The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project ...

277 Pages·2014·1.5 MB·English

The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training
Foreign Affairs Oral History Project

AMBASSADOR WILLIAM E. SCHAUFELE, JR.

Interviewed by: Lillian Mullin
Initial interview date: November 19, 1994
Copyright 1998 ADST

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Background
Born and raised in Ohio
Yale University, Columbia University
U.S. Army - WWII
"Battle of the Bulge"
Entered Foreign Service - 1950

Germany - Kreis (country) officer 1950-1952
Pfaffenhofen
Schopenhauer
Augsburg
"Landrat" elections
political parties
Kreis officer duties
German language
McCloy fund
Bonn chosen as capital

Dusseldorf, Germany - Labor officer 1952-1953
German trade unions
Labor attaché office in Bonn
"Coordination" concept
McCarthy influence
John Paton Davies

Munich, Germany - Visa/economic officer 1953-1955
Duties
Political situation
Charlie Thayer/Wriston program

State Department - Foreign Reporting Staff 1956-1957
Comprehensive Economic Reporting Program (CERP)
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State Department - FSI - Professor 1957-1958
Junior officer course
Foreign language requirement

State Department - FSI - French language student 1958-1959
Teaching methods

State Department - Moroccan desk officer 1959

Casablanca, Morocco - Political/labor officer 1959-1963
Ambassador Charles Yost
Trade unions
CIA
Local politics
U.S. naval visits
Moroccan border problems
King of Morocco
Jewish community
Environment
Arabs versus Berbers
Colonel Oufkir - security chief
Marshall Lyautey
French influence
U.S. military bases
Non-aligned movement
Moroccan pride and culture
Ambassador Philip Bonsal
Family experiences

Bukavu, Zaire - Principal officer 1963-1964
Environment
Tribal disputes
Hutus versus Tutsis
Operations (consulate)
Rebel activities
Prime Minister Tshombe
Congolese National Army
Political situation
Belgian influence
Languages spoken

State Department - Congo desk officer 1964-1965
Congo War crisis
Soviet and Chinese involvement
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U.S. involvement issue
Congo Working Group
Cuban pilots
White mercenaries
U.S. hostages
Belgian paratroopers rescue hostages
President Mobutu

State Department - Deputy office director for Central Africa 1965-1966
African Affairs Bureau reorganization
Secretary of State Dean Rusk
Ahmadou Ahidjo

State Department - Director for Central and West African Affairs 1966-1969
Biafra (Nigeria) secession
Department operations and organization
Sensitivity training
FSI training - comments

Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) - Ambassador 1969-1971
Appointment and confirmation process
Embassy staff
Living accommodations
Environment (Ouagadougou)
Local government and politics
Tribes
French influence
U.S. interests
Peace Corps
Abidjan-Ouagadougou railroad line
Tuaregs
Agriculture and animal husbandry
Traveling

USUN - New York - Fourth Committee 1971-1975
Decolonization Committee
Committee coordination problem
U.S. mission staffing
George Bush - Permanent Representative
Deputy representative on Security Council duties
Kurt Waldheim
Chinese at UN
Other delegations and missions
Consulting Soviets
Saudi Arabia's Zamin Barudi
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U. Thant - Secretary General
Brian Urquhart
Issues
Chinese versus Soviets
Security Council operations
Security Council composition
UN budget controversy
Relations with State
John Scalley
Comments on operations

State Department - Inspector General of the Foreign Service 1975
Ambassador case studies

State Department - Assistant Secretary for African Affairs 1975-1977
Foreign indoctrination tour
Recognition of Angola issue
MPLA (Popular Movement for Liberation of Angola)
Staffing
Kissinger's Africa tour
South Africa issue
Nyerere
Rhodesia
Acting as translator (interpreter)
African leaders
Visits to African Presidents
"Buy out" concept (South Africa)
Consultations with British and others
South Africa and Namibia conference (Geneva)
Dialogue with South Africa
Carter administration
Somalia rifle request
Andrew Young
Secretary of State Vance
Katanga gendarmes
Working with Kissinger

Ambassadorship to Greece aborted 1977
Greek opposition to nomination

State Department - Office of Under Secretary for Management 1977

Ambassador to Poland 1978
Solidarity movement
Visits to Polish cities
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Environment
Communist party
Contacts with Soviets
Vatican representative issue
Cardinal Wyszynski
Gierek
Security
Polish media
Pope John Paul II
General Jaruzelski
Embassy staff
Jewish community
CIA
Retirement

INTERVIEW

Q: This is an interview with retired Ambassador William E. Schaufele, Jr. This interview
is taking place on November 19, 1994, on behalf of the Foreign Affairs Oral History
Program. I am Lillian Mullin. Ambassador Schaufele, would you first tell us something
about your background? That is, where you were born, where you came from, and where
you went to school.

