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Hazel P. Boyle ; The Weber and Davis County Communities Oral History Collection include interviews of citizens from several different walks of life. These interviews were conducted by Stewart Library personnel, WeberState University faculty and students, and other members of the community. The histories cover various topics and chronicle the personal everyday life experiences and other recollections regarding the history of the Weber and Davis County areas. ; 51p.; 29cm.; 2 bound transcripts; 4 file folders. 1 video disc: digital; 4 3/4 in. ; i Oral History Program Hazel P. Boyle Interviewed by Rebecca Ory Hernandez 17 November 2011 ii Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Hazel P. Boyle Interviewed by Rebecca Ory Hernandez 17 November 2011 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in Special Collections. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber and Davis County Communities Oral History Collection includes interviews of citizens from several different walks of life. These interviews were conducted by Stewart Library personnel, Weber State University faculty and students, and other members of the community. The histories date back to the early settlement of North Ogden, and cover various topics including the History of Fort Buenaventura, city government affairs, controversial issues, Latinos in Ogden, personal everyday life experiences and other recollections regarding the history of the Weber and Davis County areas. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Hazel P. Boyle, an oral history by Rebecca Ory Hernandez, 17 November 2011, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Edward and Hazel Boyle July 5, 1952 Edward and Hazel Boyle October 15, 2009 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Hazel P. Boyle. The interview was conducted on November 17, 2011, by Rebecca Ory Hernandez. In this interview, Hazel speaks of her early years in Colombia, South America, and of meeting her husband, Edward C. "Ted" Boyle. Hazel tells her oral history, including her life with Ted, traveling and living around the world. Hazel worked with Ted to cultivate important business relationships in the international banking industry with Citigroup. Hazel is now retired and lives in St. George, Utah with her husband. ROH: We are at the home of Ted and Hazel Boyle in St. George, Utah. Today is November 9, 2011. Present are Ted and Hazel Boyle and Rebecca Ory- Hernandez. We'll be talking about Hazel's life story today but I'd like to start kind of in the middle of your story. HB: Actually, I was born and raised in Bogota, Colombia. They named me Hazel Patricia Roskruge Betancourt Mejia before I married Boyle. Those were my maiden names. In Colombia, when you're born it's a very special occasion, so my godmother gave me sapphire earrings. I was six months old before I was baptized in a humungous church called San Victorino, which was in the center of Bogota. Afterwards, I'm sure there was a party. My birth father was German. He had to go to war for his country, so he left Colombia. I understand that he was very well-to-do because he had a ranch and they used to go there on weekends. I don't remember that. He left when I was two years old so I have no recollection of what he looked like, only what my aunts 2 used to tell me. They said he was very handsome and he had olive skin and blond hair and beautiful green eyes. When I was five years old, my mother met a wonderful Englishman and they went to Panama to get married. He was my dad. I loved him very much. ROH: What part of England was he from? HB: He was from Cornwall, Wales. He came from a very big family. There were five young Englishman who came to Colombia together and one of them was my father. He was a gold-mining engineer, so he had a very big job because he dragged all the gold of the country into the Banco de la Republica, which was the biggest bank in the country at the time. We had a very nice life. I had a very fun childhood. After we got out of school we would go up north where there was the camping and there was beautiful home. I learned how to play tennis and I had my own horse when I turned ten. We used to travel up to the mountains in the north. We used to have lots of fun. One day there was a terrible earthquake and I was thrown out of my cot. When we went up north, we would stay at a nice family home and we had cots to sleep in. when that earthquake came, it must have been about four o'clock in the morning and I was thrown out of my cot. There was a lot of commotion and yelling. My mother had a camera and when we looked, there was an enormous cloud outside. I think it was the effect of the earthquake on the volcano. So my mother took a picture. When we went back to the city of Cali, which was where we were living at the time, my mother won a contest with Kodak because of that picture. 3 ROH: What year was the earthquake? HB: It was 1938 or 1939. I was born January 6, 1935 and I was about four years old. Then, I went to private schools because we did not have public schools like there are in the United States. I had my primary education in Cali, Colombia in a prominent Gimnasio Femenino. As a matter of fact, my oldest daughter went there. It's kind of fun because the high school had grown really big and so they were in a different building. It used to be a tiny place downtown. Anyway, we came back to Cali when I was pregnant with Linda, our second daughter. There was another earthquake. When you get married in Colombia, you receive many beautiful gifts—many things that are really sterling silver—and so we had the trays on a ledge in the dining room. Well, I was beginning to have labor pains the night of the earthquake and when the earthquake happened, all those trays came down and made so much noise that my labor pains started going faster. We went to the hospital and I think Linda was born the next day. We moved to another home and had many friends. Then my family had to move to Bogota because my father was retiring. He had finished dredging all of the Rio Cauca and I wish I had been older and more able to pay attention to how they made the bars of gold that went to the bank. My father always had to travel with security people and he always wore a gun. When he would arrive very early in the morning, he would always unarm the gun. One night, he was very tired and he didn't disarm the gun. It was Sunday morning and one of my aunts was playing the piano, my father was downstairs, another of my aunts was upstairs 4 and my mother was taking a bath. In our trips up north, my mother had decided to bring a little Indian girl with us as a playmate for me; her name was Yoselina. She was very cute and my same age. She would help with the chores and things, but she was my playmate. Well this Sunday morning she was fooling around and looking for my dad's lifesavers because he always carried lifesavers and we loved them. Well we were all downstairs and we heard a sound like a pop and my father's face went as white as the wall and he ran up the stairs because he knew what it was—we didn't. He found Yoselina—she had been looking for the lifesavers and found the gun that he had left the clip in. She must have pulled the trigger. It went right through her head and killed her instantly. My room was next to my dad's upstairs and they wouldn't let me up there. That was a lesson for us. I remember that President Roosevelt was campaigning for president in the United States and we were all wearing pins that said "President Roosevelt" even though he was an English man. He had lived in Colombia many years. Anyways, it was time for my dad to retire and so my parents went to Bogota. They had two homes there. It was a very nice area, probably like thirty minutes away from the center of the city. They put me in a dormitory for my last three months of the school year while they moved to the other home. I would get a big basket every week that had homemade bread and homemade jelly. I didn't like to eat the food at the dormitory. When it was time for me to go to Bogota, my father came over to get me. My father's name was Edward Pierce Roskruge. When we got to the airport, I had my ticket and a friend of my father's said, "Edward, is it imperative that your 5 daughter goes today to Bogota?" He said, "No, she can leave tomorrow or the next day." So my father gave him my ticket so that he could go. That was the biggest air crash that Amanca has had in many years and I was saved because my father gave my ticket to his friend. The next day we tried again. I flew to Bogota and we went to our home. My parents had to think about schooling for me so they put me into a school in downtown Bogota and they gave me a test. I passed everything, so they let me skip ninth grade and go into tenth grade. We were there only one year and then my parents transferred me to a school in Marimount, which was in the outskirts of Bogota. It was a nice school and it was imperative that we speak English at school but I didn't like it and never spoke it. I was in the ballet and I had music lessons and I directed music at the conservatory. They kept me close to home—I could have friends over to spend the night but I could never go spend the night at somebody else's home. It was kind of sad. When I had my daughters, I said, "You don't know how lucky you are. You fight among each other and I never had anyone to fight with and my parents never let me go to anybody's house." I think I was a very good student. I was obedient and respectful. I didn't get into any trouble. When I was fifteen years old I had my first dance and party. I graduated in June when I was almost fifteen years old—which is very young. My father wanted me to go to college in England but I was so young that they decided to put me into a secretarial school. I went there for almost two years and I learned how to type and to be an accountant and to do shorthand. 6 ROH: Where was this school? HB: It was in Bogota. Then I was sixteen and my dad said, "There's a job at Citibank that I would like you to go and apply for." I went and they hired me on the spot. That's how I ended up working for Citibank. There were three vice presidents. One was from Barcelona, Spain and he spoke very good English. So that was how I started. Christmas came and I had made lots of friends at the bank. I had seen him [referring to Ted Boyle] come to my boss at the bank with a humungous book to be signed and I thought, "Oh, he is the cutest thing and so skinny, I want to fatten him up." [Laughter] That Christmas, I bought presents for all the girls at the bank. That made me really happy. My mother was always doing civil work. We had a gate around our house and you had to ring the bell at the gate. There was always enough food for us so people would come and ring the bell and mother would bring food for them. I grew up being conscious of people who didn't have money. We didn't have a middle-class in Colombia at the time. Either you were very poor or you were well-to-do. Ted was engaged to somebody else and I was dating a boy who was a pilot who had given me a bracelet—it was not a ring but it was like I was spoken for. I got sick with roseola and I was at home with my friend Graciela and my parents had gone to the movies. The doorbell rang and it was my boss with Ted. I invited them in because I had Graciela as a chaperone. They came in and Ted liked my friend very much. One time he invited me to tea and we went and he said to me, "You know that I'm engaged to be married." I said, "That's fine, it 7 doesn't bother me at all." Little by little we started going out together. But first, he called my mother because that was the nice thing to do and in Colombia you have to be chaperoned at all times. I heard her asking this question, "What are your intentions?" I thought, "My goodness, what is she doing?" I didn't know who she was talking to. Finally she said, "We would like to meet you," and so he was invited to dinner and that was when we got permission to start going out. ROH: How old were you at this point? HB: I was seventeen. At Christmas my parents had a party and I think Ted had written to his girlfriend and told her that he had met someone and kind of broke the engagement. She didn't take that very well so she decided to come to Bogota from New York. He was so nervous. The bank always had a big party at the vice presidents house and she was there, too. So I was sitting on the sofa with my friends and they didn't bother him at all, and he was smoking cigars—he had never smoked anything or had a drop of alcohol in his life—and he was just…oh! It was so awkward. He sent her in a taxi that night. At that time she must have known, "This is it." She looked at me and I looked at her and she must have known who I was. Well he sent her in the taxi and he walked me home. After that, he invited me to go dancing at a night club. After that he gave me his fraternity pin. I liked him so much and thought he was so cute. Later on, it became a real engagement. I had been presented in society at a party where we wear a big beautiful gown. ROH: What color was your gown? HB: White. My hair was all done in the beauty parlor, too. 8 ROH: How old were you? HB: Probably about sixteen. I was very mature in a sense because I was always with older people. I was always with a group with my parents and their friends. You were always with a group—never alone—in those days. Soon enough, he proposed marriage. He asked my mother and he asked my dad. He thought I was very young. We were supposed to have been married in September when I was still seventeen, but he got a transfer in July. He said, "I don't want to go to Barranquilla without you!" So we had to rush with my trousseau. One day, he came in the bank and I said, "Ted, what is wrong with you?" He said, "Why?" I said, "You look yellow." He had hepatitis and he went to the bank doctor and was told that he should go home and they would go there to do the blood tests. They gave him a regime of what to eat. My dad took it on himself—he was retired but still had an office for doing some importing and exporting—and he took it on himself to come and visit Ted. They had a wonderful time. My dad taught him how to play bridge. He spent three months in bed. So we had to be in Barranquilla in July. We rushed through everything to be ready. It was a mixed marriage because I was a Catholic and he was a Mormon—a 'Jack Mormon.' So then the marriage was supposed to be in a beautiful church just four or five blocks from my house where I always went to mass. The priest said, "I'm sorry, I don't know anything about the Mormon religion, but you cannot be married in the church. You can be married on the steps of the church." This was in 1952. I said, "I am 9 not going to be married on the steps of the church." I went to my archbishop; he was a wonderful man. I told him what the problem was and he said, "Hazel, there is no problem. We have a brand new order of Catholic priests that are very modern." They were in a church on a different street. That church was very plain, not gaudy with saints and decorations. It had just one cross. We went to mass there a few times. So the priest there said, "Sure, we will come to your house. The only thing is you have to go to mass that morning and take the Sacrament because we can't bring that into your house." So my house was all beautiful and there were flowers all down the stairway. We had two living rooms. The organ was in one and we were married by the fireplace in the other. It had a curtain and everything. And unbeknownst to me, he had a book of Mormon he put inside the altar. Then there was a big luncheon that was catered. We were married and I went upstairs to change and he had to go through the servant's stairway to change. When it was time for me to leave, I had my doll under my arm and he said, "Where are you going with that?" and I said, "That's my Elizabeth, she's coming with me." He said, "OH no, you don't bring that with you." So I left it. That beautiful doll was giving to me when I first found out that there was not a Santa Clause. I was at a Christmas party and I heard my dog whimper and I woke up and saw someone putting out all my gifts and I cried so hard that night. I was so disappointed. The next morning I said, "Oh! Look what Santa Clause brought me!" I had to say something. But that was the Christmas I got my doll. It was humungous. They had to order it. It had a complete wardrobe of clothes and a swing that she could 10 swing on. She sat on a bed because my room had two twin beds. So she was with me and I had packed some of the clothes and he said, "No." We went to the airport and my good friend Alvarez Gomez loaned us a Mercedes Benz that was going to take us from the house to the airport. A lot of people followed us to the airport. We arrived in Barranquilla and we were met by his new boss. That's how my life changed completely. [Laughter] We spent two days in Barranquilla, then we went to the beach and it was beautiful. We spent two weeks there for our honeymoon. When you get married in the Catholic Church, you have to give thirteen gold coins to the church. I kept that, and the thirteen silver coins went to the curch. They were beautiful coins. The coins were in a box and one night I opened the box and there were only twelve and I was very upset. I told Ted I'd lost one of them. We would be in and out going sailing and going swimming at the beach. In our hotel, you had to go up some steps and through a gate and when I did, I saw something shiny. I looked and there was my thirteenth coin. Good luck. For me it was very symbolic.Ted was still recovering—he had been in bed sick for three months and then gotten married. He was still weak and convalescing. When we got to the apartment in Barranquilla, we had a maid—I didn't know how to cook. She was a marvelous cook. I learned how to make milkshakes and Ted loved ice cream so I would put in an egg and ice cream and milk and strawberries or raspberries. That would be to build him up little by little. That was our first place and it was a sweet little place. We met another newly married couple and we would spend time together. Ted would go play golf 11 and I would go swimming. Then he said, "I want you to learn how to play golf." I thought, "Well, alright." He's been a great influence on my life. He was thirteen years older than me and he was like a boss telling me what to do. Anyway, I learned how to play golf and then we could play with other couples. One time I was behind a tree and he was taking his drive and it hit me right across my leg. Of course it swelled and it was purple and green and yellow. He was really upset. We immediately went home and put ice on it—this was a Sunday. And on Monday we immediately went to the doctor. The doctor took a knife and cut it open and all this horrible stuff came out and Ted fainted. They fixed me and even to this day I have a scar and it still hurts. We moved to another apartment after that and we didn't have a maid. I had to teach myself how to cook. I got help from a lot of friends who were older. We would still play golf and one time we had friends visiting and after golf we went home to shower—this was when they were filming Green Fire with Stewart Grange, Grace Kelly and Paul Douglas. When we went to meet our friends at the bar, we had cokes and the waiter came to me and said, "Madam, the people in that corner would like you to join them for a drink." I looked over and there was Stewart Grange, Grace Kelly and Paul Douglas. So Ted and I and my friends went over to sit with them and soon enough they gave me their autograph, which I still have. She was beautiful. We used to have a group of American ladies at the hotel every Wednesday from 9:00 to 12:00 to fold bandages for the hospital. So when I went to the beauty parlor, she was sitting next to me and she remembered me. I said, "How would you like to join us and fold bandages with 12 American ladies?" She said, "Oh, I'd love to." And she came a couple of times. That was how I met Grace Kelly. It took us three years to have a child and they did tests on both of us and couldn't find anything wrong. Finally, they were going to blow my tubes but my friend said, "That's a terrible thing, Hazel." And I was petrified. But before that, a miracle happened and I got pregnant before they were going to do that. We had a welcoming party in Bogota. We flew in with our friends and it was a very nice party. IT was like a housewarming party. We had made all of these friends in Barranquilla and they invited us to Bogota. John Reed, who was a friend from Barranquilla and he had been transferred to be a manager of Sears in Bogota and he was the one who invited us. John told Ted, "I know you don't drink, but I want you to have some rum and coke and chug it all." So we went and he chugged the rum and coke and about five minutes later he started dancing and going wild and there was a table with glasses and he sat right on top of it. I thought, "Oh no! He's going to be all cut up." I don't know how, but he didn't have a cut; maybe because he was wearing heavy pants. But he was having a ball. About ten minutes later, he began to really feel awful. He was so sick. John Reed carried him outside and he was barfing everywhere and it was cold. It was terrible. Ted: The alcohol could have done me in at that altitude if they hadn't made me walk around. 13 HB: That trip was a blessing because the following week I was supposed to have the test for the blowing of my tubes, but I got pregnant so I didn't have to have the test. Anyways, we had a lot of fun and met a lot of nice people. ROH: Were you still working after you got married? HB: He was, but I wasn't. I was at home learning to cook and washing by hand—I had never washed anything in my life and we didn't have a washing machine. So I had the old seventy-eight records and I loved music. When I was a child, my parents took me to concerts and the theater and ballet and to opera. In our third house, we took over the rent from our friends, the Reeds, and we had a dog named Flash. We had a friend of Ted's from the States stay with us and I asked him what he would like to have. He said, "I would like whiskey on the rocks." So I went in the kitchen and I said, "Okay, what is whiskey on the rocks?" I figured rocks had to be the ice, but I got a big glass, not a small one like your supposed to use. I put in the ice and I put a jigger of whiskey and the glass wasn't full so I put in another jigger of whiskey so that it looked nice. We had dinner and everything was nice. Then at the end, he said, "Hazel, thank you so much for that lovely dinner, but next time, when someone asks for a whiskey on the rocks, you give them a small glass with three or four cubes of ice and only one jigger of whiskey, not two." So then I got a book on how to mix drinks. We did a lot of charity work. That was our mission, no matter what country we were in, we were always doing charity work for the hospitals, for the orphanages, and everything. ROH: Where do you think the desire to do that came from? 14 HB: I think that came from my mother. She was very giving. She had done a lot of social work out of the goodness of her heart. I think I inherited that from her. From Barranquilla we moved to Cali and I was expecting my second child. ROH: How far is it between those two cities? HB: You had to fly. Red It was three or four hundred miles. HB: When my in-laws came to Barranquilla for the first time, that was their first trip outside of the United States and they came to see their first granddaughter. We were living in a huge house because we were staying in Ted's boss's house while they were on vacation. I had learned how to make cakes and everything and the party was going on that night. I had gone to the market and there was a tiny tree for about twenty-five dollars and that was a lot of money. So I went home and I called a gardener and I said this is what we're going to do: I saw in the back room, a lamp pole and I told the gardener he was going to cut branches from a big tree and we were going to tie the branches to the stick and try to make a Christmas tree. He looked at me as if I had two heads. I said, "It's going to work. It's got to work." Sure enough, we tied the branches and it was a beautiful tree. We decorated it and put lights on it and put it in the family room where there was a lot of space. We borrowed tables and tablecloths and little lanterns. I cooked all day and when we went to the airport to get my mother and father in law, we told them we were going to have the party and there would be alcohol. We told them that when the waiter asked them what they wanted to drink, they should ask for ginger ale. I told them that people here were very happy and liked 15 to dance. She said, "What a beautiful Christmas tree!" and I told them what it was and they couldn't believe that it was homemade. ROH: What did your in-laws think of the party? HB: They thought it was just great. Lawrence loved to dance and he had the most beautiful voice. He always sang, "Some Enchanted Evening," and it was just beautiful. He danced with all the women and the men went to his mother and danced with her. It was lovely. Ted Tell them about entertaining the baseball team. His name was Brooks Robinson and he was an all-time pick in the American league as one of the greatest players of all time. HB: But who was the trainer? Ted Don Hefner, he played for the Yankees. He was the manager and close friend of mine. They played ball in Colombia in the winter. HB: It was spring training. We were in the second house that we took over from the Reeds and I felt sorry for those boys so I cooked a very nice Thanksgiving dinner and we played games afterwards. We played Scrabble until three or four in the morning. We would go to all the baseball games and we had a box seat. One night we were at one of the games and I tried to get up and a friend behind me said, "Hazel, put your shawl up." I was staining because I was pregnant with my second child. We went right home and the doctor came and he gave me vitamin B and said, " you're going to stay in bed for the next week." I was really upset because I didn't want to lose the baby. I stayed in bed and everything was okay. I had a nice baby girl. 16 Ted You have to get back to Barranquilla when the stove exploded. HB: I don't think that's funny. I had lobster prepared and I had one strapless bra because I used to wear a halter dress and it was kind of dirty so I washed it so I could wear it that evening. I was hurrying and I said, "Ted, you have to help me. I've washed it and dried it in towels, but you have to open the door in the oven and hold it there to dry." Well, it was the worst thing we could have done. TB: I kept opening the oven to see how it was doing—like it was roasting—and it blew all the lights out in the house. HB: I had asked him to open the oven and just hold it there but he kept going in and out of the oven and that's what did it. So they arrived and it was dark and I had candles on the table. Well, John was the manager of Sears so he went to the store and opened it and got the fuse and came back and changed the fuse. We still kept the lights down because the candles were beautiful. Anyway, so we're now in Cali. It was a wonderful place. When you come into a new place, the bank welcomes you and had a big party and you got to meet people and be reacquainted with people. TB: Tell them about our party when we dressed up as Jayne Mansfield. HB: I decided, "We always have beautiful fashion shows for the women, let's do something different and have the men do a fashion show with women's clothes." It was a hit. It was so funny. Here comes John Heath with a beautiful little hat and beautiful everything—we had picked out everything—but he had his own shoes and socks and garters up to here. When he came out, the people just roared—it was hilarious. Ted was part of the ceremony, so I fixed him up like Jayne 17 Mansfield. I made two balloons and a bra to hold them and he was wearing a skirt of mine—that's how skinny he was. Anyway, he had a skirt of mine, my moccasins, my baby socks, and I bought a white mop to be the hair. And I gave him a black sweater to show his big boobs. So he got up there and the master of ceremonies was a friend and knew what was going on, so he went up there with a big pin and—boom—he popped one of his boobs and all the water spilled and Ted got soaked. Then we had a bride and groom and the bride was pregnant. She was a very tall man and we made him a wedding dress and the groom was a little short guy. All those things would bring money for charity. Like for grafting machines for all those children who would get burned. ROH: Why would they get burned? HB: Because they lived in these little huts with a metal cylinder over the fire and it was dirt floor but it was clean—they would sweep it every day. The families were maybe three children and a mother and a father. The mother and father both had to work and the mother would leave a big pot of soup—that was their maintenance, they would put potatoes and corn and vegetables in the soup— then they would tell the oldest child to stir it. The child would be maybe eight years old and they were old stoves and many times the hot soup would spill on the child and he would be taken to the hospital. It was such a sad thing. I worked at the hospital as a volunteer and at the orphanage and I enjoyed every minute. I would take books and magazines and I would read to them. Going into the ward where they were burned was so sad to see. It smelled, too. 18 At Christmas time we would make pajamas for the boys and pajamas for the girls and we would have a comb, a doll, and a car for the boys, and candy and soap that would be the gifts for the children. We wrapped each one individually. Everyone would bring some of the gifts. Then my second daughter was born. Kimmy is fifty-two and she lives here with us. With her first husband she had a boy and a girl. She's in the military and she lost her baby. We just found out that it was the doctor's fault because they never did an ultrasound and when she was seven months pregnant she had a car accident but when the doctor examined her head, she was fine. But they didn't check the baby. What happened was the baby was not getting enough blood because Tara had a blood clot. After the accident, Tara had labor pains and they would give her injections so the baby wouldn't be born, but they didn't know what was going on inside. The baby was not getting enough oxygen or blood. TB: Tell about the beauty pageant coffee queen. HB: I modeled a lot for the American women. IT was always at the country club and there were pictures and all of that. I had children, but I was still very small. I ran for the title of Beauty Coffee Queen in Cali. I had a lot of friends and they voted for me. I think that's how I became the queen. All of the votes cost a dollar so it was a fundraiser. So I was crowned the coffee queen of Colombia, but I never drank coffee because I didn't like it. In my home, the maids had coffee and my mother probably had coffee. Our hot chocolate was real chocolate—very different 19 from what you get here—but we had always had tea at 4:00 in the afternoon with tea cakes and sandwiches. So I loved tea. ROH: Tell me a little more about the coffee queen pageant. What was it a fundraiser for? HB: For the hospital. ROH: Where was the contest held? HB: It was at a club called the Club Colombia because they had a big runway. That was where we would model. I was representing the American women of Cali and I ran with four or five other lovely girls. What got me to win was because I had so many friends who paid the money. That brought a lot of money. That was what we did for the hospital and the orphanage and the children's burn ward. When we were transferred to Medellin—I'll have to show you a map. Bogota is a big metropolitan city, not like what people think it is. The people there dress very well and are always proud of how they look. ROH: Your father being from England, was your family all from Colombia originally? HB: They came from Corsica, France. They were probably my great-grandparents and they came to Medellin, which is a very nice city. ROH: Do you know what brought them to Colombia from France? HB: No, but I know they were well-to-do and they lived in a nice home. My mother was raised much like I was. She was a very closed person. I never found out that I had a German dad. I looked at my birth certificate and it said my name, but my last name was Kanold and then it dated his mother and father. I asked my mother and she said, "Don't ask me." There was not a picture or anything. It was 20 like he never existed. [Her maiden name was Betancourt Mejia and her birth father was Colombian – Edward Pearce Roskruge was her second husband.] But I have German silverware and beautiful tablecloths that she had. That is all I have of him. I asked my aunt about him and she told me he was handsome with olive skin and dirty blonde hair. I think, "Why did I not get his green eyes?" I've always wanted green eyes. He had a ranch on the outskirts of Bogota that was called Potosi. He used to go there on weekends. My mother had her own capital—she had her own money. She never explained; she just said, "You don't need to know this." So what I think is that when he left for Germany, she must have sold the ranch and the cattle and the horses. I think she used that because she was always doing business—she would loan money and people would pay her back. She was a business woman. Anyways, so we arrived in Medellin, Colombia. We had one of our daughters there and she was a surprise. She was named Sarah Patricia because when I was pregnant I had the measles and the word for measles en español es 'saranpion.' So they were at the breakfast table one morning, talking about what we were going to name our new daughter and Kimmy, my third daughter, said, "Why not Sarah for 'saranpion,' my mother's second name—Patricia, and then Boyle?" So that's how she got named. This is another miracle in my life. I was tending my three daughters with the measles and we had a wonderful maid who had a daughter—we educated her daughter. But the fever came and I called my mom and told her. She said, 21 "Hazel, you should never have done that," because whenever there was ever measles or whooping cough in school, the children would bring it home and they would keep me home so that I would not get anything. So I got a very high fever and Ted cannot handle anything that goes wrong—he gets mad, instead of understanding. So I got up that morning, it was about 4:00, and I knew there was trouble. He got up and went to work and I didn't say anything to him. Then my maid came and gave me a hug and finally at 8:00 I called my doctor. He called the pharmacist and the pharmacist came and gave me two shots and said, "Don't get up." That afternoon my friend Yolanda was giving me a baby shower because I was only seven months. The doctor kept calling to ask what was happening, I said, "Well, everything seems to be okay so far." I called my friend Teresita and I said, "Promise me that you're not going to tell Walter what I'm going to tell you because Walter's going to call Ted and all hell will break loose." So at 11:00 I told Teresita and asked her to call Yolanda. "Tell her I thank her from the bottom of my heart but I'm not going to be able to go to the baby shower." Probably about 3:30 in the afternoon she must have called Walter. It was selfish of me to keep it to myself and to expect her to keep it to herself. Of course, Walter called Ted and of course Ted comes like a bull: "Why didn't you tell me!" I said, "That's why." We went to the hospital at about 4:30 and she was born at 6:00 p.m. She was three pounds. It was a beautiful Catholic hospital and they took such good care of me but I never saw Sarah. The priest came on Monday to baptize her. They had to give her plasma because she went down to two and a half pounds, but she was in the incubator and I couldn't see her because I was covered with 22 measles. After my friends heard that Sarah had been born, an Episcopalian friend came over to give me a blessing. What a wonderful thing to do. That was Friday night. On Saturday there were flowers and friends and packages from the baby shower. They said, "Oh Hazel, she's beautiful!" Sunday they went to mass. Then at about 3:00 in the afternoon there was no one in the room and Mother Superior came. She said, "I know what you're thinking." She knew. I thought that the baby was dead and they didn't want to tell me. All my friends kept telling me the baby was so beautiful, but Mother Superior said, "I know what you're thinking so you're going to make me a promise—I'm going to bring a wheelchair and you're going to sit in it and you're going to look up over the window so you can see her." It was such a big weight off my shoulders to know that she was okay. But going home without a baby was hard. She was in the incubator for three weeks. The obstetrician and pediatrician would come four times a day to check on her. In Cali, I was one of four hundred volunteer nurses at the hospital. They had picked me and one other woman for special training to learn how to take care of premature babies. I had done it all with other babies but when my baby was born, I couldn't touch her. It was like I drew a blank. I was so scared to touch her. So we took a nurse whose name was Rosario and for a month she lived with us and took care of the baby. We had a crib and bassinet. She was so tiny. She had her little eyebrows and her little nails. Her legs were about two fingers wide. When she was six pounds, I took over taking care of her. I loved taking care of 23 my kids. That was my mission in life: take care of my kids and my husband. Now, what else should I tell? TB: The trip from Bogota to Medellin. HB: Oh yes. At that time you had to buy foreign cars and we had just a little car and when we went to Medellin we needed something better because we had three children then. Someone from the American embassy was selling a 1964 Chevy Impala, which was the year that Sarah was born. Ted flew to Bogota and bought the car. At that time it was dangerous and he drove the car from Bogota to Medellin in the middle of the night while there were gorillas everywhere and he could have been assassinated and nobody would have known. He arrived at our house at about 4:00 in the morning with this enormous car—remember how big those were? It was huge. TB: I almost got assassinated driving with the golf pro when we ran into that bicycle guy. HB: Oh yes, it's funny but I'm very observant and I had gone to visit my mother and when I came back, he came to get me at the airport and the first thing I said was, "What happened?" he said, "What do you mean?" I said, "The car is a different color." They had tried very hard to imitate it but I noticed. So he told me the story. He had a golf pro in the car and Ted had gone to take him downtown. TB: He told me, "I want to get out here." A bicyclist coming inside the curb hit the door and was thrown to the ground. He started running around complaining, "This guy hit me." A crowd started gathering, then he started shaking the car up and down and saying that I was a foreigner. A policeman came, thank God, and 24 he dispersed the crowd. He said, "I'm going to drive the car down to the station." He had never driven a car, I swear. He bumped the car all the way down to the station. HB: They realized that he had the golf pro in the car and the golf pro was from Medellin so he told them that it was not Ted's fault, it was actually his own fault for not looking when he opened the door. TB: Wait, you've got to put in that in Medellin I was forty-two years old and still playing baseball in the Coca Cola team of the Americas on Sunday afternoon with ten thousand people. HB: They built the stadium with the money we paid to get in—it was like a dollar to get in. it was famous team. That was a good story. ROH: How many years were you in Medellin? HB: We were in Cali three years, Medellin probably about three years. We left in 1964. We had a beautiful German Shepard named Hans. We were going to Medellin and the dog got out—he was going by plane—but they finally got him in the crate and on the plane. In Medellin we had a very nice home that had a fence and a cow guard at the entrance. It was all wired and there was a huge yard. So the dog arrived and I don't know why he became so vicious. We had a doctor living behind us and he had to go along a dirt road behind our fence in order to get to the main street. I don't know if they teased the dog but he would be out there barking all the time. My friends would call me before they would come to visit so that Hans would be locked in the house so that they could come in. 25 We would go on furlough to the States for a month and Ted would let one of the employees of Citibank—friends of ours with their son—stay in the house. Our maid was in charge of the house and I said, "All I want is that you are very careful with Hans, just make sure that if people come over, he is locked in the house." So the wife of the man who was going to stay in the house came to visit and one of the kids let the dog out. When Hans came out, he attacked the man. He was a big tall man and the man was going to kill the dog because it was attacking him but he didn't. He ended up with stitches all over both his arms. We were still friends, thank goodness. It was an accident. We were going to El Salvador and I had a little sewing kit. I thought it was a good hiding place for my thirteen gold coins and my cross and a jeweled bracelet that Ted had given me. Then I had a medal from one of the virgins. I put those in a box inside my sewing kit and put all the sewing things on top. Then I locked it and put it on top of all the things that still needed to be taken. We arrived in El Salvador; we were escorted to the airport by our friends from Medellin. Our maid went with us and we wished we could have taken her with us but she would have needed a passport. TB: You have to tell about President Johnson. You're not going to get there. We've only got so much time. HB: Alright, so we got to El Salvador and unpacked. I opened my sewing kit and the box with my special jewelry wasn't there. I thought, "Who would have even thought to look there?" I'm afraid that maybe the maid was the only one who knew. 26 We did more charity work in El Salvador. I was very involved in the community and the American ambassador to Colombia was very generous. His wife became my friend and we would play bridge in the afternoons. IT was time for us to do something big and I said, "Okay, why don't we do a night in Las Vegas with black jack and different tables." We had three months to plan. We had costumes. Walter, who was married to my friend Teresita, made the boards with the numbers and everything. But I had to have government permission to do this because it was going to be in a private home. We invited the governor of Medellin and he never came but he gave us permission. The American ambassador emptied the whole house of the furniture to make space for the gambling tables and the music and the food. The girls were dressed n cowboy boots, red shirts, and cowboy hats. I was pregnant with Sarah but it didn't show much at that time. It was very successful. The next day we came back and thanked the ambassador and his wife. He was so generous. The next afternoon we counted the money and we had made a lot of money that night. We gave it to the hospital and they bought grafting machines for the burned children. ROH: This was in Medellin? HB: Yes. [Day Two of Hazel Boyle's Interview] ROH: Today is November 17, 2011. We are continuing the oral history of Hazel Boyle. HB: We arrived in El Salvador and we were met by Joe and Sue Borgatti who was the president of the Citibank in El Salvador. We had a lovely dinner and met some of the most influential families who ran the city. It was 1965. It took us three months 27 to find a home. It was a lovely home. I think I mentioned that when we arrived in El Salvador, my aunt's husband's brother was the ambassador to Colombia in El Salvador. We were given a wonderful welcoming by him and we started making friends right away. A few years later the president of the bank came to visit and they bought a plane especially for them to travel through Central America to visit the branches of the bank. One night we had been invited to visit one of the homes out in the country. I think I told you the story about how we drove with another couple and the wife was in the hammock and she fell. So that night was a huge well-to-do party and Eartha Kitt was the singer that night. Later on, Ted was very involved with the American Men's Society and I was involved in the American Women's Society and we were always doing something for the country and the schools. Then president Lyndon B. Johnson arrived in the country. Because we were so involved in the American Men's and Women's Society, we went to the airport to greet them. They brought china and silver for the evening. All the ambassadors and presidents of Central America—Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala were there. The president brought his family and we met the two young ladies. He was a very tall man and very nice. They first had a big cocktail party on the terrace of the hotel and then we went in to dinner. It was so neat to have the china and dishes from the White House. ROH: Do you know what the President was doing there? HB: I think he wanted to meet with all of the heads of Central America. They left the very next morning. Then we had three very wonderful years. I had a tea for Mrs. 28 Moore when she was there. This is the Moore's—the president of the bank. They had a suite but we wanted to make it into more of a home, so I brought some of my paintings and Sue brought some of her things. He didn't like a lot of flowers but in Latin American countries, that it is a must. Mr. Moore said, "I want these flowers out of here. I feel like I'm in a mortuary." So all the flowers went out. I had to arrange every evening for the hairdresser to come up and fix her hair and the hors d'ourves before they went out to dinner. We had a wonderful group of friends there. We had a lot of Cuban people there who were married to Americans or Europeans. Or there were Latins, like myself, married to an American. We had wonderful parties and there was always dancing after dinner. I enjoyed every minute of it. From El Salvador we went to New York because Ted was assigned to the head office. I went on the train with four daughters to Connecticut. We had friends from El Salvador whose brother was dean of admissions at Berkeley, California. She showed us a lot of houses but we didn't like any. We were about to get back on the train to New York when she said there was one more house we might try. We went in and I just loved the drive up, the house was absolutely beautiful. It was colonial with black shutters. We went in and I said I really liked the house but it was a little more than we could spend. I said to Nora, our friend who met us and showed us the houses, if it would be feasible for me to make an offer. Nora said I had nothing to lose so just make the offer. I did. We went back to New York with the luggage and the girls and rented a little place between Norwalk and Wilton. We put the girls in school and within a week's time we got a 29 call saying, "Mrs. Boyle, the house is yours." We lived there for a beautiful six years. The funny part of the story is that they thought that because I was from South America I was used to maids and worried about how I was going to handle the house. What I did was I had a party and invited all the wives from the block. That was our introduction, then I had a beautiful New Years Eve party with black ties and long dresses and I cooked all the food for that and we had a wonderful dinner. Our girls went to school in Wilton. Sharon graduated from Wilton High School and then she wanted to go to BYU but she had already been accept to the University of Arizona but then she met a Mormon boy and that was what got us going there. So she went to BYU and she would call every night because she was missing us. This was the first time she had been on her own until she went on a mission. She went on a mission in Chile and she served for two years. Usually its eighteen months but she got pneumonia and they put her in a sanatorium. We were in Pakistan at the time. When we picked her up at the airport, I cried because it was like a shadow of the girl that I had sent on a mission. ROH: How did she get sick? HB: In Chile they have a lot of rain. Even though she had boots and heavy things, apparently the dampness got to her. We had a lovely time in El Salvador and met wonderful people. We went from El Salvador to New York and we bought the house. The girls went to school. On Halloween night in 1973, Ted came home while I was dishing candy and he 30 said, "How would you like to go Monrovia, Liberia in West Africa?" It was fine with me—it was part of my life and my job as his wife, but after reading the post report, I thought, "Oh! What am I getting into?" Poisonous snakes, frogs in the swimming pool, things that we wouldn't be able to get. Monrovia, Liberia was established by slaves that left the United States and established their own government. It was kind of neat, but it was different. We met President and Mrs. Tolbert. She took a kind of shine to me. She would always be so kind to me. They had a big affair every year where they had different booths from different countries and she asked me to represent America. I got a little committee and said, "How about something in fall?" We put a great big sheet like a sky and then we put leaves all around. We were also very involved with the American school. I taught Spanish there. I used to entertain people who would come from the bank with a great big sit down dinner at our home. Then we spent time at a beach house that I refurbished. The kids loved Saturday and Sunday at the beach. Then it was time for us to go to Pakistan. We arrived in Beirut, Lebanon in 1977 to 1979. Then we were transferred to Karachi, Pakistan and we were there from 1980 to 1983. There was a civil war going on. We have a book that shows the hatred that these people had for us as Americans at that time. A lot of Americans were evacuated. We arrived at the Bristol Hotel and Sarah and I were the only women there. We stayed in the hotel for three months until they fixed the bullet holes in the windows. We had to go through a lot of checkpoints to take my daughter to the American school and Ted to the bank. It didn't bother me when the driver took us. I've always minded my 31 P's and Q's when I'm driving, but we would leave the house at 6:00 at night and go through town and it was like a ghost town. I would say one prayer every night when I was driving and my daughter was with me. I would say, "Heavenly Father, please, I don't know if I would be capable running a person down if I met a guard with a bayonet." Every night for two years I was thinking: Would I be able to do that? I don't think I would have, but it never happened. IT was a miracle in my life. That's when I joined the church—while we were in Beirut, Lebanon. I looked for the missionaries but there were only the Parkers. ROH: Who were the Parkers? HB: They were friends and they were very involved in the University of Lebanon. Both of them worked there. She invited us to go to church and that's when Sarah and I were baptized—in a swimming pool at 6:00 in the morning. Now let me tell you the story about the Christmas tree. There was a dividing line between West Beirut and East Beirut. Our side had Catholics, Muslims, Jews, some Drews Mormons, and other religions as well. When you crossed the green line to the east, which was supposedly the Christian side. There was always a little friction there. Any time there was a cocktail party, I had to give them a list of who was coming. They would wait and they always had guns and they could see all the cars coming and when they saw a car coming they would always go down and make sure they knew what every car was doing there. It was always policed. At one time, there was a great uprising with the PLO. We used to play golf not to far from the golf club and we would pass the building that they were building for the American embassy and they stopped 32 construction, they were not doing anything there. Our friend used to be involved in agronomy and he went to Utah State and he was teaching at that time. I think he was in the military, as well. His name was Kenneth Bach and he was a colonel. He was sent to Monrovia, Liberia, and that was where we met them and that was where they took me to the non-denominational church and all these things started to go in my mind and I thought, "Hm." So they wanted to come and visit us in Beirut. They were going to Greece and I said, "When you get to Greece, if you don't hear anything bad about Beirut, please come and we'll take care of you." They didn't hear anything but unfortunately there was an uprising on the Saturday that they arrived. I always went to the market on Saturdays because the girls were busy doing stuff and we had a little girl as a maid that I sent to English school so that we could communicate—her name was Saba. They were so excited when I arrived with my beautiful flowers and they had everything but I had to go to all these different places to get things so it took me a good two or three hours. By the time I got home, they could hardly wait and they said, "Oh mom, guess who's here?" So Ken and his wife Eleanor and Sharon their daughter who was about fifteen at the time. I asked what hotel they were at and they told me. I said, "Oh, no!" So I stripped our bed because we had three bedrooms and we could give them the bedroom and the bathroom and we could move down to the other rooms. We went to get them from the hotel and we had a lovely lunch and then we headed out on the Christian side. When we got to Beirut, we had to pick out our car and it was a Datsun station wagon and I love yellow because it's such a pretty color. So we went over to the Christian side so 33 we could see the city there. There wasn't much traffic but we didn't hear any shots or anything. When it was time to come back we crossed and there was no problem. We arrived in our building and our neighbor was a Palestinian woman who was younger than us but always worrying like she was our mother. She came out saying, "Where have you been? They are fighting in Ashrafieh!" That was the cross line, but we didn't hear any shots. I guess we should have listened to her, but we didn't. Sunday morning we to the Parkers to go to church and there were Armenians and an American nurse and two or three other people and their families. Sunday we came back and had a lovely lunch—I had told Saba to pack a picnic lunch because I wanted to take it and show our guests Faraya, which was the skiing resort in Beirut. When we arrived there, there were all these Bedouin tents and goats and people. Francesca had warned us, "There's an uprising so don't go out, stay inside." We found a little place and we had our picnic and on the way back we couldn't cross. At the check point, there was the Christian militia in black with their guns and everything. In all of this traffic, we were in a bright yellow station wagon—how conspicuous could we be! So we get to the check point and he yells at us, "Go! Go! We're inshallah, go!" So we decided to go down by the port and not fifty yards from us—Boom! A mortar blew up and we thought we were dead. Ted did a wheelie and we went back to the east side. We went to John Berenson's house, who was in charge of the Citibank in the East. We arrived and Eleanor needed to use the facilities. I said okay 34 because he was not there; he had probably gone to see a movie because all of the nice things were on our side. So we had to climb down on kind of an iron ladder because I knew there would be facilities down there by the pool. When we went back up, we sat and waited for John to arrive. When he did, he said, "Oh! I know why you're here because they wouldn't let me cross either." We asked him if we could spend the night. That night we washed our clothes and the next morning John sent the bank driver to take us to the crossing but there was no way we could cross. We went to buy swimming suits for the girls because we did not want them to get worried, then Eleanor and I prepared a lovely lunch. We sat on the terrace that night and he used a video camera to look at all the tracers. By the port, they had put a fire on one of those oil tanks. Downtown was black, no electricity. You could see the tracers. I had to call Kimmy because Linda had already gone to the university but Kimmy stayed behind a few days. I called her and I had to be careful but I said, "We are at John Berenson's house and we may not be able to get through because it's kind of raining here." It was raining bullets, but she knew. I said, "Please don't leave the building. If you need anything, go to Francesca." That was the second night. The third night we tried again. Ted said, "Let me call my friend." That was the same guy who brought us the Christmas tree all the way from the east side to the west side at about 11:30 hoping that they wouldn't stop him because he was carrying a Christian Christmas tree. His name was Ramon Maitar and we all met and he said, "My friend it's imperative that we get our friends out, but we can't cross." He said, "Okay, I'm going to call my brother who 35 was in the Christian militia." His brother had been wounded just a few weeks before. And he called his brother and said, "Stop everything, there's going to be two cars—my car and the yellow station wagon." We got everything in the car and started—it was the most eerie feeling. It was dead silent. There wasn't a soul or a dog or a cat on the streets. We would look up and think, "Oh my gosh, the bullets are going to start coming." He took us all the way around the back way and at about half a mile he stopped the car and said, "This is as far as I can go." We had no more problems. We got through the checkpoints and to the apartment and everything was fine. We went to the American Express immediately to check their passports so that we could get them out of Beirut. They opened the suitcases and everything and when that plane finally took off we were so relieved. It was a great responsibility for us. That night, the embassy called us because my girls had been friends with the marines at the American Embassy. A marine called my husband and said, "Mr. Boyle, we need for you to get your family out of here immediately." That night we were pulling pictures out of the albums, I didn't take any clothes, just my silver which was my heirlooms and then I had to say goodbye to my husband. We got to Los Angeles and I had to declare everything. They looked at my passport and saw "Beirut, Lebanon" and said, "Go right ahead." Off we went and we arrived in California and I was concerned about Ted. He would always leave the apartment building at night and walk to the Kentucky Fried Chicken and you never know if you might be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 36 When Ted called he would say, "It's raining, you can't come yet, it's too wet." That was our communication. Then he arrived and we were so happy to have him for about a week before he had to go back. In 1976, the Russian airline "Aerofloat" had a tour to go visit Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev. It was two weeks, all hotels and transport paid for and it was $500 a piece. We signed up and took the aero float and landed in Armenia. We knew that we were going to the symphony and the ballet and the circus, so I took my good clothing and my jewelry and I had to declare everything. It was an interesting trip and we enjoyed everything. A lawyer was our guide in Moscow and there was a teacher as our guide in Leningrad. Kiev they refurbished because it was completely destroyed in WWII. There were 125 people signed for the trip but when the Israelis came we had to go down to the basement because there couldn't be any lights. We thought they were going to cancel the trip but seven of us went. We had a whole bus to ourselves. The lawyer who was our guide took us to an ice cream parlor and we walked in and there were all these Russians and there was silence. Oh, it was so awful. They knew we were foreign and it was so awful. They kept looking at us. We wanted to give the guide a little gift and she said, "I love Agatha Christie novels and when you send it, put law books.'" So then we went to Leningrad and the Hermitage Museum was incredible. While we were in Moscow, they had that beautiful church in the red square and we saw Lenin's tomb. There were a lot of Mongolian soldiers standing there and I approached one and said, "Do you speak English?" They said, "Yes, we do." I said, "Would you mind if I took your 37 picture." So they posed for me. Then Ted and I ventured out by ourselves and we wanted to see the basilica. We were in line and a Russian soldier was behind us and said, "Are you visitors?" I said, "Yes, we're here to visit your beautiful country." He said, "Would you mind if I directed you inside the basilica and told you some of the history?" I don't know if he thought we were spies, but he took us all around the whole thing and told us all the history. Then it was time to go on the train to Kiev. That was a little different because they only had one bathroom in each compartment and then we slept in bunk beds. So we are in our pajamas and this man came into out compartment and we didn't know what he was saying but he was pointing to the top bunk so we thought that was where he was going to sleep so we said, "Yes." Well, he proceeded to undress himself and got up there and went to sleep. My daughter was a little shy about that. We arrived in Kiev and the palace was refurbished and it was absolutely gorgeous. It was magnificent. I took pictures but we weren't supposed to. Then we had a young man as a guide and we asked what he would like for us to give him. He said, "I want your husband's jeans." He was tall and skinny like my husband. HE said, "Please don't send me a thank you card or anything, but tomorrow you sit in the back of the bus and roll up those jeans and just put it in my little suitcase." Then no one would know anything about it. He said, "I would have to pay $250 for a pair of jeans in the black market." We left and went back to Moscow and went to the catacombs. It was deep and dark and full of rats. It wasn't anything like the country jails that we pay for so 38 that they can get educated, you know. Anyways, we got to the airport and Sarah had to empty her pockets of her change and leave it. Then I had to go to a little room and take out all my jewelry so they could compare everything that I had declared in Armenia with what I was taking with me. They thought I'd brought it into the country to sell it. Then we boarded the plane and we were so happy to get back to Beirut. Remember Russia was still communist at that time. We were evacuated one time from Beirut and one time from Pakistan. We were having a big party at our home in Karachi and we had invited all of the teachers from the American school. They were our friends. In Pakistan, even before a child was born, its name was on a list to get into the American school. That night, some of the teachers wouldn't come because they had ordered us to be careful because they had raided the American embassy in Islamabad. We left the next night. Sarah and I left but Ted stayed behind again. We had house boys and everything, but still we were worried. It was my daughter's fourteenth birthday and she was so sad. The plane was full of Americans going to Washington D.C. and she said, "I may not see them again." I said, "Sarah, how many girls get to go on an Air France flight on their birthday?" She started laughing. When we got off the plane, she said goodbye to all her friends. We went to our hotel for one night, as the bank had an apartment for us and we were there for four months. Ted would come home every Friday and leave every Sunday. At Christmas time, that was what we did while we were there in Athens, Greece. ROH: When were you in Athens? 39 HB: I think it would have been 1978, but we spent Christmas and New Years there, so it was 1978 to 1979. ROH: What was Christmas like in Athens? HB: We had a little tiny Christmas tree just for us. People were very kind. The Greek people were very welcoming. Then, after Pakistan, we went to Saudi Arabia. We had a beautiful cat that we had adopted in Pakistan and our house was the main house for all the parties because it was a humungous house. You could put 400 people in that house and you wouldn't even know that they were there. There was a huge garden and a living room and another living and then we had two or three terraces upstairs. So whenever the American women had a party, it was at our house. Of course, we had the help and the people would come and string the lights and set up music and speakers. It was a great house for entertaining. I was president of the American Women's group in Pakistan. This charity had fairs for the school. We made the tennis courts and the books and whatever the school needed. ROH: When were you in Pakistan? HB: We were there from the end of 1979 to 1982. From 1982 to 1985, we were in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I had my own driver because we weren't allowed to drive. In Saudi Arabia women are nothing. We are there for one purpose only. I met American women married to Saudis that they had met in college and they were so timid. They would come into the fish market or the meat market and I would try to talk to them and they wouldn't. But we found out that they were the favorite wives because they were blond or beautiful, but they always had to have their 40 abayah with her. We learned that in the palaces, the men ate first and whatever was leftover, the women would eat while the men went to smoke. They had the most wonderful shops there—like Christian Dior and Oscar de la Renta. But at the same time, the taste was horrendous. They liked all this glittery stuff that you would see in the windows. The brand new airport was built. It was incredible, but the women were petrified of the escalators in the mall and in the airport because they wore those long skirts and abayah and veil and they preferred to use the stairs. We had an incident in Saudi because my husband got sick and we went to the urologist and the urologist tried to get him in the American hospital because he was not a resident—but they really liked my husband because he was Mormon and they knew he didn't drink and all of that. Whatever we did was illegal—I went to aerobics and that was illegal and my friends made wine and beer out of apple juice in their bathtubs. That was how we entertained. Ted and I never drank it, but we served it at our house. They would bring cases or red wine, white wine, and beer. Citibank bank had 23 compounds in Riyadh and everything we did— tennis and parties and thanksgiving and golf—we did it at the compounds, but we had to be careful because we had our western dress at night but we had the abayah that we wore happily and we did it justice. But the French girls didn't, they would go out with very tight jeans and then they would wrap their shirts up in a knot. When they went to the souk, the priest would tap them on the ankle because they had high heels and because the jeans were so tight they didn't 41 cover their ankles. So they would be sent to jail. They ate bread and water because they don't give you any food in those jails. I thought, "Not a bad idea!" Another thing that happened in Riyadh was because they encouraged us to go to the chopping block every Friday because Friday is their Sunday. ROH: What is the chopping block? HB: The chopping block is this big plaza. If there was a person who had fornicated or raped anybody or would do something really bad, they would be beheaded in the plaza every Friday. They encouraged foreigners to go. ROH: Why? HB: I guess to warn you not to do something bad. We were guests in their country and we were very careful. So anyway, the urologist gave him a note to go to the hospital but the hospital wouldn't allow him to go in, so he had to go to the president of the bank there and get permission to leave the kingdom for medical reasons. My husband is a little bit of a stubborn man, like most men. He went to the airport but he didn't have all the signatures he needed, but he wouldn't go in the wheelchair and I said, "Ted, if you had just gone in the wheelchair, you would have been let on that plane without a problem." Well, while we were traveling, Ted's catheter got clogged and it must have been very painful. When we arrived in New York, I said, "Ted, lets go right to the medical center. They'll take care of it." He said, "No, no, no, I'm fine." So we missed the plane to Salt Lake so we flew to Los Angeles and by the time we arrived in Salt Lake, Ted's face was white. His brother met us there and took him to the hospital and five minutes later he was fine. Because we were not Arabs, they would not allow us in the hospital. 42 But everything was taken care of at McKay Dee Hospital. Our daughter Kimmy lived in Salt Lake City at the time and we saw her while Ted was convalescing. So that was our time in Saudi Arabia. We had a Main Coon cat. He was beautiful and so sweet. We loved him. This is in Pakistan, but there were fifteen ladies together for tea and all the sudden this gorgeous can came and sat in my lap and it was love at first sight. She said to me, "Hazel, you must have something special because Foxy never goes to anyone!" The cat's name was Foxy. I said, "If you ever need someone to babysit, let me know." That was Christmas time. On February 14, she called. She said, "Hazel, how would you like to have Foxy?" I said of course, how long are you going to be gone?" She said, "We're being transferred to Italy and we can't take the cat because we're expecting a second child and Foxy hasn't been very good with our first. Would you like to have him?" I said, "Of course!" I didn't ask Ted because he would have said no. That day we took him and we put him in the blue room. Coming from a small house, we thought he would be petrified of the big house. So we went to pick up Ted from the office and I said, "Happy Valentines Day!" And Ted said, "Alright, what do you have up your sleeve?" We got home and he said, "I don't want to have anything to do with that animal." Three days later, he still did not want that cat. I thought, "Okay, Foxy and I are leaving." Ted came and said, "Okay, I guess Foxy can stay." That cat died on its twenty-second birthday. We brought him to Wilton and it was so funny in the snow because he'd never been in snow. ROH: So which was your last post? 43 HB: Saudi was our last. We flew Swiss Air because of Foxy. We arrived at Kennedy Airport and our neighbor's son worked for a limousine company and when we arrived this beautiful limousine was waiting. That was our homecoming. ROH: So you kept your home in Wilton the whole time you were abroad? HB: Yes, we did. In fact, when we were going to Monrovia, Ted said, "Sell the house." Linda was a junior in high school and I asked the principal if she could graduate as a junior because she was too young to leave but not old enough to go to college. I asked the school in Monrovia if she could do a year of post-graduation work there. They said, "Oh, sure." She was such an addition. She had been on the tennis team and she had been a cheerleader. So she graduated a second time. She mentioned that we always decorated the graduating room but that night there was a strong storm and there were no lights. So the students each came in their gown with a candle to light the way. They needed a majestic chair because the president was going to be there. Well, I had this lovely Spanish chair in the dining room at home that was upholstered in red velvet. I said, "I have two chairs for them." So we had that. About an hour later, the lights came on and Linda was able to sing, The Way We Were. She started singing when we had come from over seas, the girls were in eight and ninth grade and her sister were in the high school. Sarah was supposed to go to kindergarten when we arrived, but they wouldn't accept her because she didn't speak any English. We had been talking to her in Spanish, so I had to keep her for another year and speak only English. She forgot her Spanish. She took classes in high school and in college, but when 44 some of us start talking Spanish, she gets so mad because she forgot all her Spanish. ROH: How did you come to be in St. George? HB: We were in Wilton, Connecticut until Ted retired from the bank. A friend of his, Frank Tribe, called him and said, "Ted, if you want to go to heaven and play golf, go to Rio Verde, Arizona." So we sold the house and I flew out ahead of time to Logan because my daughters were there. We went first to Scottsdale and rented a car and followed the directions they had given us. There was nothing there, just grass and desert and we thought, "Where are we going? Are we sure we have it right?" Finally we go to the curve and we turned and saw the sign for Rio Verde. We had rented a townhome. The people were so friendly. The realtor took us around and we saw a house that I really liked. We didn't buy the house then. It was reasonable in price and it was brand new. We had to live with our daughter and put things in storage for two months while we waited for the house. She was so gracious. Then we had an Air Force reunion in California. That was what made us realize, "Yes, this is what we want." We went back and the house had gone up in price. But we sweet-talked the realtor and he let us buy it for what he had quoted us before. We moved in and our neighbors came to visit us and brought us things and it was heaven. When our family came, we had to rent a house for them so there was enough room for everyone. ROH: So how long have you been here? HB: We've been here six years. We moved here in April 2005. ROH: Of all of those countries you lived in, was there one you enjoyed the most? 45 HB: I'm the type of person who can make friends easily. The bank was very good for us. When we were in Pakistan, I could go into the store and get everything I wanted, but the paper towels were so expensive and the toilet paper was like sandpaper. But all these things you learn from the people who were there before you. They had one shipment every year and all the people and the vice presidents would bring us bacon—because you don't see bacon in those countries—and cheese, too. We enjoyed the R and Rs. We went to Europe many times, we loved Switzerland, Austria I liked, Germany was okay, Italy was nice also. I had a very good friend from El Salvador whose husband worked for the Intercontinental Hotel and he was Swiss. She and I did everything together. We would go to the movies and when we got back, the chef would have cherries jubilee waiting for us. They spoiled us. I forgot to mention, when we were in Beirut, Lebanon, we subscribed to the Times magazine and we listened to the BBC from London. We opened the Time magazine up before we left for Russia and they had assassinated the president Tolbert and his wife from Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa. Then they got all the ministers that we knew—they had come to our home—and they were taken and assassinated on our beach. That was really awful. Then, in El Salvador, there were uprisings. Every single country that we have lived in has had uprisings. The only country that seemed to be okay was Greece and now they're in trouble. I know that we're here for a reason. I love my life here and I have such a good time. 46 ROH: Did you children pick up the languages wherever you went? HB: They were with us constantly. They got a tremendous education wherever they went. They were way ahead on all the examinations they did. Wherever the American school was in those countries, the American school was the best. ROH: Tell me about the girls that went to school in Utah. HB: Sharon went to BYU; Linda, Kimmy, and Sarah went to Utah State. Kimmy was married at twenty-two and didn't finish college. Linda and Sarah finished. We thought Sarah would go into public relations; when she went to Michigan, she was the assistant coach of the girl's tennis team. She loved that but then she hurt her back and had to go into a different field. ROH: Did you go back to Ogden to visit after you had been married? HB: Oh yes, always. Every time we went to the States we would go to New York to do the medical. Then we would fly to L.A. and Ted's brother would pick us up and take us to Long Beach to see our mother and father-in-law. We would always go to Ogden because that was the place where all of his friends were. When we moved to Wilton, they would come to visit us in the east. We loved to take them to see the sights. We always flew over the United States, so for three years we made a trip across the United States so the girls could learn some of the history and geography. The first trip was from the east coast to the west coast. We had a whole month to do it. We would drive four or five hundred miles a day, then the girls and I would go sight-seeing. We went through so many places. My favorite was Gettysburg. It was s historical. We went to the theater and we went to the 47 museum about the North and the South and the fighting. Kentucky was beautiful because I love horses. We went to Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. We traveled a lot with the girls. We had a huge station wagon and we would have to put the dog and the cat in a kennel while we did this. While we were driving, Ted would play games like, "Whoever sees the first white horse gets a dollar," or, "Whoever sees the first buffalo gets a dollar." Once time he said, "I want you to count how many Volkswagen bugs you see on the trip." And they'd get a prize. They were spoiled. [Laughter] ROH: You had lots of parties, but what kind of hobbies did you have? HB: I did needlepoint and crochet. I knitted and embroidered. My hobby wherever we were was to take care of our home and make the best of whatever we had. I loved entertaining and we never went out to dinner like you do now. I always cooked. When I was a child, they put me in ballet and I played the piano, I went to the conservatory. These things were so helpful in my life. My parents would take me to see the ballet and symphony and concerts and operas. The worst was when they took me to lectures; they were so boring. ROH: What kind of music did you dance to when you had parties? HB: Glen Miller, and Big Band type music, and then, of course, the Latin music. I loved classical music and I would love to go to concerts, but Ted isn't fond of that type of music. He likes Glen Miller. The war music. ROH: What are your favorite flowers? 48 HB: My favorite flower is the rose. I love red and pink and yellow roses. I learned how to arrange flowers when I was in Central America. I took classes and those were fun. I have given demonstrations in cooking. When we moved to Arizona, we had to go about thirty-seven miles to get to church. ROH: What are you favorite kind of books? HB: I like happy things. I like mysteries and biographies. I like romantic books. I read church books and I love them. I have my own little library and that was so helpful when I was a teacher in church. I should also mention, when we were in Monrovia, Ted met Shirley Temple Black and Henry Kissinger. I think they were interested in the background of Liberia and the businesses and the education. We had a big colony there from all walks of life. We had maybe 1,500 foreigners, maybe. The compound was beautiful and when Ted left, I didn't sell the house. Nora offered to watch the house if I wanted to rent it and so for eleven years she rented to IBM people and Australian people and Canadian people. When we went back after eleven years, we did not have to do anything to fix it because Nora had taken care of it. Our first car when we had come from overseas was sold to us by a man whose son races cars. I think it was a Corbeau. In Colombia, when Kimmy was born, Ted said, "We're going to take pictures." I had Kimmy in my arms and I was going downstairs and I slipped. I landed on my tailbone and from then on I would have back pain every once in a while. But it was not until we were driving in Bryce Canyon in the 1970s during one of our trips from the east coast to the west 49 coast—there were very small roads and we went down by mule and my mule's name was Herman. After the mule ride—two hours down and two hours back—I went home and sat down and I could not get up. I had a ruptured disk. The next day I went for x-rays and they sent me to a specialist in Norwalk, Connecticut. Remember, this was in the '70s. They didn't know very much about back surgery. Ted asked them the odds and they said the surgery was about twenty-five percent successful. I said, "Oh, no, you're not cutting me open." So he said I had to come home and lie down for three months and they gave me cortisone and I wore a brace for nine months. He said, "You'll never be able to horseback ride or play tennis, but you can swim." My neighbors would come every day and talk to me and bring books and just be aware of how I was doing. I was so grateful. We had another friend, a teacher, whose wife had cancer. Towards the end, when it was so painful, she gave herself to the hospital in New York City so they could test things on her. At the funeral, I spoke to the priest and said, "These are my very good friends and they want to be buried in the Wilton cemetery, would it be okay to do a ceremony here in church?" He said, "Of course." I called all my neighbors and planned it all. Their youngest daughter used to come to our house all the time, she was like another daughter, and she still communicates with me. So he was the one who took us to the airport and we couldn't find Pancho, the cat. We found him under the car. When we got to the airport, the airline had a big crate for the golden retriever and a little one for the cat. I wasn't worried about the cat, but I was worried about the dog. They were very accommodating. They said I could stand at the window and see that he had enough water and the pills. 50 I had carried all these medications for him because we were going to Africa. When it was time, I stood by the window and saw the cage going into the luggage area. It was a night flight—we left at about eight at night—and we saw the aurora borealis. I have never seen such a beautiful thing in my life. It was incredible. We arrived the next morning and went to the compound where we would be living. Ted had been sleeping on a cot there with a wonderful cook and the house boy. He moved into the hotel with us, the cat and the dog were at the compound. The president there had a nice welcoming party for us and the music there is very similar to Latin music. That was so much fun! We met a lot of people that were from Scotland. They have a special day that they celebrate— ROH: Robbie Burns Days. They line sheep's stomach, like a sausage. HB: That was fun. We became very good friends with the people … All of our furniture was shipped by ship from New York City and my friend had her binoculars every day saying, "Okay Hazel, I think your ship is here, you'd better come over." Sure enough, our furniture had arrived. You don't realize you take these things for granted. I had said to Ted, "Describe the house for me." From what he said, I brought everything we had because I thought everything would be perfect. You wouldn't believe how beautiful everything fit in the house. In fact, I have a dresser and some other furniture in the other room that traveled everywhere with us. No matter where we went, I made a home for our family. They went to school, they had a wonderful life. All of our social life was inter-mixed. When we were going to go to Beirut, we could only take an air shipment 51 so I sold everything. The bank had told me I could buy everything we needed but I thought of the bank people in Cuba who had to leave everything behind and I thought, "No, we'll make do with what we have." I had a beautiful cedar double bed. We bought beds for the girls. I had a little kitchen table with six chairs and that was what we used even in Pakistan when we had this huge house. We had a fabulous time. We gave a farewell dinner to the ambassador of Colombia. Being friends with him, he had introduced us to so many people and we went to all the parties and we became very close to everyone. When it was time for him to leave, we had a very fancy dinner. I had the waiters from the Intercontinental Hotel wear white gloves and I made the food. I had decorated the card tables. It was a fairly good size home but the garage was open to the hall and I didn't want people to see the garage even though it was tiled and everything. So I made little curtains and put planters all along side. We had little tiny patio that I put potted plants, and then I planted Chinese grass. ROH: Well, thank you Hazel for your time and for talking to me. HB: Thank you.

