The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2008

then took the Foreign Service exam and passed it. In fact, I did that be- fore I joined the Air Force in 1956. FSJ: Was that a difficult transition in any way? TDB: No, I really enjoyed my time with the military. In those days, of course, everyone served, one way or another, so I knew what I was going to be when I grew up. I learned that military power is obviously relevant to diplomacy, and the military was a bureaucracy just like ours. So it was good preparation for the Foreign Service. I’d estimate that 95 percent of the guys in my A-100 class — and they were all guys, except for one lady who subsequently resigned — came in out of the military. FSJ: Your first posting was as a vice consul in Antofagasta, Chile, from 1959 to 1962. I assume that was a small consulate? TDB: Yes, I was the number-two guy in a two-man post. The consul went away and never came back, so I wound up being the principal U.S. diplomatic officer in the northern third of Chile — three huge provinces — my consular district. Because I was the senior American, I got invited to everything, all the receptions, and met all the local VIPs, including Senators Salvador Allende and Eduardo Frei. Then a new lieutenant colonel came to town to command the “Septimo de la Linia” (Seventh of the Line): the infantry regiment that basi- cally conquered Bolivia and Peru in the 1879 War of the Pacific. The Chilean Army always sent a real up- and-comer to serve as commander of that regiment, and this time was no exception: His name was Augusto Pinochet. So as a 20-something JO, I got to know the next three presidents of Chile. First Frei, a Christian Demo- crat, who served as president from 1964 to 1970. Then came Allende, a Socialist, followed by Pinochet. I knew them all personally. Allende was a notorious boozer and skirt-chaser and, accordingly, was very good com- pany. He was a bon vivant, while Frei was very stern, proper and Swiss, and Pinochet was very quiet, almost timid. FSJ: You returned to Chile in the mid-1970s to serve as deputy chief of mission, not long after Pinochet came to power. What were your impres- sions of the changes in Chilean soci- ety over that period? TDB: Pinochet remembered our times in Antofagasta and I received special attention. That was some- times awkward but always useful. Throughout my three years in Santiago, I kept trying to persuade J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 17