Video Transcript

Thomas R. Pickering—Example of Excellence:

Highlight

I would go back to New York at the U.N. in 1990 and 91.

Most interesting to me was helping to put together that coalition in New York after Iraq invaded Kuwait.  Almost instantaneously we had to put together a resolution in the Security Council.  We began by believing that the aggression itself would be the foremost issue that we had to address. And indeed it was.  But as we went on, we rapidly decided that to be successful and to hold the door open, even at that early stage, were sanctions to fail, to a use of force resolution, we had to keep the Security Council engaged, particularly when states like Cuba and Yemen were not particularly sympathetic, even though the Iraqi actions were outrageous to our point of view.  So we never let a day go by where the Security Council didn’t focus on the issue of the Iraqi invasion.  The Security Council became the center of world attention, and the use of the press to unite the United Nations around our point of view, and to communicate our point of view rapidly through the press to the other delegations, was also a primary point.  And we also worked out a method for getting resolutions passed which involved coordinating with the permanent five members first, then the nonaligned group, and then the rest of the Security Council – in a performance and in an arrangement that became almost routine but turned out to be very successful.  We, for example, accepted changes from the nonaligned group wherever we could.  We were sure that we never had a presentation to the nonaligned without four permanent members being present, so that they knew in fact that Russia and China were going to be on board the resolution – that there wasn’t a split.  So many of those tactical considerations added to a strategy that turned out to be successful, and the strategy served us successfully when the fighting was over.  We had a hiatus, obviously, between the use of force resolution and the actual execution of that resolution when that had to happen, and settling the peace.  And settling the peace was even more challenging, more demanding and more interesting.  The Council was not divided over that issue as well – with a lot of work we successfully brought them along.  With a very important, very tough resolution, which broke ground.  It broke ground in the sense that the U.N. actually became a maker of peace, in a direct sense, as a participant through the Security Council. The U.N. actually, through the mandatory action of the Security Council, imposed on Iraq a regime about weapons of mass destruction, and a very intrusive inspection mechanism which broke ground in the disarmament field.  So it was exciting, challenging, interesting and innovative.

Low point

Probably dealing in Jordan in the mid-1970s with the U.S. response to a Jordanian request to provide Hawk anti-aircraft missiles.  And I can remember the culmination of the campaign was that I was told on a Friday night, unbeknownst to me, that a letter was going to be given to the Congress outlining the conditions for the missiles, which reflected very much the Israeli ideas on how the missiles ought to be deployed in Jordan.  I had to go and tell the King and the Prime Minister this.  The good news was that the Jordanians weren’t being asked formally to do anything they hadn’t agreed to in the military contract.  So after a lot of thought I went to the Prime Minister, something not usually done, and suggested that – in effect – if he had to, they go into the press and denounce the letter, and insist they wouldn’t accept anything more than what was in the contract.  Washington didn’t particularly like this, but they lived through it.  I said it would take three days to a week.  It took two weeks to calm down.  The Congress didn’t like it, of course, but in the end the Jordanians got the missiles, and in the end the conditions weren’t any more onerous than they had been described.  And in the end the Jordanians were able to deal with their own public and the domestic repercussions of seemingly to be responsive to what was Israeli pressure on the United States with respect to their military posture.

Vignette

I think that almost every issue that I confronted, particularly as ambassador or Under Secretary of State, it was really critical to know and understand the background and in some cases the historical experience of the country.  If I didn’t know it, I depended on the desk and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research to make sure I got it.  And if I didn’t have it, I asked questions about it, but it was enormously valuable.  Similarly, language capability was enormously valuable.  When I worked in Zanzibar years ago, I was able to speak directly with the President in Swahili.  He didn’t speak English, so we had all of our conversations in the language, without interpretation, and indeed without interruption of other people at the meeting.  And so I could have a one-on-one relationship to help build confidence.  Similarly, when I went to El Salvador.  While I had studied Spanish, I had not used it as a public media device.  But two minutes after I got off the plane I had to give a press conference in Spanish on my arrival, and answer all the difficult questions. And I carried out almost all of my meetings in El Salvador in Spanish, particularly with President Duarte, who preferred to work in Spanish, and flattered me enough to tell me that my Spanish was up to dealing with him.

Historical background is extremely important.  I had the opportunity to be ambassador seven times.  And that meant that I changed country and region and developed a process, as everyone who does this develops for themselves, of breaking in on a new country.  And you have to do a couple of things well.  One is you have to go in depth, not only in the State Department, with the individuals in the U.S. government currently dealing with the question, but with people who have historical experience.  I can remember when I went to El Salvador one of the most useful things was the Bureau of Intelligence and Research brought in a group of experts from around the United States who not only knew and understood the background of the country of El Salvador and its historical experience, but also a great deal about insurgency wars and how they should be dealt with.

Similarly, when I went to India, an entirely different experience.  The Asia Society in New York and others arranged for me to meet some of the leading academics to get their sense of what had contributed to the Indian-U.S. relationship over the previous 35 years before I arrived.  What were the critical issues that I would have to follow?  And something about the background.  And, of course, this I supplemented by as much reading as I could put in.  And one of the critical searches was always for -- what are the three best books on this country this day that I should be reading, so that I can have in-depth knowledge of background and experience?  And of course, in a place like Jordan, my avocation became archeology.  Archeology, of course, played a huge role in the country’s life and its tourism potential – but also in its history.  And so the sweep from the 4th century B.C. to a mere 30 years before of Jordanian archeology gave me a sense of the history that probably served me as well as almost anything I did on a current basis while I was in a place like Jordan.

Reflection

One of the most fascinating changes that has taken place over the last two or three decades is of course the role of the family in Foreign Service life.  When I first arrived in the late 1950s, people were writing efficiency reports on embassy wives.  That fell away in 1972, when they were given their own life and existence.  They were not called employees, they were not considered employees, and they were not treated as employees any longer.  This made for great changes, but other things have made for even greater changes.  The consideration now that families have a role and an existence – that children and their education – is particularly important.  And that the State Department has begun to assume many more responsibilities in looking out for those kinds of things.  In addition to that, probably at least a dozen or more years ago, we established Family Liaison Officers – often a wife – brought into the embassy and become at least a temporary paid employee, to look after the needs of families from the perspective of the embassy.  Everything from making sure in fact that the housing they received and the kinds of benefits and support they had was taken care of – and if problems arose they were dealt with – to providing new and interesting and other extracurricular opportunities for families and for their children.  As part of the fact that the embassy was moving from a kind of business relationship with families to a family relationship with families.  Schooling, of course, has been tremendously important.  And a combination of the State Department and local communities, plus contributions from the business and the

nongovernmental sector, have made it possible in almost all capital cities where we’re represented, to set up an American school or an Anglo-American school.  So that education for embassy people who are often the minority in these schools – the American business community and, often in the best of locations, local citizens’ children, as well as other members of the international community – can take place in an environment that reflects the best of American tradition, but brings together those unique opportunities that Foreign Service families have to live in a foreign culture and society, to work in that culture and society, and to learn and understand a great deal about it – from language, obviously, through history and local culture.