Ambassador William Fletcher Warren Oral History Interviews, Vol III

Notice
This is a transcription of an interview for the Oral History Program at East Texas State University, Commerce, Texas. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

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Scholars and researchers may utilize short excerpts from this transcription without obtaining permission if proper credit is given to the interviewee, the interviewer, and the University. For extensive use of this material, permission must be obtained from the University.

This material may not be reproduced by any party except East Texas State University . However, to further the goal of thorough research, copies of unrestricted interviews may be obtained at cost by contacting the Oral History Office, East Texas State University , Commerce , Texas 75428 .

Opened February, 1974
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[1]

PARHAM: [These] interviews with Ambassador Fletcher Warren [are] for the East Texas State University Oral History Project.

Go right ahead [with] just what you were saying.

WARREN: The trip to Blair House to meet the President [Harry S. Truman] was made by, as I remember, five or six ambassadors, including my old chief, Arthur Bliss Lane, who was then in Washington, I suppose, between posts. It was the most interesting tea party that I have ever attended. The President was brand new.. He was living in Blair House because the White House was under repair. He hadn't yet got all the reins of the government in his hands. He, I'm sure, felt insecure because there seems to be no doubt now that President [Franklin D.] Roosevelt had not kept him informed of what was going on. So he had to pick up the reins, not knowing the road that was to be

[2]

traveled. He impressed all of us--I think I can make that assertion--with his sincerity, his modesty, his simplicity and his determination to get the job done to the best of his ability.

PARHAM: Let me interject a question here if I may.

WARREN: Right.

PARHAM: Were there within the Foreign Service comments as to the President's [Roosevelt's] so-called secrecy of diplomacy, how he kept everything pretty much to himself? I ask this question in this regard because a number of senior statesmen during the Second War mentioned how Roosevelt, instead of using State Department trained people, would frequently send his own emissaries such as Harry Hopkins or Wendell Willkie--off on a fact-finding tour. In other words, he leaned more on them than on his own trained people. Were there comments concerning this within the Foreign Service personnel that you recall?

WARREN: This, after all these years, is difficult to answer with precision. However, at this date, I am sure that I am right in saying that there was comment in the ranks, certain ranks, of the Foreign Service with regard to the extradepartmental activity of individuals in the field of foreign affairs. I believe that has happened wherever an outsider has stepped in and taken over what should

[3]

have been the role of the Secretary of State. So I'm sure there was some comment and I have no doubt that many of my colleagues thought that Mr. Roosevelt was, in the first instance, his own Secretary of State. But I don't want to go farther than that. I do think that during the period of the Roosevelt administration that the Foreign Service did rise in his estimation, just as it did in the estimation of President [Dwight D.] Eisenhower and [Secretary of State] John Foster Dulles. John Foster Duller had a very low opinion of the Foreign Service when he came in. So there was something but with out having something to refresh my memory I won't say more than what I have said.

PARHAM: Then when President Truman came in, was there, or do you recall that there was, any change perhaps of attitude toward the White House?

WARREN: Well, on that, you know, with a service as large as the Foreign Service was and a service as scattered over the whole globe, and a service that has--if you get away from it's esprit de corps, the minimum of cohesiveness, it takes time for an opinion or impression or attitude to get around. I know that I had the feeling that now with a new President, perhaps the State Department would have more to do with the Foreign Service, with the foreign

[4]

policy of the United States. The previous administrations had used the Foreign Service simply as a machine to carry out whatever policies they had agreed upon. And the information for those policies, as you have implied in your question, was often based on the work of people other than the Foreign Service. For instance, I am sure from the period that I'm thinking about now, that Harry Hopkins was a controversial figure even at the time that Mr. Truman came into office. Now back to Mr. Truman. We all left the--I'll change that. I'll speak for myself only. I left the tea party with the feeling that I had come in contact with a real man and one that I wanted to do everything I could to help. And he called upon us, the President called upon us, to help him carry the burden that was to be his. I'm sure that he made a favorable impression on the ambassadors present, even though they are a group that is not so readily impressed. I'm also sure that all of us left there determined to do what we could to assist a President who had asked us frankly to help out in what he was going to do. After the call at the White House, it wasn't long until Wilhelmina and I took off for Nicaragua. We went by train from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans and [got] there about midnight one night--the same day we arrived,

[5]

as I remember. We took a plane that flew across the Gulf of Mexico, and over into Guatemala, and then on down to Managua. We got there around, if I remember rightly, around ten o'clock in the morning of May 4, 1945.

PARHAM: That was just two days--or a day or two--before the Germans surrendered.

WARREN: That was May 6, wasn't it?

PARHAM: I believe it was.

WARREN: I believe it was. Yes. May 6. Well, in a way it was like going home for us because we had served two very happy years in Managua under Boaz Long as minister and Arthur Bliss Lane. We knew all the principal people in both parties. We had friends in both parties. We knew General [Anastasio] Somoza very well indeed, his whole family, his in-laws as well, and we liked them all. Our experience with Somoza as the head of the National Guard while I was there as the secretary of legation made us glad to return to Managua although the climate was supposed to be very bad indeed.

When we got back to Nicaragua, the government gave us a warm welcome. Somoza told me , "I had a soldier under every palm tree .from the embassy to the Presidential Palace," when I presented my credentials, and he did. We had a practically new embassy residence to go into. I

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was able to take with me two of my secretaries that had served with me in Washington, Miss Betty Flohr and Miss Grace Williams. That was the first prerogative of being an ambassador: I was able to take the secretaries with me that I wanted.

PARHAM: Of course, they accepted your invitation, or was it that they had any choice?

WARREN: Oh, they wanted to go. They wanted to go, and I wanted them to go and I was wondering if I would be able to get away with both of them. But since it was Managua, I did. If it had been, say, Mexico City, I doubt if I could have because Mexico City was a nice post. But these two girls wanted to go and they stayed with me the whole time. No, Grace didn't because she married one of the men in the embassy, James N; Curtis, and they are now living in Athens, Georgia. He's retired from the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation].

PARHAM: When she married, she had to resign her position with you?

WARREN: No, no. She stayed on until--as I remember though that wasn't very long--until, as I remember [her husband] was transferred shortly before I left. I'm depending on my memory of this.

PARHAM: So you sort of inspired a romance there?

[7]

WARREN: Oh, yes. I gave the bride away. We gave the couple a wedding reception and all. Betty, she didn't get married. But since her retirement, she has married and she is the wife of Attorney Fio, F-I-0, Lopardo, L-O-P-A-R-D-0, an Italo-American born up in Hoosick Falls, New York, graduate of Harvard, who went out to California to practice law and met Betty out there. Now he is a district judge appointed by Mr. [Governor Ronald] Reagan. He's in a district in California, and they live at Escondido, California. But that's in passing. Two finer secretaries there never were. I can say that right now.

In Managua I got the first chance to put to work what I learned under Arthur Bliss Lane, Boaz Lang, [Consul general] Carlton Bailey Hurst and the others in the field of diplomacy. There was much political opposition to Somoza. The two parties were always scrapping, and we had to keep the respect of both sides because the opposition would have liked nothing better--and did sometimes say that we were the tool of the Somoza regime. Somoza would not have hesitated to ask for my removal if he thought I hadn't been playing fair. So it taught us how to walk the tightrope. We had a small American colony but a splendid one. We had men there in tobacco, cigarette manufacturing, in mining, and in shipping. We had two

[8]

Americans who were high in the ranks of the Nicaraguan government: Augustus I. Lindbergh, Colonel Lindbergh-no relation to Charles Lindbergh.

PARHAM: That's interesting. The same middle name.

WARREN: And then we had Thomas F. Downing from Downington, Pennsylvania. By the way, he's retired and still living there in Managua, I think. We had United Fruit. I'm sorry, it's not United Fruit, Cuyamel Fruit Company coming into the east coast at Bluefields and Puerto . . . . I should have looked this up. Anyway, it's a company port on the east coast of Nicaragua [Puerto Cabezas] and they were engaged in shipping and in bananas and in lumber. By the way, in that little port, there was a man who was an accountant and he was a cousin of Albert Einstein in this little east Nicaraguan port, a port no larger than Wolfe City, [Texas]. What can I get for you? I found it very interesting to know him and to know her. Then, of course, we had the other American shipping putting in at Corinto, the western port, and San Juan del Sur. We also had a branch, an office of an American telegraph company. Boy, I'll have to look up these names now again. Then, as I said, there were all the friends in the government, in the business, in society. So it was truly a splendid homecoming for us. We worked hard.

[9]

We came to know Nicaragua, what was there. We knew the President; we knew his three children, a little girl in pigtails and two boys, Luis and "Tachito," [Anastasio Jr.]. Well, as you know, later, after we left there, Somoza was assassinated. Luis was the first son to become President and it's generally considered, I think, today that he made a good President. "Tachito" is now President. He guided the Republic during the recent awful Managua earthquake, and the little girl in pigtails, Lillian Somoza, is the wife of the dean of the diplomatic corps in Washington, D.C., [Ambassador] Guillermo Sevilla-Sacasa. We knew his father better than we knew Guillermo, but now, of course, we knew Guillermo better than we knew the father. But he was a fine old man. He was postmaster-general for a time. Well, I could go on. It was most fortunate for us because they liked us from the period we'd been there before, and we started in as if we hadn't been away and learned how to practice diplomacy in Latin America. Europeans, European experts, usually take a dim view of a Latin American diplomat. But some of our best have originated there.

PARHAM: Excuse me, you say Latin American diplomat. Do you mean a diplomat from one of the Latin American countries or a United States diplomat who has done service there?

[10]

WARREN: That's a good question. Let me state it another way. I mean by that, that American Foreign Service officers who have served in Latin America are not generally regarded so well by the diplomats who had European assignments. But nevertheless, it took a special type, or special ability, to be a successful diplomat in Latin America and it could come in very well as others showed. In Europe, for instance, Arthur Bliss Large, who served as minister in Latvia, Yugoslavia, and Poland. I'm prejudiced, of course, but I don't think that [Under Secretary of State] Sumner Welles or any American diplomat that I can think of now was a better diplomat than Arthur Bliss Lane. He knew it, he devoted his life to it until the very end, and no one could have worked harder or more sincerely than he did. He had a lovely wife who had been born--I'm not sure whether she was born in the United States or whether she was born in Florence, [Italy]--but she was brought up in Florence. Her family lived there and unless they have left in the last ten years, some of them still live there.

PARHAM: What was it that. . . ? Can you give us an example of what in particular was it that was needed to make a good American diplomat in Latin America? What was it that Mr. Lane had that you can put your finger on?

WARREN: Well, yes, I can name some of the things. First thing:

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he had a good education; he was a graduate of Harvard. Second thing: he believed in human beings regardless of the nationality that they might have. He never forgot that he was dealing with human beings. It made no difference to him what a man's religion was, what the color of his skin was. He could be 99 percent Indian or he could be half-colored, it made no difference at all. That didn't enter into his consideration of what he needed to do or didn't need to do in being a diplomat. Next thing: he was absolutely meticulous in what he did to live up to their laws and regulations. Whatever they were, they had to be lived up to. He might not agree with them and he might be working with Washington to see if they couldn't get them changed, or something. But if they were laws, they had to be observed. That was Arthur Lane. Also, he had the ability to enjoy being with people other than Americans. You know, not all Americans enjoy being with others unless they are Americans. Arthur Lane could be with any group and get along. Not only that, he showed you how to. Not only that, if you didn't learn how, you found yourself transferred somewhere else. Another thing: the size of the country didn't make a bit of difference about how much attention he gave to conducting the relations between that country and the United States.

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He worked just as hard on Nicaragua, I'm sure, as he did on Poland. He got his early training, in Rome. He was there with Ambassador Thomas Nelson Page way back before or during World War I. And another advantage he had, he knew what European diplomacy was like and how it was conducted over there and he was just as determined to succeed in doing a good job in Nicaragua as he could do anywhere else. Another thing was--I've never put this on record before. He could do business with a man and he could know that the man was lying and he could conduct himself in such a way as not to offend the man and yet the man knew that Lane knew that the man was lying. They would go on and carry out the charade right straight through and they could finally come to some agreement. In other words, if you're Lane and I tell you a lie, you didn't say: "You're lying." You'd nod the head, like you are doing now, [and] let the other fellow go on. The Latin American understands that and appreciates that. He doesn't cause the man to lose face when he's dealing with them. And, yet, you or Lane only have one thing in mind and that is to do what the Secretary of State tells you to do. That was the biggest thing, I think he taught me, and as long as I live, I'll be grateful to him because I have dealt with every kind

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of individual and I was able to do it because Arthur Lane taught me how. Those are some of the things about Lane. Another thing he taught me, and that was never to take myself too seriously. He expected me to do what he told me to do or what he had told me to do. He expected me to respect the training he had given me and he knew that I knew that we were going to carry out the orders of the Secretary of State. All of that. But still, he didn't want any member of his staff--to use an expression that was common in this part of the country when I was a boy-he didn't want any of his staff to get "the big head." I think I told you about what happened in Bogota. If I didn't, it won't hurt to repeat it quickly here and if it does, why you can cut it out. We had to go to the Presidential Palace on New Year's day. The minister or the ambassador always took his staff, his office or staff, and went to call on the President that day. Arthur Lane insisted on all of us going in Bogota'--this was after Managua--and he had with him a huge staff because it was a war time staff. Uncle Sam usually came about the foot of the list because United States is "U," you see, and Albania and Argentina and whatever, they all came ahead.

PARHAM: Oh, you didn't go by the Spanish spelling necessarily?

WARREN: Yes, but, you see, Argentina would be Argentina, Albania

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would be Albania, Austria would be Austria. The United States would be Estados Unidos, Estados Unidos de America. Anyway we wouldn't be first. We were usually pretty close to the end. It would depend on the way they drew up their . . . . .

PARHAM: Now, this would hold true except for the dean of the diplomatic corps and he would lead off.

WARREN: That's right. He would be the Nuncio.

PARHAM: I see.

WARREN: He was first and he is the one who would stand usually with the President or near the President often times. Well, anyway, we were never--I can't remember in my whole experience that we were ever first. So they passed by, you see, and went on up and met the President. Then it came our time. They called. We were going up. Here were our colleagues from other countries on each side of us, you see, and as Arthur Lane walked along, he heard one diplomat say to another, one foreign diplomat say to another, "My god, that's not a staff, that's an invasion!" [Laughter] Arthur Lane never forgot that. That's when he learned that lesson. After that he'd only take selected members of his staff so that his staff wouldn't be larger, say, than Great Britain or France or somebody else. He was absolutely insistent on that. Well, all

[15]

of this I got a chance to put into practice in Nicaragua. I might add one other thing. You know, I was with him

PARHAM: Let me interpose a question here.

WARREN: Please.

PARHAM: If you were to take a typical day in your administration of the embassy in Managua, how would it have gone?

WARREN: All right, that's a good question.

PARHAM: I would be curious to know what time you got up in the morning, what time you went to the office.

WARREN: For forty years, I guess, my getting-up time was 7:00 A.M. I always got to the office sometimes as early as 8:00 A.M. I got there earlier in my earlier posts because I was younger and didn't have the same position and all, and I wanted to be there when my boss came in. I was always there. I, as ambassador, was always there by the time the junior members of my staff were supposed to be there. A lot of ambassadors would come in at ten, ten-thirty, eleven o'clock. I always got there at the same time the staff members got there. That's the. way I did in Managua. That's where Maurice M. Bernbaum, later Ambassador Bernbaum, joined me as secretary of embassy. I'd come in and greet the members of the staff that were around and go to my desk. Betty, Betty Flohr, she was always there by the

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time I got there, and just as soon as she could get them out of the code room, she brought me the telegrams. They received first attention. Some, of course, I had to pass out to other officers to work on, and if there were some that could be answered immediately, I dictated the telegram to Betty immediately. Betty showed them to whoever it was necessary--if I thought anyone else should see them--and sent them back to the code room and got them out. Usually you couldn't act that promptly. But that was the first order of business.

Then there were always callers, and you worked them in just as soon as you could--you got rid of them just as soon as you could--after your telegrams. At least that was the way I worked it.

PARHAM: How early in the morning did you usually receive visitors or callers? Nine . . . ?

WARREN: The moment the office was open.

PARHAM: I see.

WARREN: The moment the office was open.

PARHAM: Now was this official [business], say someone from the Foreign Office, or. . . ?

WARREN: Well, you didn't have to worry because they didn't get there that soon, the Foreign Office. But an American businessman, someone in the community, the American

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community, or the Latin American community, any caller could go to the American embassy the moment the doors opened. That's usually nine o'clock. Yes, right there. You disposed of them just as fast as you can, if you've got two or three to get rid of then. Then your secretary will let you know as others come along, and you try to keep them moving, at least I did, to get them out just as soon as I could. Anyone who took the trouble to come in, got attention; and if he wanted to see the ambassador-unless there was some reason why he should see somebody else-he saw the ambassador. I’ve seen many a man just to receive him and then accompany him to another officer and say, "This man will take care of it."

