The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project ...

349 Pages·2012·2.02 MB·English

The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training
Foreign Affairs Oral History Project

AMBASSADOR SAMUEL W. LEWIS

Interviewed by: Peter Jessup
Initial interview date: August 9, 1998
Copyright 1998 ADST

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Early life and education

Entrance into Foreign Service - 1954

Naples, Italy; Refugee Relief Program 1954-1955
Comment on local employees

Florence, Italy 1955-1959
Reporting on the Left
San Marino
Roman interlude
Ambassador Luce and arsenic

State Department; Italian desk 1959-1963
Disagreement with DCM in Rome
Chester Bowles
Chiefs of Mission meetings, Bowles style
Princeton

Brazil; Agency for International Development (AID) 1964-1966
Embassy Executive Officer

State Department; Brazilian desk 1966-1968
Military regime in Brazil

NSC staff; Latin American Affairs 1968-1969

State Department; Latin American planning 1969-1970

Senior Seminar 1970-1971

State Department; Special Assistant to Director 1971-1972
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General observations
Task Force implementation
Macomber

Kabul, Afghanistan; DCM 1972-1974
Ambassador Neumann
Coup by Daoud in 1973
Competition with the Soviets
Moscow's miscalculation in Afghanistan

State Department; Policy Planning deputy 1974-1975
Kissinger's use of Planning staff
Kissinger's use of speeches
Kissinger's annoyance with Israelis
Congressional warning
Relationship with the regional bureaus

State Department; Assistant Secretary for International Organizations 1975-1977
Ambassador Moynihan
Moynihan-Kissinger relationship
UN ambassador as Cabinet member
Ambassador Scranton
PLO and the UN
US and UNESCO
Anti-UN feeling in the US

