Video Transcript

F. Allen "Tex" Harris—Example of Excellence:

Highlight

The highlight of my career was my work in Argentina.  I was a fairly junior officer and I had an opportunity and a challenge of telling the United States government and the world about the horrors that were taking place in Argentina as the Argentine military junta, in order to fight terrorism, launched a campaign that led to the clandestine kidnapping, torture and murder of 15,000 of its own citizens.  And my work in documenting that, not just for the Untied States Government but for the world press and for the world, was instrumental in changing the opinions of the world towards Argentina, but more importantly towards human rights.  I opened up the doors of the embassy.  I met with literally thousands of the family members of the disappeared citizens who came streaming into the embassy every day between 2:00 and 4:00.  I documented what had happened and what was going on in Argentina, the human rights abuses.  It changed dramatically the way the world dealt with human rights.  Human rights became a central part of the fabric of diplomacy, and the discussion about how a nation treated its own citizens became a subject of diplomacy.  That was not the case before.  Previously diplomacy was a matter of name-calling.  The United State would charge human rights violations against the Soviets for their abusing the rights of the Hungarians, and they would counter with our abuses against Puerto Ricans.  It was a futile kind of sterile debate.  The horrors of Argentina changed the dimension and the way the world treated human rights violations.  Human rights is nothing more than judging another country on how it treats its own citizens, and the United States policy changed and the diplomatic  practice changed.  Where how a nation treated its own citizens became part of the conversation and part of the key ingredients in the relationship between states.  And my work in Argentina, reporting that and exposing the abuses, changed, in a very dramatic way, the way diplomacy was practiced as well as American policy.

Low point

The low point in my career came during a period when I was responsible for emergency response actions on a humanitarian basis for the United States Government.  I failed miserably to get the United States Government to intervene and provide humanitarian aid in the horrors of a warlord fight in Somalia.  The United States military said it was too risky for them to put food relief operations into Somalia, because there were stones and goats on the runway.  Fortunately, the Washington Post printed a picture of a horrible, starving Somali child above the fold on the morning that President Bush had his weekly breakfast with Brent Scowcroft and the Secretary of State, George Shultz.  The President of the Untied States, at that breakfast, said. “Gentlemen, we have got to do something to mitigate the disaster that’s going on in Somalia.”  So my months of work, which had failed in getting the Untied States Government to respond to the crisis succeeded because of a photo and because of the good conscience that President George Bush, President number 41, had – and his reaction that something had to be done.  And it needed in his words, “stars and bars on it.”  So, once with the President’s decision, we were able then to marshal substantial support, but it was a very low period, and thanks to the President’s response became a successful humanitarian operation.

Vignette

My longest period of work as a political officer dealt with the transition of South Africa from an apartheid regime to democracy.  I spent nine years of a 35-year career working on South Africa.  It wasn’t as much a specialization as it was a disease.  I spent time both in Washington and working as the American consul general in Durban.  Very exciting time to be involved in a major transition and a major battle of foreign policy between the United States and the apartheid regime, and then to see the transition take place.  And to be a small part of that effort was a very exciting opportunity.

In South Africa, as the American consul general, and as a political officer, I had a vast array of contacts.  I was meeting people for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and in my office during the day, collecting information.  I was the first in the American diplomatic and intelligence community to get information about a transformation of policy that was being discussed in the Broederbond in order to back South Africa away from the apartheid ideals that they had adopted.  This was terribly important.  I had major contacts with the UDF [United Democratic Front], which was the local ANC [African National Congress] organization there.  I had dealings with, clandestine dealings with, homeland leaders in the Transkei with Holomisa, who I would meet secretly in hotels in Durban by going up through freight elevators to see him.  So the ability to know, meet, and to gain the trust of and eventually influence people was a critical factor in my life as a political officer.  And it was a great challenge – wonderful and rewarding throughout.

Reflection

In terms of understanding the culture of a country, I think the appreciation that I had for the reverence that the Argentines had for the deceased was a central part of my work there.  What the Argentine military had done in terms of the clandestine capture, torture and murder, and non-return of the bodies, of up to 15,000 of their own citizens, was an absolute affront to a basic sensibility buried in the psyche of the Argentine people.  On the death date of an Argentine, people gather at the family home and visit the cemetery.  If there is no body, there is no opportunity to do that.  That was the experience that I knew and understood, but which the leaders of the Argentine military junta did not.

It is terribly important for diplomats to understand the historical context and the background of events that are taking place.  One of the problems that we have as diplomats is that the policy makers in Washington, in many instances, have their set views of what is taking place abroad.  What we have got to do is to be effective not only in communicating overseas, but also to policy makers in Washington, to make sure that the realities that they are dealing with and making policy on overseas are correct.  In South Africa most American policy makers saw the issue in South Africa as being akin and related to the civil rights struggle in the south in the United States.  It was not, but that was the frame of reference that most American policy makers had.  South Africa was much more complicated and a much more difficult issue because, for the Afrikaners, it was an existential issue and it was a difficult one.