So then if it was a mail day, as soon as the courier mail came in, why, it was taken right to the mail room and opened up. Then the instructions or other communications--urgent communications from the Secretary of State--were gotten to you just as soon as they could get them in.

PARHAM: How often did the mail come in?

WARREN: Well, that varied from post to post. When I first got into the Service, all my mail came by mail, international mail, all of it, at Barranquilla.

PARHAM: By ship, and by air?

[18]

WARREN: By ship. Well, you see, when I started, it was before air.

PARHAM: That's right. I'm sorry. [I shouldn't interrupt you so much.]

WARREN: No, no, that's all right. That puts things in perspective, you see. If it came by ship, you would know when the ship got in the harbor because somebody from the ship had to come to the consulate or, if it was an embassy, to the embassy.. That's the first place they go, the American vessels. And they always--if it was possible--brought the mail by American vessel. So you knew and you were watching to see that the stuff came through the post office in good time. If you weren't getting your mail, why, you were down to see the postmaster general or somebody else to see why the mail wasn't coming through. Then, of course, I can remember when we got the first letters by airmail, and that was a great day. Just to give you a little bit more. In Barranquilla, which is the first place I ever got airmail letters, the mail was brought into Colombia by SCADTA, the oldest . . . .

PARHAM: Would you say that again, please?

WARREN: The mail, the airmail was brought into Barranquilla by SCADTA.

PARHAM: How do you spell that?

[19]

WARREN: S-C-A-D-T-A. It was a German-American airline, the forerunner of what is today--or was--Avianca. It was German operated, a commercial concern. They had a separate post office, run by the German airline. You went there for the mail, and you had two post-office boxes. You had your box that you got from the government postal service, and you had one from the airline where you got your airmail. That was at first.

PARHAM: That could make for possible espionage, couldn't it?

WARREN: Oh, yes, it could, it could. And I have no doubt that the Germans didn’t overlook it. I’m sure of that. But it was a good service. They did a good job.

Well, there. Then if it's mail day, that is incoming mail, why then you get to that just as soon as you can and see what's urgent. Anything urgent, why, you jump right on it and answer just as quickly as you can. If there is nothing urgent, if it is something that requires maybe research, reports, and whatnot, you get it underway immediately.

Now that's incoming mail. If it's outgoing mail-and it depends on where you were, the days it went out and how you got it out--why, everybody knew that they had to have the mail on your desk by a certain time, you see. That would give the people in the mail room time,

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after you had signed it and sent it into them, to prepare it, put it in envelopes, address the envelopes, and have everything ready, and get it down--if it had to go to the post office--get it down to the post office in time to get it out. Now this, you see, was before we had couriers. They didn't have couriers [back then]. I think the first courier service came in while I was on duty in the Department of State in about . . . . It must have been about 1945. The first one in that period. I was there from '38 to '44. It must have been about '44 that the . . .I took two or three men, and we instituted the courier service to Latin America. One of those boys, his name was Henry Muller, is today--I think he's retired—vice president of the National City Bank of New York. He was on the courier service. Another one got in the Foreign Service later on. Well, he was in the Foreign Service, he was in the State Department service, of course. But all of this, what we're talking about in Nicaragua was before we had the courier service.

After that you had a schedule of when the courier was arriving and you met him wherever he had to be met. You--not the ambassador but a member of your office-met him, took the courier bags that he had brought, and was responsible for them and for delivering them to the

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embassy mail room, and he delivered to the courier the outgoing mail, you see. That was the way it worked. It was very simple then.

After you got the mail, then you had your reports to be prepared. You were always reporting on what was taking place in the country. Just to illustrate, suppose it was the energy crisis we have here now, and we were in Nicaragua. I would be telling what the [American] government was doing to meet the crisis there. I'd be telling what the officials told me that they wanted Uncle Sam to do to help them get through the crisis, and I would tell Washington what the opposition in Nicaragua said about all of this, as well as what the government said about all of this so as to give the man on the Nicaraguan desk in Washington as clear a picture of what the situation was in Nicaragua as we were able to see it ourselves. That's your problem: to keep Washington informed of what you know, and then they are in a position to make decisions, whatever decisions they want.

PARHAM: How did you make contacts with the members of the opposition?

WARREN: Well, it's a cinch. You won't be in your office in the embassy two days until they will start calling on you. And they will come in and they'll tell you what a bunch

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of S.O.B.'s the government is, and Somoza is, and everybody else connected that is with it. And then they tell you what we want to do, and what we're going to do, and how good we are. Then when you talk to the government, they tell you about the opposition, tell you what they are going to do and how they're going to do it. So your problem in Latin America--in that respect--your problem is to stay on an even keel so that both sides have confidence in you.

PARHAM: Did you ever have occasion to approach the opposition, or did you have to wait for them to initiate action?

WARREN: Well, I'll illustrate that in this way. The opposition to the Somoza government in Nicaragua was headed by [President Joss Maria] Moncada and [President Emiliano] Chamorro. Chamorro was a Spanish-Indian Nicaraguan—mostly Indian. "Muy macho," 100 percent man. [You] couldn't help liking him--he reminded me of [President Ismet] Inönii [of Turkey]--and I liked him. He was in the opposition. Moncada was not so outspoken, also a good Nicaraguan, also able, also fighting the Somoza setup strongly, looked more like an European than he did an Indian. But they were both outside, and they had their connections throughout the Republic, you see.

PARHAM: Did they represent a particular party?

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WARREN: Yes, yes. They represented the . . . . Now what were the two parties called? I'll try to answer that next time. They represented one party and Somoza represented the other. As I remember it, Somoza's party was the Liberal Party and the other party was centered in Granada. I'm sorry, at the moment I forget what they called their party. Anyway those were the two. The head of Somoza's party, the Liberal or Democratic Party they called it, was . . . . First we'll go back. The head of the opposition party, the center of its activities was Granada. [The center] of the other party, Somoza's party, was Leon, L-E-O-N. Those were the centers. One conservative, so-called, and the other, you might say, liberal. But it doesn't mean what it does in the United States. They're two parties opposed to each other, and the basis of it is the "outs" want to get in, and the "ins" want to stay in. That's the big part. Otherwise for me, an outsider, there wasn't much difference. Now, does that answer that question?

PARHAM: Yes.

WARREN: Now, let's see. Oh, yes. Well, the time had come when Chamorro thought that he had to leave the country, and the government was certainly pushing him to leave. He came to the embassy and he had to get out to the airport

[24]

from town, and he didn't want to depend on the government to pick him up and carry him out to the airport. But now this shows you how carefully you have to walk the line. He came to us and he asked if we would drive him—Chamorro did, the opposition--drive him to the airport in Managua. And Wilhelmina said, "Yes, I'll drive you." And Wilhelmina took him, and he rode in the car with her, and she drove him out to the airport and he took the plane and went wherever it was--I forget now, Guatemala, or wherever.

PARHAM: You didn't go with them though?

WARREN: Yes, I went. But as I remember, I wasn't in the car with Wilhelmina and Chamorro, no. I was in another car. You know, at another time Ex-President--I told you about that before though when we took Ex-President [Juan B.] Sacasa, I was in the car that took him to the train. I went on the train with him to Corinto and then went from the wharf out to the vessel and saw him on board the vessel.

PARHAM: You wanted to make sure that he got put! [Laughter

WARREN: Well, two things I wanted to do. I wanted to be with him to the last so that he could tell me anything he wanted, [and] I wanted to be sure that no fanatic did take a shot at him and kill him. None did, but you can't tell what might happen. He got on board that vessel feeling very kindly toward me and toward Uncle Sam. So much so that

[25]

later on Wilhelmina and I called on him and Mrs. Sacasa when they were living up in New York City near Riverside Drive. We went and called on them there, and after that, they moved out to California and I believe he died out in California.

Well, that shows you , you see, that we did maintain their [the opposition's] confidence. They felt that we were doing that. But they were pushing us for all they were worth and you can be sure that the government was always right there supplying counter-pressure on anything the opposition wanted to do. But we had managed to do that.

I think I told you that when I was in Asunción and [Higinio] Morinigo was President, he was kicked out--coup d'etat. The next morning I got word that the ex-president, Morinigo, wanted to see me. Well, I communicated with the people who had just taken over, and they said, "Go ahead." So I went down to see him, and he was in bed. He was ill. He wasn't putting on a show; he was ill. He wasn't seriously ill, but he was ill and he looked it. He said, "Ambassador, they want to send me to Buenos Aires." He said, "They want to send me by vessel and I'm afraid they'll bump me off." He didn't use that word. "I'm afraid they'll kill me between here and Buenos Aires. I want you to ask Uncle Sam if he won't send a military plane to take me from Asunción to

[26]

Buenos Aires." I said, "Mr. President, I'm sure . . . . You know that if I tell you that I'll ask--and I will ask-but I am sure Washington is going to say 'No."' "Well," he said, "won't you ask anyway?" And I did. I communicated with Washington, and the reply came right back: "No. Can't the diplomatic corps there furnish him some assurances so that he'll feel protected?" So what they did--I don't remember now the steps--but under the aegis of the corps, arrangements were made for Morinigo to go from Asunción to Buenos Aires aboard a river steamer. He had what for the river steamer was a nice cabin and all, and members of the diplomatic corps--and I was among them--saw him, went with him, saw him safely aboard the river steamer and looked at the arrangements that were made to give him protection. He accepted that and was transported safely to Buenos Aires. He lived there and so far as I know, he never moved back to Asunción and became a successful businessman in Buenos Aires. At least he was the last report I had.

So that shows you how you do your best, and you can measure your success by your ability to, as you say, carry water on both shoulders, keep an even keel, keep the confidence of both sides, and be in such a position when something goes wrong that the first person they think

[27]

about is not the ambassador of Great Britain or Mexico or somebody else, but the ambassador of the United States. That's the way to keep your strength up. You don't have to be . . . . Is that running?

PARHAM: Yes. That's all right. Now, let me finish this up. You don't have to be too soft.

WARREN: For instance, I remember giving a message to one President, and it was harsh. When I got through, I said, "Mr. President,"--and he just sort of let it roll off, you know. He was a man, too. I said, "Mr. President, that means you. They are talking about you now." I gave a general statement, you see. He said, "Yes, yes, Fletch, I know they do," and he went right on. So you can lay it right on the line if your conduct has always been what it should be. That is the basis of the best relationship that we can have in Latin America.

PARHAM: Now when we study diplomatic history, we are so accustomed to reading notes that are exchanged between governments. These notes are couched in the most correct language and form, oftentimes in the passive voice, extremely polite and formal.

WARREN: Yes. Absolutely.

PARHAM: Were your personal relationships on such a level or could you be more free and person-to-person with your . . . ?

[28]

WARREN: I'll just speak for myself on that. I was just as free as I knew how to be. I told it exactly as it was. The greatest fear that I had--and I think most diplomats ever have--is that a chief-of-state will later go back later and say to Washington, "Well, your ambassador didn't say that to me." You see?

PARHAM: Of course, Washington has to take his word . . . .

WARREN: Well, they have to give consideration to it. They may not believe a word he said, but they'll pull you out. Anytime he says something like that, they'd pull you out. Just be sure that the government to which you are assigned understands exactly what you say and then afterwards, you can write the most beautiful notes you want to, and that's the way the record stands. But where the hard work comes is getting to the point so that you can write one of these nice notes that they agree on and you agree on, you see. That is the glamour of the diplomatic service for me is meeting the men face-to-face. It may make you sick. Sometimes you can think your own government is wrong. But you never let that fellow sense that you think your government is wrong.

PARHAM: In other words, you don't become another Ambassador Page in London.

WARREN: No, sir; no, sir. The foreign official will respect you

[29]

because this you can be sure of: that he is going always to be thinking about .his government and putting the best possible . . .

PARHAM: Light on matters.

WARREN: . . . light on anything that affects his country. He will fire his ambassador in the United States if he ever learns that he has varied the least bit. So the foreign governments expect it. And, particularly, suppose after this is all over, the President says, "Let's go have a drink." Well, you may not want to drink. Maybe by that time your stomach is churning like that but you'll go have a drink. Then he says, "Well, tomorrow, I'm going down to the Pacific, to my farm at Montemar. How about coming down and spending the day with me?" It makes no difference what you've got to do, you say, "I'll be there." And you come and go with him and have the best time you can. Then maybe when you come back from Montemar, there'll be another message in there that you won't want to give but you'll march right up there and give it just exactly like it is. Then, you use your judgment on whether you show him the message itself or whether you think it better to give it to him orally. I remember one time one ambassador, we gave him one message from Washington, and it was very ticklish and we

[30]

tried to give him all the nuances and all, and he went down and showed it to his government. Well, boy, it was bad, bad for him and bad for the United States! Because he showed them more--I don't know, maybe it was just a slipup on his part, I guess. Maybe he didn't think it through. But that's the basis of being absolutely frank and absolutely true to your instructions. Then, there is another thing that I did, and I was never criticized for it, not once. Except I've had members of my own staff say, "But, Mr. Ambassador, do you want to stick your neck out for that?" [Interruption] In other words, a lot of us ask Washington about everything. I never asked Washington anything that I thought I could take care of myself without asking.

PARHAM: I was just going to ask, how much leeway did Washington give you in your instructions? How much advice did they ask you?

WARREN: In instructions, sometimes they would say, "Present this in the way you think best," or what would amount to that. Sometimes they, the instructions, would say, "To be presented in the following words," or something to that effect. In other words, sometimes they were very precise; other times they gave you leeway. But the situation

[31]

I was referring to where something that happened, say, in the country to which I was accredited, if I could work out what I thought needed to be done, I'd go ahead and work it out and then tell them, tell Washington, what I had done. Never once was I unfortunate enough to be called down or to be told that I shouldn't do that. Because it was simply one less problem for them to handle. That, I think, is a distinction that quite a few ambassadors never made. They'd refer everything to Washington. I don't believe in that. I think that if you're worth your salt and you're on the ground and you're representing your country, if you can take care of it, you ought to take care of it and take care of it quickly. I'll give you a sample. This is not international affairs, except insofar as personnel are concerned. One of the members of my staff in Managua ran over a man in Managua, ran over a man and killed him out in the country. He was a poor wreck of a human being, and we had to do something about it quickly. I was afraid that some clever lawyer would get a-hold of his widow and get her to bring suit against the American government and the [unclear]. That would have hit the . . .[Interruption] We moved quickly. We got in touch with

[32]

the widow, talked to her, and we got money together—not from Uncle Sam. As I remember we took contributions in the office and elsewhere. And we gave her a donation. We got in touch with the Church. We did everything we could to help. Nothing happened. She didn't go to anybody. She felt she'd been fairly treated and we avoided it. If we had waited long enough for everybody in the community to start talking, somebody would have been sure to say, "Well, now you go see Juan Dominguez and get him. He's a good lawyer. Let him try his hand at Uncle Sam." Well, now our action was something I knew I wouldn't get in bad [for] if I solved it. If I didn't solve it, Uncle Sam hadn't suffered. We were trying to do what we could about it. But everyone doesn't see it that way. That is not foreign affairs in the strict sense but it could be a subject of foreign affairs. If it were a subject of foreign affairs and I saw that I could take care of it, I'd go ahead and then tell Washington what I had done afterwards. That keeps down the amount of stuff that you have going on. Then it stops the community from saying ,"Well, Warren, he'll never make a decision. You can depend, he'll take it up with Washington, and then he won't push Washington. One of these days it'll just die, the matter will die of lack

[33]

of attention." That's what I had in mind. That sort of thing.

PARHAM: Now did Washington often solicit advice from you on matters . . . ?

WARREN: In the sense that you think . . . . In the sense that I think you have in mind, I think the answer would have to be, "No." They would communicate with you. Suppose something happened in your country. Washington would communicate with you, set forth the facts, whatever they are, and maybe they'd ask you to do something. Maybe they wouldn't ask you to do something. Then you would react to whatever it was. You'd give the thing as you see it in Nicaragua, and then Washington would know what you were thinking without ever having to ask a subordinate office what to do about something. There were ways of doing it but it wasn't an out-and-out request for [advice]. They might send you a telegram and say, "We hear that the vessel San Juan Del Sur put in at Corinto this morning and this and this and this took place. Report immediately." Well, then you would send someone down, or you'd go down, or you'd find out just what did [happen] and tell them that and then if you had anything you wanted [to say], you could.

PARHAM: How did you, personally, draw the line between deciding

[34]

when you would go investigate, say, or look into a matter, and when you would send a subordinate? This is a question of management, of course.