Transcript of an oral history interview with Robert G. Minnis, conducted by Jennifer Payne on 4 October 2013, as part of the Norwich Voices oral history project of the Sullivan Museum and History Center. Robert Minnis graduated from Norwich University in 1963; the bulk of his interview focuses on Minnis' military career in the U.S. Army as well as his later employment and family life. ; Robert Minnis, NU 1963, Oral History Interview October 4th, 2013 Sullivan Museum and History Center Interviewed by Jennifer Payne JENNIFER PAYNE: We can start. This is Jennifer Payne with the Norwich Voices Oral History Project and today's date is October 4th, 2013. I am here with Robert Bob Minnis, Class of '63. Thank you very much for doing this. ROBERT MINNIS: You're welcome. JP: So, did you have a nickname? RM: The yearbook said it was Minnie but I don't remember that. JP: You don't remember. RM: I was called probably other things but Minnie was the name that's in the book. So, I'll go by that. JP: How did you choose Norwich? RM: Senior year in high school, I was ill for the whole month of January and basically almost the day before I graduated class, I was still taking final exams and everything. I got accepted to Northeastern as a conditional student provided I went to summer school. I decided I just busted my gut for four months. I wasn't going to do that. Arrangements were made through my father and I think it was the high school football coach. Anyway, they got me convinced to go to Bridgeton Academy, which was a prep school in Bridgeton, Maine, for a year. I did that. While I was there, I think it was one of the dorm counselors suggested Norwich University maybe as a place to go. I came up here and visited and like it and applied and got accepted. Started in 1959, September, August, September class. JP: Where are you from? RM: I grew up in Weymouth, Massachusetts on South Shore, just south of Boston. JP: When were you born? RM: 1940, but that's classified. JP: Oh. Okay. RM: I tell people I was born before World War II and they kind of look at me. JP: When you came to Norwich, what was your rook experience like? RM: Really, I don't remember a whole lot of it. I was in the I Company, in Alumni Hall, on the second floor. I remember the squad leader, Corporal Zagars, who had quite a reputation, I guess. He was kind of different, not like a lot of the other squad leaders and sometimes he was very nice and other times, he was just mean. At least, we thought he was. Other than that, I don't - other things we used to as freshman, running here and there, squaring corners and that type stuff, I guess. Hasn't probably changed a whole lot but I don't have any specific memories of freshman year, other than the fact that the academic schedule that I had was pre-engineering. I had had in high school and prep school and by the time I got here, I didn't have to spend a whole lot of time studying, so I could go out to the movies two times a week. I was out to the movies two times a week. Basically, I was involved in the rifle team, the drill team, and any extracurricular activity I could get involved in just to help pass time and keep the upper classmen out of my life. JP: Wow. Drill team is a challenge. RM: We had a lot of fun. In fact, probably the best part was, my sophomore year, we got to march in President Kennedy's inauguration parade. JP: You're in that photo. RM: I'm in that photo, front rank or second rank anyway. We had to get dress blues for that. That's the first time dress blues came to Norwich. Originally, it was just going to be the drill team, which was maybe twenty-four members and, I guess, some other people said, "Hey. Why can't I go?" Anybody that had a set of dress blues and wasn't on academic probation, I guess, got to go. We went down there. Took a bus trip down. It was Greyhound, Vermont Transit Bus Line, which I think was a subsidiary of Greyhound. We ended up going down there. We got to D.C. and it was snowing. The bus drivers had no problem with the snow because they drove in it all the time. There were cars all over the place. We stayed at Fort Meade in the barracks that didn't have any heat. You want to talk about, Harry Chebookjian, I think, could probably tell you a few stories about that. But anyway, they finally got the heat going. The next day we went into D.C. and stood in some back street same place for hours it seems in the freezing cold waiting to go on. During the night, apparently they, the Army took all the engineers and anybody around there. They just swept the street clean. Pennsylvania Avenue was bone dry and no snow. Around the capital, I stepped in a puddle of water and it never wet my sock because it was so cold, it froze before I got there. And after that, the parade, we went back, turned our rifles in, and they turned us loose for, I forget, a couple hours. They told us we had to meet the buses at nine o'clock or whatever it was to take us back to Fort Meade. Stayed there overnight and the next day, headed back to school. JP: Do you remember what you did in D.C.? Where you went? RM: Basically walked around, looking at sites. Of course, we had the dress blue uniforms that had the gold stripe on the hat, so we used to see how many West Pointers we could get to salute us. Because they had the funny uniform. To them, a gold stripe was a salute so we obliged. JP: That's great. RM: I don't how long. We walked around D.C. for a couple hours and I don't remember where we went. Just kind of around the parks and the Mall and that type stuff. The dress blues, I still have. When I graduated, they converted them over to the Army. I still can get in them. JP: That's amazing. RM: A little tight, button-wise. I wouldn't want to do any rifle drill with them on but they do fit. JP: That's great. What else do you remember about your Norwich experience? RM: Well, my sophomore year, I was a squad leader in, I think it was A Company. Yeah. Bobby Blake was my roommate and a couple weeks after that, I was transferred over to the military police section. I roomed with Tom Dillard. Basically, any time there was a function on post that they needed a student traffic directions and escort and this and that, I did that for the whole year. We went to Middlebury or Vermont? One of the football games we went to, the captain was in charge of the MPs. We get up there. As soon as the game was over, he says, "Get rid of your whites," which was a hat cover and a scarf. He says, "Get out of here because you don't want to be known as…" We all bounced in the car. There was a bunch of us. I forget what transportation it was and left very quickly because there was a little bit of rivalry between us. JP: Was that the game where Middlebury won by the fifth down? RM: I don't remember the details. It may have been. Maybe that's what caused the commotion afterwards. I don't know. I don't remember. It's just too long. It was fifty-two years ago, or three years ago, over fifty. JP: You talked about General Harmon's car. What was the story? RM: Was the football game. It was sophomore year. I was in the MPs and we stood around the, the press box and Harmon, General Harmon and General I.D. White was sitting there. They were usually raising hell, like they always did, telling stories and swearing at this and that. We had male cheerleaders at the time. They were pointing out the various problems and things that they weren't doing right. So anyway, they're getting ready, I think it was for the opening ceremony. The tank [Unintelligible] came up. It was on the left side of the bleachers, facing the field. The General's car was in the way. So he said, "Move my, Corporal, come. Move my car." Okay. So, I get in it and I couldn't find the starter. It was one of those cars. It was buried underneath the pedal and I didn't know better. My roommate, Tom Dillard, was aware of this and I said, "Tom." He told me where it was so I got the car started. I moved it out of the way. Then, the tank came and fired the round. It did what it had to do. I was there for a couple minutes looking all over the place for the starter button. It didn't work with the key or anything. I remember, he used to come to the mess hall and occasionally tell a story or two. Probably can't be repeated in most company. Freshmen week, Parents' Weekend, they'd always serve steak. We never got it but they always had it on Parents' Weekend. He'd come in and he'd talk to them. Basically, he'd say, "If you don't like this place, you can get the hell out of it." He was a good old guy. He was a lot of fun to be with. He always stuck up for the Corps. If there was a problem in Northfield or Montpelier or wherever it was, I guess the story was where he'd send the tanks or the Corps or somebody in to rescue the people that go in trouble. He didn't take any B.S. from the townies. I guess he's got his own legacy and story. I also read his book afterwards, "Battle Commander," I think. He was a colorful guy. In fact, when we were going through, looking for picture for the reunion, there's a picture of me and General Harmon onstage that I guess is [Unintelligible] the Army. I couldn't remember what the thing was. So I sent it into Nate Palmer, who was the secretary of the reunion committee. He says, "That was graduation and you." Okay. There was nothing written on the back of the photo. I just had a mental blank as to what the picture was. Other than that, Harmon was a colorful character. I can't remember any other stories. I'm sure there's several. JP: So, your major was? RM: I started off mechanical engineer and changed over to sophomore year to engineering management and that was my degree, engineering management. I don't think they have it here now or maybe they call it something different but for a long time, it dropped out of the curriculum. Basically it was the basic engineering courses, Chemistry, Physics, Math, and then, Economics and English added on to it. It was kind of a mix. JP: Business and engineering. RM: Yeah. Right. It was kind of the happy road between the two of them. It worked well because I liked the construction part of it. When I was active duty, that's what I did. JP: What did you do after graduation? RM: I got immediate commission and I reported ninety days after commissioning. I had a summer job for ten weeks and a week on either end of it. I worked for a neighbor's dad basically just to kill time because I knew I was going to the Service. Then, the day came, I reported in to Fort Belvoir, went to the Basic Officer's Course. The day we signed out, President Kennedy was assassinated. JP: Oh my. RM: So, I ultimately decided, "Get out of D.C. because you don't want to get stuck down here." I went home. I watched all the proceedings on television. I got to Europe a couple weeks after that, was the middle of December. The people over in France in the bars were still buying free drinks. You couldn't buy a drink, in honor of President Kennedy. I got to march in his parade. After graduation from college here, my roommate, Jim Andrews, his dad had a place in the Cape, Camp Edwards, which was an Air Force base. His dad had a house there. When Kennedy flew in to Hyannis, the airplane was parked at Edwards Air Force Base. When I went to Jim's cottage that day, there was a bunch of people there. They were introducing me. They were the crew that flew on Air Force One. So we're getting ready to leave. They say, "Hey. You want to see Air Force One?" I got an escorted tour of Air Force One. We drove up and the guard was saying, recognized the driver of the jeep. "Nah," he said, walked up. There was one guard, I think, one or two guards out there. Walked up. Got a tour of the plane for, went all the way to the back. JP: Wow. RM: I sat in the, picked up the telephone, called my folks and said, "Hey! Guess where I am?" JP: Did you really? RM: Got a package of cigarettes and a book of matches and I forget what else they gave you. Yeah, so I got the tour of Kennedy's airplane. It was a 707. A couple weeks later, I was down at Fort Belvoir. JP: Doing? RM: It was a Basic Officer's Course. JP: Where did you go from there? RM: I had orders to France as a bachelor. I was supposed to be in for two years. People are trying to woo you with all this, "Sign up for three years. You can go take your family to it." I wasn't married, so I didn't care. I liked France. It sounded good to me, so I was going. I did have a little French in high school which was, I figure, maybe some help. We went, landed, we took off from Dix, no, McGuire Air Force Base in Canadian airplane. When I walked out of the airplane, the tail was open. That's how they're putting in the luggage. I go flying across the Atlantic Ocean and pray that the tail won't open up. We landed in France, in Paris, and I was supposed to get off there. There was two other people in the airplane going to the same outfit I was. The Air Force saw that I was supposed to be assigned to Phalsbourg, France, which was up on the German border. They said, "No. You stay on the airplane." I was one of the last people off because I was sitting in the back. They said, "No." [Unintelligible] "Already taken care of. We put it back on the airplane. Just go back and sit down." I said, "What do I do when I get to Germany?" They said, "Well, go to the tower and they'll get you a ride and take you in to France." About a couple hours later, it was dark by this time. Landed at Rhine-Main and they got this poor E-1 airman out of bed some place. He'd look as though he'd been ridden hard. He was awake enough to drive us and he drove down, went into France. Crossed the border. They waved us on through because it was a military vehicle. They dropped me off at the orderly room where the company, it was already eight or nine o'clock at night, and everybody says, "Where were you? They've been looking all over for you." Because they thought I was coming in to Paris. They made a few telephone calls and told the battalion commander that I had arrived. They recalled all the vehicles. The next morning I got up, put on a set of fatigues and went to work. JP: Your job was? RM: I was a platoon leader in the construction battalion. I had my own little mini-construction company. I had five dump trucks, a crane, air compressor, trailers, forty people including carpenters, masons, electricians, plumbers, heavy equipment operators. I often thought if I could retire from the army, I wouldn't need to retire with pay. Just give me the construction platoon that I had. And all kinds of tools, you know. You need tools and it came in a box I had probably. JP: What did you build? RM: First thing I had to build was four pre-fab metal buildings for ammunition storage for the Air Force. That was at Phalsbourg, where I was stationed. After that, they got sent to Reims Air Force Base in France. They were doing an asphalt project there and I was told to go study it because I was going to do an asphalt project in Chateraux in the Loire Valley. So, I went down there a few weeks ahead of time and designed an asphalt mix and got all the pieces and parts I needed. I ordered the amount of gravel and the right quantities and sizes. Then they sent me an asphalt plant from like a twenty truck convoy. They assembled it, put it together, we started making asphalt, and we repaired the runways and the shattered roof of the C141 aircraft that was coming in to the inventory. Had to replace some concrete and over pave it. JP: Wow. RM: There was also a French aircraft repair company there. They were repairing Air Force 101s and 100 jets. Those guys used to take off all the time and buzz my equipment operators that were driving on the field. After I was there for eight, nine months, the battalion commander called an officer's call for New Year's Eve. Because we were stationed all over the place at separate places, we had to get, we collected TDY to go to the battalion commander's officer's call. So, I went to the Etain Air Force Base, where the battalion commander was. Platoon sergeant took my platoon and the rest of the equipment and went back to Phalsbourg. We married up, I think it was the Second or Third of January, when I got back. After that, summer in the Loire Valley was beautiful, wine country, gorgeous weather, all the chateaus. Then, I went back to Germany, back to France. That time, de Gaulle threw the American forces out. I went PCS to Germany with the unit but because I had two year obligation, I had to extend for a year to go with the unit. When I extended, I was able to go France. Otherwise, they would have sent me back and given me TDY or stuck me someplace for two or three months. We got to Phalsbourg, I mean, to [Unintelligible] and set up shop there. We were there for almost a whole year. A couple projects, we had to build ammunition storage facilities and the great, big, huge butler buildings for the pre-fab equipment that the Army had stationed over there. They'd fly the people over, put them in the new trucks and tanks and stuff if they ever had a problem with the Russians. Then, in, was it June or July of '66, I got orders to Vietnam as a captain. I was still a First Lieutenant so I got promoted. On the way back, they sent me to Fort Belvoir to a Facility Management course. When I got to Vietnam, the typical story was engineer lieutenants, you don't stay in the repo depot very long. You get hauled off to someplace else. I was in the replacement company for six or seven days. One day, a lieutenant colonel and an Army major, WAC, showed up in a fancy black sedan and said, "Come with us." And I went to Saigon, where I was in the facility of engineers, planned a construction order of materials, coordinate, and all of that stuff. Making sure the painters didn't go in and paint the wall before the carpenters went in, tore a hole, and put a doorway in. I was getting ready to come home and I had one last time as duty officer, which was on the 28th, that was the night of TET, '68. I was the duty officer on Headquarters Area Command, not very far from Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base. JP: Oh my. What was that like? RM: Busy. JP: Really? RM: Yeah. There was a sergeant there. He, about midnight, come in and woke me up, got me out of the chair. I was sitting in the back office and said, "Sir, I think you better come out there and see what's going on." He was so nervous because he only had three days left in country. He couldn't hear me, telephone shaking so bad, he had to set it on the table. So I spent the rest of the night, answering telephone calls, trying to coordinate this and that, writing the duty officer's log. The biggest thing, the relief called, was trying to get into the embassy, was getting shot at by the MPs that were in there. I finally get a hold of them. I said, "You guys are asking for ammunition." I said, "There's a truck outside with ammunition. Just don't keep shooting at it." I guess they got their ammunition all right. The rest of the staff showed up fairly early in the morning. By eleven o'clock, I'd finished writing all the stuff that I remembered on the report. They said, "Okay. You can go. So, I left. Went and got my jeep. Went across the street and got something to eat. Then, headed back to the compound because facility was on the other side of Saigon in the Cholon section. I was going over there and there was actually nobody in the street. The Vietnam, Saigon was never, never deserted. Even at midnight, there was thousands of people. Anyway, I'm in convoy with three APCs and I crossed each other at thirty-five miles an hour. Neither one of us slowed down or anything. I just went back to the compound, turned in my jeep, turned in my weapon, and then went back to BOQ and got a couple hours sleep because I hadn't gotten much that night. Then, went back to the office and started doing facilities work again, taking fuel for the generators and all the BOQs and water to the mess halls and fixing what we could. The thousand-member workforce that we had disappeared. It was something like three or four officers and, I don't know, ten to twelve NCOs that did the work for that week, did emergency repairs, not routine stuff. Then, about three weeks after that, I went home. JP: Wow. Heck of a note to go out on. RM: Yeah. It was nice to leave. From there, I went back to the Advanced Course at Fort Belvoir. When I graduated from that, there was supposed to be a very short turnaround for engineers, for any officer going back to Vietnam. To kill time, I taught Demolition Mine Warfare, down at the engineer school for a few months. And then, one day, I got a call to report to the headquarters, personnel section. They told me I was going to become the post-chemical officer. Because the day before, the chemical officer that was there was getting out of the service and they didn't have a replacement. The fact that I'd been to a chemical school in Germany three years, four years before that, I was the most qualified guy on post. I went, over my objection, but they said, "Forget that." I took the job and I went in there and just basically sat back and let the NCOs run the place. I ran cover for them. A year later, I was on orders to go back to Vietnam and all I had to do was pick up my 201 file and my personnel records, finance records. I got a call from my mother saying, "People at assignments branch are looking for you," because they thought I was home on leave. I call them and they said, "Guess what, Captain? You're not going to Vietnam!" Oh, ho, ho. Yeah. You date the President's daughter, you might get a chance to get out of it. Anyway, I went over. I told my boss, [Unintelligible] I said, "Hey. Guess what? Somebody's playing a joke on me. Yeah. I'm not going to Vietnam." He made a few phone calls. He says, "That's right. You're not going to Vietnam." I got to stay another whole year at Fort Bellvoir. JP: Wow. RM: When I eventually did go back to Vietnam, in Christmas of '70, Christmas of '70, New Year's Eve '71, I got sent to a place called Phan Thiet [??], the construction battalion. I was the company commander there for three months and then I was the, we built roads, bridges, that type stuff. Ran our own asphalt plant. Then, I became the operations officer for the unit there. I stayed there until December, early December '71, when they had already started letting people out of Vietnam. I got an early drop by a week and they let me come home early. JP: By a week. RM: By a week. From there, I was supposed to be assigned to, what was it, Army Materiel? No. I was supposed to be assigned to Fort Belvoir. I went into Fort Belvoir and this snotty little attendant, basically Army Readiness Region 1. He says, "When you get here, we'll take care of it." I says, "What am I going to be doing?" He says, "I don't know. Worry about that when you get here." I go over to assignment and say, "I don't want to go there. You got anything else?" They sent me to Army Materiel Command as a project officer. I was there for three years almost. Yeah. That's where I was when we got married. Three years and after I got married, I was going to buy a house. I couldn't find an apartment for my dog. So, we ended up buying a house. They told me I was going to be, "You have to call me to get out of this place." Six months later, they send me orders to [Unintelligible] region, up at Fort Devens. I said, "Hey. You told me." "Well. Sorry. Priority is the Army." I rented the house out and ten years later, when I retired, we went back to it. After I went to Devens for three years, I went to Fort Richardson, Alaska for three years. Then, Fort Leavenworth for three years. That's where I ended my career. JP: How many years were you in, total? RM: Twenty years, one month, and twenty-three days. JP: But who's counting? RM: Yeah, but who's counting? JP: That's amazing. RM: Yeah. The day I signed in the Advanced Course was the day Martin Luther King was assassinated. JP: Wow. RM: We didn't go to downtown D.C. for several weeks. JP: No. RM: That was basically it. After I retired, I got a job with the United Services Automobile Association as a facilities specialist working at their office in Reston, Virginia. About a year and a half to two years later, my boss was offered a retirement under accelerated retirement package, which he took. I got promoted into his job. Moved the office from Merrifield, Virginia to Reston, Virginia. Built a second building and ultimately, retired as the Director of Facilities and Services. JP: Wow. RM: In fact, I was in charge of mail room, mess hall, security, facilities. There was probably something else. That was the person that worked in the Aramark office under the Aramark contract as the bookkeeper. JP: And that is your wife, who's here? RM: Yes. For three years, we ate lunch together. JP: That's sweet. RM: U.S.A.A. moved the officer from Reston, Virginia. They closed it. They offered me a job in Norfolk, Virginia. I said, "No. I don't want that." The kids told me I could go if I want to but they were going to stay behind. They had a place that they could stay, the neighbor across the street. I said, "No. I'll take an early retirement, a retirement." The day I moved into the building, it snowed and the day I left, it snowed. I kicked around for a little bit of time, working on a job. In fact, I went at work. After I left U.S.A.A., I went back at work for Aramark as an hourly employee, washing dishes, serving food, preparing food, cash register. I did anything and everything they needed. I worked there for about three months. When they closed the building, we had a farewell party. I was third from last out of the building. I was one of the first people in. Fourteen years of time was first and last. Then, I kicked around for a few months, working for Home Depot and places like that. I got a call from a friend of mine that was in the facility management business. He said, "George Washington University is looking for a facilities person. You might want to do down and talk to them. I went down and talked to them, Monday or Tuesday. Was hired that week. Went to work the following week. They sent me out to Loudoun, Virginia where the campus was. PSINet had owned the building. Had gone bankrupt. GW had bought it and had leased it back to PSINet. PSINet wasn't clearing the building like they were supposed to. So, they sent me out. They said, "Throw them out." I threw them out. Locked the door. Changed the locks and they never came back. I was out there for eight years before they told me my job was going to be transferred from Virginia down to district. I told my boss, I said, "I'll come down here for meeting but I'm not coming down here every day to work." I said, "I'll just tell you right now. Sometime this year, I'm going to retire and I'll tell you two weeks before the day I walk out." That's exactly what I did. We knew we were coming down to Virginia. Both my girls went to UVA. They were both working at UVA and both living in the Charlottesville area. We decided, "Let's go down there where they are." We bought the house. I retired. We moved the stuff down from the house in Virginia. We've been in Charlottesville for three and a half years. JP: Wow. This is the house you bought for the dog? RM: Yes. [MRS. ROBERT MINNIS]: No. RM: Wait. No. [MM]: That was when we first married. The dog was a Labrador retriever, seventy five pounds. Most apartments only let twenty to thirty pounds so we had to buy a house. RM: And the dog went with us the whole time we were in the service and even moved down to Virginia with us when we retired. He ended up with hip dysplasia, cancer problems and we had to – [MM]: He was fifteen. The house we first bought when we were married, we rented it out for ten years. We came back when he retired from the Army and we occupied it for three years, but then we sold it when his company moved out to Reston, Virginia. RM: I got tired of commuting. [MM]: We had twenty four years in that house before we moved down to Charlottesville, Virginia area. UVA is the University of Virginia, which you're always saying all these spots that you were stationed in, but if you're not in the military, you wouldn't know necessarily [Unintelligible]. Not everybody would know. JP: This class, I'll tell you. I know places in Vietnam I didn't a week ago. RM: Phan Thiet, that's where I was stationed in 1971, just a little village town on the coast. Had gorgeous white beaches. You'd die for a white beach like that, white beach sand. It was supposedly the nuc mong capital of the world. Do you know what nuc mong is? JP: No. RM: They take fish and they boil the fish all in crocs and they let it rot. They drain off the fluid and that's like vitamins, fish oil, vitamin stuff. It stinks. There was a story about one guy, came back from Vietnam. He was Special Forces. He had a bottle of this stuff. The customs agent said, "Open it." He said, "No. You don't want me to do that." The guy insisted so he opened the thing up and they almost had to evacuate the terminal. I was there a whole year, building roads, bridges, ran a construction project, asphalt plant, rock quarry, fleets of dump trucks, and everything else. It was basically a little construction company. Whisky Mountain was the site that we stayed at. Gorgeous sunsets. [Unintelligible] you could watch the sun go down over the hills. It was beautiful. Anyway, that was it. JP: Wow. What advice would you give to a rook today on how to survive and thrive the way you have? RM: Oh boy. Hundreds of people have done it before you. You're not the only one that thought about leaving or getting out or whatever the case may be. Just stick with it. Rely on your classmates and hang in there. It all usually works out. JP: What would your life had been like if you hadn't gone to Norwich? RM: Don't know. JP: You don't know. RM: I haven't the foggiest idea what it would be. I don't even know what I would have done for a job. When I got into the Army, I liked it. They take pretty good care of you. I got to travel a lot of places around the world, England, Austria. Every trip to Vietnam was four airplane rides. It was a different route. I got to Hawaii one time for forty-five minute refueling stop. I hit the Philippines, Guam, Wake, Taiwan, Japan. If there was a landing field in the Pacific, I was probably on it for some period of time. The last trip, coming back, I went through Alaska in December in a short sleeve, khaki shirt. It was something like twenty below zero. JP: Oh my. RM: It was a quick trip from the airplane to the terminal. I greeted the polar bear that was there and went back and saw him three years later. They have a great big, huge, Alaskan Kodiak bear stuffed in the lobby of the airport lobby. It was one of the biggest ones on record that somebody killed. We went back to Alaska, the station up there for three years. Saw the airport. The bear was there. [MM]: The Aleutian Islands. RM: I made it to Attu, which is the end of the Aleutian Islands. [Unintelligible] a little bit of travelling. JP: A little bit. [MM]: Salmon fishing. Gold panning. RM: That was in Alaska. Drove almost every kind of military vehicle that was in the inventory up to the time I retired, including a lot of construction equipment. JP: Oh, wow. Cranes, everything. Wow. RM: Yep. I had a paver, ran one of those, rollers. I had a crane operator who was a Native American. He could do things to that crane that most people can't even do with their hands. He'd pick something up. He'd drop exactly, you'd tell him you want it right here. That's exactly where it went. It was all just smooth, fluid motion. The guy, it was unbelievable. JP: Wow. RM: Anyway, that's my story. JP: Is there anything else you'd like to add? Any – RM: Nothing that I can think of right now. [MM]: Come back in ten years. (Laughs.) JP: Thank you. RM: You're welcome. Glad I could. Hopefully, it will benefit somebody and they'll get some history out of it. While I was in the Corp, we never did cover that too much, my sophomore year, I went to the MPs and that's where General Harmon and I met. In the meantime, I was in drill team and I was on the rifle team. The rifle team travelled all over New England. They didn't have vans in those days so we got to drive our own cars, so we got paid mileage for it. We'd put three or four guys in a car. The drill team, where did we go? Other than the inauguration parade, Lexington, Concord, and several other places around here. There's also a plaque up in Jackman from the Lexington/Concord parade, commemorating thirty-five years of participation. I didn't realize they'd done it that often. [Unintelligible] I don't think I'll tell the story about the panty raid. JP: Do you have a story about the panty raid? RM: No. I didn't. After the – [MM]: I wouldn't give names. RM: After the dinner, I left and came back here. JP: After the – RM: After the party, yeah. JP: General Burchhar [??] RM: I don't remember what the general's name was. He was a lieutenant general. I know that. He had a few too many, from what I remember. Anyway, I come back here and I started hearing all these things and people started drifting in. The TAC officers were running around here, trying to figure out what's going on and catch people. I basically tried to keep them away from the people that were coming in. It was an interesting night. There was a lot of people that ended up with a few tours and a few demerits because of that. While I was here, I only walked one tour. JP: Really? RM: Only one. JP: One tour. RM: Yep. My squad leader, freshman year, I get almost to, it was in spring time, he said, "Minnis, I don't think you've had too many demerits and tours." I said, "No. I haven't, sir." He said, "Well, you get one now." I had to march one. JP: Because you didn't have one? RM: Well, I think twelve was the cutoff. He gave me a couple to make it thirteen for some stupid reason. I don't even remember what it is. Yeah. I walked one. Other than that, I can't think of anything else, unless you got something specific. JP: I heard a story about General Harmon and somebody and a honey wagon, a manure spreader. Did you hear about that story? RM: No. It may have been before my time. I don't recall that. No. Maybe just ask around. It sounds interesting. JP: Yes. Apparently, somebody took manure spreader where his car normally parked and – RM: Nobody owned up to it. JP: Nobody knew what to do, but he knew what to do. He walked through it and then stamped his feet clean and said, "Sir, gentlemen, I expect you to follow me." RM: That sounds like Ernie. He used to stand up, I don't know what, I think it was in the mess hall [Unintelligible]. There used to be a raised platform that the cadet officers sat on. He'd come in there periodically and tell you, you'd see about this much of him over the platform edge. He was kind of short. Well-respected, but anyway, that's all I got. JP: Oh. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. RM: Yeah. [MM]: [Unintelligible] to talk about? RM: The National Model Railroad Association, it took me almost fifteen years to get the certificate, from the time I started to the time I finished. Even when I was in the service, I used to build models and put them in boxes and store them in trunks and stuff. It wasn't until, when I was in Alaska, we met, there was a modular group up there. I got to know them and several people. In fact, there's an adjacent story to that. There was several people in the military that used to participate in it. We decided we'd form a club between the Air Force and the Army up there in Alaska. We built some modules. We were just getting ready to put scenic and track and stuff on them and everybody got orders. They all left. I was the last one to leave so I ended up with all the modules. I took them to Fort Leonard Wood and packed them away in a shed for three years. Then when I retired, I moved here and the president of the division in D.C., Potomac division, asked me one day. He says, "I hear you've got modules." I said, "Yeah. I do." I told him what I had. He said, "Would you be interested in showing them at the Children's Museum in D.C.?" I said, "Sure." We got together. There was six of us. We took the modules and put scenery and track on them. We went down to the Children's Museum in D.C. and displayed there before Christmas. Then, a little later on after the first of the year, I got a call from Fairfax Station Train Museum. It's the actual station that the Southern Railroad had and they've got pictures of that station in use in the Civil War. It was used as for wounded, both North and South. Clara Barton started the Red Cross in that vicinity. She was one of the people that worked the wounded there, helped them. This guy calls me up and says, "In December, we want to have a train show, as a fundraiser. Are you interested in participating?" I said, "Yes." I've already done twenty-three of them. [MM]: In the same location. RM: Same location. The Southern Railroad sold the station to a group of interested people for a buck, but the provision was that they had to move it. They disassembled it, moved it up, acquired a piece of land, had the high school, trade school in Fairfax County rebuild it, board for board, put it all back together again. Replaced the bad stuff and that type of thing. Every single December, first weekend of December since, I don't know, twenty-four years' worth this year, they have a train show. They set up and they show the display inside, a Lionel display, a Gauge One which is bigger than Lionel. Then, there's an S Scale rail. They have a caboose outside that the N Scale people set up in. The people with the G Gauge, which are the garden stuff, the stuff that runs outside set up underneath around [Unintelligible] A couple years, it snowed. They put snow plows on the engines and cleared the track. JP: Really? RM: Yeah. After I retired and moved down here, I gave up the membership. [MM]: Down here means to central Virginia. You're up in Vermont right now. RM: When I retired from D.C. and moved to Virginia, Charlottesville, I said, "I want" – because I basically started this group – "I want the right to come back every Christmas show for as long as I want to do it. I reserve three spaces in the set up." They said, "Okay." The first week in December, Saturday morning, I pack up and drive up, two and half, three hours and set up. Come back Sunday afternoon. In fact, one year, the public was there and the display – The power went out. This guy, Clem Clemmons, who was basically retired Air Force, said, "What are you running?" I said, "Six volt D.C." He says, "I got a battery in my Packard outside that's six volt D.C." He ran an extension cord out, wrapped some wires around the terminals and wires around the other end and we ran trains in the darkened room with only the red light and the caboose. JP: That must have been magical. RM: He even wrote an article in a national magazine about it. JP: Wow. RM: It's three o'clock. I think that's it for now. JP: Thank you. RM: You're welcome. JP: That was amazing. [End of interview.]

