Video Transcript

Joseph M. Segars—Assignment to South Africa in the 1970’s:

[Ambassador to South Africa] Bill Bowdler came to town from Pretoria and complained to the Department that, “Here we are trying to move the South Africans away from apartheid.  We have no diversity in our embassy.  How long are we going to let the South Africans dictate to us who we can and cannot send as diplomats?  I want minority officers.”  

Roy [Haverkamp] thought about me.  He called me and told me the story about Ambassador Bowdler and his desire to have black officers.  And, “Would I be interested in going to South Africa?”  And I said, “Are you serious?”  He said, “Yes, very serious.”  Going back to something I said earlier about consulting with family, I said, “Well let me talk to my wife and see how she reacts.”  Because I was interested, I really was.  I don’t know why.  It seemed like a glutton for punishment.  You know it was a challenging, yes.  I came home.  We were around the corner on Fourth Street, and I said, “Do you want to go?  Would you like to go to South Africa?”  Liz said, “Are you crazy?  Absolutely not!  No!  End of subject.”  So I told Roy and he said, “Well that’s too bad, because I think you would do a good job.”  He said, “Are you sure that she won’t go.”  I said, “I don’t think so.”  He said, “Well, suppose the ambassador talked to her?”  I said, “Sure, why not!”  So we agreed to have Ambassador Bowdler come and have dinner with us at our house.  He graciously accepted.   And he sat down with us and he explained what he was trying to do, his mission and his goals and objectives.  And how, if we are ever going to make some dent on apartheid in South Africa, we had to put our best foot forward.  We had to demonstrate to the South Africans that people from diverse backgrounds can indeed live in harmony.  And what better way to do that than to have a diverse mission.  And if we decided to come, that he would protect us, make certain that nothing untoward happened, that we would not be discriminated against in any way, and asked us to please consider. 

He went back and he had people look into things.  And schooling wouldn’t be a problem.  Housing wouldn’t be a problem.  We could live anywhere we wanted to live.  The child could go to any school without any questions asked.  So we decided to give it a whirl.  Liz was second guessing herself right up until the very end.