WARREN: That's right. It's a good question and it happens right along. You know, some men, some officers, after they get to be head of office, they send the other fellow, a junior officer or one of lower rank to investigate or do whatever is necessary to be done rather than go themselves. The only place he would go would be to the Foreign Office or to see the President or to call on the chief of another diplomatic mission or unless he was instructed by the Department to do something. For instance, if I were going to the Foreign Office and I thought the subject was something that might involve someone [not some other embassy officer] and if I thought I could use a member of my staff, I'd take him with me so he would know the case and the Nicaraguan officials involved. This way the Foreign Office soon comes to know the members of your staff that you rely on most. If the Foreign Office man is in the same category, why, he'll call up a lesser man in your office, not you. Now to try to answer definitely. I'd go to the President; I'd go to the members of the chiefs of the other diplomatic missions; I would go to any important agency of the

[35]

government; I would go to anyone that I thought was touchy about having someone from an embassy come to see him because an ambassador can talk to him when maybe another member of his staff couldn't. I would go to see any important American businessman, and I would go at any time that I thought that it was to the advantage of Uncle Sam to have the ambassador go whether it was customary for the ambassador to do that or not. That didn't bother me a bit, whether it was customary. Except with the diplomatic corps. You've got to go according to custom so far as the diplomatic corps [is concerned] and so far, as I've said, as the Foreign Minister and the President. But any other, I'd go to see any of them if I thought I could do it better than the other fellow. Yet you are always looking for an opportunity to send the younger man, your assistant, because some day he's going to be carrying the load, and you want him to feel that you've got confidence in him and that he can do it. So now that doesn't make, I'm sure, in your mind, a very clear distinction. But yet it is something that you can follow if you're sitting at a desk trying to do the job. Does that give you some idea?

PARHAM: Yes, yes, indeed. Just a question concerning other diplomats from other countries. Did you have much of a

[36]

relationship with the British ambassador, the French, or any of the other countries?

WARREN: Well, my last two countries, Venezuela and Turkey, I had closer relationships with the British and the Canadians than in any other country I ever served. This is not in derogation of the British in any way because I just hope that when the day comes for us to step down, as the British have been stepping down, that we can do it with the same graciousness and dignity and concern for the people at home as the British are doing today. We'll have to face up to it someday, and it makes my heart hurt to think that. But it'll come, I'm sure, some day. The only thing is, put it off as long as we can.

PARHAM: Who do you think will succeed us?

WARREN: Well, right now, you can't tell whether it will be the Soviets or the Chinese. You can't tell, but one or the other.

PARHAM: Of course, there are so many things that remain to be seen.

WARREN: Yes, yes. So many things.

PARHAM: Well, for the last few minutes of our conversation today, let me just ask, were there any outstanding matters that you may recall that you may have handled during your ambassadorship to . . . ?

[37]

WARREN: To Nicaragua?

PARHAM: To Nicaragua, yes.

WARREN: No.

PARHAM: Would you say that it was a fairly routine assignment, a peaceful assignment?

WARREN: Yes, it was a peaceful assignment. I loved it. We had pressure on the Nicaraguan government the whole time I was there. You see, it was a dictatorship. It was the embassy's duty to keep the pressure on in any way that Washington indicated.

PARHAM: Could you possibly elucidate a little on . . . ? When you say pressure . . . ?

WARREN: Well, you see, that comes from not having papers that I can refer to to tell you about it. But, for instance, elections were coming up, and the opposition was clamoring to high heaven this and that and the other, and Washington would be interested in a fair election. It would be interested in making it perfectly clear to the Nicaraguan government that they wanted to see a fair election, that it would redound to the honor and dignity and glory and well-being of the Republic of Nicaragua if it did that. The government of Nicaragua would be trying to hold its position as it had it at that time. So we'd be--the embassy would be--putting pressure on the Nicaraguans to

[38]

hold the fair elections. After the elections, if there were complaints that the elections weren't fair, why, then we would have to get into that angle and see what the government had to say and see what the opposition had to say and see where you thought the truth lay, that sort of thing. We were in the unhappy position of having to ride herd on one of the nations that has always been as good a friend as we've got in the world and is today. It is one of the few, you see, that still stands up--despite what has taken place in Venezuela, what took place and is being straightened out in Chile, in Bolivia, wherever the Communists are acting in Latin America. It stood pat. So it would be pressure applied in the interests of better government in Nicaragua and trying to keep the actual government in Nicaragua as near the center of the line as we could. Now that's general.

PARHAM: Was it ever exasperating to you, personally, having to be sort of a referee? It must have been enough having your own work to do plus this additional work.

WARREN: Yes, that's right. But in the final analysis, that was the reason I was there. That was the reason I was there: to try to keep things from happening in Nicaragua, try to keep them living in peace. And if it worked out that the dictatorship continued, all right, have it as good a

[39]

dictatorship as we could. In other words, if you are there and you're conscientious, you get to the point where you feel, "Gosh, my job is just as big as that of any I see around." And the only thing is, I'm supposed to be as impartial as I can because all we [the United States government] want . . or what. We don't want anything from Nicaragua except that it stay on the map and do the best it can by it's citizens--and that goes for any country in Latin America. They tell you we demand a lot. The thing that we worked the hardest on was this sort of thing: keeping the scales evenly balanced, persuading the Nicaraguans, assisting them, inducing them to have the best government they could. Of course, it was hard, and you lost some sleep and all, but it was tremendously worthwhile. [Inaudible] And you know when you are there on the job, you know that you are never going to get credit for what you are doing. Your credit is . . . . You know what [was] the greatest satisfaction in my life, in my whole career? That nothing ever happened in that country, in the countries in which I served, that really hurt Uncle Sam for which I could be blamed. In other words, we looked the whole thing over from the periphery right into the center. Your ambition is to go through your four years there or whatever it is and when it's over, for

[40]

no one to say, "Well, this big thing started during that period, or the other." So in a way, the better you do your job, the less will be said about it. The better your job is, the less is said about it. The better your job is, the fewer lines there will be in the yearbook or whatever is written regarding it. But that is your job. You get to the point when you feel pretty good when you think--you have to think it to yourself, and you probably won't even tell your wife--"Well, I prevented something bad from taking place there." That, to my mind, is the key to good diplomacy. Some other men will look at it a little differently and they'll say, "Well, Fletch, I don't agree with you about that. It seems to me like that the best thing you can do is to smooth out things that have arisen." That's all right; that's part of it. But you're really being a diplomat when you can so conduct yourself and have enough influence that you can keep things from happening.

PARHAM: In other words, preventive diplomacy rather than corrective diplomacy.

WARREN: To my mind. To my mind, that's right. But you will never get to the point where there won't be any corrective diplomacy. That's bound to happen because we're human beings. We'll never get away from that. But any time

[41]

that you can so conduct yourself and so handle the prestige and the clout which Uncle Sam gives you, as to keep things from happening . . . . For instance--and this will take just a moment. Right now, to my mind, we are in the worst situation as a nation that I think we have ever been. First, we have a President [Richard Nixon] who intended to make a record in foreign affairs. He knew more about it, I suppose, even than [President] Woodrow Wilson . He had intended to do that. He started out on that. Well, his influence has been destroyed practically or was-he's beginning to come back now--by Watergate. It has torn into the prestige which the President of the United States needs in order to deal with such things as Vietnam, with the Middle East, with Communist China, in negotiations with the USSR. In other words, we've taken away from him what he needs in order for him to do the foreign affairs job. The American people, perhaps, have the lowest estimate right now of the American government, the American policies, the American politicians perhaps at any time since maybe the Civil War. Maybe ever. They have such a bad opinion of the government today that if something terrific were to happen, something like Allen Drury talks about, or foresees, or says is possible in Come Nineveh, Come Tyre, that the American

[42]

people today would find it easy to change the concept of our government. I think we are in a lot shakier position than we were after the Civil War or after World War II. Suppose that we are back after World War II when we made a decision and decided to give quotas on sugar to every Latin American country that produced sugar. The Cubans took a very dim view of that and they still do. But we did it, and it hurt the Cuban government. But at the same time, we were helping every other Latin American government that took part of that quota. We insured, thereby, enough sugar for these United States for years to come, taking into consideration whatever we could produce locally as beet sugar. We are in good position today--or were the last check I made on it—with respect to sugar. Following World War II, I remember particularly when we were in Venezuela. I had served twice in Colombia, another oil-producing country, and I had watched Peru, which had oil. We had them begging us to take more oil. It would have been possible at that time to have gone in, settled on a policy, taken as much oil as we could get from the oil-producing countries in Latin America, our sphere, our hemisphere. We could have agreed on a price or a price system that could have been escalated or de-escalated. We could have had them at a time when they were asking us to

[43]

please take more oil. But we let the independent oil producers and dealers here in Texas sell us on the idea that you only take abroad what we can't produce here. Today they can't produce enough to supply us, and we can't get it anywhere else. What we are getting now, these other countries have gone up until it is four or five times the price that it was before. Now suppose
you had had someone dedicated to that idea twenty years ago. Suppose you had had an Under Secretary of State. Suppose [Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs] Willy Clayton, when he was the economic czar, so to speak, of the State Department, suppose he had set out on that, we wouldn't have any energy crisis today. What's that honey? [Interruption]

But what you have referred to as preventive diplomacy, well, there is too little of that in our government. We are more or less, as a government, addicted to corrective [diplomacy]. Things have been going along, and you do what you can after you're faced with a situation. That's the reason why I have the idea . . . . That illustrates what I have in mind, and we would certainly not be up against the situation that we have today. And men saw that, but the American people didn't see it.

PARHAM: It's an economic policy of a different time that is just too late.

[44]

Too late. Now don't misunderstand this. Don't think that this is what I think should happen. But let's take a look at the dictatorships. If you want to make it Nicaragua, or if you want to make it the USSR, or Communist China, or Turkey, any authoritarian government, usually what they do, they decide on the long-range policy that they are going to have. They make it, and then they follow it out. And as the usual thing, they don't have a congress or somebody else that is checking on them. For instance, if the USSR tomorrow wants to change its policy, all they have to do is to meet tonight and make the decision and tomorrow it is in effect. They don't have to ask anybody anything. Now that's a difference between a democracy and an authoritarian government, as I see it. I think I've said this before, but it is worth saying again. At the time I left the Foreign Service, I think I had more experience in authoritarian governments than any other Foreign Service officer. There was only one government that I ever served--and that was Olaya Herrera's in Colombia--that was a democracy, a real democracy. So that illustrates this situation. Now next question.

PARHAM: Oh, I just had one other question and this to wrap up. I was trying to remember my Latin American geography. I seem to recall that the Costa Ricans feared the

[45]

Nicaraguans. Were there any clashes . . .

WARREN: Any grounds for it?

PARHAM: . . between the two when you were there that you recall? I was trying to think of an international episode or incident that occurred.

WARREN: Yes. Let me tell you. I told you that Luis Somoza, the oldest son, was the first one to become President after his father died. Luis married a girl from Costa Rica. I knew her. She was a beautiful girl. I used to see her at every dance we went to. She was there. Luis married her and raised a family. Now there is one thing to keep in mind about the Latin Americans. I love them. I'm more at home in Latin America than I am here in Greenville, Texas. I think my reactions there could be more instinctive than they could maybe here among my own people. By the way, that's one reason why I came back to the States to live because I wanted to see what made my own people tick. But remember always--and I don't care who it is . . . . This, what we've said this afternoon, I'm going to ask that this not be printed . . . .

PARHAM: This portion right here?

WARREN: Right here, what we're talking about, until after I'm dead.

Extracted portion; not to be inserted herein nor used publicly or privately until after the demise of Ambassador Warren. Then it can be appended as Pages 45-A, 45-B.

[45A]

RESTRICTED

WARREN: I don't care what government it is in Latin America, remember this: that the most important point of all is that the "in's" want to stay in and the "out's" want to get in. They will do anything they can to involve the United States in order to be able to blame the United States if things don't go right, in order to cast criticism on the government because it has been close to the United States. The "out's" . . . . I don't care what group it is, I don't care. You can take any country and any group, and that's the way they operate. Then when they get in, the ones that get in, they're in Washington just as quick as they can. They in effect say, "Well, that's water under the bridge now. We want to go along. " And they want to be exactly where the other fellow was. Then the other fellow goes out and he goes to Paris or Miami or some other place and after a suitable length of time, he comes back. That's the way it's done. They are more civilized about this thing in one respect than we are. The opposition gets to the point where they know it is going to win. They'll even communicate with the President and say, "Look here now. You've got your troops here and here and here. Well, we've got this many. We've got them here and here. We've got more than you've got. Now do you want to resign and get out and let us take

[45B]

RESTRICTED

over or do you want a show of force, or do you want a real battle?" The President will look the situation over and he'll decide whether it is worth fighting for. or not. In all probability he'll decide it's not. They'll let him depart with his family and his friends and bank accounts and go to Paris, or go to Madrid, or go to any place and they'll take over knowing doggone good and well that ten years, twenty years, twenty-five years from now, [they'll be in the reversed situation, facing a victorious opposition and they'll have to get out.]*

End of Restricted Passage

End of Interview

*The above restricted passage is based on Latin America before Communism became powerful there. Now when the Reds win an election, they turn to the Kremlin, not the State Department. fw

[46]

Eighth Interview with Ambassador William Fletcher Warren by Byron A. Parham, Commerce, Texas,
January 14, 1974.

PARHAM: [These] interviews with Ambassador Fletcher Warren [are] for the East Texas State University Oral History Project.

Ambassador Warren, in early 1947 you were relieved of your post--I suppose that may not be the correct word--at Managua and you were then appointed ambassador to Paraguay. Would you please give us your reminiscences concerning this assignment?

WARREN: I remember that quite a few assignments, or reassignments, new nominations were made at that time, and I was disappointed with Paraguay. I thought I had acquitted myself reasonably well in Nicaragua and I was hoping that I would get something better than Paraguay. I can remember calling the Department of State and asking, I said, "Does the Department consider Paraguay just as important as Nicaragua?"

[47]

I said, "I had not thought of it in that way," or words to that effect. Well, of course, I would have known the answer had I thought about it even before I asked. And the answer came back, "Yes, it is very important, and we are very pleased that you are going there." Well, I accepted that and went ahead. If we were today re-aligning my posts in the Service and had to leave one of them out, Paraguay wouldn't be one that I would leave out. It was one of the most delightful assignments we ever had, and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

PARHAM: You were given a choice of going to that post or were you . . . ?

WARREN: I wasn't. I was told.

PARHAM: You were told.

WARREN: I was told, yes. Friends of mine got other posts, and I thought that I got the poorest one of all. Today I'm glad that I got Paraguay instead of one of the others.

PARHAM: That's very interesting. The average American knows less than nothing, perhaps, about Paraguay if he even knows where it is.

WARREN: Well, it's a remarkable little country. A friend of ours has just come from a trip around South America and yet she liked Paraguay better than any country that she visited, and she visited most of the capitals of Latin

[48]

America. It's booming now. It has good water, good hotels. There is law and order. The Paraguayans are advancing economically and growing, I think, in almost every sense. It all began about the time that [Ambassador Willard L.] Beaulac was assigned to Paraguay. I can't remember much about it before Beaulac went there. But he was a first-rate ambassador and from that time on, why, he handled matters very well. Today, Paraguay--like Nicaragua--has one of the stablest governments and economies in Latin America.

PARHAM: What do you recall happening or what events stand out foremost in your mind in relation to this assignment?

WARREN: In the first place, it added to my experience as a Foreign Service officer in contact with authoritarian governments. I was there about three and a-half years. During that period, during a period of thirteen months, I saw seven Presidents. One revolution after another. I came to understand, I think very clearly, the Latin American attitude toward revolution, toward government, toward the treatment of ex-Presidents, and toward their desires to develop their own government in the way that they wanted to develop it--not the way we [Yanquis] wanted. I was [unclear] impressed when President [Higinio] Morinigo--the morning after he was ejected--sent for me

[49]

and asked that Uncle Sam send a plane to take him to Buenos Aires. That didn't materialize; and it didn't change the fact that here was a dictator who, in the final analysis, trusted the United States, who opposed then, now, and for the foreseeable future, dictatorships. He knew that he would get a square deal out of the US government. He didn't get what he wanted, but he did get safe conduct to Buenos Aires.

So I wouldn't change that experience and the experience I had in Nicaragua for anything else that I can think of. I'll always be sorry that I didn't go to Afghanistan, but I didn't get there. But I think that I should note here that I liked the Paraguayan. He's simple; he's honest; he's self-respecting; he sits there in the middle of the continent of South America with no seaport. He has a very primitive life. He has today almost a minimum of income and yet he is self-respecting and he wants nothing from you except what he can pay for. [Unclear] So that characterizes my service as ambassador.

PARHAM: May I ask a question?

WARREN: Please.

PARHAM: President Morinigo was chief-of-state when you . . . ?

WARREN: When I arrived, he was. I presented my credentials to him. He was one of the seven Presidents I saw in thirteen

[50]

months. He was the first one.

PARHAM: Now each time there was a new president, did you have to re-present your credentials or did they accept your credentials?

