The Foreign Service Journal, September 2014

34 SEPTEMBER 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL before me. Do you feel that you bring out a lot from people that they may not have thought about or may not have considered whether they’re comfortable saying? SK: This thing does surprise people. I try now to warn them, but this is my natural curiosity. I feel it fits right into this. When you’re looking at somebody who says, “OK, then I decided to declare war on Patagonia,” you want to know where they came from. But on all sorts of things, you really should know who the person is. We also find out a lot of interesting things about what it’s like to operate in a bureau- cracy like the State Department. How did FSOs get along with colleagues at Treasury, the White House or between the bureaus? I’m all for getting as much as we can. It can be rather personal. Once I interviewed a woman who had immigrated to America from another country. I knew her socially, and she said to me at the end of her oral history: “I thought you were going to ask me about my affairs.” And sometimes people say, “You know, I hadn’t thought about that son of a bitch for 30 years.” You don’t get a lot of backstabbing, though. Maybe it’s the kind of people we’re interviewing. Some are still bitter about their relationship with somebody, often a supervisor. Fair enough, I’ve got no par- ticular problem with that; but for the most part, people tend to be pretty objective. It’s always a collaborative effort and depends on the type of relationship you set up. And I do quite a few of my oral histories these days over the telephone. I find it works much bet- ter than I thought it would. SD: I know you interview political appoin- tees, as well as career diplomats. Do you see differences between them? SK: Not really. I try to get as much as I can out of anyone I’m interviewing. So if the person is a politician, I ask about that. For example, I interviewed Robert Strauss and got a lot about Texas Democratic politics from him. Why not? I’ve got these people here, and I’m the vacuum cleaner. SD: Do you gain a sense, in terms of com- petency, of how people perform when they are in the top position? Can you tell from talking to them whether they were successful? SK: Well, I’ve talked to, for example, Avis Bohlen, who was deputy chief of mission to Ambassador Pamela Harriman in France. She was glowing about the ability of Pamela Har- riman, said she was a real pro. And there are other political appointees who did well. And then it came to me: Someone needs to collect those stories, because no one else knows them. Stu Kennedy and his wife, Ellen, at the June 18 AFSA Award Ceremony. Inset: Mr. Kennedy is congratulated by his daughter, Vickie Devereaux, at the ceremony. AFSA/Joaquin Sosa AFSA/Joaquin Sosa