea that those who desired to return should be allowed to do so. MCKINZIE: Was the author of that position clear? ROCKWELL: No. I don't know who the author was. MCKINZIE: Did you have the feeling that most people in the Division supported that position personally? ROCKWELL: Yes, I think so. MCKINZIE: Was there much discussion in the Department about the proposal to create a kind of work program for the refugees? Somebody called it an overseas WPA, wherein the refugees would build streets and dikes and roads. I don't know how much of that ever materialized. ROCKWELL: Well, there was an agency created, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. MCKINZIE: That had some political overtones? ROCKWELL: Yes. Obviously, the idea was that if you get refugees working in a certain place, they might settle down there. MCKINZIE: That wasn't a particularly disruptive issue in the Department? ROCKWELL: No. MCKINZIE: In this period from 1949 to 1952, what would you consider to be your most difficult problem, if there was a theme that ran through it? ROCKWELL: Well, I think the most difficult problem was to attempt to evaluate and formulate views on an issue so emotional and so explosive and so passionate as that one, without yourself becoming prejudiced. I made a constant effort to do that, to observe the situation in a more impersonal fashion than I observed some of my colleagues doing. Fraser Wilkins was able to do that very successfully, but some of the other men associated with the problem were quite emotional about it, no doubt. MCKINZIE: You concurrently served as an adviser to the Secretary of the Air Force during this period? ROCKWELL: Not concurrently. At the end of the period I was transferred to the Air Force at the request of General Vandenberg, who wanted a political adviser for Mr. [Thomas K.] Finletter. MCKINZIE: Did you know Mr. Finletter? ROCKWELL: I'd known him, yes. MCKINZIE: Quite a bit different isn't it, from the kind of work you had done? ROCKWELL: Yes. It didn't work out very well, because Mr. Finletter really was his own political adviser. He didn't really feel the need for me. I don't know how much of this was his idea, as opposed to General Vandenberg's. It was only for a year, and when I left I don't know whether he stayed on or whether there was a new Secretary. Anyway, they didn't have another person like me. MCKINZIE: You don't think that you were able to make any changes in Mr. Finletter's views? ROCKWELL: I certainly do not. He was a highly opinionated person. MCKINZIE: I'm tempted to ask a question everyone asks about the Air Force in that period, and that is, what was the influence of the air power lobby on Air Force policy? Maybe that's a baiting question. ROCKWELL: Well, I wouldn't have known, I wasn't involved in that sort of thing. MCKINZIE: Then you went to Spain, Madrid, and became involved in all those difficult European matters of that time. One had to do with the buildup of NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] in which Spain was not part. Did you sense from the Embassy there that the Spanish themselves did or openly would want involvement in NATO? ROCKWELL: Oh, yes, indeed, that was my very strong impression that they wished to become a member of NATO. MCKINZIE: This was very touchy politically in the United States, because of the Spanish neutrality during the war. ROCKWELL: But more so in Europe. More of a problem than the opinion here was the opinion in countries like Denmark, Holland, Norway, Belgium. MCKINZIE: Was that a matter that was discussed in the diplomatic community while you were there? ROCKWELL: Oh, yes. It was a reality of life, one that has persisted even to this day, as you know. MCKINZIE: Could you talk a little bit about this assignment, which overlapped into the Eisenhower years? ROCKWELL: Well, I was chief of the political section in the Embassy in Madrid. Of course, the political situation in Spain was rather static at that time. The memories of the civil war were still very tense. The Spaniards were not anxious for new adventures, and the regime at that time was quite benevolent. It didn't have any serious problems to deal with, except occasionally problems with the Asturian miners and some difficulties with Basque separatists. But those were years before Spain was discovered by the international tourists and before they began to raise the standard of living in the dramatic way they now have. So, political reporting was not particularly dramatic at that time. Life was very agreeable in Spain, for foreigners who were not on a Spanish scale of living. But it was not a fluid period by any means. It was a very agreeable time to be there. MCKINZIE: I'm sure it must have been. In the United States there was some talk -- in Congress especially -- about pairing, in a sense, Yugoslavia and Spain. If the United States was going to give aid to Yugoslavia on the one side, it must give aid to Spain on the other. I wonder if that had ever created any kind of difficulty in Spain? ROCKWELL: Not with my recollection. MCKINZIE: I thought it might be an embarrassing thing to have to explain to some Spanish. ROCKWELL: I don't recall that being a problem. MCKINZIE: Well, Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much. ROCKWELL: Thank you. [Top of the Page | Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | List of Subjects Discussed]
Finletter, Thomas K., 30-31 Henderson, Loy, and Palestine issue, 17, 18-19 Kenan , Si, 22 Merriam, Gordon, 22 Niles, David, and Palestine issue, 15-16 Palestine, and Truce Commission, 9-13 Refugees, in Palestine, 27-28 Spain: Truman, Harry S., and U.S. State Department, 17-18 Wasson, Tom, assassination of, 12-13 [Top of the Page | Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | List of Subjects Discussed]
|