WARREN: No. When we extended recognition, why, that was all that was required. When Washington announced that we recognized the successor to Morinigo, whose name I don't even recall now, that was all that was required. When you get to the end of a regime like that by revolution, the thing I always watched most closely was not to do anything, have any contact with the new group, that would be tantamount to recognition because the new group is just looking for, something like that. They want that above all things, the recognition of the United States. The moment you can call down and ask at the Foreign Office--to say that you want to see the President and see him at once, they have already had the news from Washington from the press or from their ambassador up there. Well, you get in there quick, as quick as they can get you in, and you deliver your message.

PARHAM: Now is this message . . . ? I was going to ask you if there is some sort of a document that you deliver?

WARREN: No, no. As I remember now, I don't think I ever had a

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document. I just went down and told them that I had a communication from the Department that the government of, we'll say, Paraguay is recognized as de jure government. Then we were in business.

PARHAM: Now this involved you as the representative of the United States government?

WARREN: That's right.

PARHAM: What about the ambassador in Washington who was the representative of President Morinigo? Did they change him very often?

WARREN: Sometimes they didn't change at all. I mean the ambassador would carry on from one group to another. I'm pretty sure--although I am depending upon my memory now, as you know--that during these seven changes that I've been talking about, that the same ambassador carried on up there. "We've got a stable government in Paraguay. The new President's gotten in the saddle and gained control." Then when he had done that, why, he would . . . . .If he wanted to, if he were not satisfied with the ambassador, he would be replaced.

PARHAM: To what do you attribute this rapid succession of leaders?

WARREN: In Paraguay?

PARHAM: Yes.

WARREN: Well, there is one thing that it all goes back to. This

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is a simplification--and there will be those who will say an oversimplification--but the big thing in the revolution is that the "out's" want to get in, and the "in's" have not been able to withstand the attacking group. When they get in, why, then the "in's" go out, go their own separate ways. And it seems to me that they go their separate ways with less feeling, perhaps, than we have sometimes in the democracies. They go their way to Paris, Madrid, New York, Miami, Mexico City or some other place to live. I have here now--it came yesterday [January 13, 1974]--an invitation, an announcement of a wedding, of [Pedro Estrada] the man who headed up [President Marco] Pérez Jiménez's secret police [in Venezuela]. He's lived in Paris. His daughter has married, evidently, a Spaniard, and this is the wedding invitation. Pérez Jiménez is over there in Spain and, as you know, if he is still living, [Regent Nicolas] Horthy [from Hungary] is in Estoril, Portugal. These people thought once that they were coming back to Venezuela. Pérez Jiménez and Pedro Estrada. I got a telegram after the elections from Pedro saying, "We're headed back for Caracas." After the elections, after these people had won the election, the new government, [President Romulo Betancourt et al] changed the rules and said to Pérez Jiménez, "No, you can't come back." So it's an old

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story for anyone who has been a long time in Latin America. In this case, they wanted Morinigo's job. He had been there a long time . They wanted to run the country and that was what they would do. Of course, there were always issues but the paramount thing was the desire to get control of the office. [Unclear] So it would be hard to get an old-timer in Latin America, an American old-timer, very excited about a revolution. Usually there is not much loss of life and not too many problems.

[Here follows, for two minutes and twelve seconds, a loss of sound, from recorder meter reading 350 to 419. NOTE: Between meter reading 369 and 374, and 394 to 396, there are very loud, sudden noises, so be aware of these high-noise levels. The following text picks up at meter reading 419 , where the sound is very low. At meter reading 440, the sound suddenly becomes loud and the volume must be adjusted downward. The cause for this recording difficulty is unknown. Byron Parham]*

PARHAM: You mentioned a few minutes ago something I understand you to mean as the "Philosophy of the Revolution."

WARREN: Yes.

PARHAM: Would you explain that, please?

WARREN: Well, it goes back to this. The Latin American countries got into democracy after winning their independence. All of these countries in Latin America were colonies. All of
them had their wealthy groups. All of them had the way of

*Ambassador Warren in reading from the rough draft inked in the following remarks: B. P.: I can't help on this. Fw

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Spanish life that was characteristic of that period. The revolutions were staged and independence was won not because a majority of the people in the country necessarily wanted democracy or really understood what it was all about. Revolution was the thing to do to win your independence as a colony, and there was always a group in every country that could see how it was going to win if it could gain their independence. That, in my opinion, was true from the Rio Grande to Punta Arenas. So when they came in, when the revolutionaries gained their independence, they had to make a choice of the kind of government that they wanted. They had been talking about democracy, about winning their independence from Spain, [and] other things. But the main thing they wanted was to win the independence and gain control of the government and go their separate ways. And that is what they did. Then as they went along, they found that democracy didn't work like they wanted it to work. Democracy doesn't work unless you have got a background of experience in government, an interest in government, that comes from many years of trying to be a self-dependent country. You don't get that overnight. You don't get it by educating a few of your people and sending them to the best universities. You get that

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by living the democracy. We got it through the British experience and our own. Well, the new masters in these colonies found that democracy didn't work as they expected it to. They found that the strongest groups came to the top and got control of the various governments as they went along. Then when they got ready, when the people down below or other leaders decided that they wanted in, they couldn't adapt the democratic process to getting the fellows out who were at the top and had the army behind them. Democracy didn't adapt to that. So they added one other step--and so far as their living and thinking goes, it is effective--and that is, when you can't get them out any other way, kick them out. Then you take over and run [affairs]. Then as soon as you can, why, you hold an election and legalize your position. Now as I understand Latin America, that is the way they look at it: a revolution is just one step more than we have in the democracies of the United States and Great Britain. We don't--heretofore we haven't--we don't kick out a man that has been duly elected as President. The Latin Americans figure that there come times when they have to kick the government out and they do it in what to us is an extralegal way--but to all intents and purposes it's an accepted way in all of the American

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republics that I've been in. That is what I meant when I said I came to understand what was behind their endeavor to run their governments and added revolution as simply one further step in the governmental process. Is that clear? Did I make that clear?

PARHAM: Yes, yes. Very clear.

WARREN: Because I think . . . . I don't believe the United States government accepts that.

PARHAM: It is certainly alien to our ideology.

WARREN: Ideology. And you know, Dr. Parham, the greatest mistake we make is by judging the other fellow by our ideology. If you want to understand the other fellow, if you want to get along with him, you've got to understand his ideology and take it into consideration. We have insisted all along--it's what I call the "Sunday School attitude"--we've insisted all along on judging what we see south of the border by the standards of Anglo-Saxon thinking and training. That is the reason some of the other countries get along better. The Germans, for instance, get along better in Latin America than we have heretofore gotten along. They are willing to accept that reasoning. They send their people down and they say in effect, "You're not to interfere with their way of doing things. You're not down there to teach them

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how to run their government. You're down there to live under that government." They marry and the second generation is part of the setup there.

PARHAM: Would you attribute this to the so-called American missionary complex?

WARREN: That's part of it: the American missionary complex . . .

PARHAM: The missionary-political complex?

WARREN: . . . is part of that. It certainly is. It certainly is part of that.

PARHAM: If it's good enough for us, then it should be good enough for the rest of the world.

WARREN: That's right. That's right.

PARHAM: That is a rather dangerous attitude.

WARREN: It is. And it's gotten us into trouble. There is one other thing in that connection that I might mention. When we decide to make a move beyond the borders of the United States, and if it is intervention, intervening into the affairs of another country, we always look around for the best set of reasons, reasons that will stand up in church, and in Sunday School, [and] other places, reasons in keeping with what we have been trained as citizens of the United States, reasons in keeping with our British heritage. And we set those forth and, of course, they always put the best

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interpretation on our motives. To Americans it looks good. Now the other fellow on the receiving end of our good intentions--and let's say for this moment that our estimate of our intentions are approximately correct [and] that the motivation we assign to ourselves is approximately correct--the other fellow on the receiving end of our good intentions, he doesn't accept that for a moment as anything except Yanqui misrepresentation. He thinks that we're doing whatever it is we do for one reason and one reason only, and that is it's to our best interest. He doesn't care what we say about it. He looks at it and he says, "Oh, yes. I wonder what the Yanquis get out of this?" He may never decide what it is the Yanquis are getting but he thinks that we are getting something. He will think that the Yanqui is just smarter than he, the Latin American, had thought he was and that he had not been able to determine the "something." In other words, the Latin Americans believe that everything you do is motivated by your best--or what you conceive to be your best—self-interest because that's what motivates them.

PARHAM: It is certainly a more realistic view than what the Americans are taking [unclear].

WARREN: It is just as realistic as it can be. It's just as

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realistic as they can be. This will take a moment but I think it is worthwhile. This illustrates perfectly this point, only it's an individual. When I went to Barranquilla, Colombia, in July, 1929, as consul, I found there a representative of the Dawes Bank in Chicago. His name was Samuel Hollopeter. I think I may have referred to this but I believe it is worthwhile to mention it right here again. Hollopeter was there sitting on a loan that the bank had made to the city of Barranquilla. Well, Hollopeter spent his working life right there in Barranquilla. The city had one loan after another. Every penny was spent honestly; every dollar was repaid. Hollopeter saw it all through, and when it was over, he retired to Florida where he's living.

I hear from him occasionally. Hollopeter established a reputation there for a scrupulous performance of his duty, for spending the bank's money as it should have been spent, for looking out for the interests of the Barranquillerns better than the native of Barranquilla would have done himself. But there were those in Barranquilla who, from the beginning and at the end, believed that Hollopeter must be making money out of that that they didn't know about, that he must be laying it

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away. And all that he was getting was his salary. They couldn't believe that a man would handle that much money and do the things he was doing unless somewhere he was profiting from it. They just said, these men said—and I knew at the time some of them--"Well, he's just smarter than we are. We just can't see how he does it." That illustrates the point entirely. So we would be much more realistic, we would get much farther in Latin America if we would quit trying to assign the finest motivation for actions and just go ahead and do what is best for ourselves. That is what our friends in Latin America are going to think that we're doing anyway. We might as well do just what is best for us and then there would be no misrepresentation and they would come nearer to understanding us. But that is enough on that. I think I made that clear, have I not?

PARHAM: Yes.

WARREN: Good. Next question.

PARHAM: Perhaps here you would like to interject something that you have in mind. You have some notes, there.

WARREN: Here? I have something here that I just might mention: a group of names.

PARHAM: Please do.

WARREN: During these years in Latin America and before I came

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to my final post in Ankara arid for the best part of my service in Latin America, I came to know intimately [Assistant Secretary of State] Adolf Berle--Adolf A. Berle, Jr. I met and knew [Assistant Secretary of State] Spruille Braden, Sumner Welles, [Secretary of State] E. R. Stettinius [and Secretary of State] Cordell Hull. These were the principal people in positions of importance in the Department [of State] that I came to know during this period. In FC--that's Foreign Activity Correlation that we have spoken about before--I met and worked with and had as members of my staff: Frederick B. Lyon, Winthrop Murray Crane, the grandson of old Senator Winthrop Murray Crane.

PARHAM: How do you spell his last name, sir?

WARREN: C-R-A-N-E, Crane. He was, the grandfather, the Senator from Massachusetts and a particular friend of [President] Calvin Coolidge. Herbert J. Cummings, who is still an important official in the Department of Commerce.

PARHAM: In the Department of Commerce, did you say?

WARREN: Yes. The Department of Commerce. Oscar Straus, whose family was interested in silver mining in Mexico, he's retired now [and] living in New York; Walter H. A. Coleman, an old chief petty officer of the navy who has gone on; E. V. Polutnik, who is retired now--he stayed in the Foreign Service all of his life--he's retired and living in Great Falls, Montana; Betty Flohr,

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who was my secretary and one of the principal gals in the Foreign Activity Correlation [group]; and I have mentioned--because he was in Washington at the time--Arthur Bliss Lane, who was my chief in Nicaragua, Latvia, and Colombia. I just wanted to mention these names in connection with my service. You asked me at one time whether I knew Mr. [Wilbur J.] Carr [Director, Consular Service]. I did know Mr. Carr,. Not intimately because he was too far up and I was too low down in the scheme of things. Herbert C. Hengstler, the chief of the Consular Bureau, I knew well. Green H. Hackworth, who was in the Legal Advisor's Office and was later a judge on the International Court at The Hague; [Assistant Secretary of State] John Van A. MacMurray, an outstanding diplomat; [Ambassador] Stanley K. Hornbeck, who was distinguished in the Far East; [Ambassador] William R. Castle, in the European Division, although I understand his family was originally a New England family that went out to Hawaii and got to be an outstanding name in that colony. He then came back and was the European Division of the Department of State. I might also mention William R. Manning,, who was on the staff of the University of Texas and migrated to Washington and spent his last years, many years, in the Department of State. All of these I came to know and many others, and that's enough of that, I think.

PARHAM: There is one thing I'm curious about. There was a time

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when the United States had no ambassadors. We had only ministers. In fact, our first ambassadors were to Great Britain and to Paris. That was in 1893. Today we hardly have any--if at all--ministers. We have an awful lot of ambassadors. Why send an ambassador, a diplomat of the highest rank, to such a small country as Paraguay?

WARREN: Yes. That's a very good question. Usually one country doesn't send its representative as an ambassador unless the receiving country does the same thing. It is ambassador and ambassador. Well, if John Smith comes to Paraguay as a minister, and he gets there and he finds that Uruguay has an ambassador there and Uruguay is a very small country, arid John Smith is representing the United States, a large country, he is outranked at every party he goes to. When the President [of Paraguay] is receiving, he has to receive the ambassadors before he does the ministers. Normally that is the way he would do it. So Smith says, "Well, I want to be an ambassador so I will rank properly with the other people here in Asunción. I will rank according to my date of arrival and take my place among the ambassadors in that way." Also Juan Gomez, in Washington, writes back to Asuncion and says, "Now look, I'll be a lot more effective if you make me an ambassador up here. I can take my place

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and I won't be outranked by these little African countries or some others that don't have one-half of the population that we do in Paraguay." So everybody wants to have the rank of ambassador. At first, the USA restricted ourselves. We had so many ambassadors. I don't know what the number was. We'll say sixteen. The rest of them were ministers. And that was the way it was. But then a special occasion would come up. A special occasion did come up somewhere. The Department of State broke over and once you break over, why then the pressure is . . . it's impossible to withstand it. The first thing you know you have made every chief of mission an ambassador. And there is a real advantage, too, in that. If you are an ambassador, you can ask to see the chief of state, the President or whatever he is, any time because you are the personal representative of the President of the United States. As minister, you're not the personal representative. You're the representative of the United States government. But as ambassador, you are the personal representative; and any time you want to see the chief of state, the President, or whatever you have, you're going to get to see him. Likewise in Washington. When the ambassadors want to see the President, they get to see him. That, according to my

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experience, is the explanation of why we have so few [ministers]. I don't think we have a one. We have all ambassadors now instead of ministers.

PARHAM: Can you recall any particular problem that arose between the United States and Paraguay while you were . . . ?

WARREN: Any particular problem?

PARHAM: Yes, sir..

WARREN: No, other than the problem of recognition, you see, of all these various Presidents. As I remember now, without going back, we didn't recognize all those. One man lasted as President less than a day, in fact. But recognition, reporting what was happening in Paraguay so that Washington always knew just where our interests lay was the big thing. I never did more political reporting-Fletcher Warren, as an individual--than I did in Paraguay. Our contacts were good; and I'm sure that if Washington has not destroyed them, there is an understandable record of what took place in Paraguay during those hectic months and years. But they don't always. The reason I am so sure is because when I went back to Washington on leave at one time, they said, "Oh, you're sending in too much stuff. Cut it down. Your telegraph bills are too big."'

PARHAM: [I'll] bet that gave your code clerk a problem, too, didn't it?

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WARREN: Yes, that's right. We certainly gave him a fit. But it worked out all right, and I just hope that all that information we sent in is still available. I'm afraid it's not. But it should be because it was reporting what was taking place. We reported hour by hour almost on what was happening down there.

PARHAM: Now these--they were almost like power plays--did they take place in the capital city or were they countrywide, with one President succeeding another?

WARREN: Well . . . . . .

PARHAM: I'm trying to recall if Paraguay has large concentrations of population.

WARREN: Yes. Yes, meaning I understand your question. It was like this: there was Asunción, which was the main city, the main concentration of population in Paraguay. There were maybe four, five or six other points in the republic, but the city of Asunción was by far the most important. There were concentrations of troops around Asunción and . . . . .

PARHAM: You're speaking of barracks now?

WARREN: Yes, barracks. The nearest one was just on the eastern edge, maybe slightly northeast, of Asunción. Another one was down southeast of Asunción. When I was there, that was the post occupied by [President] Alfredo Stroessner as the colonel-

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in-charge down there. There would be a few, you know, scattered around for protective purposes, maybe on the Brazilian frontier and some down on the Argentine frontier. But most of the troops were in or near Asunción. Consequently most of the activity when there was an uprising against the government was reasonably near Asunción or in Asunción. That means--getting back to your question--that the center of interest was Asunción and the cluster of posts or barracks around the city. The rest of the country carried on as best it could. Today they could have one man as President and the next week it would be someone else, and they would carry on just the same and they would accept whatever had taken place in Asunción. I don't know whether I make that clear or not.