Transition to the Carter Administration 1977
Andrew Young's role
Appointed ambassador to Israel - 1977
Israeli election surprise - 1977
A Jewish ambassador to Israel? - 1977
First meeting with Menachem Begin - 1977
Why the Sephardics supported Begin - 1977
Forming the first Begin cabinet - 1977
Begin and Brzezinski - 1977
The first Begin visit to the US - 1977
The US-USSR declaration - 1977
Israeli reaction
The US-Israeli "working paper"
Egyptian reaction
Sadat's initiative and Begin's reaction - 1977
Role of Moroccan king - 1977
Sadat's visit to Jerusalem - 1977
US channels of communication
Sadat's arrival
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Maneuverings after the Sadat visit - 1977
Begin's trip to Washington
Sadat-Begin Christmas meeting
Role and influence of Ambassador Eilts
Role of General Sharon
Jerusalem Conference fails - 1978
Carter blames Begin
Terrorist attack by PLO commandos - 1978
Operation Litani and UNIFIL
Begin's March trip to Washington - 1978
US sees Begin as intransigent
Souring of the mood
Sale of F-16s to Saudi Arabia
Mondale visit
Leeds Castle meeting - 1978
Dayan's crucial role
Begin and Sadat invited to Camp David - 1978
Israeli view of Vance
Preparation and strategy for Camp David - 1978
Carter's handling of the conference - 1978
Strategies of the delegations - 1978
Issue of the settlements on the West Bank - 1978
The finale: success or bust - 1978
Carter makes the breakthrough - 1978
The Jerusalem crisis
Handling of the press - 1978
The White House ceremony - 1978
Carter-Begin disagreement - 1978
US-Israeli discord - 1978
Unhappiness in Jordan - 1978
Begin rejects US interpretations
Palestinian dissatisfaction
Blair House negotiations - 1978
Death of Golda Meir - 1978
Vance's shuttle efforts
An intercepted phone conversation
Camp David II - 1979
Carter's annoyance
Invitation to Begin
Carter visits Egypt and Israel - 1979
Breakthrough at breakfast
Carter wins
Signing in Washington
Exchange of ratifications - 1979
US intermediary Robert Strauss - 1979
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James Leonard as deputy
Sol Linowitz succeeds Strauss
Autonomy talks begin - 1979
Begin-Dayan estrangement
Egypt represents Palestinians
Removal of Andrew Young - 1980
Question of contacts with the PLO
Pressures on Carter
The Cohen bill on Jerusalem
US abstention in the Security Council
Carter bitterness about Jewish vote - 1980
US ambassadors disagree about PLO and Lebanon - 1980
Carter upsets American Jews - 1980
Reagan Administration view of Middle East - 1981
Escalating crisis in Lebanon - 1981
Habib helps avert conflicts - 1981
Begin defeats Peres in election - 1981
Israel destroys the Iraqi reactor - 1981
Setting up the MFO - 1981
Delivery of US aircraft to Israel held up - 1981
AWAC's sale to Saudi Arabia - 1981
Begin's meeting with Reagan - 1981
An alliance?
A watered-down agreement
Sadat's assassination and its consequences - 1981
American VIPs
The Nixon speech
Israelis measure Mubarak
Sharon states his position on Lebanon - 1981
Annexation of the Golan Heights - 1981
Begin's tirade
Stoessel visit cools the atmosphere - 1982
Sharon is obstreperous
Withdrawal from the Sinai - 1982
Resistance by the settlers
No precedent
Sharon visit to Washington - 1982
An "amber light" for Sharon?
War begins in Lebanon - 1982
Habib's anguish
Sentiment shifts in Washington
Did the US convey the wrong signal?
US abstains in the Security Council
A possible naval confrontation
PLO evacuation
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New US plan for peace initiative - 1982
Begin's negative reaction
Begin meets Lebanese President Gemayel
The Fez declaration
Israeli Army moves into Beirut - 1982
Phalangists enter the refugee camps
US and Israeli reaction
Begin's depressions - 1982
Effect of his wife's death
Begin's passivity
Begin resigns
Lebanon after the massacres - 1982
Thwarted by Sharon
Sharon's ploy - 1982
Lebanon does not agree
The Reagan initiative - 1982-1983
West Bank settlement complications
Talks begin in Lebanon
Shultz forges an agreement - in vain
Sharon forced out as Defense Minister - 1983
Shultz and McFarlane down on Syria - 1983
Shamir succeeds Begin - 1983
US Marine headquarters in Beirut blown up - 1983-1984
End of US military involvement
Peres becomes Prime Minister - 1984
Decision to leave as ambassador
An embarrassing ambassadorial speech - 1984
Peres faces problems - 1984-1985
Helping sustain Israel's credit
Closer US-Israeli strategic cooperation - 1984-1985
Advice on dealing with Shamir - 1984
Rabin sees Syria as the key to peace - 1984
Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon begins - 1985
Taba delays the peace process - 1985-1986
Report of derogatory comments about Sharon - 1983-1984
Sharon's indignant reaction
Sharon blames US officials
A TV interview reignites the controversy - 1985
Sharon accuses ambassador of lying
The Consulate General in Jerusalem
Aharon Yariv and Teddy Kollek
Sinai Field Force
Public opinion polls
The Mossad and the Shin Beth
The Pollard case
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"Clientitis"
Selecting ambassadors and DCMs
AIPAC
The Peres-Shultz relationship - 1984-1985
Lavi aircraft project
A US-Israel free trade zone - 1985
The Falasha emigration - 1985
Terrorism - prisoner exchange – 1985
Coordination with Peres - 1984-1985
The sandbar problem - 1984
Personal security

Retirement 1985-1987

President of the US Institute of Peace 1987-1993

Director of the Policy Planning Staff 1993-1994

Relationship with Christopher

Speech at the Dayan Center

INTERVIEW

Q: Good afternoon, Ambassador Lewis. It's very nice of you to consent to an interview on
your career for the Association of Diplomatic Studies. As we discussed before, you were
going to cover your career up to the major achievement, your long term in Israel. You
were born in Houston, weren't you?

LEWIS: That's right.

Q: Your middle name is Winfield. Are you a descendent of Winfield Scott?

LEWIS: No, I wish I were. That's a family name, though, and it's been in the Lewis family
since that period, so it may be that one of my ancestors was named for him.

Q: You went to Yale and were the class of '52. I'm just wondering, before we ask the
standard question, "How did you get into the Foreign Service?" was there any
particularly influence in New Haven that led you in that direction?

LEWIS: Very much so. Being born in Houston and going through public high school, I
don't think I had much knowledge at all about the Foreign Service before I went to Yale.
Actually, there was one early influence. A very good friend of my father was a lady who
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was then the librarian at Rice Institute, now Rice University, a single lady, and one of her
closest family friends was a longtime career Foreign Service officer, who was ambassador
in the latter part of his career in Turkey and two or three other places. Throughout her
life, she had traveled around and spent vacations at various embassies, visiting her
friends, and she used to come back and tell stories to our family about her trips. I heard
first about the diplomatic service, really, through these recountings of her exposure to
Foreign Service life back in the Thirties and Forties.

