The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2014 47 he remains an enigma. Was it just luck that he came unscathed through the McCarthy-era witch hunts despite some unconven- tional views on the Soviet Union? Just how effective a diplomat was a man some called an “insufferable prig” for driving his staff up the wall—including agents from the wartime Office of Strate- gic Services who were just trying to do their job? And is Childs an unsung hero of the Holocaust, whose name belongs among the “righteous gentiles” at Israel’s Yad Vashemmemorial? Or all of the above? Franco’s Spain and Petain’s France Meet in Morocco For sheer complexity and stra- tegic importance, Childs’ service in Tangier as chargé d’affaires (1941-1945) overshadows his later assignments as ambassador. Though he resided at the American legation in the city’s International Zone, Childs was accredited to Morocco, which was divided into French and Spanish protectorates. The U.S. had never recognized the Spanish zone, and the situation was further complicated when the forces of General Francisco Franco, recently victorious in the Span- ish Civil War, occupied the International Zone after France fell to German forces in June 1940. The U.S. continued to recognize the Petain government in Vichy, and American policy was to cultivate relations with Vichy representatives in North Africa. Childs applied himself energeti- cally to that task, cultivating officials favorable to the Allied cause and probing French and Spanish officials about their attitudes on a hypothetical Allied landing. In particular, would Franco abandon his official neutrality and allow German forces to sweep down from Spain and through Morocco once American troops landed (as they did in November 1942’s Operation Torch)? (Franco did maintain Spanish neutral- ity, angering Adolf Hitler.) These concerns were shared by the new clandestine service set up in the wake of Pearl Harbor, the Office of Strategic Services. This precursor to the CIA chose the American legation in Tangier as its headquarters for Mediterranean operations, and recruited a Harvard anthropologist, Carleton Coon, who was given diplo- matic cover as a vice consul. Coon’s anthropological fieldwork in the northern Moroccan Rif Mountains in the 1920s and 1930s gave him an entrée with the Berber tribes who had rebelled against Spanish occupation. The OSS plan was to furnish financial sup- port and weapons so the Berbers would be ready to rise up in rebellion should Franco join the Axis and threaten the Allies (which, hap- pily, he never did). Vice Consul Coon invented fanciful code names for his chief Moroccan contacts like “Tassels” and “Strings.” He later described his cloak-and-dagger work in North Africa Story , an entertaining compilation of his wartime reports. Coon’s exploits did not amuse Childs, however. Though he didn’t name Coon, the chargé later wrote that one of his vice consuls had harbored delusions of becoming “a second Lawrence of Arabia.” For his part, Coon paints a damning picture of Childs as so out of touch about the nature of clandestine work that he had the OSS commu- nication operation moved out of the legation because the tapping of the telegraph kept his wife awake at night. Retired Ambassa- dor Carleton Coon Jr. recalls: “This appeared treasonable to my father, and after I started on my own diplomatic career, my father swore he would never allow his son to serve under ‘that SOB’.” Whether this was “treasonable” conduct or just extreme micromanagement is a matter of opinion. What is less debat- able is that many of Childs’ colleagues saw him as priggish. For instance, he proudly recounted his success in prohibiting female American dependents fromwearing slacks and shorts within the residential compound in Addis Ababa, his last diplomatic post- ing, in the early 1950s. When the women protested this vestige For sheer complexity and strategic importance, Childs’ service inWorldWar II-era Tangier as chargé d’affaires overshadows his later ambassadorships. J. Rives Childs’ official portrait, which hangs in the legation next to the text of Renée Reichmann’s Holocaust letter. Courtesy of the Tangier Legation