For the umpteenth time, the U.S. and Iran have come close to an open war neither side wants. The Israelis strike a building within the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, killing senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Iranians, with unintended irony, protest this violation of diplomatic premises, and almost start a war with Israel by launching hundreds of drones and missiles that the U.S., given ample warning, helps to inter­cept. The Israelis launch a counterstrike to demonstrate its ability to evade Iran's defenses. That appears to end the exchange until the next round.Sooner or later, if the U.S. and the Islamic Republic are going to avoid such a lose-lose conflict, the two sides will need to stop shouting and start talking. Forty-five years of exchanging empty slogans, accusa­tions, threats, and denunci­a­tions have accomplished little beyond furthering a few political careers and feed­ing a sense of self-righteousness. For suc­cessive U.S. adminis­trations, Iran remains a problem that will not go away.To para­phrase Trotsky, "You may have no business with Iran; but Iran has business with you." For Iran, the U.S. remains an obsession. The more Iran's hated rulers denounce it, the more attractive it becomes — as both a role model and a destination — to a savvy popula­tion suffering from inflation, unemployment, and the stern, miso­gynistic dictates of an aging and ossified ruling elite.The Islamic Republic, despite the wishes of many Iranians and their friends, is probably not going away soon. In the first months after the fall of the monarchy, the most-asked question in Tehran was, "When are THEY leaving?" (Inhaa key mirand?). Forty-five years later THEY are still in charge and show no signs of packing their bags.Why should we talk to the Islamic Republic, when it has the appalling history that it does? Why should we talk when its overriding policy principle is, in the words of one Iranian official, "opposition to you"? We need to talk because talking (and listening) to an adversary means serving our national interests by communicating. Talking never means either approval of or affection for the Islamic Republic.Talking to the Islamic Republic is not going to bring down that government, persuade the ruling clerics to step aside, or persuade them to stop repressing its women, musicians, journalists, lawyers, students and academics. Talking is not going to end the ruling clerics' bizarre obsessions with con­trolling every trivial detail of Iranians' private lives. What talking does is allow each side to present its point of view and to correct the dangerous "mythperceptions" that have prevented the U.S. and Iran from breaking out of a 45-year downward spiral of futility.For what has happened when the two sides have not talked? What has happened, for example, when the Islamic Republic's representatives at meetings refuse face-to-face meetings with their American counterparts? What has happened when one side ignores, or rejects outright, proposals from the other to meet in at setting of mutual respect?Whenever two sides — neighbors, relatives, countries — for whatever reason, cannot talk, each side becomes, to the other, simul­taneously sub-human and super-human. "Superhuman" means the other is capable of anything. In this case, a superhuman Iran can build and deliver a nuclear weapon in weeks, manipulate proxies to do its will anywhere, and rebuild the mighty Persian Empires of Greek and Roman times. On the other side, a superhuman United States can guide events in Iran and subvert its young people through a powerful, hidden network of agents – journalists, intellectuals, writers, etc. – ready to obey instructions from Washington.As for being "subhuman," in this view neither side is constrained by any sense of morality or humanity. It will do (and since it is also super­human, can do) anything. In such a case, the superhuman we fear and the subhuman we despise. When such a powerful and evil adver­sary threatens us, we feel justified in taking any action against it, because that adver­sary will stop at nothing and has only one goal: to destroy us by any means possible.At one level, leaders in both Tehran and Washington seek to avoid an Iran-U.S. war. Although Tehran's ruling clerics care little for the lives of ordi­nary Iranians – who would be the victims of such a war – they do care about staying in power and continuing to enjoy their villas and foreign currency accounts. A war with the U.S. would threaten their good life. In Washington, both Democratic and Repub­lican presidents have known that "another stupid war" in the Middle East is a political loser. In 2016, Trump ran against such wars, and his message was powerful. Although he foolishly abandoned the Iran nuclear deal and made a bizarre threat to blow up "52 historical sites" in Iran, he clearly had no stomach for a war. He summarily fired his national security adviser, a paid shill for the cultists of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), when he pushed the president toward confrontation.Does Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu want to drag the U.S. into a war with Iran? To all appearances he does, not only to rid Israel of a declared enemy, but, more important, to keep himself in power. The Israeli premier has used Iran to mani­pulate the U.S. and even to intervene directly in American domestic politics. The more extreme the rhetoric and actions from Tehran, the better for Netanyahu. It is said he went into mourning when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — notorious for his curious anti-Israeli rhetoric — left office in 2013. But he can usually depend on the Islamic Republic to help him both by overplaying its weak hand and by raising the volume on its tired slogans.Wars often begin with both sides saying they want peace. But miscalculations, underestimating or overestimating the other side, and third-party actions can push a country down a path it knows is self-destructive. Talking to the Islamic Republic will be hard, but it is worth doing if it can keep both sides off a road to disaster.

