The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2004

was at the beginning of the imple- mentation of the Fulbright legislation and the resumption of Junior Year Abroad and that sort of thing. There had been almost no exchanges before between Kansas schools and schools abroad, and we were beginning that program. There was a good deal of interest throughout the state, but the program died after Milton Eisen- hower left to go to Johns Hopkins University. FSJ : What did your job entail? RP: I did some local travel, doing things like showing educational films to groups. One of my favorite films was “No Place to Hide,” an Encyclopedia Brittanica film about the implications of atomic warfare. Trying to bring that issue home to farmers in Kansas was interesting. They were ready to listen. But the most exciting thing I did was to witness a festival celebrating the adoption of a town in Holland by a little town named Morganville, not far from Manhattan, where the uni- versity was. That was a great event. Everyone came from miles around and people performed on a stage set up in a vacant lot. It was a very rewarding grass-roots experience. FSJ : Did anyone from the town in Holland come? RP : No. It was a long way to go, and travel was difficult then. FSJ : You spent about six months with the commission? RP : Less than that, actually: August to December 1948. So about five months. FSJ : And you entered the Service in 1949? RP : Yes. After I completed my year of graduate school, I came to Washington and took the oral again in 1948 and passed. I said I was ready to work, but they said, “Oh, we’ll let you know some day, but we don’t have any work for you now.” So I went back to Kansas and took the UNESCO job until they told me to report for train- ing, which was in January 1949. FSJ : Where was your first post- ing? RP : Sydney. I was the general ser- vices officer there, dealing with diplo- matic pouches and customs clearances and things like that. And I did some consular work, as well. FSJ : You are perhaps best known as an Arabist. At what stage did you choose that area for your concentra- tion, and why? RP : It was while I was in Sydney. I enjoyed consular and administrative work, but this was a period when we were saying no to everybody who wanted to come to the United States. I spent the day saying no to Australians who didn’t understand why they had to be taken under a quota of 200 immigration visas a year. That was pretty dreadful and I had a perpetual headache. My replace- ment was much impressed when I casually reached into my desk drawer, pulled out a large bottle of aspirin and popped a couple in my mouth and chewed them. Anyway, I decided to become a political officer, which was supposed to be the road to glory. And I felt I needed to develop some specialization to get there. This meant studying a hard language. My wife and I looked at the post reports and the possibilities around the world. My first choice would have been a specialization in Japanese or Polish, but neither one of those was open. Coming home from Odessa during the war, I’d been much impressed with the sight of Istanbul from the water. Then we stopped in Port Said, so I’d had a brief exposure to Egypt. Both places looked interest- ing, so we narrowed it down to Arabic or Turkish, and I wrote on my April Fool’s card that I wanted to specialize in one of those, but would like to have a post in the area first. So they sent us to Jerusalem in 1951, and I never looked back. It was so fascinating, I spent the rest of my career working in or on that area. We started out on the Israeli side of the line and then we moved to the Arab side. I hired a tutor and paid for Arabic lessons for about a year before the department invited me to come and join an Arabic class in 1953. FSJ : In retrospect, it seems there has always been some stigma within the Foreign Service associated with becoming an Arabist. Did you feel that way at the time, and did anyone ever try to discourage you from mak- ing that choice? RP : Well, the term “Arabist” was no compliment even then, and I understood that. But it was a fascinat- ing world and language. And no one ever tried to warn me off from going into it. FSJ : Which of your postings stand out in your memory? 52 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 4 “Beirut was the most fun of my postings. I served there three times, once as a language student, once as political officer, and once as ambassador.” — Richard Parker