The Shifting Grounds of Conflict and Peacebuilding: Stories and Lessons

“Ambassador John W. McDonald is widely credited as a founding father of the emerging field of multitrack diplomacy, which shares responsibility for a radical drop in the level of political violence globally over the last twenty years. This book reveals the extraordinary details of a sixty-year career that serves as a shining example of what is possible for us to accomplish through multitrack diplomacy. McDonald’s life shows that it is the commitment and imagination of individuals and small groups working in and across government, civil society, and private sectors, as well as across religious and secular, cultural, national, ethnic, and gender divides, bottom-up as well as top-down, that creates the spark needed for transformative social change at all levels and sustainable peace for a small planet.” —John Davies, codirector of Partners in Conflict and Partners in Peacebuilding, Center for International Development and Conflict Management, University of Maryland

The Shifting Grounds of Conflict and Peacebuilding contains the professional life lessons and stories of Ambassador John W. McDonald and offers his insight into international issues, providing frank and informed discussion on the environment, women’s rights, the global water crisis, sustainable resources, international development, and, above all, peace. This book brings together the remembrances of Ambassador McDonald, a veteran diplomat whose life serves as a model to those people of vision and action who wish to make a difference in a world that is desperate for the end of conflict. Those looking to be inspired into action should read this book to receive both hope and guidance about how one person can make a difference toward creating peace. Ambassador John W. McDonald is a lawyer, diplomat, former international civil servant, development expert, global strategist, peacebuilder, and the cofounder and chairman of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy. Noa Zanolli is an educator, cultural anthropologist, and mediator. She has held positions in the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, as well as in the Swiss Red Cross, and was the director of education and research at the Iowa Peace Institute.

For orders and information please contact the publisher Lexington Books A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 1-800-462-6420 www.lexingtonbooks.com Cover photos: A group of Iranian and Turkish railroad officials stand on the border marker of the Turkish-Iranian border with John W. McDonald between them; Greek and Turkish Cypriots practice a cooperative problem solving exercise; John W. McDonald in Berlin in January 1947; IMTD Logo

ShiftingGroundsPODLITH.indd 1

ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-2425-3 ISBN-10: 0-7391-2425-0

THE SHIFTING GROUNDS OF CONFLICT AND PEACEBUILDING

“This memoir by Ambassador John W. McDonald, so ably compiled with Noa Zanolli, is akin to a modern-day spirit of ‘hope,’ the last often-forgotten element contained in Pandora’s Box. This sorely needed book evidences that one person can make a difference, like a ripple that becomes a wave to wash away unresolved conflict from the shores of injustice. His life and example, with his partner and wife Christel, are exactly what the next generation requires to feel hope in an otherwise seemingly helpless world that does not listen. He imbues enthusiasm in his patience, perseverance, and practical perennial philosophy, as a principled peacebuilder both personally and professionally. What message does a life’s work such as his impart to us? What comes to my mind is that individually, institutionally, and internationally, we can all soar above the din, and each have a voice that is heard.” —Ernest G. Tannis, solicitor and mediator (Ottawa, Canada), author of Alternative Dispute Resolution That Works

McDONALD AND ZANOLLI

International Relations | Conflict Resolution

THE SHIFTING GROUNDS OF CONFLICT AND PEACEBUILDING Stories and Lessons

JOHN W. McDONALD with Noa Zanolli

6/12/08 11:26:06 AM

THE SHIFTING GROUNDS OF CONFLICT AND PEACEBUILDING

THE SHIFTING GROUNDS OF CONFLICT AND PEACEBUILDING Stories and Lessons JOHN W. MCDONALD WITH NOA ZANOLLI

L E X I N G TO N B O O K S A division of ROW M A N & L I T T L E F I E L D P U B L I S H E R S, I N C.

Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, MD 20706 Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom Copyright © 2008 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McDonald, John W., 1922– The shifting grounds of conflict and peacebuilding : stories and lessons / John W. McDonald with Noa Zanolli. p. cm. Inlcudes index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-2425-3 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-7391-2425-0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-3023-0 (ebook) ISBN-10: 0-7391-3023-4 (ebook) 1. McDonald, John W., 1922– 2. Diplomats—United States—Biography. 3. United Nations—Officials and employees—Biography. 4. United States—Foreign relations—1945–1989. 5. Conflict management—History—20th century. 6. Peacebuilding—History—20th century. 7. Diplomacy—History—20th century. I. Davenport, Noa. II. Title. E840.8.M333A3 2008 327.730092—dc22 [B] 2008013339 Printed in the United States of America

⬁ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992.

This book is dedicated to my wife Christel Gertrud McDonald and to my family

The only way to solve a conflict at any level of society is to sit down face to face and talk about it. —John W. McDonald

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

ix

Preface

xiii

Acknowledgments

xix

1

Earliest Beginnings: 1922–1946

2

In Postwar Germany and France: 1947–1954

17

3

Developing a Global Perspective: Washington, D.C., 1954–1959

45

4

Working in Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan: 1959–1962

57

5

Posted in Egypt: 1963–1966

75

6

The National War College: Washington, D.C., 1966–1967

85

7

Getting Involved in the UN System: 1967–1974

91

8

Deputy Director-General at the International Labour Organization: Geneva, 1974–1978

121

Special Assignments in the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs: Washington, D.C., 1978–1983

139

Exploring Track Two, Retirement, and a New Beginning: Washington, D.C., 1983–1988

173

President of the Iowa Peace Institute: Grinnell, Iowa, 1989–1991

185

9

10 11

vii

1

viii

12

Contents

The Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy—Creation and Early Years: Washington, D.C., 1992–2000

205

More about IMTD Projects—Patience, Perseverance, and Optimism: Arlington (Rosslyn), Virginia, 2000–2007

253

14

IMTD’s New Initiatives: 2007

283

15

Assessing the State of the World Today: 2008

305

13

Appendix 1: Publications by Ambassador John W. McDonald

317

Appendix 2: Ambassador John W. McDonald’s Major Awards and Career Distinctions

321

Appendix 3: Ambassador John W. McDonald’s Board of Directors Memberships in Not-for-Profit Organizations and Academic Institutions (2008)

325

Index

327

About Noa Zanolli

341

ILLUSTRATIONS

1.1. 1.2. 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5. 3.1. 3.2.

4.1. 4.2.

4.3. 5.1.

John W. McDonald and his sister Ethel, 1927 John W. McDonald as a senior at the University of Illinois, 1943 John W. McDonald shortly after his arrival in Berlin in January 1947 John W. McDonald in front of his house with a group of German fencers, Berlin, early 1947 John W. McDonald’s parents visit Koblenz and the City Palace in 1947 John W. McDonald with his wife Barbara, 1947 A garden picnic at the McDonald home in Herblay s/Seine, outside Paris, 1953 Lynn, Jim, Kathleen, and Laura McDonald at Easter 1956 John W. McDonald is sworn in as executive secretary of the International Cooperation Administration (ICA) on January 19, 1956 Inspection of the progress for the railroad bed in Eastern Turkey, July 1960 Linking East and West: A group of Iranian and Turkish railroad officials stand with hands on the border marker of the Turkish-Iranian border with John W. McDonald between them Dr. Carl Taylor preparing for the Shiraz conference with John W. McDonald, Miss Mary Jo Kraft, and Dr. Fisek John W. McDonald discusses with renowned Egyptian architect Mr. Zeitoun and other Americans the plans for a new school for Cairo American College ix

3 7 21 23 26 27 38 46

50 61

62 66

82

x

Illustrations

6.1. 7.1.

7.2.

7.3. 8.1.

8.2. 9.1. 9.2.

11.1. 11.2.

11.3. 11.4.

12.1. 12.2. 12.3.