Q: Do you care to name the lady?

LEWIS: The lady's name was Sarah Lane.

Q: Was that Arthur C. Lane's...

LEWIS: No, she was not Foreign Service family. She was from Missouri, but her friend
was Ambassador Fletcher Warren. I met him once, only, but that was kind of an early
exposure to the idea of the Foreign Service.

It really was to Yale. I started out majoring in engineering, and decided rather soon I
wasn't interested or very well equipped to be an engineer, moved over to psychology, and
then ultimately I changed my major and took up the thing which I'd always been
interested in since early childhood, which was history. But I never was interested in
teaching or academic life, and I could never figure out any way to make a career out of
history until, in my junior year at Yale, I took a course from Arnold Wolfers in
international politics, and for the first time, really was exposed through that course and
through that great man, Wolfers, to some dimensions of the international world.

I got to hearing, while at Yale, about the Foreign Service from some of my professors,
and for the first time, I figured there was a career line where I could match my interests in
history and the international world with a way to make a living that wouldn't involve
teaching.
So I took the Foreign Service exam, actually, when I was a junior at Yale, and passed
with a very good score. I went on and finished. Of course, you get your grades many
months later, so I was already a senior by that time. This was 1952. I also had some little
exposure to CIA, which was recruiting rather heavily through various Yale faculty
members in those days.

Q: The height of the Cold War.

LEWIS: This was the Korean War period, exactly. I really expected I would be going into
the service when I graduated from Yale in '52, but as it turned out, I had a bad knee, and
they wouldn't take me. I couldn't pass the physical. I was anxious to get into the Foreign
Service as soon as possible, but that was not only the height of the Cold War, it was the
height of the McCarthy period.

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As you probably remember, when the Eisenhower Administration came in, in the spring
of '53, they undertook a lot of reassessments of the alleged "poor security" in the State
Department stemming out of McCarthy's attacks of the two or three proceeding years.
They stopped all recruiting until they reinvestigated every existing employee. Everybody
on the rolls had to be totally reinvestigated for security clearances before they would hire
anybody else. So there was a long hiatus. Those of us who had passed the exam and were
on the roster, ready to be appointed, just had to find other ways to support ourselves. So
from '52 until '54, I was waiting for a chance to get in the Service.

Q: Was that hiatus actually 24 months of no hiring?

LEWIS: Yes, it was at least 24 months. In the meantime, I went on to graduate school at
Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) here in Washington, and
took my master's in international relations, specializing, incidentally, in the Middle East,
though I never got there for many years thereafter. Eventually it came in quite handy.

But I was finally offered an appointment with the very first group to be appointed after
this long dry period of no appointments at all, and I got in the Service in May of 1954. I
only got in at that time because they had some extra money to hire people for visa jobs in
the Refugee Relief Program. A special Refugee Relief Act was passed in 1953, with a
whole lot of extra visa numbers for people with genuine refugee status or what they called
internal refugees from various natural disasters, like earthquakes and floods. A whole lot
of those visas were set aside for Italian refugees, as a result of the strong influence of
Friends of Italy in the Congress. There were 60,000 visas a year set aside for Italian
refugees.

Q: What were they refugees from?

LEWIS: They were almost entirely refugees from natural disasters, earthquakes in
Calabria 15 years before and they'd never, allegedly, gotten fully resettled, people in that
category. It was really a way of increasing the Italian quota without saying so. But the
immigration visas were all issued in either Genoa or Naples or Palermo in Italy. They
could not begin to handle the sudden new great load of immigration visas with some
special requirements that were put on by the Refugee Act over the normal immigration
requirements.

So they hired a whole slew of vice consuls and sent them out to these three visa issuing
posts, and some to Germany, as well.

Q: Was that just a rank rating, or did that automatically shove you into the consular
service?

LEWIS: We were originally hired as staff officers, vice consuls, but since we were ready
to be appointed as regular FSOs, within a month or two after I got to Naples, my regular
appointment as an FSO Class 6 came through, and my assignment was vice consul.
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I never will forget our arrival in Naples, Peter, because my wife and I had been married
about a year and had been so excited about going out to our first Foreign Service post.
We'd been living in Washington, hand to mouth, trying to wait out until finally the
Department would get around to appointing us. I was working nights, proofreading, going
to school in the daytime. My wife was sick most of the time, so she wasn't able to support
us as we had anticipated.