U.S. President Joe Biden, in his rousing State of the Union speech, warned that Vladimir Putin's Russia is on the march, "invading Europe and sowing chaos throughout the world." There's no doubt that Russia is a rogue, nuclear-armed state which crushes dissent at home, exports war abroad, and endangers what the United States and its allies call the "rules-based international order."But many people around the world — especially civil society activists from the Global South — are not just concerned about Putin's threats to the rules-based order. We also worry about Biden's commitment to it. As Israel's death toll tops 30,000 in Gaza with Washington's material support and diplomatic cover, many of us shake our heads at Biden's moral dualism on international norms.Indeed, if President Biden truly wants to save the rules-based order, he should start by looking at the United States' own behavior. Then, he should urgently push for United Nations reform that checks both Putin's influence, and America's own. Biden's administration should also back systemic changes that put the world's people, not the world's powers, at the center of global decision-making.Our research — based on over 250 interviews and articles we published over the last year on civil society activism — shows that the Biden administration's hypocrisy on Gaza is seriously undermining the rules-based international order. Crucial global governance systems like the UN Security Council, already weakened by Russia, are now at their breaking points. The unrelenting carnage in Gaza makes clear that the UN cannot stop wars as long as the belligerents have leverage in New York.It's easy for us to call out Putin. His atrocities in Syria and Ukraine confirm — in the worst way possible — that he is willing to go to any length to preserve his power.That's why many activists — including from Ukrainian and Russian civil society, who suffered the brunt of the invasion — applaud American support for Kyiv. But Gaza's wreckage has all but buried the goodwill the U.S. gained in support of Ukraine.Israel, like Russia in Ukraine, has disregarded almost every rule of international humanitarian law in its response to the October 7 Hamas massacre. Yet Biden has put no restrictions on American weapons flows to Israel, even as they are used to bomb and starve innocent people.At the Security Council, where the U.S. has often called out Russia's self-serving obstruction on Ukraine, the Biden administration has used its veto power just as cynically to cover for Israel's actions in Gaza — which the International Court of Justice says is plausibly genocide — and to block a ceasefire.With such hypocrisy at the helm, it's no wonder the UN system's response has pivoted to trying to supply never-enough humanitarian relief, rather than proactive diplomacy to stop the fighting and hold perpetrators accountable.The U.S. isn't the only country exercising double-standards in international affairs.When The Gambia brought genocide charges against Myanmar before the International Court of Justice, Britain stood with the Rohingya and argued that blocking aid to civilians was a war crime. But when South Africa used the same argument at the ICJ against Israel, a UK spokesperson derided the suit as "wrong and provocative."Sadly, South Africa is not immune to hypocrisy, championing the Palestinians while withholding criticism of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and China's persecution of the Uyghur people.Indeed, double-standards are hardly the West's purview. The expanded BRICS coalition claims to be an alternative to Western hegemony, but its members include the most repressive countries on Earth, some of whom have exported war and suffering to Sudan, Yemen, and elsewhere.Hypocrisy reigns in "peaceful" forums, too. The UAE used the COP28 climate summit to ink oil deals. And from the UN General Assembly to the G20, world leaders in 2023 spoke the language of democracy and rights on the one hand, while repressing citizen activism or sidelining civil society on the other.The results of these double-standards are all around us: a world beset by war, economic inequality, and rising temperatures.No country can fix these problems alone — all must work together. Despite his record on Gaza, Biden in particular has an opportunity to pull the rules-based international order from the brink.First, he should change tack on Gaza to prove he believes human rights apply equally regardless of who is the perpetrator and who is the victim.Second, his administration should champion UN Security Council reform to either abolish the much-abused veto or allow a UN General Assembly vote to override it. The perfect time to achieve such a change is September's Summit of the Future in New York.Biden's administration can also use the Summit of the Future to challenge the UN's state-centric approach to diplomacy. Currently, the UN, despite its public commitment to human rights, favors governments even if they are unelected or unaccountable to their own people.To boost popular participation and oversight instead, the U.S. should push for the UN to adopt the five recommendations of the UNmute Civil Society initiative at the Summit of the Future. These modest reforms include appointing a UN civil society envoy, mandating a civil society day at the UN, and providing wider public access to the UN through digital technologies.More boldly, in the spirit of the UN Charter which begins with the words, 'We the Peoples', Biden's team should back a world citizens' initiative, modeled on European Union processes, to allow people to petition to put issues directly before the General Assembly. Even better: a UN parliamentary assembly of elected representatives alongside the General Assembly to further balance state power with people power.All these reforms would curb powerful states' ability to act with impunity — including the US, Russia, China and their respective allies. But trading double standards for diplomacy is a worthy price if it means reducing the risk of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide across the board.Above all, U.S. leadership on global governance reform would show that Washington doesn't just talk about the rules, it plays by them, too. Putin would hate nothing more.