PARHAM: Yes, it is.

WARREN: But that is the way it worked in Paraguay. It worked pretty much the same in Nicaragua. Except in Nicaragua, León was an important center and so was Granada and so was Matagalpa up in the mountains toward Honduras and then there was Corinto, which was important but not like the others that I have mentioned. But the most important one was Campo del Marte, C-A-M-P-O d-e-1 M-A-R-T-E, right there in the city of Managua. That was absolutely the

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prime object of any effort to overthrow the government: to have possession of the Campo del Marie. Then of course, you wanted to be sure that you had control of the troops out in Matagalpa and León and other places. But the main thing was that you got the capital city and were able to control that, and then you would have less trouble in the rest of the country.

PARHAM: Just what was Campo del Marten?

WARREN: It was a big enclosure, a drilling field. It was a . . . . .

PARHAM: I see.

WARREN: . . . a barracks.

PARHAM: A caserne, more or less?

WARREN: Yes, I suppose it goes back to the French idea of the caserne. I guess it does. Yes, that's what it was, at any rate.

PARHAM: Now the men you most often dealt with, probably the Foreign Ministers--I may be backtracking a little here, considering Nicaragua and Paraguay. Were these men, would you say, well-educated, well-trained, or were they just simply henchmen of the man in control?

WARREN: Well, now, I'll try to answer that as accurately as I can. In the first place, the men in important positions in an authoritarian government, certainly in Nicaragua

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and in Paraguay--we won't get beyond that. [They] were men who knew what they were doing. For instance, the Foreign Minister in Managua was a lawyer. If you took him to a cocktail party in Washington, D. C. and walked in with him and introduced him to a few people, you could lose him right there like you could any sophisticated American. He was just as clean cut, could hold his own in conversation. This man spoke English. He was attorney for the Standard Fruit Company that I have mentioned today. His connection with the United States paralleled those of President [Anastasio] Somoza and the administration, but they were connections that he had made before he became important to Somoza. He was formal. I used to talk to him just as you and I are talking now, and I could always see him whenever I wanted, if he were in town. He certainly called for me whenever he wanted to see me. In other places where I was--and we'll go back to Asunción now-the Minister for Foreign Affairs was also an outstanding, well-educated individual. You wouldn't be ashamed of him as a representative of your government if you were a Nicaraguan or a Paraguayan. I've often said that the man in Turkey that they hanged, [Fatin Rüstü] Zorlu, Minister for Foreign Affairs, was perfectly capable of being Secretary of State of the United States of America.

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The man who headed up the foreign affairs in Venezuela—his name was [Jose Arismendi, A-R-I-S-M-E-N-D-I, and another one there was Gomez Ruiz--they were outstanding individuals who knew the United States, knew what we were doing, kept up with what was taking place in the United States. There was nothing weak about them except the fact that they were representing a dictatorial government. That's the only thing I can say. I would have trusted Mariano Arguello in Managua had he been in the Legal Advisor's Office in the Department of State. I would have trusted him to look out for the interests of the United States right down the line. But now there is one thing I haven't answered there: how about henchmen? Well, that has a bad connotation but it could also have a good connotation. For instance, today it is almost a nasty word to say patriotic, to say that a man is patriotic. That hasn't always been the case. That wasn't the case until about fifteen years ago it started to be that way. These men, when you say they are henchmen, they're henchmen in the sense that they are backing the authoritarian government in their country and they're backing it for numerous reasons. But the main one you can sum them all up in is because they think that, things being what they are, that's the best they can do for the country in which they live. Does

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that answer you?

PARHAM: Yes, yes, indeed. The next question would be: in the American mind, a dictatorship is often synonymous with graft, corruption, free-spending of American dollars and so on. Did you find this to be true? If so, in general or what?

WARREN: Now in the first place--speaking generally. I'm not speaking with reference to a particular country now. Speaking generally, speaking of Latin America--I'm not speaking of Hungary, I'm not speaking about Latvia-speaking about Latin America. Generally there is graft in all those countries. And speaking of the time that I got into the Service and up until the time that I went as ambassador to Turkey in 1956, there was, I would have said, there was less corruption in the United States, less graft than was customary in those countries. But again that was something that the people accepted and expected. Just as today, one reason we're in the hell of a mess that we're in is because we are getting to the point where everybody expects graft and all. For instance, you tell a man today that he can't do something in the United States, the first thing he asks is, "Well, isn't there some way to get around that?" That's the first thing he asks. You see a man driving down the road with

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his son, and the father knows that it is against the law to litter up the highways. He'll pull into a joint and he'll buy hamburgers and drinks and all and get back in the car with his son and go down the road eating. When he gets through, the father will toss the things out the window. We've gotten to the point where that has affected our standards in the United States. Today maybe you see . . . .Now remember, I've been out of Latin America now quite a long time. I've been out of the Service, this is the thirteenth or fourteenth year. But I believe there is almost as much corruption in the United States today as there is in Venezuela, Colombia, maybe Mexico. Mexico has always been bad for it. You don't have--I almost got into trouble about this once in Nicaragua--you don't have any better government than you deserve. We've gotten to the point where we don't deserve very much. We've messed up things so that we don't, and that's the way it is in Latin America. You don't get any better government than what the people demand that they have. And that's true in Latin America, and that's true in the United States. That's true in Great Britain right now. It'll only be by the grace of the good Lord in heaven if the government of Great Britain doesn't go down the drain right now because the English were so sapped by two world wars that

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they just didn't have it in them to get in there and fight [for recovery] like the Germans did after World War II. The Germans came back in no time. The British didn't. Now they will work three days a week rather than tell the labor unions in Great Britain, "You can't wreck your country just to satisfy a small group of people." So I think-I'll put it this way and I think this is fair-I think the amount of graft and corruption in there varies from country to country. The same variation according to what the people have learned about governing themselves. In other words, in any country that I have served in, [it] has gotten as good a government as it deserves, and that is about what we're getting now. We're getting just about what we deserve. Now that may not be a very encouraging picture but I have honestly tried to answer your question.

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Ninth Interview with Ambassador William Fletcher Warren by Byron A. Parham, Commerce, Texas,
January 21, 1974.

PARHAM: Ambassador Warren, if we can today, we'd like to pick up your assignment to the Department of State beginning in 1950 when you were assigned as Director of the Office of South American Affairs.

WARREN: Right. This was the summer of 1950. We'd had a conference, as I remember, of the chiefs of mission of South America at Rio de Janeiro. Edward G. Miller, Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs, had come down and directed the conference. I remember that one of the principal speakers at the conference was [Ambassador] George F. Kerman, whom Miller knew very well. and had brought down to talk to us. That was my first time to see Kerman in action. When the conference was over, I

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went back to Asunción and shortly after I got back--I can't I remember now whether Mr. Miller told me at the conference about my assignment to the Department but I'm inclined to think he did--I received official word that he wanted me to come to Washington for duty under him. As I remember at this point, it was to be a new setup. If it wasn't brand new, it hadn't been working but a short time. I was the first Director of the Office of South American Affairs. Mr. Miller also had in mind an Office of Central American Affairs. He wanted ambassadors to head up these two offices, and he asked me to direct the South American one. I told him that I would be glad to do so although I was entirely happy in Paraguay and would be pleased to stay there another year. When I arrived in Washington, I got my office organized, and we got underway. One day he said, "I'd like to have [Ambassador] Alfred F. Nufer head the Office of Central American Affairs. He's here on duty in the Department now." I went around and talked to my friend, who let me know he would consider the offer. Later on he did accept and became the director of the Office of Central American Affairs. We were friends; we were both career officers. He had come in through the Department of Commerce. I had started in and come up the ladder in the Department of State.

Ed Miller had--he said to give his new setup prestige—

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two career ambassadors as his right-hand men. At the same time, [Ambassador] Thomas C. Mann was on duty in the Department of State. Mann became Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs. So Miller had under him Mann, Warren, and Nufer who, if I remember rightly, was born in Germany but brought up in Cuba. After being Director of the Office of Central American Affairs, he became ambassador to the Philippine Islands and, as I remember, died in the Philippine Islands.

During this tour, of duty, which as you know was only for a year, I had the opportunity to size up the Department from a new angle. I was now high enough up so that I had more insight into the policy-making prerogatives of the Department than I had had at any time heretofore. I was as close to Miller as Nufer and Tom Mann, who later became ambassador to San Salvador and ultimately Assistant Secretary for Latin American Affairs. He became the Latin American right-hand man for President [Lyndon B.] Johnson. Now retired, he lives in Austin

I felt--probably with prejudice--that we had a very good setup in the Department of State for Latin America. It was the first time that we had an Office for South American Affairs and one for Central American. I had first-rate assistants. One of my men was Howard H. Tewksbury, the one to whom I told you [James V.] Whitfield introduced me as being from Texas

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and as not knowing until I was sixteen years old that "damn Yankee" was two words. Tewksbury was appointed ambassador to Paraguay about the time I departed for Venezuela. Another man was Rollin R. Atwood [director, Office of South American Affairs], an authority on Latin America, who had been at the University of Florida and who, when he left the Department of State, went with another organization. I believe it was the World Bank; anyway, a financial institution. Atwood continued his public service until he was ready for retirement. I also had W. Tapley Bennett, later to become an ambassador. There also was another career man [Sheldon T. Hills] He became an ambassador and served in Afghanistan and, I believe, in Jordan. I do not remember the other officers offhand.

This was an unusual group of career men. I sort of feel like--perhaps again because I'm prejudiced--we had Latin American Affairs more in the hands of career men than I had ever seen them. Of course, we had out in the field such men as [Willard] L. Beaulac. Also there was Roy R. Rubottom, from Corsicana who later became important as ambassador to Argentina and as Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs. He had worked with Beaulac in Latin America. I could go on and all I would show would be that the affairs were directed by career men who had spent years in the service of the Department of State and the United States government.

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PARHAM: Now as chief of the Office of South American Affairs, what were you responsible for?

WARREN: I wish I had a register of the Department of State that used to give those responsibilities, but in a few words, this tells the story: the Division of South American Affairs covered Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador. Ten countries I believe it was. Then the other states in Central America came under the Office of Central American Affairs. Anything that had to do with a policy of the U.S. government in South America had to be handled through the Office of the Director of South American Affairs who was directed by the Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs. Likewise he instructed the Director of the Office of Central American Affairs. Anything that concerned a country in the South American area came under my office, just as all the countries in Central America and the Caribbean came under Nufer's.

PARHAM: Just for clarification, what relationship did you have to the Latin American desk?

WARREN: It was something like this: we would have had a desk for Brazil. We would have had another for maybe Uruguay and Argentina. Maybe there would have been one for Chile. We would have all of this area of South America divided up under certain desks. If the country was important enough, there'd

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be a desk for that country. If not and if the problems were so related, there could be one or more countries under one desk. Normally if the Assistant Secretary, Miller, had something that pertained to, let's say, Chile, it would come to my office and then it would go from there down to the man on the Chilean desk. Or if it were Paraguay, it would go to the man on the Paraguayan desk. The man on the Paraguayan desk might also be handling Uruguay or Uruguay and Argentina, you see.

PARHAM: Did your office supersede or take the place of the Latin American desk? I'm still a little bit lost on all of this.

WARREN: No, no. You see, we go back. There was a Latin American Division to begin with as far back as I can remember. I think where I got into the Foreign Service, there was a Latin American Division. The Latin American Division had had desks on various countries. For instance, when I was ambassador in Nicaragua, my first post as ambassador, if I had something come up, unless I needed to talk to Spruille Braden in person, I would telephone the officer on the Nicaraguan desk. There was no longer a Latin American Division after the setup of the Office of South American Affairs and the Office of Central [American] Affairs. A desk was a division, a unit under the Latin American Division. Is that clear?

PARHAM: These two new branches, the Office for Central American

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Affairs and the Office for South American Affairs, essentially took the place of the old Latin American Division.

WARREN: Precisely.

PARHAM: I'm sorry. I was using the wrong words for desk, meaning division and like that. I see.

WARREN: Well, I'm sure that Foreign Service officers made the same mistake. It was a loose designation. But the desk usually is--if the country is that important--for one country. It was my responsibility as director of the Office to decide what size unit a country rated. For instance, Brazil no doubt rated a full desk so that you could say the Brazilian desk. That's the way it was. Originally it was the Latin American Division. Then that was divided up after all these years. I cannot recall except I know there was a desk concerned with Nicaragua when I got in the Foreign Service. I have given you a memorandum that Beaulac wrote while he was in the Latin American Division, and was interested in Nicaragua. As I remember, Beaulac was on the Nicaraguan desk. That office turned out some good men: [Assistant Secretary of State] J. Butler Wright. It turned out the man who was later ambassador in Turkey. [Edwin C. Wilson].

PARHAM: You're still speaking of the Office of South American Affairs?

WARREN: No. At the moment I'm speaking of the old Latin American Division. I shouldn't have gotten off on that. [Laughter] We'll just forget about that for the moment. Now we'll get,,

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back to the Office of South American Affairs.

Under the director of the Office of South American Affairs, there were the desks for the various countries. I can't remember now that we had ten desks. I doubt it. I would say maybe we had five or six desks. But whatever the number was, there were enough desks to take care of all the countries in South America.

PARHAM: Let me interject another question here. You became director of the Office of South American Affairs in August of 1950, I believe.

WARREN: Right.

PARHAM: Now that was just two months after the invasion of Korea, and I do recall from my own personal experience that Colombia sent a battalion of troops to Korea.

WARREN: That's right.

PARHAM: It may have been the only Latin American country to have done that. Did you have anything to do with that that you recall?

WARREN: At this stage, I don't recall except I do remember that I was proud of Colombia for sending troops. I believe also that Brazil sent military. I'm depending on my recollection now. I may be wrong. But I do remember about Colombia. Of course, if I had taken charge in Washington at the time, it would have certainly gone over my desk because I had served in Colombia twice, first as consul in Barranquilla and later

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as counselor of embassy in Bogotá. I had a particular interest--and still have, of course--in Colombia. I remember being proud that the Colombians had come through. They didn't have much to come through with but they gave what they had. I'm sure that matter would have passed over my desk, but I don't remember anything of the details. At any rate, there was no difficulty that makes the thing stick in my mind.

PARHAM: Please go ahead with your reminiscences of this assignment.

WARREN: Well, stop me at any moment when you have a question because your questions will probably be more important then anything that I recall just reminiscing.

This assignment went on for just about a year. It was during this period that my father died in Wolfe City. At the end of the year, Ed Miller let me go on leave to Canada. Wilhelmina and I drove up, as I remember, in September. We went up to the Laurentian Mountains. We arrived the evening before the leaves changed colors, a beautiful time to be there. We were staying at a hotel-motel and, as I remember, one Saturday night we picked up the New York Times--it may have been Sunday, the Sunday edition--and there was the nomination of Fletcher Warren to be ambassador to Venezuela. Then it was a great time to be there!

PARHAM: You were completely surprised by it?

WARREN: Not completely. Because Ed Miller had said to me before

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Wilhelmina and I left Washington, "If I can, I'm going to get you appointed ambassador to Venezuela. Would you like it?" I said I'd like nothing better because it was one of the top posts in the Service. We were delighted. There was an American newspaperman with his wife at our motel-hotel whom I had known for some time. At midnight, the four of us broke out a bottle of champagne and celebrated the appointment to Venezuela. I wish I could think of the newspaperman. I believe the name was White.

Now I think I've said more here about the organization for handling Latin American affairs than I have ever said about any other part of the Department. It was a matter that I knew because I had been present at the setup and I had men that I relied on completely as co-workers. As an American, I was pleased with their work and what the Office did. When I left, it was to go as ambassador to Venezuela on the appointment that I had learned of in Canada. In fact, we returned quickly from Canada, and I was in Caracas early in November of '51.

Parham: Let me interject another question here. This was the third time you had been appointed ambassador to a foreign country. Now the Constitution requires each ambassador to be confirmed by a vote in the Senate. Sometimes you read of So-and-So who goes before the Senate hearings on his appointment and

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PARHAM: so on. Were you ever called for such, or was it almost a pro forma confirmation for you?

WARREN: Well, so far as I was concerned--and so far as I know--it was pro forma. I was never called to come before the [Senate Foreign Relations] Committee and I was never asked anything by either the Department or the Committee. I was never told any details by the Department about my nomination's passage through the Committee or final approval by the Senate. This is another way of saying that I was a career man that had started at the very bottom, come up step-by-step until I was named ambassador to Nicaragua, and after that, three other embassies. There was never any question raised so far as I know anywhere about the approval of my appointment and no trouble whatsoever.

