The Foreign Service Journal, December 2021

22 DECEMBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL BECOMING A DIPLOMAT AND THE EARLY DAYS FSJ: I understand that you decided to pursue a diplomatic career while in high school. What was the catalyst for that deci- sion? Amb. John Negroponte: I was much influenced by my father who had studied diplomacy in Paris during the 1930s but then, owing to the war, was unable to go forward with his plans to join the Greek diplomatic service. We came to the United States instead when I was an infant. But my dad definitely had a passion for foreign policy issues, and they were a part of our regular conversation, even at a very early age. Along with that, my parents were very international in perspective and spoke several foreign languages, and I became very accustomed to their international friends visiting our home in New York City. FSJ: What was notable about joining the Foreign Service in the 1960s? JDN: Government service was popular. Many of my class- mates joined the military. Others joined the Central Intelligence Agency. Several of us joined the Foreign Service. The Cold War was in full swing. We were in a real international competition with the Soviet Union. It was palpable. FSJ: What do you recall about the orientation and training of that time? JDN: We had eight weeks of basic training, including a week at the Commerce Department. We were taught that trade promo- tion was a key part of our work, contrary to the legend that State Department FSOs disdain commercial work. That was a myth pro- moted by those who wanted to take the commercial function away from State, which eventually happened. That was a big mistake. After the A-100 course, I took consular training in preparation for my assignment to Consulate General Hong Kong. The course was superb. One of the star teachers was Frank Auerbach, a leg- endary head of the State Department Visa Office. I recall being impressed that Mr. Auerbach had a personal meeting with each and every one of us going out to do visa work. He was the best. FSJ: For many FSOs of your generation, Vietnam was a searing experience. You did an early tour there. How was that for you, and how did it shape your career? JDN: My Vietnam experience was very much career-defining. It was not just one tour. It was about four in a row, starting with language training at FSI in 1963-1964, then a 3-1/2 year tour at Embassy Saigon (with TDYs at our consulate in Hue), followed by the Paris Peace Talks on Vietnam and ending as director for Vietnam on Dr. Kiss- inger’s National Security Council from 1971 to 1973, roughly a decade. Being director for Vietnam on the NSC was the most difficult and challenging position I ever had. OVERSEAS ASSIGNMENTS FSJ: In your ADST oral history, you say you learned a “cardinal” lesson from your time in Vietnam: “Don’t overuse U.S. military forces. Use local capacity.” How did you apply that to Iraq when you were ambassador there in 2004-2005? And could that have been applied more effectively in Afghanistan over the past 20 years? JDN: This is an extremely important issue. In my experience, developing local capabilities has often been something of an afterthought in these conflict situations. In Vietnam, for example, during the first four years of combat involvement by our forces, we seemed to want to do all the fighting. The intellectual propo- nent of this approach was General WilliamWestmoreland, the military commander. I remember attending a Mission Council meeting in Saigon chaired by Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, when Westmoreland briefed us on his approach. He said he wanted the U.S. forces out in front facing the North Vietnamese forces, while the Saigon army and other forces would defend the populated areas. I remember thinking then that this was a prescription for keeping U.S. combat forces in Vietnam in large numbers for much longer than we needed to. Westmoreland’s approach was changed by his successor, General Creighton Abrams Jr., in 1968, when we adopted the “Vietnamization Program.” It was long overdue; by the early 1970s the Saigon army had acquitted itself quite well in some very difficult situations. Saigon was ultimately defeated by a con- ventional invasion from the North with Soviet tanks. We chose not to come to their assistance. As ambassador to Iraq, I certainly carried some of the lessons I felt I had learned in Vietnam. One of them was the lesson of Vietnamization. When I arrived in Baghdad, there were two or three battalions left in the entire Iraqi army. We had a $17 billion reconstruction program on the books and none of it dedicated to rebuilding the Iraqi armed forces. I persuaded Washington to John Negroponte as a novice skier in Sun Valley, Idaho, 1941. COURTESYOFJOHND.NEGROPONTE