In a Sunday interview on MSNBC, President Biden warned the Israeli government that an assault on Rafah would cross a red line, but then immediately undermined that message with contradictory statements. The president stressed that the "defense of Israel is still crucial, so there's no red lines [where] I'm going to cut off all weapons" and he said, "I'm never going to leave Israel." Biden did not spell out what consequences, if any, the Israeli government would face if it crossed the red line and actually launched an assault on Rafah, and the president sapped his warning of any force it might have had by adding so many qualifications of what he would not do. The president's interview remarks reflect the failure of administration policy in which the U.S. uses strong rhetoric to signal its displeasure without making the necessary policy changes to give their warnings teeth. Having failed to take serious measures to challenge or rein in the Israeli military campaign for five months, Biden is in a weak position of his own making. It will be difficult for him to issue demands and warnings that the Israeli government takes seriously because the Israelis have ignored so many warnings before now without paying any penalty. Biden did say that "they cannot have 30,000 more Palestinian dead," but the president wouldn't say what he would do if the assault went ahead and the civilian death toll keeps shooting up. He gave Netanyahu's government no reason to fear that an assault on Rafah would damage the relationship with Washington or affect U.S. support for the war in any way. That makes Biden's warning look like a bad bluff that Netanyahu is only too willing to call. In fact, the prime minister is already calling the president's bluff by saying that the invasion of Rafah is going forward. The president's interview comments were consistent with last week's State of the Union address in which he made several declarations about what Israel "must" do without connecting them to any specific measures he would take if Netanyahu ignored him. The announcement on Thursday that the U.S. would be setting up a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza to bring in more aid was a tacit admission that Biden's "bear hug" approach to Israel had utterly failed to buy the U.S. influence with Netanyahu. If Biden's approach were working, he would not have to resort to absurd and impractical workarounds like the pier and the ill-advised airdrops to avoid confronting Israeli's blocking of aid. When Netanyahu sees the administration tying itself in knots to avoid clashing with him, that is much more likely to encourage the prime minister to press his luck and see how much he can get away with. The U.S. has a serious problem when it comes to restraining its clients because American leaders fear alienating these states and possibly "losing" them to other patrons. The Biden administration is hardly alone in this bad practice, but it is demonstrating how dangerous it can be for the U.S. to enable its clients in their most destructive behavior and then to refuse to impose any costs on them when they go too far. American politicians and policymakers convince themselves that the U.S. needs these clients so much that they surrender all the leverage that Washington has up front and instead obsess over how to "reassure" them that the U.S. will always support them. The president says that he will never "leave" Israel, but that has to be a viable option in any relationship with a client state. The administration needs to bring its policy in line with its rhetoric, and it needs to do it at once. If an assault on Rafah is truly unacceptable to the president, it isn't enough to say that this is a red line for the U.S. The administration needs to show that this isn't an empty threat by spelling out to the Israeli government the specific benefits they stand to lose if they proceed. That should include, but not be limited to, no longer receiving U.S. protection at the Security Council and an indefinite suspension of all military aid. To prove that they are serious, the administration will need to start following our own laws regarding weapons supplies to governments that are committing grave human rights abuses and violations of international law. As long as the "flood" of weapons to Israel continues, nothing that the president and other U.S. officials say about Israel's conduct of the war means anything. Netanyahu will not be easily dissuaded from ordering an assault on Rafah. Last week, he said, "Whoever tells us not to act in Rafah is telling us to lose the war and that will not happen." That makes it essential that the U.S. apply intense pressure now while there is still time to prevent an even greater catastrophe. An assault on Rafah would drive the starving people of Gaza into a major famine. There are already severe famine-like conditions throughout the territory because of Israel's deliberate use of starvation as a weapon. An assault on Rafah would also likely have destabilizing effects elsewhere in the region. The low-level war between Israel and Hezbollah is already threatening to explode into a major conflict, and a Rafah offensive could be the spark that ignites a larger conflagration. There are reports that Iran has given the green light to Hezbollah to escalate in response to such an offensive. The Israeli government has been hinting at its own plans for escalation for months. If there is escalation in the north, it will be a disaster for both Israel and Lebanon.The Biden administration has done a great deal to stoke the war in Gaza and it shares responsibility for the current disaster, but there is still an opportunity to slam on the brakes and prevent even greater loss of life.