Celebrating graduation from the National War College, class of 1967, with family Prior to departing for the first UN World Population conference in Bucharest, Romania, in 1974, Secretary Weinberger posed with the secretary general of the conference, Antonio Carillo Flores, former Mexican ambassador to the United States, and members of the U.S. delegation Christel Meyer from the EEC delegation and John W. McDonald, U.S. delegation to UNCTAD II, are on their way to a reception at the Presidential Palace, New Delhi, 1968 Receiving the State Department Superior Honor Award, July 1972 Director-general of the International Labour Organization, F. Blanchard, introduces new Deputy Director-General John W. McDonald to the senior ILO staff John W. McDonald welcomes President Carter in early 1977 at the ILO, Geneva On February 6, 1981, President Reagan signed the declaration for a National Year of Disabled Persons Boutros Boutros-Ghali, secretary general of the UN, honors key persons from around the world for their work in connection with the UN Decade of Disabled Persons IMTD logo Secretary General Perez de Cuellar presents John W. McDonald and IPI with the UN Peace Messenger Award John W. McDonald listening carefully to His Holiness the Dalai Lama during a meeting in New York During a visit in Dharamsala, Northern India, His Holiness the Dalai Lama kindly received John W. McDonald and Dr. Eileen Borris, IMTD chief of training, as well as Steve Krubiner, IMTD intern Project leaders at one of the workshops in Cyprus Greek and Turkish Cypriots practice a cooperative problem solving exercise at a West Virginia camp A group of participants and trainers at the Abidjan workshops, Ivory Coast

89

97

101 111

124 136 153

156 194

195 197

198 223 225 238

Illustrations

12.4. 12.5.

13.1. 14.1.

14.2. 15.1.

A group picture of the Cuban diplomats and the U.S. training team in Havana, 1996 Bosnian students of St. John’s University in Minnesota and their families celebrating graduation at the home of Dan Whalen’s sister, May 2007 Kashmiri participants in the 2002 training outside Kathmandu Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, with John W. McDonald, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, October 2007 John W. and Christel McDonald with their four grandchildren John W. and Christel McDonald looking forward to future projects

xi

242

250 259

287 302 315

PREFACE

T

his book is written for the next generation who might want to gain some insight into how a career diplomat was able to work under many different administrations and as a United Nations official and achieve, sometimes under very difficult circumstances, positive results for his own country, for the United Nations and most importantly, for many people around the world. In addition, it is the first account of how an individual was able, through a small nongovernmental organization, to develop and apply a systems approach to peacebuilding and to have a positive impact on so many lives in today’s often violent world. When I retired and joined the world of nongovernmental organizations, the field of conflict resolution was in its infancy. It developed over the last two decades of the twentieth century into a vibrant official field of studies that continues to spread from country to country around the world. The 215 interns from 44 countries who have worked at the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy (IMTD) since 1992 have also contributed considerably to the dissemination of our unique philosophy and practices in our multitrack approach to conflict resolution. My wish is that this book will provide those who work on global issues with ideas and examples, and with encouragement to never be afraid of trying to impact peacefully on the lives of those who are less fortunate than we are. I want to leave a message of optimism and hope in the hearts and minds of our readers. We can build a gentler and more peaceful world. John W. McDonald Washington, D.C., January 2008 xiii

xiv

Preface

This book came about because I wanted to engage in a new project that I found important. Ever since I first met Ambassador John W. McDonald in the fall of 1988 in Grinnell, when he came to the Iowa Peace Institute (IPI) to serve as its first president, I have been impressed with all that he has achieved and experienced in his life. I have also been intrigued with his vision for the future. He seemed to be twenty years ahead of his time. When Ambassador McDonald came to Grinnell, I was the third employee at the IPI, having been hired as director of education and research by Robert T. Anderson, its executive director until 1993 and former lieutenant governor of Iowa. Robert Anderson had quite a bit to do with creating the institute, giving it a firm foundation, developing programs, and fostering its base support. Judy Hall was also one of the first hires; she worked quietly and diligently on administrative details and a great deal more. By the time Ambassador McDonald was let go, at the end of 1991, the IPI had a good dozen employees, was known worldwide, and was engaged in a number of important initiatives. For all practical purposes, Ambassador John W. McDonald was my boss at the IPI. However, I never felt that that was the case. We were a team. He supported me in all I wanted to contribute. Just to mention one important example: Ambassador McDonald kick-started the school conflict and peer mediation program when he brought Ray Shonholtz and Gail Sadalla from the San Francisco Community Boards to Grinnell in June of 1990 to teach a workshop on the subject for a first group of some forty Iowa teachers. But then it was up to me to expand the program throughout Iowa. After Robert Anderson and I left the IPI as well in 1993, we all still worked together off and on. Ambassador McDonald and his staff at the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy (IMTD) were involved in a few U.S. State Department-sponsored projects that I codirected through Iowa State University and through Robert Anderson’s new organization, the Iowa Resource for International Service (IRIS). We also traveled together in the context of the IRIS’s Great Lakes Peace Building Project and held workshops in Zimbabwe and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2001. As an associate of IMTD, I was asked to cooperate in an evaluation of Search for Common Ground’s work in Burundi (2001); headed the team evaluating OXFAM/UK’s pioneering peacebuilding project in Rwanda (2002); and facilitated a meeting, organized by the Niger Delta Peace Forum, in the Niger Delta between representatives of militant groups and the Nigerian army chief of staff (2007). In all these activities, I interacted intensively with John W. McDonald.

