The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2009

40 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 9 uring much of 1948, the U.S. newspa- per industry was roiled by escalating prices for newsprint, the bulk of which was imported fromCanada. Publishers, union executives and members of Con- gress alike placed primary blame for what they termed “a grave threat to the free press” on Canadian wood-pulp producers, for refusing to expand production despite rising demand and the disruption of output from other sources. The dispute was serious enough that theWashington, D.C., law firm of Covington & Burling sent Dean Acheson, a pres- tigious senior partner who had recently resigned as under sec- retary of State (the number-two position in the department), to Foggy Bottom to discuss the matter with senior officials. (In current parlance, that would be called lobbying.) Those of- ficials, in turn, called in less senior officials until, finally, into a “fairly crowded room” walked a 30-year-old civil servant as- signed to the Canadian desk named Lucius (Luke) Durham Battle. Battle later recalled his exchange with Acheson on that day as consisting of (a) Acheson asking his opinion on the wood pulp issue, (b) Battle providing it, (c) Acheson challenging Bat- tle’s statements as “diametrically opposed to the views of Ray Atherton, the U.S. ambassador to Canada” and (d) Battle re- torting, “He is entitled to his views and I am entitled to mine. He is wrong.” In Battle’s recounting, there was a collective gasp at that point. In fact, the cheeky young man had just passed an un- planned oral examination that, far from ruining his career as some in the room seemed to think, marked the beginning of an exceptionally productive friendship, and launched a career that helped define the evolving nature of the postwar Foreign Service. The Necessary Fortitude Born in the “small, grossly unattractive town” of Dawson, Ga., in 1918, Battle moved with his family to Florida in 1925 and, a decade later, enrolled at the University of Florida. After graduation, he began law studies there in 1939, interrupting them to serve in logistical staff positions with the Navy in the South Pacific and with the Pacific Command in Hawaii. Fol- lowing the war, he completed his law degree (though he would later observe that it “has never meant much to me”) and then left Florida to pursue a career in international affairs at the Department of State. Worried about his meager language-learning ability, and sensitive at not having attended a “better” (i.e., Ivy League) institution, Battle opted not to take the Foreign Service ex- amination, instead applying for a Civil Service position with State. On Oct. 1, 1946, he began his career in foreign affairs as a GS-11management planner, moving to the Canadian desk as a GS-12 five months later. Battle later described his two years in Canadian affairs as a “marvelous time,” but admitted he was more stimulated by two Civil Service colleagues (Margaret Tibbetts and David FS H ERITAGE L UCIUS B ATTLE : S HAPER OF THE P OSTWAR F OREIGN S ERVICE B ATTLE HAS NEVER RECEIVED THE CREDIT HE DESERVES FOR HELPING TO TRANSFORM THE S TATE D EPARTMENT . B Y B OB R ACKMALES Bob Rackmales’ 32-year Foreign Service career (1963-1995) included assignments in Lagos, Zagreb, Mogadishu, Trieste, Rome, Kaduna, Belgrade and Washington, D.C. A member of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, he teaches courses on U.S. diplomatic history at Belfast (Maine) Senior College. His FS Heritage article on John Paton Davies appeared in the July-August 2008 FSJ . D