President Biden was entirely correct in the first part of his judgment on the death of Alexei Navalny: "Putin is responsible, whether he ordered it, or he is responsible for the circumstances he put that man in." Even if Navalny eventually died of "natural causes," his previous poisoning, and the circumstances of his imprisonment, must obviously be considered as critical factors in his death. For his tremendous courage in returning to Russia after his medical treatment in the West — knowing well the dangers that he faced — the memory of Navalny should be held in great honor. He joins the immense list of Russians who have died for their beliefs at the hands of the state. Public expressions of anger and disgust at the manner of his death are justified and correct. The problem comes with the other part of Biden's statement, that "[Navalny's death] is a reflection of who [Putin] is. And it just cannot be tolerated." If he had said "approved," "justified," or "defended," that would have been absolutely right. But "tolerated"? What can Biden do in response, that he has not done already? The U.S. president has promised major new sanctions intended to "cut Russia off from the world economy" — but that requires Washington to control the world economy. Economic sanctions against Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine have failed, and even strengthened the Russian economy and the state's grip on it. They cannot be significantly extended, because this would damage and infuriate countries that are dependent on Russian energy exports, including India, a key U.S. partner. As to sanctions against Russian individuals part of or linked to the Russian regime, there are already thousands of them, and they have had no effect whatsoever.Statements like Biden's are both pointless and dangerous. For the spoken or unspoken implication is that it is impossible to deal with Putin. But like it or not, Putin is the president of Russia. To all appearances, he will remain so for a considerable time to come, and will hand over to a successor of his own choosing. The Biden administration has said that it wants Ukrainian victory (whatever that now means), but it has also said that it believes that the war will end in negotiations, and following the failure of last year's Ukrainian offensive, is now reported to be moving in this direction.Who does Biden think that he will negotiate with, if not Putin? Seeking talks on an end to the Ukraine war does not imply approval of Putin's crimes or his invasion of Ukraine, any more than the Eisenhower administration's negotiation of an end to the Korean War implied approval of the North Korean regime and its invasion of South Korea.By its own account, the Biden administration has supposedly made the promotion of democracy around the world a central part of its diplomacy, with the clear implication that only democratic governments that respect human rights are truly legitimate. Actual U.S. diplomacy does not work like this and never has; not because of American imperialist or capitalist wickedness, but because the world does not work like this. Nobody should be required to like or admire the governments of Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, Mohammed Bin Salman or Narendra Modi (though we might well wish that U.S. officials had been less effusive in their praise of them). Like Putin, they are however the heads of their countries' governments, and likely to remain so. You deal with Saudi Arabia and India — and you have to deal with Saudi Arabia and India — you deal with MBS and Modi. The other thing to be wary of in the outpouring of outrage at the death of Navalny, is that this is already being used to build a strategy of greatly increased Western official support for the Russian opposition. Many (not all) people and groups in the Russian liberal opposition are personally and politically admirable. Some, like Navalny, have shown tremendous courage. To say this is quite different from believing that they are ever likely to form the government of Russia, and that the U.S. should base its policy towards Russia on the hope that this will be so.The sad truth is that the Ukraine war has placed the Russian liberal opposition in a politically impossible position. Having been largely chased into exile by Putin, they are dependent on Western support. This means however that their principled opposition to the Russian invasion can be portrayed by the Russian government — and is seen by many ordinary Russians — as treason in time of war. As with the Iranian, Chinese, and other oppositions, official support from Washington only allows the ruling regimes to paint the name "traitor" in brighter colors.A combination (differing from individual to individual) of idealism, dependence on the West and hatred of Putin means that instead of advocating a compromise peace in Ukraine, many Russian oppositionists have — willingly or unwillingly — identified themselves with Ukrainian and Western positions that explicitly demand complete Russian defeat. And while not many Russians wanted the war, not many Russians want to see Russia defeated. As I have remarked before, even many Americans who strongly opposed the war in Vietnam were outraged when Jane Fonda went to Hanoi. If she stood a chance of being elected to any office in the U.S. before that trip, she certainly didn't afterwards.Any hope of rebuilding liberalism in Russia (and indeed Ukraine, albeit to a much lesser extent) therefore requires an end to the war. For some degree of authoritarianism is a natural accompaniment to every war, and regimes all over the world have exploited this to increase their own power. Equally importantly, mass support for Putin is critically dependent on the general belief that the West intends not just to defeat Russia but to cripple it as a state, and that to prevent this it is essential to support the government. For the moment at least, this has eclipsed previously widespread resentments —which Navalny channeled — at regime corruption. No amount of Western or Russian opposition propaganda can change this Russian picture. Peace might, if it is given a chance.

As Russia's war in Ukraine approaches its two-year anniversary, President Vladimir Putin has reportedly had his suggestions of ceasefire rejected by Washington. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that Russia had approached the United States through intermediaries in late 2023 and early 2024 to propose freezing the conflict along the current lines. Washington reportedly turned down the suggestion, saying that they were not willing to engage in talks if Ukraine was not a participant."Putin was proposing to freeze the conflict at the current lines and was unwilling to cede any of the Ukrainian territory controlled by Russia, but the signal offered what some in the Kremlin saw as the best path towards a peace of some kind," according to Reuters, which cites three anonymous Russian sources. The plan, one of the sources told Reuters, was for national security adviser Jake Sullivan to meet with the Russian counterpart to hash out the details. But after meeting with other senior officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and CIA Director Bill Burns, "Sullivan told Ushakov that Washington was willing to talk about other aspects of the relationship but would not speak about a ceasefire without Ukraine, said one of the Russian sources," according to Reuters. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly said that there is no point in negotiating with Putin and has maintained that he will never accept Russia controlling any part of Ukraine."Everything fell apart with the Americans," one of the sources told Reuters, saying that Washington did not want to pressure Kyiv into reaching an agreement. The sources also added that given the U.S. reaction to a potential ceasefire, Moscow saw little reason to reach out again. Both Washington and Moscow have denied the reporting. The Kremlin "never made any kind of proposal to us nor have we seen any signs that Putin is sincerely interested in ending the war," an unnamed U.S. official told Politico's NatSec daily on Tuesday. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday that the report that Russia had made such an offer was "not true." Despite Washington's insistence, this is the latest piece of evidence that Putin may have pursued a ceasefire in recent months. The New York Times reported late in 2023 that the Russian president had quietly been sending signals to the West that he was prepared to freeze the conflict. "The signals come through multiple channels, including via foreign governments with ties to both the United States and Russia," the Times reported. "Unofficial Russian emissaries have spoken to interlocutors about the contours of a potential deal that Mr. Putin would accept, American officials and others said." The report also revealed that Putin had been interested in a potential ceasefire as far back as the fall of 2022, following Ukraine's successful counteroffensive. As journalist Leonid Ragozin explained in al-Jazeera earlier this week, this may be an effort to pressure the West to negotiate on Putin's terms."What Putin is trying to achieve is making the West face its moral dilemma which boils down to the cost and benefit of resisting his aggression," Ragozin writes. "The continued support for Ukraine's military effort will cost thousands of lives and devastate Ukraine even further, while success is hardly guaranteed." In other diplomatic news related to the war in Ukraine:— The prospects for the next tranche of U.S. aid for Ukraine saw the first glimmer of optimism in months, but the chances that it becomes law remain murky. After a tumultuous negotiation, the Senate passed the $95 billion national security supplemental, which includes approximately $60 billion for Kyiv. The legislation next goes to the House of Representatives, which has been more skeptical of sending aid, and where leadership so far appears unwilling to bring the bill to the floor. Supporters believe that if the House voted on the package, it would pass overwhelmingly, and some have floated pursuing legislative maneuvers that would allow them to supersede leadership and bring the legislation to a vote. — Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he spoke with Paul Whelan, the U.S. Marine currently detained in Russia, on Monday, according to CNN. Blinken provided few details on his conversation with Whelan, who has been detained since December 2018. When asked about a possible prisoner exchange involving Whelan or detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, the Kremlin said that such matters could only be resolved, "in silence." — French President Emmanuel Macron announced in a statement that he will sign a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine on Friday. Macron did not specify what exactly the agreement will look like, but he said earlier this year that he was expecting to model an agreement after the 10-year deal that the United Kingdom and Ukraine signed earlier this year. — The Netherlands will join a coalition of countries that is providing Ukraine with advanced drones, according to Reuters. "Ukraine intends to manufacture thousands of long-range drones capable of deep strikes into Russia in 2024 and already has up to 10 companies working on production, Ukraine's digital minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, said in a Reuters interview on Monday."U.S. State Department news:In a Wednesday press briefing, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller reiterated the importance of Congress passing the supplemental, stressing that it was in the national security interest of Ukraine, Europe, and the United States."A lot of that money is spent here, helps develop the manufacturing base here in the United States. And so we will continue to push for the passage of the supplemental bill, and ultimately we think – as the President said, the world is watching," Miller said. "And certainly I'm sure that when we are in Munich we will hear directly from foreign leaders that they are watching very much what Congress does. We know the Ukrainian people are watching. And as the President said, history is watching as well."