Preface

xv

Often, when listening to John’s stories, I would say to him, “You’ve got to write that stuff down, John.” There are persons that have important things to say and say it well in conversation or in a talk. They often are less inclined to write their stories and insights down for posterity. For such people, an interview and a tape recorder work perfectly. A conversation also triggers spontaneous thoughts and insights. A question or remark by the interviewer prompts memories and insights about things that never crossed their mind before. When I had some time in the summer of 2005, I decided to call Ambassador McDonald and ask him whether he would be interested and would take time for an interview about his life and his achievements. I also said that I had no specific ideas as to what would become of the interview, but, at the very least, his story would be on tape. John wanted a few days to think this suggestion over and to talk about it with his wife Christel McDonald. He called the next day and agreed to my proposal. We agreed that I should come to Washington. We spent four days in the week of August 22, 2005, during which time we taped about twelve hours, partially at his home and mostly in his office at IMTD. These twelve hours are the core content of this book. With all the tapes transcribed, we had a manuscript that needed some additions and deletions and some restructuring. During the interviews, we proceeded more or less chronologically. Yet, it was also a conversation that did not follow a strictly chronological order; thoughts came up from different times and different contexts. They connected related topics. In turning the transcript into a book, I deliberately retained the conversational style and John’s wording and only changed minor elements for clarity. I spent a few more days in May of 2006 and 2007 with John discussing open questions, and adding paragraphs. I reedited the manuscript once again. John then carefully looked at each chapter and added comments here and there. My aim has been to present a picture that intertwines the personal with the public sphere, the private with American politics as it plays itself out on the world scene. I want to present a portrait of a person dedicated to building peace. The aim was also to demonstrate how one life makes a difference—no matter at what age. To this end, my approach has been to weave together five important strands. John’s personal life history—to the extent that he would allow this and in respecting his being a rather private person—was one strand. I wanted to show how John grew up and what people and experiences formed him.

xvi

Preface

In the second strand, I wanted to highlight his professional history, his forty-year career as a U.S. diplomat and his subsequent work as a citizen diplomat. This is the main strand and makes up the bulk of the book. The third strand is the historic background of the United States. It mainly encompasses the years after the Second World War, from 1946 to the present, the time of John’s ongoing professional involvement. This is a period spanning sixty some years and extending over eleven U.S. administrations, from President Truman to George W. Bush. It is American postwar history and diplomacy as witnessed by one astute observer who was always involved in action to do his part to change the United States and the world for the better. I also wanted to include what happened during those years worldwide, on a global scene. This is especially important because John’s vision has always been global. This would form the fourth strand. Last and most important, I wanted to distill from all of John’s accounts, lessons for building peace, all he had learned and that is worth teaching to persons working in this field. The reader is thus guided through these five strands, simultaneously, or as they interact with each other at any one time. Throughout the text, not unlike in a film, there are “flashbacks” and “flash-forwards,” and times when one or the other of the five strands is the focus. Each chapter starts with a summary of the questions that guided that portion of the interview and a few words that characterize the times. Occasionally, these introductions also contain fragments of the lively exchange of ideas John and I had during the four days when the tape recorder was running, and later as the transcript was being transformed into a book. Unfortunately, it was not possible to do more than hint at how engaging our conversations were. Quite frequently John would say: “I came up with an idea,” or, “This has never been done before,” or, “For the first time in history.” Though it may sound presumptuous, perhaps, the fact is that it was the first time and it had not been done before. John has always been an innovator, coming up with new ideas, seeing them through to fruition, and, with boundless optimism, has been making things happen. John is said to have a rather big ego. Acknowledging that, he jokes about it and adds that he is also quite capable of putting his ego behind him. I myself have experienced John as a modest person. He simply and honestly states what he has been in a position to initiate, what ideas and suggestions he came up with, and how he went about realizing them. John has never been too pretentious to foster relationships with people from all walks of