SCHAUFELE: Well, I was born at home on December 7, 1923, in Lakewood, OH, a
large suburb on the West side of Cleveland, OH. It was then a town of about 70,000.
When I was about two years old, we moved about 500 yards up the same street and lived
there the rest of the time we were in Lakewood. I went to the local public schools: Grant
Elementary School, Emerson Junior High School, and Lakewood High School. My early
life was much affected by the Depression of the 1930's, not unlike the way it affected
many other families. My father, unfortunately, started a business in the fall of 1928. It
failed in 1929. He was out of regular work for five years. However, we managed to
survive that. We "lost" our home but managed to continue living in it, on a rental basis.
Eventually, we repurchased it. My mother went back to work, part time, during this
period. My father was away during the summer because he returned to work on the Great
Lakes on the iron ore boats, as he had as a young man. We didn't see much of him during
the summers.

This all affected us, but I don't think that it was so much of a problem, since so many
people went through difficult times about then. There really wasn't any significant sign of
people "looking down on us" because we were having a difficult time. Perhaps in an
academic sense the school experience may have counted for more than it does nowadays,
though I'm not sure of that any more. Even though I was active -- very active -- in high
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school, that was never an excuse for poor academic performance. So you tended to do the
work that you had to do.

I had, I think, an enjoyable childhood. My older sister was five years older than I. She
graduated from high school in 1936 and became a nurse's aid. She really wanted to
become a fully qualified nurse. However, she didn't realize her aspirations in that sense.
She lived in Lakewood, OH, or close by for the rest of her life. She married but had no
children. She died in 1994.

I was fortunate enough to be a good enough student. I hoped to get a scholarship, which
was the only way that I could go to college. At that time they didn't have all of the
"checks" which, I gather, they have now, when you apply for a scholarship. I got four
scholarships and chose to go to Yale University, which I entered in July, 1942, because of
the "speeded up" program which many colleges had during World War II. It became the
normal thing to go to college the year around.

I entered college in the pre-med program. This was a mistake, but I didn't realize it then. I
finished three semesters before I was called up to serve in the Army. I realized by the time
that the three semesters were over that serving in the Army gave me some time to figure
out what I might do instead of medicine.

When I went into the Army, I was selected for the Army Specialized Training Program
[ASTP], which was the possible fate of people who majored in the sciences, pre-med, or
engineering. I went through the ASTP screening process but realized that the program
was going to die, and I would have had to gain admittance to a medical school on the
basis of my three semesters of undergraduate study at Yale. I didn't think that I was
entitled to enter medical school right away, and I was right on both counts.

Finally, after basic training and various starts and stops I was transferred to the 10th
Armored Division at Camp Gordon, GA. The division went overseas in September, 1944.
It was the first division to land, as a division, in Cherbourg, France, following the
liberation of Normandy. We fought across northern France in the fall of 1944. This was
nothing very spectacular because the big gains of the Third Army, of which we were a
part, had kind of slowed down after the liberation of Paris.

In many senses the highlight of my Army service was that we were caught in the "Battle
of the Bulge." This happened when the division was "out of the line," being re-equipped.
We were called up on December 16, 1944, I think. This was when we first heard about
the German counterattack through the Ardennes Forest. We took the road to
Luxembourg. There the division was split up, according to what was needed in the
various parts of the line. My Combat Command, which amounted to one-third of the
division, was sent to Bastogne Belgium, which I had never previously heard of. We went
into Bastogne and realized that we were being attacked on all sides. We managed to hold
one road open until the 101st Airborne Division came in by road. Thereafter, the German
ring closed, and we were encircled for -- I'm guessing now -- nine or 10 days. We were
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supplied from the air, when the weather was good. We took in 54 tanks and came out
with three. We had heavy casualties, but morale was always surprisingly good, I thought.
Nobody ever gave up, even when the battalion commander, who was standing by my
tank, was hit and killed by shrapnel. That didn't have much effect on morale. We were
finally relieved after "volunteering" to stay in the line until the Germans were pushed
back a certain distance.

The rest of the war was not uneventful, but its end was obviously in sight. It was just a
matter of time, and we didn't suffer very heavy casualties from then on. We ended the war
in Garmisch-Partenkirchen [Bavaria], which always amused me, after the fact, because
we, the combat troops, took the town and then were supplanted by battalion, Combat
Command, Army Corps, and Army headquarters. We were moved about 70 miles away.