The Biden administration has spent the past six months trying to get China and Russia to play ball on nuclear arms control. Observers are now asking: What does the U.S. have to show for these efforts? Not much, according to a top official on the National Security Council.
In recent comments at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Pranay Vaddi, the Senior Director for Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation at the National Security Council, gave a highly anticipated update on the administration's arms control efforts. On the China and Russia fronts, the picture ranged from dire to dismal.When it comes to Russia, the Biden administration's engagement strategy has been a failure. Just hours before the event at CSIS, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed a U.S. proposal to resume a dialogue on nuclear arms control. As Vaddi explained, the U.S. had delivered a formal proposal to Russia in September, which included three parts: discussing non-compliance issues in the New Start Treaty (the last remaining deal capping U.S. and Russian arsenals), discussing a post-New Start framework before its 2026 expiration date, and managing nuclear risks. Russia had already formally rejected the proposal in December, Vaddi said, and the Kremlin has since made no substantive proposals of its own.
As for China, there were at least some positive developments in the overall relationship worth highlighting. The two sides re-established a bilateral working group on arms control and non-proliferation in November. Then, later that month, President Biden and President Xi met on the sidelines of APEC, where they announced the resumption of military-to-military dialogue. Most recently, on Jan. 9, American and Chinese military officials held Defense Policy Coordination Talks (DPCT). Talks between each country's militaries were particularly important, according to Vaddi, "because our emphasis for so long has been really on strategic risk reduction."
As important as these initial discussions were, Vaddi added that the Biden administration wants the arms control dialogues to be "results-oriented" and aimed towards getting to "practical solutions" to some of their shared security problems. This is a reasonable expectation on its face, but it also speaks to the Biden administration's concern that such talks may not go further than mere dialogue and consultation, owing to China's long-standing disinterest in such negotiations. At any rate, Vaddi gave no indication that we can expect any substantive arms control development in the near-future.
The lack of progress on arms control is a major disappointment for the White House that comes just six months after national security adviser Jake Sullivan's much-ballyhooed speech at the Arms Control Association. Describing the current moment as an "inflection point" in the global nuclear security order, Sullivan laid out the Biden administration's vision for arms control in an era of great power competition. This meant addressing the challenge presented by Russia and its suspension of the New Start Treaty, as well as questions and concerns regarding China's ongoing nuclear buildup in light of its long-standing No First Use policy and traditionally limited nuclear deterrent.
The Biden administration's failure to produce any substantive arms control wins through its good-faith engagement strategy will also make it all the harder to resist pressures to enter into a new nuclear arms race. Vaddi admits as much when he considers the prospect that Russia may not agree to a New Start follow-on. That very real possibility, he says, "has to be baked into our own thinking as we look at our own nuclear modernization."
Vaddi addressed questions about this modernization effort as the discussion turned, naturally, to a discussion about the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. Established in the 2022 NDAA, the Commission was mandated to assess and provide recommendations for the U.S.'s long-term strategic posture and nuclear strategy. Although the Commission's members were selected ostensibly through a bipartisan process, the findings included in its final report, released on Oct. 16, struck many as anything but balanced – arguably a reflection of the outlook and interests of the defense industry, which nine of the 12 members reportedly maintain strong connections with the weapons industry. Called "a full-throated embrace of a U.S. nuclear build-up" by the Federation of American Scientists, the report argues that the U.S. must match the combined nuclear threat posed by Russia and China.As the Commission report's recommendations goes far beyond what is called for in the Biden administration's own Nuclear Posture Review, Vaddi emphasized that questions about U.S. nuclear posture and arms control lie solely with the executive branch and the established interagency process, and that this report amounts only to "important data" to take into account. He did, however, concede that the Commission's findings "communicate a sense of urgency that we share — that we are entering a two-peer environment. It's never been dealt with before."
Hinting at the ways in which the report was already putting pressure on the administration's internal discussions, Vaddi went on to say that the Commission's report has stimulated a lively conversation about U.S. nuclear posture, both at home and abroad. Vaddi shared that close allies and partners have asked how the U.S. is taking the Commission's report into account. And, he added, the White House has no choice but to engage with it since the recommendations will likely serve as a "baseline of information" as Washington enters the "posture-hearing season."
This refers to the annual spate of congressional hearings, typically in the spring months, in which the secretary of defense and other military leaders appear before the House and Senate Armed Service Committees to justify their budgets for the following fiscal year. Congress will no doubt be eager to see report recommendations make their way onto next year's budget.
Overall, the prospects for real and respectable arms control initiatives with China and Russia by the end of Biden's first term only seem to be getting worse, even as the threat of great power nuclear conflict becomes increasingly salient.

The most important security issue for the United States, the contest/competition/rivalry with China, may soon fade away.The plausibility of this proposition is enhanced if we take as a parallel not the rivalry with the USSR during the Cold War, but the one that smoked through the 1980s and early 1990s when Japan appeared to be becoming "Number One." The rather benign ending of that rivalry may have something to say about what will happen as China slides into what many suggest will be a lengthy period of slow growth or even stagnation.In both cases, the perceived threats have been primarily economic.JapanAs with China today, concerns about Japanese economic growth and business practices were once intense and widespread.In a 1987 best-seller, Yale's Paul Kennedy confidently listed a set of reasons why Japan was likely to expand faster than other major powers, stressing the country's "immensely strong" industrial bedrock and its docile and diligent work force. He also predicted that Japan was likely to become "much more powerful" economically. Meanwhile, Harvard's Samuel Huntington assured us, in phrases that sound much like what we are hearing about the China challenge today, that a need had suddenly arisen to fear not "missile vulnerability" but "semiconductor vulnerability," that "economics is the continuation of war by other means," and that there was danger in the fact that Japan had become the largest provider of foreign aid and had endowed professorships at Harvard and MIT. One book of the time was even entitled, "The Coming War with Japan," and some analysts argued that Japan by natural impulse would soon come to yearn for nuclear weapons.Fareed Zakaria, managing editor of Foreign Affairs at the time, recalled a few years ago his experience "sorting through manuscript after manuscript arguing that Japan was going to take over the world."The public responded to this threatening perspective — especially after the diabolical Japanese bought Rockefeller Center (which they later sold at a loss) and a major Hollywood film studio. By 1989, the Japanese "threat" was seen by the public to be nearly comparable to the one posed by the still heavily armed Soviet Union, and America was convinced that Japan would be the number one economic power in the next century.Politicians predictably followed suit, finding that Japan-bashing sold well. In 1987, several members of Congress publicly sledgehammered Toshiba products on the front steps of the Capitol. Meanwhile, Donald Trump complained at the time, "They come over here, they sell their cars, their VCRs. They knock the hell out of our companies," and, "First they take all our money with their consumer goods, then they put it back in buying all of Manhattan."These concerns evaporated in the early 1990s when Japan's "threatening" economy stagnated and the American one surged. Huntington quickly decided that, as it turned out, the real problem was actually a "clash of civilizations" like the one going on at the time in Bosnia, and Kennedy moved on to warn of the dangers from job‑stealing robots and — as the rise in world population began to stagnate or even reverse — population explosions.ChinaWhen he began his quest for the presidency in 2016, Trump tried Japan-bashing again, designating it along with China and Mexico as a country where "we are getting absolutely crushed on trade."However, by that time Japan's growth had been mostly flat, and trade friction had become much more subdued even though the United States continued (and still continues) to run large trade deficits with Japan while Japan can still make foreign investment difficult.China-bashing sold much better, as Trump found out in a speech in which his line, "We can't allow China to rape our country, and that's what we're doing," inspired an approving roar from the audience. Trump spent the rest of the 2016 campaign building on that theme and repeating much of it in his 2020 campaign, as did many other candidates.Something similar to the Japanese experience may now be happening with the China threat as its growth slumps and the U.S., far from being "displaced" in its GDP ranking as number one, retains its statistical advantage.Most troubling for China is a growing set of difficulties, most of them deriving from a determination to prioritize control by the antiquated and kleptocratic Chinese Communist Party over economic development. The list of resulting problems is substantial: endemic corruption, environmental degradation, slowing growth, capricious shifts in government policies (including the abruptly canceled "zero COVID" policy), inefficient enterprises, fraudulent statistical reporting, a rapidly aging population, enormous overproduction, huge youth unemployment, increasing debt, a housing bubble, restive minorities, the alienation of Western investors, and a clampdown on civil liberties. There also seems to be something of a decline in confidence in, and in the credibility of, the Communist Party's dictates, a change that could have dire long‐term consequences for the regime.The ComparisonThere are some non-comparable elements between the cases, of course. Despite books like "The Coming War with Japan," concerns about Tokyo were less military than they are for China, which has increased its defense expenditures and is accused of threatening to invade Taiwan and becoming a dominant "hegemon" in its area, while expanding its global reach.Nonetheless, the perceived threat remains mainly economic. For example, a recent report by a devotedly anti-China committee in Congress restricts its concerns to what it calls China's "economic aggression" (while recommending a series of changes including a rise in tariffs that might cost the American economy nearly two trillion dollars over five years).Although books entitled "Destined for War" may continue to sell for a while, China's economic stagnation (but not collapse) is in the air, and some elements of its counterproductive "wolf warrior" diplomacy have been relaxed. As a result, the political appeal of China-bashing may be headed for a degree of remission.When Toyota became the number one car maker in the U.S. in recent years, scarcely anyone noticed and fewer cared. If there's an electric car in the future, it may well be Chinese. But, if the Japan analogy holds, it is likely that the reaction will be much the same.

The White House and its allies launched a full-court press to get a supplemental aid package, which included $60 billion for Ukraine, over the finish line this week. Despite this, their effort failed Wednesday night, leaving the fate of funding up in the air.Earlier on Wednesday, President Joe Biden delivered surprise remarks ahead of the vote, warning that lapsed funding for Kyiv would have dire consequences for Europe and the world. "If Putin takes Ukraine, he won't stop there. It's important to see the long run here. He's going to keep going. He's made that pretty clear," Biden said. "If Putin attacks a NATO Ally — if he keeps going and then he attacks a NATO Ally — well, we've committed as a NATO member that we'd defend every inch of NATO territory. Then we'll have something that we don't seek and that we don't have today: American troops fighting Russian troops." This came in the wake of a letter sent to congressional leadership by Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, saying that the U.S. is "out of money to support Ukraine in this fight," and urging them to pass the supplemental before the end of the year."Cutting off the flow of U.S. weapons and equipment will kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield," the letter warned. But after the Senate vote failed 49-51 on Wednesday the possibility that 2023 comes to an end without Congress passing another tranche of aid for Ukraine appears increasingly likely.On Thursday, Bloomberg's Erik Wasson reported on X that lawmakers believe that there is "no way" the House will pass aid this calendar year, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) committed to the House leaving by December 15. While the timeframe for current aid to dry up and the risk of Vladimir Putin expanding the war into Europe may be overstated, the sudden elimination of funding could be problematic nonetheless. As George Beebe of the Quincy Institute cautioned earlier this year, cutting off funding without warning would spell "bad news not only for those insisting on an unconditional Ukrainian victory, but also for those pressing for a diplomatic settlement of the conflict." "Avoiding such sobering possibilities will require compromise," Beebe continued. "The White House will have to compromise with domestic opponents of aid by making clear — at least behind closed doors — its plans for marrying military aid to a viable exit strategy. Opponents of aid will have to compromise with proponents to ensure that Ukraine does not collapse altogether, with all the attendant implications for the West and the world." Despite these dynamics, the Biden administration appears unwilling to shift its strategy and its rhetoric. In a phone call with Reuters this week, national security adviser Jake Sullivan reiterated Washington's position that it would not pressure Kyiv to enter negotiations with Moscow. "That's going to have to be up to them," Sullivan said. "We're just going to keep fighting day in and day out to try to secure this money." In other diplomatic news related to the war in Ukraine:—The Washington Post published a detailed analysis on why Ukraine's recent counteroffensive did not produce the desired results, highlighting, among other critical points, the gap in expectations between Washington and Kyiv."U.S. and Ukrainian officials sharply disagreed at times over strategy, tactics and timing. The Pentagon wanted the assault to begin in mid-April to prevent Russia from continuing to strengthen its lines. The Ukrainians hesitated, insisting they weren't ready without additional weapons and training," reports the Post. "As the expected launch of the offensive approached, Ukrainian military officials feared they would suffer catastrophic losses — while American officials believed the toll would ultimately be higher without a decisive assault."— Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare overseas trip this week, visiting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The purpose of the trip was to discuss global oil markets and the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. The visit was partly intended to get arms and win over allies for his war effort, and possibly to "drive a wedge" between the Gulf States and the U.S., according to the Wall Street Journal.— Top Ukrainian officials came to Washington this week in an effort to bolster Kyiv's weapon making capabilities. The Ukrainian delegation, which was led by President Zelensky's adviser Andriy Yermak and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, met with a number of high-ranking U.S. officials including Jake Sullivan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. The Ukrainians also met with lawmakers once the fight over aid took center stage on Capitol Hill. "Initially envisioned as a way for the Ukrainians to forge new contacts and commitments with the U.S. defense industry to bolster Kyiv's ability to build its own weapons, the meetings have taken on a deeper importance as the Biden administration pressures Congress to pass a $60 billion aid package, and as questions swirl over next steps in the war," reported Politico on Tuesday.Zelensky was also scheduled to address the U.S. Senate virtually on Tuesday, but he abruptly canceled his remarks shortly before the meeting. The meeting proceeded and eventually descended into chaos, according to multiple reports. "A classified briefing with administration officials called to shore up support devolved into a partisan screaming match on Tuesday afternoon, with Republicans angrily accusing Democrats of trying to steamroller over their demands for a border crackdown," reported the New York Times.U.S. State Department news:— In a Wednesday press briefing, State Department spokesman Matt Miller reacted to that Senate meeting, at which Secretary of State Antony Blinken was present. "I think the Secretary found it to be a frank and candid exchange of views on the Hill, mostly between members of the Senate, not involving the administration," Miller said. "But as we made clear in the statement we issued today about the drawdown package, we have nearly exhausted the available security assistance that is available to Ukraine. It is urgent that Congress act to support Ukraine; it is urgent that Congress act to support democracy."

The 35-year-long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed enclave wedged between the two countries, appears to have been settled in Azerbaijan's favor as President Ilham Aliyev raised the country's flag over the region's former de facto capital. While officials in Azerbaijan celebrated a political victory after conducting an "anti-terrorist operation" on September 19 against Karabakh Armenian military units, more than 100,000 Armenians have since been forced to leave their homes for the neighboring Republic of Armenia. Baku's actions and threats thus far should be reason enough for Washington to end the military assistance it has provided Azerbaijan over previous decades. In fact, it should have ended assistance years ago.During the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, Washington committed to prohibiting aid to Azerbaijan through Section 907 of the 1992 Freedom Support Act. However, following Azerbaijan's pledge to cooperate with President George W. Bush's global war on terrorism following the attacks on 9/11, Congress approved a process to waive Section 907 in 2002; this has occurred each year since. From 2002 to 2020, the Departments of State and Defense (DOD) reported providing about $164 million for security assistance to the government of Azerbaijan.All waivers of Section 907 should have ended in 2020 as Azerbaijan initiated the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. Military equipment, potentially sent by Washington, is being used by Azerbaijan to satiate its territorial aspirations, not the intended purpose of supporting U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Azerbaijan also explicitly violated the condition of the waiver requiring that Baku "will not undermine or hamper ongoing efforts to negotiate a peaceful settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan or be used for offensive purposes against Armenia."Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reportedly stated that the U.S. State Department will not renew a long-standing waiver for military assistance. Secretary Blinken's statement was likely the result of lawmakers who have pushed for ending this military assistance, such as Senators Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and others who have sponsored the Armenian Protection Act of 2023. This bill would effectively repeal the Section 907 waiver. Adopting such a bill would be a positive development, as Azerbaijan considers further aggression against Armenia's internationally recognized territory. Domestic rhetoric by Aliyev is most important in understanding the potential of Azerbaijani foreign policy ambitions. President Aliyev has previously threatened to use force to establish a "corridor" through southern Armenia connecting mainland Azerbaijan with the Autonomous Nakhchivan Republic. "The Zangezur Corridor is a historical necessity," Aliyev said in January 2023, "It will happen whether Armenia wants it or not." Azerbaijan and Turkey are particularly interested in linking this route with the already expansive "Middle Corridor" to directly connect the two countries rather than the current path through Georgia. Days after the offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh, Aliyev held talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Nakhchivan regarding the Zangezur Corridor, hinting at creating a land bridge between their two countries through Armenia. If Azerbaijan (and, by extension, Turkey) established a link by force across Armenia's territory, it would clearly violate Armenian sovereignty and territorial integrity, the exact tenets that Brussels and Washington have sought to defend in Ukraine and uphold through the so-called rules-based order. For Armenia, such a development would deprive it of a land border with Iran, one of its key regional allies and trading partners.As such, Armenia is vehemently opposed to the idea of a corridor through its territory that is not under its direct jurisdiction. Article 9 of the 2020 ceasefire statement includes a provision committing Armenia to "guarantee the security" of transportation connections between Azerbaijan's mainland and Nakhchivan. However, both sides have accused each other of violating this agreement. Additionally, the stipulation that "control over transport communication is carried out by the bodies of the Border Guard Service of the FSB of Russia" appears unlikely as Moscow did not do much of anything to stop clashes over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2022 or Azerbaijan's offensive in September 2023. As a result, Armenians have lost significant trust in Moscow's ability to provide security to Armenia despite being a mutual security partner in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).Iran also has qualms with the prospect of Azerbaijan and Turkey occupying Armenian territory and creating the Zangezur Corridor by force. Tehran has said that it opposes "geopolitical" changes in the South Caucasus. Specifically, Iran is deeply concerned about Israeli influence in Azerbaijan. Baku received high-tech drones and other weapons from Israel, which after Russia, was the second-largest arms supplier to Azerbaijan from 2011 to 2020. On top of military hardware, Tehran worries that Azerbaijan, over time, has become a hub for Israeli intelligence and surveillance. Due to Israel's military and intelligence cooperation with Azerbaijan, Iran sees this as Israel expanding its presence in the South Caucasus. On the surface, Russia may appear indifferent to the creation of a Zangezur Corridor, as Russia does not share Iran's threat perceptions of Israel. This may be shortsighted. If Azerbaijan and Turkey take the Zangezur Corridor through military means, it could spiral into a larger-scale war between Tehran and Ankara. Despite the limited interests of the United States in the South Caucasus, facilitating cooperation with Baku and Yerevan to peacefully coordinate trade routes could serve to avoid a future war on Europe's periphery.While stopping American military support will not necessarily inhibit Azerbaijan's current aggression from occurring — Israel and Turkey provide most of its military hardware — it will remove American complicity.Refusing to provide another waiver to Section 907 is the right thing to do, as Azerbaijan's use of military force clearly does not serve U.S. interests since it has led to a humanitarian crisis affecting over 100,000 Armenian civilians and could spark a middle-power conflict on the periphery of Europe. Baku will inevitably push back on this decision, but it will serve the United States well to resist external pressure and abide by consistent and fair rules and laws.