Preface

xvii

life. That John gives himself no airs, is enormously gracious, kind, and cordial, and can show a great deal of empathy, all would agree. Being forthright, quite outspoken, and having an open mind, may have cost him dearly at times. Yet, he came to see that the setbacks he experienced, in fact, have brought him to a different level all together. I always knew that John also has a deeply spiritual side. Just how deep, came through when he talked about it in the interview. This is what carried him through the tragedies he experienced in his personal life and what I believe lets him go on—unperturbed. Academics will recognize—in the most down-to-earth, practical applications—much of what has been learned in peacebuilding through research. Seemingly simple processes are illustrated in powerful stories about patience and perseverance, about quiet persuasion and endurance, about building consensus, about courage and collaboration, about sitting in a circle, about inclusion, about women, about listening and providing a safe space, about forgiveness, about trust, truth, and overcoming trauma, about attention, and about visioning the future. The audience that I have in mind for this account is quite varied. Many of the thousands of people who know Ambassador McDonald and have heard him tell one of his stories, may enjoy reading a full account now. Peacebuilders around the globe may be specifically interested in all the extracted lessons pertaining to this art. Diplomats of either track—in public service or as citizens—may be encouraged to pursue their path undauntedly. Students of all these fields will be introduced to their chosen subjects by a master who is telling how he accomplished things. And persons not directly involved in this field, may find it a fascinating document of the times. Noa Zanolli Bern, February 2008

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

O

ften colleagues, friends, students, and even my family would suggest that I sit down and write about my experiences in seventy-plus years of working as a youngster, as a student, as a U.S. diplomat, as a UN official, and as the head of an NGO, in a multicultural, multiethnic, and finally multitrack diplomacy environment. They all felt that my achievements were ideally suited to inspire younger generations to think and act “out of the box” and commit themselves to reducing conflict in various parts of the world. I have written many articles, book chapters, and have edited or written eight books. To find time to reflect about my own life and work sounded attractive. But something else always took priority until Dr. Noa Zanolli, who worked with me for three years when I was president of the Iowa Peace Institute, visited me in Washington, D.C., in the summer of 2005, equipped with a recording device and a carefully laid out plan on how to proceed, to interview me on my past, present, and future work, for a book. The result was a transcription of four days of interviews, carefully scripted by Dr. Zanolli that began to look like a manuscript and that prompted further additions. It is thanks to her patience, dynamism, and tremendous dedication to get my life and work “on paper” that we have now a record of decades of my work within and outside the U.S. government. Diane Bendahmane, who worked with me repeatedly as my editor while I was still at the State Department, kindly agreed to be the editor for this book as well. I am grateful to her for her unlimited skills and professionalism. My wife Christel has contributed diligently to my efforts over the past year and a half and has expertly sorted out historical data and facts mentioned in the book and contributed greatly to the editing process. I am

xix

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Acknowledgments

thankful for her cheerful support, advice, and never-ending patience and encouragement. A final word of thanks is in order to the many colleagues with whom I worked throughout my government career, and later the women and men around the world who were a part of my stories. Without them, there would have been no book. Ceara Riggs, an intern at the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, kindly agreed to rid the first draft of the most egregious errors and I thank her. I am grateful for Joseph C. Parry’s professional advice and guidance to finalize the manuscript and to Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., for agreeing to publish this account, thus giving the next generation an opportunity to “catch” my optimism and hope for a better future. John W. McDonald