There are two things involved in that as I look at it now. One, I never caused the Department any trouble. I did what I was told to do. Two, I never caused any member of the United States Senate any trouble, and none of his . . .

PARHAM: Constituents?

WARREN: . . . .Constituents complained about the nomination of Warren to be ambassador to whatever the country was. A third thing that I might mention was that I played each appointment in low key. I never sounded off about what I was going to do, that "I'm going to turn things upside down," or that "I'm

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going to accomplish this or that." I took the departmental line. I was going there to do what I could to make the relations between our two countries better. I think those three things account for that fact.

Of course, in one sense, I was fortunate because part of the time [Senator] Tom Connally was chairman of the Senate [Foreign Relations] Committee. [Speaker] Sam Rayburn for the whole period was the outstanding member of Congress. John Nance Garner, born up at Detroit [Texas] near here, was first important in the House as Speaker and then as Vice President. Next, the President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, was very favorable to the Texans because of all the strength that the Democrats contributed to his administration. Consequently there was no one that had any interest in blocking my appointment as long as it was agreeable to those persons. And they had nothing against me. I had never caused them trouble.

PARHAM: Did you know Senator Connally, or Mr. Rayburn?

WARREN: I knew Senator Connally; I knew Mr. Rayburn; I knew Mr. Garner but not well. I knew much more about Mr. Garner than the average person because I've always been interested in Garner. That's not all. You remember there was [Congressman Wm. R.] Poage from Waco, [Congressman Geo. H. ] Mahon from West Texas, M-A-H-0-N, and then there were others. Texas has been most fortunate in

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getting a corps of Congressmen and keeping them there. And all they had to do was be reelected and do their work. In the course of time, they came to occupy a unique position in the power structure of these United States. If I were advising any state today about what to do in order to be important in Washington, I would suggest electing a set of capable young Congressmen and young Senators and keeping them there till the end. It is the most important thing a state can do. Now back to your question. I never had any trouble on confirmation. None.

PARHAM: Another question. While you were in the Office of South American Affairs, do you recall any particular or outstanding occasions or business with the Organization of American States or had it been formed at this time?

WARREN: Oh, yes. It was stronger then than it is now. And it meant more then, in my opinion, than it means now. In fact, one of the men who was in the office while I was director of the Office of South American Affairs, John Dreier, became the U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States. I believe he retired from the government as ambassador to that organization. It was a more meaningful organization than it is today. At that time, we didn't have a communist
Cuba, we didn't have communist Chile, we didn't have communists in control or as a real threat.

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WARREN: [If I were] the President of, say, Colombia, or any Latin American country today, or the Minister of Foreign Affairs, I wouldn't know how to conduct the foreign affairs of my country with assurance because I wouldn't know what the United States is going to do. For years those countries had followed us in the attitude toward communism. They did like we and they wanted to do. I believe the first one to break away was Mexico. But that's just a recollection. That's not a statement of fact. Today we have put each country on its own so that they must protect their interest as best they can to be sure that the communists don't take control in their area, in their nation. There's no U.S. policy known before hand that all of them can follow. Each one has to make the best arrangements it can with the communists. The communists are now in all the countries of Lain America. I can not say how strong they are in Nicaragua but I'm sure they're there. Each country must protect itself as best it can against [Premier Fidel] Castro and his exportation of communists and his training of communist fighters to go into the other Latin American countries, help overthrow the governments there and establish communist governments in their places. Luckily for us and for those who do not want to see the communists take over, Chile has recently been lost to the commies.

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Chile was communist and had as its head a Marxist, [President Salvador] Allende, a man who was anti-American, who was doing what he could to hurt Uncle Sam every chance he got. But he has been kicked out. Today the Chileans have an anti-communist government. U.S. friend Chile was one of the countries that suffered most from exploitation and fomentation of communists.

Each Latin American country is now on its own because it can't foresee what the United States is going to do. At the time I was in the Office of South American Affairs, there were suspicions of this problem, there were indications of it, but there was not the problem in any country that we see in every Latin American nation today, with the possible exception of Nicaragua.

PARHAM: Were you in the Office of South American Affairs when Spruille Braden was recalled from Buenos Aires? That's when [President Juan] Perón took control. There was a famous Blue Book that was published.

WARREN: Yes. That's right. And my boss, George S. Messersmith, went down to Argentina as ambassador to take over from Spruille Braden.

PARHAM: Braden was virtually recalled, wasn't he? Didn't they ask for his recall? There was this Blue Book, I know, that infuriated the Argentines, at least the Perónistas. I remember reading in textbooks the banners: "Braden 0 Perón."

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WARREN: Well, I don't remember at this stage. But I do recall Mr. Messersmith going to Argentina, [and] Adolf Berle replacing Messersmith, and thereby becoming my new boss. First my boss was Messersmith, then Berle.

PARHAM: Now Moore brought you in?

WARREN: Miller, you mean?

PARHAM: I mean Miller. I'm sorry. Miller was replaced by . . . ?

WARREN: Miller was replaced by [Henry F. Holland] a man from Brownsville, [Texas]. He was an attorney and bilingual, and so was Miller. Miller had been brought up in Cuba. I have never been able to go back and check but he should have been registered as a child in my office at the American consulate general in Havana. That is how far back I go: that Miller should have been registered in my office in Havana at the time. I liked Miller very much and I liked Miller's successor, Henry F. Holland. Holland was a friend of [Governor] Allan Shivers. I heard they were in business together after Holland got out of the Department of State. He was an attorney who had been brought up in Brownsville. He spoke Spanish and English equally well and did not have much respect for anybody in Latin American affairs who didn't speak Spanish.

Here I think is a good place to make this statement. The average person overrates the importance of an ambassador's

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speaking Spanish in Latin America. Most American ambassadors learn in time if they go there. I'm not talking about a career man. I think a career man ought to learn the language, although the cheapest intelligence in the world that you can buy is language intelligence. We had a man in the office in Budapest, a Ph.D., and I believe we paid him nine hundred and sixty dollars a year. He spoke six languages. So the ambassador has the language available if he wants it. But for me, I want to know the language so I can know what the other fellow is thinking. I want to see how his mind turns over. But so far as directing an embassy, I believe the Americans overrate the importance of language knowledge. I thought my friend from Brownsville bore down too much on the need of knowledge of Spanish. Most of the career people in Latin America do speak the language.

PARHAM: I'm taking up too many questions.

WARREN: No, no. You ask the questions.

PARHAM: Back there you were just starting your assignment to Venezuela.

WARREN: Had we gotten to Venezuela?

PARHAM: You were just on your way down.

WARREN: All right. Well, I couldn't sail from New York. I had to sail from Philadelphia. I forget now. [It was] probably a shipping strike. I sailed from Philadelphia and landed in

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La Guaira in November of 1950. I got down there and found that we had a new embassy residence. I had an important staff, a good staff, and I was ambassador to the country that was then exporting more oil than any country in the world.

I'll always be happy about going to Venezuela because it gave me an opportunity to know the big men in the oil industry--and the lesser men. I had always heard what a bunch of roughnecks they were. But I never met a finer group of Americans anywhere, in any country, even in Washington, D. C., that I had a higher regard for than I did the men in the oil companies in Venezuela. For instance, the head of Creole Petroleum, which was the largest exporter of oil in Venezuela, was Arthur T. Proudfit.

PARHAM: Spell that, would you please?

WARREN: P-R-0-U-D-F-I-T, Proudfit. [He was a] graduate of the Oregon State University at Corvallis. His father had been an oil man, I have been told. A wildcatter in Mexico. Young Proudfit used to go down and work with his daddy. Then when he finished at the University of Oregon, he went back to Mexico. He was there when the Mexicans chased the American oil men out of Mexico.

PARHAM: In 1938?

WARREN: I guess that was the time. Proudfit learned right then

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what to do if he should ever have the responsibility of directing an oil company in Latin America. The result was that he operated very successfully in Venezuela. I also knew Ian Davidson, a Scotsman who headed up the Shell [Oil Company] setup in Venezuela. I knew [Hoyt] Sherman, nephew of [General] William Tecumseh Sherman. He directed Mene Grande, the Gulf Oil Company subsidiary in Venezuela. He later had to retire because of ill health and soon passed away. His number-two man, Grady Davis, from Austin, Texas, took over as the head man of Mene, Grande.

PARHAM: How do you spell that, sir?

WARREN: Mene Grande, capital M-E-N-E, capital G-R-A-TI-D-E. Mene Grande. That was the Spanish name for the gulf subsidiary in Venezuela.

Then there was a large Texan who had been born up here on Blossom's Prairie very near where John Nance Garner was born. His father had been a teacher--I don't know what his rank was--in the college [Southwest Texas State University]. At San Marcos, [Texas]. This fellow's name was Bill Woodson. I believe he headed up Texaco. He dropped out in Venezuela and started his own drilling operations. Then there were the others: the various other oil operators. For instance, Union [Oil Company] of California had in its employ a young Californian, C. R. Cabrera, whose marriage to a pretty blond secretary in the embassy in Bogota had been a great social event. The

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bride was the daughter of Phil Read, an American oil man in Colombia. I believe he is still with California. Did I say Union of California? Yes, I guess it was Union of California. Anyway it was either Union of California or Standard [Oil Company] of California. I don't remember now which. At any rate, there were all outstanding men.

After Proudfit left, Duke Haight, born in Tucumcari, New Mexico[and a] graduate of the University of Colorado took over and managed the Creole Petroleum Company. They called him Duke. His name was Harold Warren Haight, H-A-I-G-H-T. So we, Wilhelmina and I, had an unusual opportunity to know these people and to know them well.

I even met the fellow who headed up Standard of New Jersey. He was born near Monahans, [Texas]. I was told his mother ran a boardinghouse out there. I can never think of his name when I want to. I'll give it to you later. He was head of Standard Oil of New Jersey. [Eugene Holman] He came down to Venezuela once or twice, and I got to meet and talk to him, a University of Texas man. I really knew top men in oil in the United States and in London. Shell sent out their top official from London, a man named [J. H. ] Louden, a Dutchman. He fit in with the Americans just like that. But he was always looking out for Shell.

Oh, yes. There was another in Colombia, a Canadian, Johnny Bower. B-O-W-E-R Now at the moment, I forget what

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his company was. Probably Texaco. But today--unless he has dropped out recently--he's a member of the Canadian Parliament. He was from Nova Scotia. A bluenose. Johnny said he knew all this northeast Texas area. His wife was a favorite with everybody. Then there was also in Colombia Max Burns. Burns was a Scotsman married to a girl from California, sharp as he can be. He headed up Shell before Ian Davidson came, and later I heard Burns came to head up Shell in the United States. At the end of his service, he retired and lived in New York.

Thus you can see that I had a chance to know a remarkable set of men, good men, who were interested in seeing that the Venezuelans got a square deal, who knew and studied the problem of how to get along with the Venezuelans and how to keep things under control. Now, of course, all that has been altered a lot by the changes of government in Venezuela. But that--relations with the government--was one of the big problems. I am pleased to say that during my Caracas period, the Americans and the Venezuelans really got along.

Of course, the Venezuelans were always pushing up the price of oil. They were always wanting a larger share of the production for their nation. We Americans were shortsighted because at that time we could have made arrangements with the Venezuelans that would have insured us this morning every gallon of petroleum that we might want. We could have

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even arranged, I'm sure, a general price scheme at the time. But no, we were listening to the independents in the United States who wanted to keep out the Venezuelan oil, use up what we had so that they could get the money and put it in the bank. They fought. Every time an effort was made to get more Venezuelan oil taken by the United States, the independents opposed it. Everybody now can see how shortsighted that attitude was. We should have saved every possible gallon of our petroleum and made arrangements to get as much foreign oil as possible. But we didn't.

PARHAM: A technical question here. Was Venezuelan oil high or low [in] sulphur [content], do you recall?

WARREN: Well, there was Venezuelan oil with sulphur but I don't remember that that was part of the problem in selling because they were selling oil in great quantities.

PARHAM: Today it's a big ecology question, and I was just curious.

WARREN: Yes. Well, again, I'm pleased that you asked me. That gives me a chance to put in something here. I know that some people will disagree. We have gone hog-wild and pig-crazy on the question of ecology. That's one thing that is behind our energy crisis today. For instance, the ecologists have put up an unbelievable struggle and fight against the Alaska pipeline. They say that line will ruin the ecology of Alaska. I saw the comparison made that if you consider the right-of-way

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that's necessary to build the Alaskan pipeline clear across Alaska down to Valdez port where we can receive and deliver the oil to where we want it, and if you want to get a conception of what that means in the ecological life of Alaska, just imagine a linen thread stretched across a golf course. That would give a comparative idea of what it would mean to build a pipeline across Alaska. One reason why we haven't got more oil today is this ecological fight. We Americans have just lost our sense of proportion.

That's one thing--talking about Americans--we do. We go overboard and we swing too far, and then after a while we correct and we go back the other way. But when we go in, we go in just as deep as we can. That is something, as an American, I always keep in mind: our propensity for going completely overboard on a subject. I can make that statement without anybody being able to challenge my patriotism or my devotion to my people and my government.

One thing that gives me satisfaction, as I think back on my tour of duty in Venezuela, is to recall how many things have gone wrong recently. And yet today, in 1973, if you want to review Venezuela and what took place there 1950-56, it is hard to find something that really looks important today. However, one must realize that wasn't just a happenstance.

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It was because the two governments were realistic and were keeping an eye on the main goals. Allow a misstep, start the pot to boiling, and issues can arise that upset everything.

There can be a situation like the one when Mr. [Richard] Nixon was in South America and the President [Dwight D. Eisenhower] was, at one time, on the point of sending troops or perhaps battleships into that area of the world. It takes us right back to the era of [President] Juan Vicente Gómez when the British and Germans were acting up. So it may be said that the greatest tribute you can pay to a man is to state that he straightened out a mess or that there was no mess because he did not allow one to develop.

PARHAM: You were not in Venezuela when the Vice President's [R. M. Nixon] car was stoned, were you?

WARREN: No, no. I wasn't there then. Now I'll put this in at the risk of someone saying, "Yes, there's an egotistical old fool." But often--and I'm not reflecting on any of my colleagues now--often I've wished that I could have been in Venezuela when that thing happened or that I could have been in Turkey when the recent Arab-Israeli situation exploded. That is the sort of development that an ambassador cannot help but think about and wonder, "What could I have done if I had been there to have kept the situation from getting

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out of hand?" That is the biggest thing one can do as ambassador: to keep things quiet. That's the purpose: keep everything on an even keel, keep the other country in a good frame of mind toward his own country. Then Uncle Sam is not giving away anything; American boys are not dying; people have what they are talking about so much today and know so little about: peace.

Something that gives you just an inkling: the U-2 Affair. Now nearly everybody has forgotten--and this is no thanks to the ambassador [Fletcher Warren] at the time--but nearly everybody has forgotten about it. The U-2 Affair in which [Premier Nikita S.] Khrushchev got up in Paris and hammered on the table and treated the President of the United States, Eisenhower, most disrespectfully. He couldn't have been nastier. Well, if that hadn't been handled with precision and most correctly, there could have been an international war over that affair. Everybody has forgotten that that started in Turkey. I was there when it happened.

PARHAM: [Were you aware of the] flights out of Turkey or . . . ?

WARREN: I had a policy on that. I did not want to be aware of anything that I could not defend under international law, or under a gentleman's agreement, or on some sound basis. And I have felt an ambassador is truly diplomatic if he can keep

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himself in such a position that if he be called to the Foreign Office, or the President summons him to the Presidency and states, "Look here, this and this and this has happened, and this is what we think about it," and the ambassador can look him in the eye and truthfully say, 'Mr. President, I didn't know about it. If I find on investigation that that American official has done that, he's going to be on a plane tomorrow going home!" When the morning comes if the man is guilty, he should be on the plane, headed for wherever he ought to go. I would not admit to a thing like that [knowledge of the U-2 flights].

Now to answer your question specifically. I did not know that the U-2 was doing what it was doing. I did know that the U-2 was flying out of Adana. It had to fly out of there. It had to clear from there. I did know that. But I didn't know what it was doing. I didn't know until this thing broke, and consequently there was no trouble with the Turks on that score. I heard this. This is generality but I'm sure that it's 95 percent true. The Soviets made it hot--or tried to--for the Turks. The U-2 was flying from Turkish soil and it was flying over the USSR. This is what I understand the Turks said: "If the Americans were flying, if the U-2's were flying and doing what you say they were, they were flying without our permission to do that. They

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are the planes of our ally. If you have anything to take up, you take it up with the Americans." The Turks left it right there.