I stayed in the Army until January, 1946. The 10th Armored Division was deactivated,
and the unit I was transferred to was supposed to land in Japan. I must say that I probably
welcomed the news about the atomic bomb. I had no taste for a combat landing in Japan,
in the face of a very determined enemy. I was discharged in January, 1946, and returned
to Yale in March, 1946.

I had decided by then that what really interested me was the liberal arts and humanities. I
changed my course of studies to what was called a major in international relations at
Yale, which concentrated on history and political science. Yale had a very good faculty
then for what was a fairly rare major, although it's fairly common now. I went back to
singing, as I had done before. I reactivated a small singing group. Most of my
extracurricular activity was in music. The interesting and, I think, the most valuable part
about getting a scholarship to Yale at that time was that you were required to work. So I
worked all the time I was there. It was done on a decreasing scale. You worked more
hours as a freshman. I worked as a waiter and as an assistant in the Department of
Economics. Finally, I worked as an assistant to the university organist, who was also the
Director of the Chapel Choir and, eventually, the Dean of the Yale Music School. So
even in that sense I was still active in music.

I graduated with a B.A. degree in 1948 and decided to go to Graduate School. I still had
some time left under the G.I. Bill of Rights. I went to the Columbia School of
International Affairs, which was a new school at that time and which required two years
of study for a Master's Degree. I found the first year somewhat redundant, but the second
year was useful and interesting. I lived off campus. I did not center my life around the
university. I still centered my life on music. I sang with the Robert Shaw Collegiate
Chorale, where I met my wife.

During that period also I had to decide what to do. I suppose that it was normal, with my
background in education, to take the Foreign Service examination, which I did in 1949. I
passed it, except for the language part. I had never studied a modern language. German
was the only foreign language that I had ever heard spoken. I enrolled in a semester
course in German and then passed the language test the second time around. At that time
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we were warned that it would take 18 months to two years to be appointed to the Foreign
Service because of the backlog. I went looking for a job. In fact, I was looking for a job
before I got my Master's Degree.

As a result of the switch in responsibility for the occupation of Germany from the
Department of Defense to the Department of State, the State Department, in its wisdom,
called up, perhaps not all of us, but many of us who were waiting for appointment as
Foreign Service Officers. We were offered Foreign Service Staff appointments and were
sent to Germany, as "Kreis" Resident Officers. "Kreis" is the German word for county. I
think that there must have been 75 or 80 of us in three groups.

We didn't all become Kreis Resident Officers. Some of us became heads of American
libraries in the cities. Some of us were assigned to other jobs. I served as a resident officer
in a town called Pfaffenhofen, about 25 miles North of Munich, a small, agricultural town
with a population of 7500. Its claim to fame -- then and now -- was that it was the center
of the "Hallertau," the best hops-growing area of the world. It was there that I learned a
lot about growing hops and making beer, which I wouldn't have learned otherwise.

Q: When you were given the opportunity to become a Kreis Resident Officer, how many
people were in the first group that you went over to Germany with?

SCHAUFELE: There were 28, I think.

Q: What kind of preparation did they give you in Washington before you went to
Germany?

SCHAUFELE: There were pretty general briefings in Washington about how the United
States Government was organized to exercise its responsibilities in its zone of occupation.
In Germany we went first to Frankfurt and were put up in a hotel outside the city. We
studied German every day but also got briefings from officials on the staff of the High
Commission in Germany [HICOG], which was then still located in Frankfurt. I would say
that we must have been there for almost six weeks. I don't remember exactly how long
this introduction to Germany lasted, but it was a matter of several weeks, at least.
Pfaffenhofen is in Bavaria. Eleven of us went to Bavaria. When we got to the Office of
the Land (State) Commissioner for Bavaria, we got a "nuts and bolts" briefing on how
that office operated.

Q: That was in Munich?

SCHAUFELE: That was in Munich, yes.

Q: Do you remember who the HICOG Commissioner for Bavaria was?

SCHAUFELE: George Shuster was the Land Commissioner. He was a former President
of Notre Dame University. The briefing was very general. It wasn't anything in particular.
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Q: Were you going to take over a position that had already been set up by the military?
Had there been a military officer there -- a colonel or something like that?

SCHAUFELE: There had been military officers there. I had two "Kreise" -- Pfaffenhofen
and Schrobenhausen, but the posts had been empty for some time. I suspect -- and I really
should check on this some time -- that the last person there before me had been military,
because the post had been empty long enough. It's conceivable that the military had left
and that they hadn't appointed a civilian to take over the job. A lot of resident officers
"civilianized." That is, they were discharged from the Army and just stayed where they
were. They were military governors of "Kreise." They took their discharges from the
Army and stayed on the job for the State Department. I would have to look at the Foreign
Service lists of those days to determine just what the proportion was of former military
governors and new people.