The Washington Post reported recently that U.S. intelligence officials do not believe the Ukrainian military will achieve a key goal set out at the launch of its counteroffensive against Russian occupying forces back in June — reaching the southeastern city of Melitipol and cutting off Russia's access to Crimea by land.While the counteroffensive has achieved some recent successes — including piercing Moscow's first line of multi-echeloned defensive positions and taking a key village — the Wall Street Journal reported last week that "there is no sign of a collapse in Russian lines."In fact, most recent mainstream reporting on the status of the offensive has been similarly dour, which might come as a surprise to anyone paying attention to predictions from the American pundit class shortly before the Ukrainian counteroffensive began.Despite reports at the time quoting U.S. intelligence predicting that the upcoming Ukrainian offensive would result only in "modest territorial gains," and fall "well short" of Kyiv's goals, many lawmakers, experts, and pundits had a much more confident take. In fact, several senior officials openly suggested that the Ukrainian operations would be a rousing success, while others said it would lead to an all-out victory, expelling the Russians out of occupied Ukraine and perhaps even Crimea. "I expect major gains in the coming days and weeks," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — one of Ukraine's most hyperbolic supporters — during a May 28 interview on Fox News. "I think they can expel Russia from Ukraine."The Russians are "in for a rude awakening" he said a couple days later. "In the coming days, you're going to see a pretty impressive display of power by the Ukrainians." Indeed, Graham's rosy assessments were just the tip of the overly optimistic grandstanding iceberg from that time. Here's a brief — albeit not comprehensive — sample of what we heard about the upcoming counteroffensive last spring from not just expert pundits, but also top U.S. officials, despite their presumed knowledge of more sober U.S. intelligence predictions:Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin: "I think Ukraine will have a very good chance of success." [03/28/23]National security adviser Jake Sullivan: "We believe that the Ukrainians will meet with success in this counteroffensive." [06/04/23]NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: "I'm confident that when Ukraine decides to launch new operations to liberate more land, Ukraine will be successful." [4/21/23]Former CIA Director, Gen. David Petraeus (ret.): "I personally think that this is going to be really quite successful. .. And [the Russians] are going to have to withdraw under pressure of this Ukrainian offensive, the most difficult possible tactical maneuver, and I don't think they're going to do well at that." [05/23/23] "I think that this counteroffensive is going to be very impressive." [06/03/23]Retired U.S. Army Gen. Ben Hodges: "I actually expect, however, that [the Ukrainians] will be quite successful." [05/12/23]Historian Edward Luttwak: "If Kyiv and the West are looking for the most plausible path to victory, this is it." [05/11/23]Atlantic Council non-resident fellow Richard Hooker: "As we are often told, no plan survives contact with the enemy. There will likely be the occasional tactical miscue or operational hiccup during the coming counteroffensive, but a careful assessment suggests the odds are heavily in favor of Ukraine." [05/23/23]Former Chief of the British General Staff, General Richard Dannatt: "[A]fter Kyiv's successful counteroffensive, Vladimir Putin 'may be swept out of the Kremlin.'" [03/28/23]Paul Massaro, senior policy adviser, the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe: "Full Ukrainian victory is coming. Sooner than you think." [06/12/23]It's hard to square these hopeful, borderline fanciful analyses with what we knew at that time. In fact, there were plenty of other experts offering more balanced forecasts of what was to come with Ukraine's counteroffensive. For example, the Quincy Institute's George Beebe wrote back in April that available evidence at that time "paint[s] a much bleaker picture of Kyiv's prospects in the war than the White House has acknowledged." He added that that evidence depicts "manning and training levels for Ukraine's much anticipated counter-offensive that inspire little confidence it will produce a decisive breakthrough against reinforced Russian defenses." Good policy requires good information, particularly when it comes to war and peace. Unfortunately, the commentariat in U.S. media and beyond hasn't been providing very informed analysis when it comes to the war in Ukraine.Analysts should separate what they might want to happen with what — from a more objective point of view — is more likely to actually happen. Too often, experts are offering rosy predictions of Ukrainian military operations where most available evidence suggests otherwise. And as these unfounded optimistic predictions pile up, so too does American support both among the public and policymakers to pour more weapons and money into — what should look like to anyone taking a sober look at realities on the ground — a protracted stalemate or perhaps worse. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mike Milley was shouted down last November when he suggested that perhaps Ukraine and its Western allies had a decent window of opportunity to negotiate an end to the war. While he has said more recently that it's too early to assess whether the Ukrainian counteroffensive has been a success (albeit without defining success), he also maintained that kicking all Russian forces out of Ukraine via solely military means "is going to be very, very difficult and challenging.""A different way of going at it is through negotiations," he said last week. "And maybe that'll happen too."But if more objective assessments of the war in Ukraine continue to be drowned out by this same kind of emotion-based, wishful-thinking commentary and analysis, maybe it won't.

One of those little things we hope not to see in a newspaper column:That story is recounted in Hell to Pay, a brilliant new book by Michael Lind about how the suppression of wages is driving economic, social and political crises in America. The idea that we are paid what we deserve – and that the decline in mid-skilled, mid-paid jobs simply reflects the high-tech, globalised economy in which we live – derives from free market theory. But it is, Lind argues, utter nonsense.Lind and "brilliant" isn't quite how we'd put it. For we always recall Paul Kurgman's comments upon the economic commentary of Michael Lind: One of America's new intellectual stars is a young writer named Michael Lind, whose contrarian essays on politics have given him a reputation as a brilliant enfant terrible. In 1994 Lind published an article in Harper's about international trade, which contained the following remarkable passage:"Many advocates of free trade claim that higher productivity growth in the United States will offset pressure on wages caused by the global sweatshop economy, but the appealing theory falls victim to an unpleasant fact. Productivity has been going up, without resulting wage gains for American workers. Between 1977 and 1992, the average productivity of American workers increased by more than 30 percent, while the average real wage fell by 13 percent. The logic is inescapable. No matter how much productivity increases, wages will fall if there is an abundance of workers competing for a scarcity of jobs -- an abundance of the sort created by the globalization of the labor pool for US-based corporations." (Lind 1994: )What is so remarkable about this passage? It is certainly a very abrupt, confident rejection of the case for free trade; it is also noticeable that the passage could almost have come out of a campaign speech by Patrick Buchanan. But the really striking thing, if you are an economist with any familiarity with this area, is that when Lind writes about how the beautiful theory of free trade is refuted by an unpleasant fact, the fact he cites is completely untrue.More specifically: the 30 percent productivity increase he cites was achieved only in the manufacturing sector; in the business sector as a whole the increase was only 13 percent. The 13 percent decline in real wages was true only for production workers, and ignores the increase in their benefits: total compensation of the average worker actually rose 2 percent. And even that remaining gap turns out to be a statistical quirk: it is entirely due to a difference in the price indexes used to deflate business output and consumption (probably reflecting overstatement of both productivity growth and consumer price inflation). When the same price index is used, the increases in productivity and compensation have been almost exactly equal. But then how could it be otherwise? Any difference in the rates of growth of productivity and compensation would necessarily show up as a fall in labor's share of national income -- and as everyone who is even slightly familiar with the numbers knows, the share of compensation in U.S. national income has been quite stable in recent decades, and actually rose slightly over the period Lind describes.The question here is not why Lind got these numbers wrong. It takes considerable experience to know where to look and what to worry about in economic statistics, and one should not expect someone who does not work in the field to be able to get it right without some guidance. The question is, instead, why Mr. Lind felt that it was a good idea to make sweeping pronouncements about this subject, when he clearly was unwilling to invest time and energy in actually understanding it. The short answer in this case is surely that Mr. Lind, who is always looking for ways to enhance his enfant terrible status, saw this as a perfect opportunity. Free trade is a sacred cow of economists, who are well-known to be boring, stuffy types; what could be a better way to reinforce one's credentials as a radical, innovative thinker than to skewer their most beloved doctrine? (It seems not to have occurred to him that there might be a reason other than ideological rigidity that the striking fact he thought he knew has not been noticed by economists).Matters have not improved over the decades.The most important point of ignorance here is though that no one really did go out and design or even build globalisation. Yes, obviously, there were spouting from politicians but when, and of what, isn't that true? Tariffs came down a bit. But the real drivers were cheap transport, cheap telecoms and cheap travel. Barriers to trade are not just the tariffs or quotas imposed by governments. They're also the barriers imposed by the physical cost of trading. All of which have collapsed in these past few decades. We saw this before in history too - after the Civil War the US raised tariffs considerably. The ocean going steamship lowered physical costs by more than the rise in tariffs - total trade costs fell and we can prove this by noting the falling differences in prices of tradeable goods between the US and Europe over this period.Everyone loves the gravity model of trade these days and very few note that it talks about economic distance, not geographic. Those plummeting transport, travel and telecoms costs meant that economic distance also plummeted over the past 50 years. Therefore everywhere was becoming closer in that economic distance and so trade should increase. QED.In order to stop this - if anyone wanted to be that stupid - tariffs would have to be raised, viciously and violently, to cover the reduction in those other costs. It isn't true that anyone went out and designed globalisation - they just didn't stop it. And thank the Lord Above for that one, eh? Oh, and, obviously, don't take Michael Lind seriously on the subject of trade.

David Boaz


Here we go again. Another "obituary" for libertarianism. While Salon Magazine declares that we all live in a "libertarian dystopia," and a new brand of big‐​government conservatives promise to free the Republican party and American government from their libertarian captivity, Barton Swaim declares in the Wall Street Journal that a new book "works as an obituary" for libertarianism. That's not a characterization that I think the authors—Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi—would accept of their book, The Individualists: Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism.
Swaim notes that the book surveys many different kinds of self‐​styled libertarians over the past two centuries, and that the authors lay out six "markers" that libertarians share: property rights, individualism, free markets, skepticism of authority, negative liberties, and a belief that people are best left to order themselves spontaneously. Not a bad list, significantly overlapping with the list of seven key libertarian ideas that I laid out in the first chapter of my own book, The Libertarian Mind.
He goes on to argue, following the authors, "In the 21st century, the movement in the U.S. has consisted in an assortment of competing, often disputatious intellectual cadres: anarchists, anarcho‐​capitalists, paleo‐​libertarians (right‐​wing), 'liberaltarians' (left‐​wing) and many others." Somehow he leaves out actual libertarians, such as those who populate the Cato Institute, Reason magazine, the Objectivist world, and much of the Libertarian Party. Indeed, a few lines later he cites the "diversity" of "the priestess of capitalism Ayn Rand, the politician Rand Paul and the billionaire philanthropist Charles Koch"—none of whom would fall into any of the esoteric categories that he suggests make up modern libertarianism and in fact belong to actual libertarianism or its penumbras.
The whole review is ahistorical. Swaim never mentions classical liberalism, the revolutionary movement that challenged monarchs, autocrats, mercantilism, caste society, and established churches beginning in the 18th century. Liberalism soon swept the United States and Western Europe and ushered in what economic historian Deirdre McCloskey calls the "Great Enrichment," the unprecedented rise in living standards that has made us moderns some 3,000 percent richer than our ancestors of 1800. The ideas of the classical liberals, including John Locke, Adam Smith, and the American Founders, are those that animate modern libertarianism: equal rights, constitutional government, free markets, tolerance, the rule of law. Zwolinski and Tomasi say that "what sets libertarians apart is the absolutism and systematicity" with which we advocate those ideas. Well, yes, after 200 years of historical observation and philosophical and economic debate, many of us do believe that a firmer adherence to liberal/​libertarian ideas would serve society well. We observe that the closer a society comes to consistent tolerance, free markets, and the rule of law, the more it will achieve widespread peace, prosperity, and freedom.
Swaim insists that libertarians do not engage "with ultimate questions—questions about the good life, morality, religious meaning, human purpose and so on." He's wrong about that. Adam Smith wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments. F. A. Hayek stressed the importance of morals and tradition. Ayn Rand set out a fairly strict code of personal ethics. Thomas Szasz's work challenged the reductionists and behaviorists with a commitment to the old ideas of good and bad, right and wrong, and responsibility for one's choices. Charles Murray emphasizes the value and indeed the necessity of community and responsibility. Libertarian philosophers of virtue ethics find the case for limited government to be based on the search for the good life. Swaim would be on more solid ground to say that libertarianism does not presume to tell individuals what to believe and how to live. Separation of church and state and all that. As I wrote in a letter to the Journal (not yet published), Swaim refers to the "studiously amoral philosophy of libertarianism." A popular summary of libertarianism, "don't hit other people, don't take their stuff, and keep your promises," is just the basic morality that allows human beings to live together in peace.
As for his claim that libertarianism is dead, that this book is an obituary, I refer Swaim again to all the people who complain that we're living in some sort of libertarian world. Libertarians often feel depressed; they believe the world is on "the road to serfdom." But in fact the world is far freer in this century than ever before in history. Free markets and free trade, an end to slavery and caste societies, representative government, and the rule of law now govern the Western world and much of the rest. Most of the Cato Institute's website comprises complaints about the malfeasance of the U.S. government. But in the bigger picture, libertarians have had much success. In the roughly 50 years since I started thinking about politics, one could point to such successes as:
the end of conscription in the United States
social, economic, and political equality for women
dramatically lower marginal tax rates
freer trade
deregulation of major industries such as airlines, trucking, communication, and finance
the almost total demise of communism
and the consequent discrediting of socialism and central planning
the reorientation of antitrust policy to a consumer welfare standard
expanded First Amendment protections
expanded Second Amendment protections
the progress of gay rights and gay marriage
growing opportunities for school choice
a slow erosion of the war on drugs
I could go on. None of these are total victories. No ideology achieves all of its sweeping vision, at least not without a military conquest of the government and the ability to rule by decree—and those experiments are nothing to emulate. In various parts of the world bad ideas are back—socialism, protectionism, ethnic nationalism, anti‐​Semitism, even industrial policy. The libertarian challenge is to join with other liberals—Reaganite conservatives, free‐​speech liberals, people who are "fiscally conservative and socially liberal"—to push back against these bad resurgent ideas. But this record of accomplishment is no obituary.

Nos proponemos en este artículo presentar el proceso por el cual se remodela la imagen de Neruda en la segunda etapa del régimen comunista rumano (1965-1989), después de su desmesurado ensalzamiento entre 1947 y 1964 en calidad de ejemplar «compañero de ruta» en la construcción del socialismo. Confiscada inicialmente por unos agentes culturales y traductores aferrados a los dogmas del realismo socialista, su valiosa poesía consigue ocupar su merecido lugar durante «el deshielo cultural» e incluso después de 1971, cuando las políticas culturales ceausistas se orientaron hacia un nuevo dogmatismo de factura nacionalista. Si bien, en comparación con las primeras dos décadas del totalitarismo, su visibilidad decrece y su figura se esfuma entre los nuevos latinoamericanos llegados al escenario cultural rumano – los autores del boom –, la poesía de Neruda sigue presente en Rumania y ella será tanto instrumentalizada por los oportunistas del aparato de propaganda ceausista-nacionalista como rescatada de los clisés ideológicos por los agentes culturales del frente apolítico, estetizante. ; In this article we explore the process by which Neruda's image was reshaped in the second phase of the Romanian communist regime (1965-1989), following the first phase between 1947 and 1964 during which he was held up in adulation as an exemplary "road companion" in the construction of socialism. After initially being hijacked by cultural actors and translators who clung to the dogma of socialist realism, his poetry then came to occupy its rightful place during "the cultural thaw" and even after 1971, when Ceaușescu's cultural policies took a new nationalist turn. Although, compared to the first two decades of totalitarianism, his visibility decreased with the new wave of Latin Americans writers arriving on the Romanian cultural scene, notably the Latin American Boom authors, Neruda's poetry still had a presence in Romania and was at once instrumentalized by the opportunists who jumped on the bandwagon of the Ceaușescu's nationalist propaganda apparatus and rescued from the ideological clichés by the cultural actors of the new apolitical, aestheticizing movement. ; Nos proponemos en este artículo presentar el proceso por el cual se remodela la imagen de Neruda en la segunda etapa del régimen comunista rumano (1965-1989), después de su desmesurado ensalzamiento entre 1947 y 1964 en calidad de ejemplar «compañero de ruta» en la construcción del socialismo. Confiscada inicialmente por unos agentes culturales y traductores aferrados a los dogmas del realismo socialista, su valiosa poesía consigue ocupar su merecido lugar durante «el deshielo cultural» e incluso después de 1971, cuando las políticas culturales ceausistas se orientaron hacia un nuevo dogmatismo de factura nacionalista. Si bien, en comparación con las primeras dos décadas del totalitarismo, su visibilidad decrece y su figura se esfuma entre los nuevos latinoamericanos llegados al escenario cultural rumano – los autores del boom –, la poesía de Neruda sigue presente en Rumania y ella será tanto instrumentalizada por los oportunistas del aparato de propaganda ceausista-nacionalista como rescatada de los clisés ideológicos por los agentes culturales del frente apolítico, estetizante. ; Nos proponemos en este artículo presentar el proceso por el cual se remodela la imagen de Neruda en la segunda etapa del régimen comunista rumano (1965-1989), después de su desmesurado ensalzamiento entre 1947 y 1964 en calidad de ejemplar «compañero de ruta» en la construcción del socialismo. Confiscada inicialmente por unos agentes culturales y traductores aferrados a los dogmas del realismo socialista, su valiosa poesía consigue ocupar su merecido lugar durante «el deshielo cultural» e incluso después de 1971, cuando las políticas culturales ceausistas se orientaron hacia un nuevo dogmatismo de factura nacionalista. Si bien, en comparación con las primeras dos décadas del totalitarismo, su visibilidad decrece y su figura se esfuma entre los nuevos latinoamericanos llegados al escenario cultural rumano – los autores del boom –, la poesía de Neruda sigue presente en Rumania y ella será tanto instrumentalizada por los oportunistas del aparato de propaganda ceausista-nacionalista como rescatada de los clisés ideológicos por los agentes culturales del frente apolítico, estetizante. ; Nos proponemos en este artículo presentar el proceso por el cual se remodela la imagen de Neruda en la segunda etapa del régimen comunista rumano (1965-1989), después de su desmesurado ensalzamiento entre 1947 y 1964 en calidad de ejemplar «compañero de ruta» en la construcción del socialismo. Confiscada inicialmente por unos agentes culturales y traductores aferrados a los dogmas del realismo socialista, su valiosa poesía consigue ocupar su merecido lugar durante «el deshielo cultural» e incluso después de 1971, cuando las políticas culturales ceausistas se orientaron hacia un nuevo dogmatismo de factura nacionalista. Si bien, en comparación con las primeras dos décadas del totalitarismo, su visibilidad decrece y su figura se esfuma entre los nuevos latinoamericanos llegados al escenario cultural rumano – los autores del boom –, la poesía de Neruda sigue presente en Rumania y ella será tanto instrumentalizada por los oportunistas del aparato de propaganda ceausista-nacionalista como rescatada de los clisés ideológicos por los agentes culturales del frente apolítico, estetizante. ; Članek predstavlja proces, v katerem se je preoblikovala Nerudova podoba v drugi etapi romunskega komunističnega režima (1965–1989), po pretiranem poveličevanju med letoma 1947 in 1964 v vlogi »popotnega tovariša« pri izgradnji socializma. Njegova poezija, ki so se je sprva polastili kulturni agenti in prevajalci, privrženci dogem socialističnega realizma, je v obdobju »kulturne otoplitve« in po letu 1971, ko so se kulturne politike Ceauşescove linije usmerile proti novemu, nacionalistično obarvanemu dogmatizmu, zasedla zasluženo mesto. Čeprav se je v primerjavi s prvima totalitarističnima desetletjema pesnikova prepoznavnost zmanjšala in njegova podoba zabrisala med novimi Latinoameričani, ki so stopili na romunsko kulturno prizorišče – avtorji booma –, se je njegova poezija v Romuniji obdržala in so jo na eni strani izrabljali oportunisti Ceauşescovega nacionalističnega propagandnega aparata, na drugi pa so jo kulturni agenti iz apolitičnega, esteticističnega tabora reševali ideoloških klišejev.