This concludes Interviews VII, VIII and IX with Ambassador Fletcher

[Top of the Page | Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | List of Subjects Discussed
| Additional Warren Oral History Transcripts]

Africa, 64
Allende, President Salvador, 88
America, 55
Anecdotes,

• • "An Invasion," 13-14;
    "Accident in Managua," 31-33
• Anglo-Saxon, 56
  Arguello, President Mariano, 70
  Arismendi, Jose, 70
  Atwood, Rollin S., [Director, Office of South American Affairs], 77
  Avianca Airlines, 19

  Beaulac, Ambassador Willard L., 50, 77, 80
  Bennett, Ambassador W. Tapley, 77
  Berle, Jr., Ambassador Adolf A., [Assistant Secretary of State], 61, 89
  Bernbaum, Ambassador Maurice M. 15
  Blair House, l
  Blue Book, 88
  Bower, Johnny, 93, 94
  Braden, Ambassador Spruille, [Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs], 61, 79, 88

  • "Braden O. Peron," 88
  Burns, Max, 94

  Cabrera, C. R., 92
  Campo Del Marte, [Managua, Nicaragua], 67, 68
  Caribbean, 78
  Carr, Wilbur J., [Assistant Secretary of State, also Director, Consular Service], 62
  Castle, Ambassador, William R., [Chief, Division of Western European Affairs, also Under Secretary of State], 62
  Castro, Premier Fidel, 87
  Central America, 78
  Chamorro, President Emiliano, 22, 23, 24
  Cities, Texas

  • Austin, 76, 92
    Brownsville, 89, 90
    Corsicana, 77
    Detroit, 85
    Greenville, 45
    Monahans, 93
    San Marcos, 92
    Waco, 85
    Wolf City, 8, 82
  Cities, United States
  • Athens, Georgia, 6
    Chicago, Illinois, 59
    Corvallis, Oregon, 91
    Dowington, Pennsylvania, 8
    Escondido, California, 7
    Great Falls, Montana, 61
    Hoosick Falls, New York, 7
    Miami, Florida, 52
    New Orleans, Louisiana, 4
    New York City, New York, 20, 25, 52, 61, 90, 94
    Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 90
    Tucumcari, New Mexico, 93
    Valdez, Alaska, 96
    Washington, D.C., 1, 4, 6, 11, 21, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 37, 50, 51, 62, 63, 64, 65, 69, 75, 81, 83,
    • 86, 91
  Cities, World
  • Adana, Turkey, 99
    Ankara, Turkey, 61
    Asuncion, Paraguay, 25, 26, 63, 66, 67, 69, 75
    Barranquilla, Colombia, 17, 18, 59, 81
    Bluefields, Nicaragua, 8
    Bogota, Colombia, 13, 82, 92
    Bogota, Colombia, Presidential Palace, 13
    Budapest, Hungary, 90
    Buenos Aires, Argentina, 25, 26, 49, 88
    Caracas, Venezuela, 52, 83, 94
    Corinto, Nicaragua, 8, 24, 33, 67
    Estoril, Portugal, 52
    Florence, Italy, 10
    Granada, Nicaragua, 23, 67
    Havana, Cuba, 89
    La Guaira, Venezuela, 91
    Leon, Nicaragua, 23, 67, 68
    London, England, 28, 93
    Madrid, Spain, 52
    Managua, Nicaragua, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 15, 24, 31, 46, 67, 69, 70
    Matagalpa, Nicaragua, 67, 68
    Mexico City, Mexico, 6, 52
    Paris, France , 52 , 63, 98
    Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, 8
    Punta Arenas, Chile, 54
    Rio de Janiero, Brazil , 74
    Rome, Italy, 12
    The Hague, Netherlands, 62
  Civil War, 41, 42
  Clayton, William L., [Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs], 43
  Coleman, Walter H. A., 61
  Come Nineveh, Come Tyre, 41
  Congress, U. S., 85
  • confirmation of ambassadors, 83-85
    Foreign Relations Committee, 84, 85
    House of Representatives, 85
    Senate, 83, 84, 85
  Connally, Senator Tom, 85
  Constitution, U.S., 83
  Coolidge, President Calvin, 61
  Countries
  • Afghanistan, 49, 77
    Albania, 13, 14
    Argentina, 13, 67, 77, 78, 79, 88, 89
    Austria, 14
    Bolivia, 38, 78
    Brazil, 67, 78, 80, 81
    Canada, 36, 82, 83, 93, 94
    Chile, 38, 78, 79, 86, 87, 88
    Colombia, 42, 44, 59, 62, 72, 78, 81, 82, 87, 93, 94
    • troops in Korean War, 81-82
    Costa Rica, 44, 45
    Cuba, 42, 76, 86, 89
    Ecuador, 78
    France, 14, 36, 68
    Germany, 5, 19, 56, 73, 76, 97
    • diplomacy in Latin America, 56-57
    Great Britain, 14, 27, 36, 55, 57, 63, 72, 73, 97
    Guatemala, 5, 24
    Honduras, 67
    Hungary, 52, 71
    Jordan, 77
    Korea, 81
    Latvia, 10, 62, 71
    Mexico, 27, 61, 72, 87, 91
    Nicaragua, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 15, 20, 21, 22, 33, 34, 37, 38, 39, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49, 62, 67, 68, 69, 72, 79, 80,
    • • 84, 87, 88
    • opposition to government, 22-27, 37
      political parties in, 23
      revolutions in, 67-68
    Paraguay, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 75, 77, 78, 79
    • economic conditions in, 48
      government in, 48-53
      revolutions in, 48, 49-50, 51-53, 66-67
    People's Republic of China, 36, 41, 44
    Peru, 42, 78
    Philippines, Republic of the, 76
    Poland, 10, 12
    Portugal, 52
    San Salvador, 76
    Spain, 52, 54
    Turkey, 22, 36, 44, 69, 71, 80, 97, 98, 100
    Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 36, 41, 44, 99
    United States, 4, 7-8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 35, 39, 41, 42, 43,
    • 45, 47, 51, 52, 53, 57, 58, 59, 65, 66, 67, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 79, 80, 83, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100
    Uruguay, 63, 78, 79
    Venezuela, 36, 38, 42, 52, 70, 72, 77, 78, 82, 83, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98
    Vietnam, 41
    Yugoslavia, 10
  Crane, Senator Winthrop Murray, 61
  Crane, Winthrop Murray, 61
  Creole Petroleum Company, 91, 93
  Cummings, Herbert J., 61
  Curtis, James N., .6
  Curtis, Mrs. James N., nee, Grace Williams, 6
  Cuyamel Fruit Company, 8

  Davidson, Ian, 92, 94
  Davis, Grady, 92
  Dawes Bank, 59
  Democratic Party, 85
  Department of Commerce, 61, 75
  Department of State, 2, 3, 20, 34, 43, 46, 51, 61, 62, 64, 70, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 83, 84, 89

  • Consular Bureau, 62
    Division of Foreign Activity Correlation, 61, 62
    European Division, 62
    Latin American Division, 79-80
    Legal Advisor's Office, 62, 70
    Office of Central American Affairs, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80
    Office of South American Affairs, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 86, 88
    organization and responsibilities of, 78-81
    relationship to Offices of South American and Central American Affairs, 79-80
    responsibilities of, 78
  Downing, Thomas F., 8
  Dreier, Ambassador John, 86
  Drury, Allen, 41
  Dulles, Secretary of State John Foster, 3

  Educational Institutions

  Harvard University,
  • 7, 11
    Oregon State University, 91
    Southwest Texas State University, 92
    University of Colorado, 93
    University of Florida, 77
    University of Texas, 62, 93
  Einstein, Dr. Albert, 8
  Eisenhower, President Dwight D., 3, 97
  English, 69, 89
  Estrada, Pedro, 52
  Europe , 9, 10, 12, 22

  Far East, 62
  Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], 6
  Foreign Service, 2, 3, 4, 10, 17, 20, 44, 47, 48, 61, 71, 72, 79, 80, 83

  • ambassadors and ministers defined, 63-65
    chief objectives of , 12, 13, 21
    communication methods, 17-21
    procedures and policies, 13-15, 30, 33-35, 50-51, 64, 83-85
    relationship with chief executive, 2-4
    rivalry between Latin American and European diplomats, 9-10

  Garner, Vice President John Nance, 85
  Gomez, President Juan Vicente, 97
  Gulf of Mexico, 5
  Gulf Oil Company, 92

  Hackworth, Green H., 62
  Haight, Harold Warren, 93
  Hengstler, Herbert C., [Chief, Consular Bureau ], 62
  Herrera, President Olaya, 44
  Holland, Henry F., [Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs], 89
  Hollopeter, Samuel, 59
  Holman, Eugene 93
  Hopkins, Harry, [Director, Works Progress Administration], 2, 4
  Hornbeck, Ambassador Stanley K., [Chief, Division of Far Eastern Affairs], 62
  Horthy, Regent Nicolas, 52
  Hull, Secretary of State Cordell , 61
  Hurst, Consul-General Carlton Bailey, 7

  Inonu, President Ismet, 22
  International Court, 62
  Italo-American, 7

  Johnson, President Lyndon Baines, 76

  Kennan, Ambassador George F., [Counselor, Department of State], 74
  Khruschev, Premier Nikita S., 98

  Lane, Ambassador Arthur Bliss, 1, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 62

  • as minister in Latvia, Yugoslavia, and Poland, 10
  Latin America, 9, 12, 17, 42, 44, 45, 47-48, 53, 55, 56, 58, 60, 61, 71, 72, 77, 78, 79, 81, 83, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92
  Laurentian Mountains, 82
  Liberal Party [Democratic], 23. See also Nicaragua, political parties in
  Lindbergh, Colonel Augustus, I., 8
  Lindbergh, Colonel Charles A., 8
  Long, Minister Boaz, 5, 7
  Lopardo, Fio, 7
  Lopardo, Mrs. Fio, nee, Betty Flohr, 6, 7, 15, 16, 61
  Louden, J. H., 93
  Lyon, Frederick B., [Chief, Division of Foreign Activity Correlation], 61

  MacMurray, Ambassador John Van A., [also Chief, Division of Far Eastern Affairs and Assistant Secretary

  of State for Inter-American Affairs],
  • 62
  Mahon, Congressman George H., 85
  Mann, Ambassador Thomas C., [Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs], 76
  Manning, William R., 62
  Marxists, 38
  Mene Grande, [Gulf Oil Company subsidiary in Venezuela], 92
  Messersmith, Ambassador George S., [Assistant Secretary of State], 88, 89
  Middle East,41
  • Arab-Israeli conflict in, 97
  Mills, Ambassador Sheldon T., 77
  Moncada, President Jose Maria, 22
  Montemar, [San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua], 29
  Morinigo, President Higinio, 25, 26, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53
  Muller, Henry, 20

  National City Bank of New York, 20
  New England, 62
  New York Times, 82
  Nixon, President Richard M., 41, 97
  Nova Scotia, Canada, 94
  Nufer, Ambassador Alfred F., [Director, Office of Central American Affairs], 75, 76, 78

  Office of Central American Affairs. See Department of State
  Office of South American Affairs. See Department of State
  Organization of American States [OAS], 86

  Pacific Ocean, 29
  Page, Ambassador Thomas Nelson, 12, 28
  Perez Jimenez, President Marco, 52
  Peron, President Juan, 88
  Poage, Congressman William R., 85
  Polutnik, E. V., 61
  Proudfit, Arthur T., 91, 93

  Rayburn, U.S. Speaker Samuel T., 85
  Read, Phi1, 93
  Reagan, Governor Ronald, 7
  Rio Grande, 54
  Roosevelt, President Franklin D., 1, 2, 3, 85
  Rubottom, Ambassador Roy R., [Assistant Secretary of State], 77
  Ruiz, Gomez, 70

  Sacasa, President Juan B., 24, 25
  Sacasa, Mrs. Juan B., 25
  San Juan del Sur, 33
  San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, 8
  SCADTA Airlines, 18, 19
  Sevilla-Sacasa, Ambassador Guillermo, 9
  Sevilla-Sacasa, Mrs. Guillermo, nee, Lillian Somoza, 9
  Shell Oil Company, 92, 93, 94
  Sherman, Hoyt, 92
  Sherman, General William Tecumseh, 92
  Shivers, Governor, Allan, 89
  Somoza, President Anastasio, 5, 7, 9, 22, 23, 45, 69

  • as General of the Nicaraguan National Guard, 5
  Somoza, Jr., President Anastasio "Tachito," 9
  Somoza, President Luis, 9, 45
  South America, 47, 49, 74, 78, 81, 97
  Standard Fruit Company [formerly Cuyamel Fruit Co.], 69
  Standard Oil Company of California, 93
  Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, [Exxon], 93
  States
  • Alaska, 95, 96
    California, 7, 25, 92, 94
    Florida, 59
    Hawaii, 62
    Massachusetts, 61
    New Mexico, 93
    Texas, 43, 45, 76, 85, 89, 92, 93, 94
  Stettinius, Secretary of State E. R., 61
  Straus, Oscar, 61
  Stroessner, President Alfredo, 66

  Tewksbury, Ambassador Howard H., 76, 77
  Texaco, 92, 94
  Truman, President Harry S., 1, 3, 4

  U-2 Affair, 98, 99
  Union Oil Company of California, 92, 93
  United States Navy, 61

  Warren, Ambassador Fletcher,

  on Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane,
  • 10-14
    as ambassador to Nicaragua, 4-9, 15-24, 36-39, 45
    as ambassador to Paraguay, 46-51, 65-67
    as ambassador to Venezuela, 82, 90-95
    on American diplomats in Latin America, 9-13
    on confirmation politics, 82-84
    on corruption in Latin America, 71-73
    on daily routine, l5-17, 19-20, 21
    on decline of Britain, 35-36, 72-73
    on declining U.S. power, 71-72, 73
    on declining U.S. power and influence, 35-36
    on democracy in Latin America, 51-56
    as director, Office of South American Affairs, 74-82, 83, 86
    on effective diplomacy, 26-35, 39-43, 56-59, 96-98
    on foreign diplomats, 68-71
    on foreign language fluency, 89-90
    on foreign policy in totalitarian states, 44
    on Latin American interpretation of U.S. policy, 57-60
    on President Harry S. Truman, l-2, 3-4
    on opposition to Nicaraguan government, 21-27, 37
    on U-2 Affair, 98-100
    on U.S. energy policy and ecology, 42-43, 94-96
    on U.S. policy in Latin America, 41-44, 87-88
  Warren, Mrs. Fletcher [Wilhelmina], 4, 24, 25, 82, 83, 93
  Watergate, 41
  Welles, Ambassador Sumner, [Under Secretary of State], 10, 61
  White House, 1, 3, 4
  Whitfield, James V., 76
  Willkie, Wendell, 2
  Wilson, Ambassador Edwin C., [Chief, Division of Latin American Affairs], 80
  Wilson, President Woodrow, 41
  Woodson, Bill, 92
  World Bank, 77
  World War I, 12
  World War II, 2, 42, 73
  Wright, Minister J. Butler, [Assistant Secretary of State], 80

  Yanquis, 48, 58, 77

  Zorlu, Fatin Rüstü, [Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs], 69

Dear Friend:
You were kind enough to express an interest in my views on international affairs. I am flattered, because I am more interested in the international scene and the policies our country is following abroad than I am in anything else. As you know, a great part of my foreign service was spent in Latin America. Recent news from that area has been particularly disturbing although certainly it should not have been unexpected. Our Government seems especially upset about developments in the Dominican Republic and Honduras. In both States, Presidents backed by us have been overthrown and it will be all but a miracle if President Betancourt of Venezuela is not also kicked out. Our Government seems concerned lest the eviction of Presidents Bosch and Villeda M. may indicate that our present Latin American policy may be a failure. And it should be concerned. I cannot remember any time since 1920 when our Latin American policy was so quixotic, so sophomorically idealistic, so totally lacking in understanding of our friends south of the Rio Grande, and so disastrously ineffective in keeping our friends and protecting our interests on the other side of the border.

How did we get into this situation? It is a long story but I trust you will bear with me while I take a look at it.

*Exact retype of material submitted by Warren. See Fletcher Warren file.

[2]

Confidential

Latin America seems always to have been difficult for us to understand. However, it appears that the problems of that area have been particularly baffling the last two years. When he came to power, the President expressed particular concern about Latin America and the determination of his Government to reverse the trend of unfavorable developments there. There was a revival of hope in this country that at last we as a nation were going to come to grips with the Latin American situation. But we have not advanced; we have gone backward. So much so that there seems to be consternation in Washington over the booting out of Bosch and Villeda and fear lest there may be other Presidential expulsions. All this, despite good intentions on the part of our Government and people.

It seems to me that the main cause of our failure, for failure it has been in my opinion, is the loss of sight of the main purpose in our diplomacy: to keep the United States free and independent. We are members of the United Nations and sincerely devoted to peace, but, if the United States goes under, the United Nations and all democratic nations interested in peace and freedom will succumb at the same time. Consequently, if we as a nation want to insure world peace, our first need is to keep ourselves free and independent. That done we can help others. There is and can be no clash between our interest in keeping ourselves free and independent and our desire to advance world leadership.

The United States did not seek this world leadership.