Q: Just to add this to your review, there was another group. The military had done the
same thing that the State Department had done, a year or a year-and-a-half before. At the
time at various colleges and universities they were looking for graduates who wanted to
go to Germany to train and take over these jobs in the High Commission. A number of
people went to Germany about a year before, and they were trained in Berlin, as I recall.
Then they were sent out to several of these posts. I think that most of them were sent to
posts which had been "empty," but probably not in Pfaffenhofen, since there was nobody
there when you got there.

SCHAUFELE: I wasn't aware of that. There was a group there before our group -- about
six months before -- but they were nearly all FSO eligibles, as we were. The group which
followed us was also composed mostly of FSO eligibles. I am not completely sure that
this was the case but feel that most of them were. I'm not sure how many in the last group
actually became resident officers. I have a feeling that an awful lot of them were "fed
into" the American Consulates that already existed in Germany. We knew that we were
going to have to close down because negotiations were going on toward reestablishing a
West German state. The Germans had adopted their constitution, which was the "trigger"
which transferred authority from the U.S. military to the State Department. However, the
final agreement between the three occupying powers in West Germany and the new
government in Germany was not reached until 1952, when West Germany regained its
sovereignty.

We closed the post in Pfaffenhofen earlier than that -- at the end of 1951, I think. I was
sent to Augsburg. Since the status of these entities hadn't yet changed, the resident officer
in Augsburg now had responsibility for six "Kreise." We didn't know how long the
transition to the sovereign West German state would take. So we agreed that I would live
up the road, North of Augsburg, where I could cover the three northern "Kreise" from my
house, if necessary. I went into Augsburg most days, but some days I just stayed up there
and visited my "circuit." Actually, that situation only lasted about six months, less than
some people expected.
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So then I had another choice to make. I wanted to stay in Germany. My thesis in my
senior, undergraduate year and my Master's thesis had both been done on different aspects
of Germany. These were mostly historical.

Q: Before we go any further, I would like to put you back in Pfaffenhofen, your first post
as a "Kreis" officer. When you first got there, was the "Denazification Program" still
going on, and did they have you continue that?

SCHAUFELE: No. The "Denazification Program" was finished by the time I arrived in
Germany. The people who were not eligible for public office were identified. There had
to be a fair number of them in Pfaffenhofen because the town had been a good recruiting
center for the original Nazi Party in 1924. There were a lot of people who had what they
called, "The Golden Party Badges" in Pfaffenhofen. That is, they were in the first group
of members of the Nazi Party. Those men -- they were all men, I think -- were denied any
possibility of holding public office.

When the United States Army occupied Pfaffenhofen, they appointed a German Social
Democratic Party (SPD) member as the "Landrat," or county supervisor. I can tell you
that there weren't many Socialists there, either before or after the war. But it was finally
decided to elect the "Landrat." The CSU, or Christian Social Union, the Bavarian
counterpart of the Christian Democratic Union [CDU], nominated an elderly, minor noble
who happened to be a hop-farmer but who also happened to have a "clean" record during
the Nazi period. He was already 77 when we arrived. He served as elected "Landrat" until
1958, I think. He remarried in 1952.

However, when I reached Pfaffenhofen, the really "dominant" party in an ideological
sense was the Bayernpartei [Bavarian Party], which was the farthest Right of any party in
Bavaria, at least. It had elected one of the county's two representatives in the state
legislature. The man elected just before I arrived was a young man my age who became,
in effect, my closest friend. The Bayernpartei disappeared, and he went into the CSU,
where he always should have been. However, he had joined the Bayernpartei for the sake
of his father, who was an old Bayernpartei man. His father was a hop-farmer. My friend
was a Ph.D. from the agriculture university. In effect, the Bayernpartei disappeared when
we were in Pfaffenhofen, and the CSU became the dominant party. A few of the
Socialists who were there -- and there were a few -- were local people. However, most of
them were refugees from East Germany. Not only were many of these refugees Socialists,
but a lot of them were Protestants. There was a Protestant church in Pfaffenhofen, but the
population was overwhelmingly Catholic. The Catholic Vicar of Pfaffenhofen was a very
important man, both religiously and politically. He was not a very nice man, as I recall. I
didn't see him that often.

Q: Regarding these refugees from East Germany, were there fairly large numbers of
them in Pfaffenhofen and in your "Kreise"? When did most of them move to West
Germany?
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