The Foreign Service Journal, June 2003

J U N E 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 59 momentous tenure as ambassador during Germany’s unification. He delighted at the time in calculating that his service amounted to almost a quarter of U.S. history. The Germans lauded his role during uni- fication. Chancellor Kohl stated that Walters was prescient in foreseeing, “as few others,” the fall of the Berlin Wall and the coming of Germany unity. Reviewing those five decades of service, one is struck by the abiding elements, the dimensions taking shape early on: High-level service: Starting in World War II with General Mark Clark (who left a profound imprint on him), Walters became an aide and interpreter to numerous U.S. military officers, senior diplomats and presi- dents. Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Harriman, Marshall, Kissinger — Walters worked for them all. Thanks to the access afforded by such men- tors, Walters developed his “uncanny ability to be present at large events,” as the Washington Post obituary summ- ed it up, such as the launching of the Marshall Plan and NATO. Foreign contacts: As a spin-off of his work as an interpreter, Walters made numerous friends during the war, including the future presidents of France (de Gaulle) and Brazil (Branco), as well as the future king of Morocco (Hassan). Few could match his global net- work. European languages: A gifted polyglot, Walters lived in Europe during his formative years from age 6 to 16, when he learned French, Spanish, German and Italian. He later acquired Portuguese, Dutch and Russian. He was, as a German official once observed, “the most European American.” Interest in history: As a boy, Walters succeeded in soliciting the autograph of the exiled German Kaiser, an early endeavor in his life- long fascination with history. He believed that leaders needed to know history and draw on it. He once said his motivation throughout his life was to “walk with history.” Amid these continuities, there lies the watershed, the great change that bisected his career. It took place not when he moved from gen- eral to ambassador. (In fact, he had played a diplomatic role early in his career.) Rather, it was his leap from aide to principal: in 1960, at the age of 43, he was named a military attaché in Rome. Looking back, he savored the moment when he became “my own boss at last.” Paradigm Shift Walters appears only once in Dean Acheson’s memoirs, Present at the Creation. The index lists him as “Walters, Col. (interpreter).” And so Walters was known during the first half of his career, the Boswell years. Here is Eisenhower’s description in 1955: Walters “was one of the most brilliant interpreters I have ever known ... completely at home in six or seven other languages, and when he was using any one of them he seemed unconsciously to adopt the mannerisms of the people of that particular country.” Nixon referred to him as “one of the world’s most skilled interpreters.” De Gaulle, whom Walters knew for nearly three decades, praised his French lan- guage facility as “eloquent.” Walters would later relate that working as an aide could be rough sledding. It involved meeting inces- sant demands (e.g., from Gen. Mark Clark during wartime) and tackling unusual challenges (e.g., smuggling Henry Kissinger in and out of Paris during secret talks with the North Vietnamese). His work as interpreter required setting down a record of the conversation, done later from memo- ry and sometimes entailing all-night drafting — the very skill that caught the attention of Haldeman. What if Walters had been killed in 1958 in the mob violence in Caracas during his tour with then- Vice President Nixon? (The latter termed the brush with death one of his “Six Crises” and recalled the resulting “bond of friendship” on Walters’ 50th anniversary of service.) How would Walters have gone down in history? As diplomacy’s Boswell, perhaps — as a Zelig present at var- ious creations, the scribe at the elbow of the great, recording their thoughts and chronicling their habits. He, of course, survived the Venezuelan rock-throwing, and went on to elevate himself above inter- preter and notetaker. Throughout the 1960s, Walters served as a mili- tary attaché at American embassies in Italy, Brazil and France. Promotions up the Army ladder fol- lowed, thanks in large part to his intelligence expertise. At the end of the decade, fortified by his second star, he felt confident to rebuff Haldeman and reject the role of Oval Office amanuensis (thereby prompting the fateful step to install the next best option, a taping sys- tem). Walters felt further vindicated by Nixon’s choice of him in 1972 as the CIA deputy director, the start of his 1972-76 stint that included five months as acting director. Walters had made it. He was now a Johnson, a figure quoted by others, a touch- stone in policy debates. And he made a historic contribution in fend- ing off the entreaties of John Dean for the CIA to get involved in the Watergate cover-up. He had finally stepped into history for what he did and said. A Sense of History Why have some failed to appreci- ate the paradigm shift in Walters’ career? In part because, with his lin- guistic flair and remarkable memory, he was a brilliant Boswell. For some, he will forever remain as Acheson cat- alogued him: “Walters, Col. (inter- preter).” In part, as well, because Washington policy-makers found his