In any case, we arrived in Naples, the first time either one of us had been overseas or out
of the country, so it was a very exciting moment. We went to the old Parker Hotel up on
the Vomero in Naples, and the next morning, went down to Consulate General there at
Mergelina on the waterfront, to report in for duty. Since there had been this great talk in
Washington about this huge workload and how eager they were to get us out there, we
were, of course, run through with one week's orientation in Washington, no language
training, no nothing; just "get there and get to work."

We walked into the administrative officer's office, dressed to the nines, and a fellow
named Bob [Robert W.] Ross was administrative officer. He looked up from his desk and
said, "Oh, my God, another one!" It was a rather deflating experience, to say the least,
especially for Sallie. It turned out there were 24 new vice consuls just appointed; all of us
arrived in Naples within three weeks of one another.

Q: To be based in Naples?

LEWIS: Just for Naples. They moved the visa section to a separate building in an old
abandoned apartment house. There wasn't room, obviously, in the consulate. We were up
on a hill, rather second-class citizens to the rest of the consulate. But it turned out to be,
in retrospect, really a nice experience. Visa work is not the most exciting in the world, but
it gave you a good chance to practice your Italian.

We had so many visa officers that they had to divide up the jobs in such a way, it was
kind of like a production line. Each person did one little piece of document screening,
interviewing, and so forth, and the approximately 15 months, I guess, that I spent in
Naples in that job, would have been pretty grim, except that because there was this whole
bunch of young officers, many single, some with new wives, all there kind of in the same
boat, we really had a lot of fun. It turned out to be socially a kind of nice experience, in
retrospect. We hadn't been through a Foreign Service course. Most new officers come in
with a class; go to an introductory officers' course. We didn't have any class, so we had
our own, in effect, in Naples, in the visa section.

Q: Anyone from your class at Yale?

LEWIS: No, no. No one from Yale. There were seven of us that had been the first
appointed to arrive on the same day, and then many others came the next two weeks
thereafter.
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Q: What would your comment be on the value in that particular place and later on, of
local employees? Some of the work was impossible without them, wasn't it?

LEWIS: Absolutely crucial. Of course, the local employees were doing nine-tenths of the
work, and being tolerant and really quite helpful in supporting the young officers. But that
consulate, like every other place I've served in the Foreign Service, wouldn't run for ten
minutes without dedicated local staff. We're so darn lucky to have these staffs around the
world. We don't treat them terribly well as a service, but nonetheless, they're
extraordinarily loyal.

We were living down on the sea, and from the point of view of personal satisfactions,
Naples, in those days, was a fascinating place, still close enough to the war that there was
a lot of destruction still that hadn't been cleaned up, and it was a very poor place. Tourists
regarded it rather with a jaundiced eye, but living there, the spirit of the Neapolitans came
through, and it's a wonderful spirit, one that you can't help but admire. And the physical
beauty of the place was fantastic. We had an apartment right down on the sea, an old
palazzo, 16th century palazzo, that was turned into a lot of apartments. We had a big
living room and big bedroom and a terrace, basically, all looking right out at Vesuvius
and Capri, and with the sea about 15 feet below us. So it had its compensations.

Q: Was there a NATO sea command there?

LEWIS: Yes. The NATO command in Naples was very large in the life of the city, and
there was a commissary out there, an officers' club, and that also made life a lot nicer for
the families, particularly. But there's so much to do around the Naples area, so many
wonderful places to go and explore, tourism and history and the rest, sailing, that we
didn't spend much time, really, in Pozzuoli, where the NATO command was, except in
one sense. Both my wife and I were and are very avid amateur thespians, and we got
involved with the drama group out at NATO headquarters where we acted in some plays
with a rather international cast. The Navy, on one occasion, flew our company down to
Malta to entertain the troops. We took a production of "The Hasty Heart" by John Patrick
for several performances on British and American bases on Malta, and had great fun
being flown there in a Navy plane, getting tours of the island, and so forth. So NATO was
useful from that dimension.

Q: What made you move after 15 months--requirements to the north?

LEWIS: The general career idea was in assigning all these vice consuls to the visa refugee
program, which was a specialized out-of-the-ordinary kind of visa work and not even
regular visa work, and they made an effort to have you spend a year or so in that, and then
to move you to a regular Foreign Service post so you'd get more typical Foreign Service
experience. So after about a year, the group began to move out elsewhere in Europe, and
other people came in. We had no idea we'd be staying in Italy, but lo and behold, we were
transferred to Florence, which was a four-man post in those days with two secretaries.
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