[3]

It was thrust upon us. We are trying to live up to our obligation as the leading world power. If we fail, there is no other democratic nation to take our place - only communist Soviet Russia. The U. S. S. R, knows this fact and is acting on the knowledge. She intends to win when the United States of America goes under.

The United States has fought two world wars for democracy. We are prepared morally and mentally to fight a third one for the same ideals, and to go down to defeat with our flags flying, if that war cannot be avoided or won. Most of the peoples of the Western World today recognize and respect the U. S. A. stand on this form of Government. We believe in it and consider it the optimum in Government forms thus far developed. Consequently, we want all of our sister Republics in Latin America to be true democracies and find ourselves desiring to install democracies through out that area (and anywhere else in the world where it may be possible). In following this desire we have forgotten that a democracy is doubtless the most difficult form of government to attain and operate. It requires the highest level of education and experience on the part of the electorate, its existence implies the possession of a background and knowledge of self-government that is lacking in most nations and peoples today; it demands most and constant attention from the individual citizen. In other words, it is the most difficult form of government to run in today's world.

When a people finds itself (whether by its own or others'

[4]

efforts) living under a democratic, republican form of government, if it does not have the background in government and experience, the knowledge, the understanding of self-government needed to operate that government successfully, something is going to happen. Usually, in Latin America, there develops a dictatorship. We hate dictatorships and so begin to show our
displeasure to the dictator, his government, and its activities.

This type of displeasure has lead the United States into one of the greatest dangers to our world policies, our prestige, our keeping of our friends: interference in the internal affairs of our Sister republics of Latin America. The most blatant cases are Dominican Republic, Haiti, Venezuela, Honduras, and Peru; there are others. In these cases we have tried to influence the course of events there, attempted to make the country "more democratic" as we understand the term. Such action could be fatal to continued world leadership and survival. Who made us this judge of what should develop in any Latin American country - so long as it isn't Communism? Have we succeeded so well in operating our own democracy that we have the right, the knowledge, the prestige to tell our Latin American friends what they must do? NO! We should let them run their own countries. They know more about their own peoples, government, and problems than we can ever learn. It is their responsibility not ours. We can help train their students and their leaders in what democracy means to us but in the end it is their duty and obligation to apply those concepts to their own country and times.

[5]

United States displeasure in these areas has extended so far that our strength and position have been used to force out of power governments we do not like. It is no secret that the United States Government has used its powerful position to assist the down fall of the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic, the Perez Jimenez regime in Venezuela, and now is working on the Duvalier setup in Haiti. It made clear to the military junta our displeasure with Peruvian developments and got rebuffed in Peru as it did in Honduras. Furthermore, if I understand our policy today, the United States Government intends to continue to use its power against governments, de facto and constitutional, which it does not like. This is a departure from our time-proven policy of not intervening in the internal affairs of our neighbors. To them intervention makes the United States of America appear a meddler and dictator, even when our acts are done for and are motivated by our interest in democracy. The Latin American individually and governmentally, is proud and independent. Even when our goal of democracy appeals to him, our action in attainment of that goal often is repulsive, reprehensible, and disliked. The Latin American peoples want nothing of such intervention from us or from the Communists. It was Latin American realization of the actuality of Communist interference and dictation in their affairs that finally gave the United States of America backing in the Cuban fiasco.

If one can judge by present events and indications the

[6]

United States now intends to fight hereafter for democracy by force and power rather than by precept and example. This is a great misjudgment. Our country made the greatest contribution to democracy by winning new converts to this system during the period when we were a relatively weak nation, the period before we became a world power, the years prior to World War I. Then we tried to perfect and live our democracy under a republican form of government and left our example and precept as best argument for our way of life. The young Latin American nations flocked to the democratic forms. Today, because they have not perfected those forms and are developing along lines that are not identical with our own, we are concerned and want to use the power and prestige of our nation to bring them into line, to make them be as democratic as we think we are. This is a great mistake and even when the "outs" accept our exercise of force to help them to power they secretly resolve to run things their own way when they are in control and to watch us to see that we do not help the new "outs" to come back to power. Our action thus generates a lack of confidence.

This decision to fight for democracy by force rather than precept and example, goes back to a long standing failure of us as a people, as a nation, as a government: the failure to understand the Latin American mind and temperament? Would that we all could read the mind, the emotions, the experience of James Bowie, who married a Spanish-speaking lady of San

[7]

Antonio, or acquire even by osmosis the mind, the tact, the diplomacy of Stephen F. Austin in those years when he was dealing with the Mexican Government. Or that we could gain the heart and understanding of Sam Houston derived from his years of residence with the Indians! That heart and understanding enabled him to keep Indian confidence, and friendship even when fellow Texans were desiring harsher, sterner measures applied to the resident redman. These men understood the other race. They did not look at Mexicans as Anglo-Saxons. For Bowie and Austin, the Mexicans were another race with different background, distinct heritage, divergent legal system, separate and distinct emotional values, and a way of life not ours. These two understood this and acted accordingly. So did Houston with respect to the Indians. The three accepted what they found as they found it. They didn’t make the mistake of looking at the Mexicans and Indians and expecting them to think and react as Anglo-Saxons. They respected the two cultures and in trying to judge the Mexican or Indian reaction attempted to think as they would think. How long has it been since we Americans tried to look at a Latin American problem as a Latin American would? Rather we have erred in trying to judge our friends south of the border by American standards and in American modes of thought. Have we at any time recently considered Dominican Republic, Haiti, Peru, Venezuela, Columbia, or Ecuador, each by its own standards and ideals? George Washington, Miranda and Bolivar were world

[8]

figures in democracy's battles, but we certainly should judge each one by the standards and ideals of his own race and nation, not by those of the thirteen Anglo-American colonies on the east coast of our nation. If we want to succeed in Latin America, we must stop judging them and their reactions by our own codes, laws, morals, heritage, fortune and developments. To my mind, one great reason why Puerto Rico is making such great progress today is that the Island has in Governor Munoz Marin a Latin American, who understands how the Ang1o-American mind works and knows how to use that information to the advantage of his people.

Coupled with the United States of America's failure to understand the Latin American mind and temperament, is a failure to understand the revolutionary process as it has developed over the decades. We Americans when we speak of revolution, have in mind our own revolutionary war, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, or similar one time occurrences. The idea of repeated resort to the revolutionary process does not fit into the Anglo-American concept of the way things are done. But it does fit into the Latin American concept. In fact it is an expression of the Latin-American way of life.

As we know it today from observation and from our conduct of foreign affairs with our Latin American neighbors, the Latin American revolution has developed into what might be termed another step (an extra-legal one, but a very real and practical one) available to the electorate of a country when

[9]

matters for whatever reason, get out of hand and do not readily I lend themselves to immediate correction at the ballot box. The populace is tired of the "ins"; the "ins" have fattened long enough at the public treasury, they have forgotten the promises they made when they sought power, they are more interested in staying in power than the people are interested in having them there. Consequently, the Latin American people affected by this state of affairs reach the point in their thinking when they are ready for a change of Government. The "outs" are always at hand ready to lead a revolt. They have been out of power long enough, are chastened enough, are now close enough to the people to know what the populace wants, and are wise enough to say the right things to win the support (overt or otherwise) of a majority of the people. The stage is set for a revolution. It soon comes, and, if the "outs" have correctly gauged the public sentiment, they win and the "ins" become the new "outs".

But what happens to the "ins" when they are kicked out? The ex-President and the leaders are permitted to leave the country for London, Paris, Madrid, New York, Miami, or wherever they wish to go. They take their families, the effects they desire and depart abroad to live until the political pendulum swings back. Then their successors will become "outs" again and they or their friends will come to power once more.

But what about the waste in lives and property from such changes? As long as they are truly Latin American and

[10]

uncomplicated by foreign intervention, such revolutions are usually not too destructive of life or property. I am sure our annual death toll on our highways would normally be more destructive of both life and property.

This method of changing government would not please us Anglo-Americans but it does respond to conditions and circumstances of Latin American life. How long will it continue? Until a majority of the people of any particular nation want something different. And when will that be? When their individual and group experiences and training have prepared them for something else. And what will that something else be? Something that is responsive to the Latin American's social, political and religious inheritance and his experience as a resident of this hemisphere.

Another failure of us citizens of the United States is to understand the techniques of the "outs" who want to become the "ins". It is simply this: do what is necessary to get back into power. They watch all angles and get support wherever it can be found. Of course, they know the power of the United States. They are even afraid of it and how it may affect their country. But they will risk getting American support in order to come to power. Their hope is that once in power they can escape the sway of the United States. They know all the latest interests of the American authorities, they talk the latest American political dialect, they promise whatever they think it necessary to promise in order to please

[11]

the ruling party in the United States, they accuse the "ins" of all the things they believe the United States dislikes. They often try to please the United States press. We as a government, seem ready to accept everything the "outs" (particularly, if they happen to be the so-called "democratic outs" - and all "outs" want to be democratic) say and do and to consider everything the "ins" say as lies and everything they do as wrong. We are disposed to help the "outs" if the "ins" are a dictatorship or a group we dislike. We never seem to question the "outs" if they are saying things we want to hear. This failure of ours is one of the prevailing causes of our loss of prestige and influence in Latin America. Even the group that comes to power with our aid considers us naive and weak.

Being the most powerful nation in the world today, having had the closest ties of any nation with the other American Republics, and having a truly sincere interest in the peoples and their governments south of the Rio Grande, we have slipped into the erroneous concept that we know more about a Latin American country and what is good for it than do its own rulers and leaders. Of course this is related to our failure to understand the mind and temperament of our Latin American friends. It may also be said that our concept reveals our naivete as a people and a government. Certainly we have no such knowledge about any foreign people. How could we, when any nation has the sovereign right to make an honest mistake?

[12]

How could we have superior knowledge about what is best for Nicaragua when we have not had the savior faire to handle our own racial problems within the Union or to solve some of our most pressing domestic political problems? Yet in our present conduct of foreign relations in Latin America it is tacit that we are acting on the concept that we know more about a country and what is good for it than does its own rulers arid leaders. No, we do not - with one exception. Where communism is concerned our will must prevail for the reasons given in the fourth paragraph of this letter. Communists can fight us and democracy and our Latin American friends more effectively in Latin America than they can with-in our own borders. For this reason, they must follow us in opposition to Communism. Otherwise, we do not know what is best for them.

Another shortcoming of ours in Latin America is our proneness to accept at face value the - "studies", the views, the suggestions of a so-called "expert" (made by a two weeks visit to a Latin American country) over those of American residents, real students, and governmental officials of years of experience. This is hard to explain. It must be related to our devotion to the idea that an expert ball player, a popular football player, a successful professional man, a motion picture idol, or a popular hero automatically qualifies for the highest political jobs in the gift of the American people. Of course, the idea is generally fallacious. Going

[13]

back to the two weeks "expert", it would be something of a miracle if ones such expert should turn out something really important. Yet we allow the estimates and observations of such fast travelers sway us unduly and more often than not give their expressions more weight than those of our fellow Americans with years of experience. The acceptance of and the weight given the views of such travelers, I believe, goes back to their reporting what they see in the light of standards and patterns of thought familiar to us here at home. Until we are able to base our policies on the views and reports of truly experienced observers, we will continue to fall short of our goals in Latin America.

Without really sensing the fact, I think that most of us American citizens feel that the greatest cause of our national well-being is the economic conditions existing in the United States. We like to talk about large scale production, labor unionism, improved farming, broader education, American initiative and ingenuity, as well as our supremacy as a nation and government. This feeling on the part of our people lead us to think that if we could improve the economic conditions in Latin America; we could immediately have stable conditions and a situation in which Communism would not flourish. We do want to help our Latin American neighbors improve their economic conditions, reach the position of a gradually rising standard of living. The Alliance for Progress is a step in this direction - a good step - and we should follow through on it.

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But it will not remove the threat to Communism. As long as Castro continues in Cuba, as long as communism survives, it is going to fight democracy and its chief protagonist, the United States of America. If all Latin American countries achieve stable economic conditions and a rising standard of living, that situation will make the job of the Communists more difficult but will not dissuade them from their intention "to bury" us capitalists and democrats. Economic conditions are a factor but not a controlling one in our fight on communism south of the Rio Grande.

Similarly, economic factors have a bearing on revolutionary activities south of the border. Economic conditions do contribute to starting revolutions. But they are not the sole cause. The Communists can use economic conditions as a weapon to stir up discontent that may lead to revolutionary activities. But, I am convinced that, even if there were a rising standard of living in each Latin American country, we would still have revolts and revolutions, due to political dissatisfaction, dislike of the entrenched regime, scandals and graft, mistakes of the "ins", and the desire of the people for a change. So, regardless of economic conditions, we will continue to have revolutionary activities by our southern neighbors.

Finally, I must refer to our failure to understand that the Communists are fighting us constantly and effectively throughout Latin America. This is the declared policy of the

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U. S. S. R. and is its effort to accomplish by subversion what it will not accomplish by arms - at this time. Furthermore, the Communist will continue to fight us regardless of what our stand may be on any particular issue or what we may do for or against Communism in Latin America, or elsewhere. We simply do not belong in their world. Now, they fight us through subversion in Latin America, by causing us trouble wherever they can. Later, they may be able to use arms against us. Wherever we confront each other (and that is around the world) they are looking out for their own interests. It may suit those interests at this moment to thaw the cold war a bit, buy American wheat, sign a nuclear treaty, or many other things. But they have not changed their goals of burying us, the capitalists, and making the entire world Communist. The world is not big enough for Communism and democracy and democracy's friends, capitalism and religion. Nowhere has Communism renounced its intention to obliterate all three. That is their goal even as they buy wheat from us.

One can not record the preceding observations without setting forth some of the principal things he believes should be done by our people and our Government to improve our situation in Latin America. I am going to list them thus:

     1. Make this the primary rule in the conduct of our foreign affairs: Do what is best for the United States. If we survive, all survive; if the United States goes down, the

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world becomes communistic. This is as certain as night follows the day. So our constant guide should be: Do what is best for the United States of America.

     2. Never intervene in the internal affairs of our southern neighbors - except to save them from Communism.

     3. Recognize any non-commie Government as soon as we are sure the new government is firmly in control. We can even recognize it before it is firmly in control, if we believe to do so is in the best interest of the United States (not just in the best interest of the revolution itself).

     4. Support any democratic effort in any country when that support does not intervene its internal affairs.

     5. Accept the fact that we cannot export American type democracy as such.

     6. Let each country develop its own type of democracy.

     7. Stop trying to judge Latin American neighbors by our own standards, institutions, modes of thought.

     8. Start trying to understand Latin Americans' modes of thinking, their institutions, their backgrounds.

     9. Cease trying to decide what is best for other countries and start doing strictly what is best for the United States.

     10. Take it for granted that a nation's rulers know more about its citizens, conditions, and culture, than we do.

     11. Accept it as a fact that it is the responsibility of a people, not of the United States, to change their Government when they so desire.

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     12. Help democracy by example and precept and by any means that do not entail intervention in the internal affairs of a friendly state.

     13. Begin earnestly trying to keep our allies and friends, whether they be the purest Democracies or the most blatant dictators.

     14. Keep in mind what the history of the U. S. S. R. has proven: weak nations respect and admire power used in a nation's behalf. No people is more appreciative of the proper use of power than are our Latin American cousins. They understand that use, and are ready to employ it themselves, in behalf of their national interest. I am sure that if any other American Republic today had the power which is the United States', it would use the power to advance its national interest. There would be no hesitation or doubt about its employment.

     15. Constantly recall that all the world today accepts U. S. S. R.'s existence, despite its repulsive founding and the detestable actions it has used in reaching its present strength.

     16. Use all our great store of accumulated experience in conducting our foreign affairs.

     17. Stop worrying about what others think of us; cease caring whether we are receiving the gratitude of those we help. We are a great nation - perhaps history's greatest. We are embarked upon the task of making the world a place of

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peace and freedom for all mankind. We should not be concerned whether any one is grateful to us or be worried about his estimate of us.

     18. Recognize that, so far as we are concerned, there is no unimportant country today and that there is no insignificant international event.

The world now being what it is, trouble can come from any point, at any time, in any guise.

     19. Consider that what the world, and particularly Latin America, wants today, is firm, positive, world leadership on the part of the United States. This leadership should be based strictly on the selfish, best interests of our country. Our friends would not like all our policies and actions but they could at least understand them and would know how to conduct their own foreign affairs in the light of the United States of America's stand. They already recognize we are the strongest, most humanitarian power in the world today. Let's give them positions and policies they can comprehend and in which they will have enough confidence so they can steer their own diplomatic and national courses. Let's accept the responsibility for this world leadership and go ahead.

     20. Revive and carry out the Monroe Doctrine.

This letter is too long. I could have made it even longer. There are points raised which should have been commented upon and made clearer. But this is enough for one letter. If I have piqued your interest on any point and you would like further comment, you only have to let me know.

Cordially and sincerely yours,

Fletcher Warren 11-5-1975.

*Last three lines on this page are handwritten.