My thanks go to Ambassador John W. McDonald, most of all, for trusting me with this project. I most gratefully acknowledge Christel McDonald for giving this project her full support, watchfully reviewing the manuscript, assisting tirelessly every step of the way, and making me feel at home in Washington, D.C., when John and I were working on the text. My many thanks also go to David Picken and Mary Pearson in Bern who carefully transcribed the twelve hours of tape; to David Kaplan, IMTD summer intern in 2006, and Ceara Riggs, IMTD summer intern in 2007, for helping with fact and number checking and for getting started on the index; and to Diane Bendahmane who rigorously edited the final draft. Noa Zanolli

1 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS 1922–1946

T

hinking back now to your childhood, to your family’s culture and background, and early life experiences, what predisposed you in your upbringing for the work you have been doing all your life—building peace? What were the major lessons your parents taught you? And in those early years what were some of the defining moments in your life? How did it happen that you decided to become a diplomat? What experiences and occurrences in your earlier years continue to impact your life now? Many threads are woven together to make a life. It seems to me that bringing people together was one such thread and a natural ability. It was a deliberate act— “we have to work together to accomplish this”—yet, it was your way of doing and being, not a learned management technique.

FAMILY INFLUENCES My father, John W. McDonald, was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1890. He was in the U.S. military for forty-six years. After graduating from the University of Kentucky, he joined the military as a cavalry officer. He was based in Arizona and fought against Pancho Villa in 1917. Before our entry into World War I, 6,000 troops went into Mexico under General John J. Pershing to pursue Pancho Villa. In the United States, this was known as the Punitive or Pancho Villa Expedition. Then my father was sent into World War I. Until 1922, he was a major in the U.S. Occupation Army for the Rhineland, Germany, based in Koblenz, Germany. Most Americans don’t even know today that we occupied a part of Germany after World War I. My mother, Ethel Mae Raynor, was born in 1895 in Brooklyn, New York. When World War I ended, she was a public stenographer in West

1

2

Chapter 1

Virginia with her own business. As young as she was, she decided she wanted to be a part of the rebuilding process. She went to the YMCA, the Young Men’s Christian Association, in New York City, which was recruiting people to go to Koblenz. The Occupation Army had opened some new offices there. She talked her way into going and got on their payroll as a secretary/public stenographer. For a young woman after World War I to go to Germany, totally on her own, just because she wanted to help with the postwar effort was quite phenomenal. While she was there, as I remember the story, she went to a fancy dress ball on New Year’s Eve 1919, dressed up as a jockey. And my dad, who was a cavalryman, fell in love with her on first sight. Here he was, a cavalryman in his boots, and there she was, a jockey in her boots. Anyway, one thing led to another and they married in Koblenz on September 18, 1920. I was born there on February 18, 1922. At the end of 1922, my parents were sent back to the United States. I was brought up in an army environment, first at Fort Riley, Kansas, where my sister Ethel, later called “Mac,” was born. Then my father went to the Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. So we were in Kansas for the next six years. Then my dad was posted to the Culver Military Academy, in Culver, Indiana. My mother was a high school graduate when she married but was always interested in education. She took university courses whenever she could and finally finished her undergraduate degree at the University of Hawaii in 1939, the same year that I graduated from high school. Her interest in education continued and she took a number of English literature and writing courses at the master’s level. She loved to read and write short stories. As a good army wife, she followed her husband to various assignments between the wars and after the end of World War II in 1946 followed him to Germany. She was one of the first “dependents” to go there. My dad was stationed in Frankfurt, and they lived in nearby Bad Homburg. She was a major force in my life—an unusual and wonderful woman. I loved her dearly. I come from good genes. My father lived to be ninety-two and my mother died at the age of ninety. My sister and I grew up together and went to the University of Illinois together. Like her mother, she married into the U.S. military and became an army wife. We have become much closer in the last few decades. She has settled in California after raising five wonderful children, and we see each other several times a year.

Figure 1.1.

John W. McDonald and his sister Ethel, 1927

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To my great regret I never really knew my grandparents. Three of them died before I was born, during the great influenza pandemic in 1918. My father’s mother died when I was fifteen. I now have four wonderful grandchildren and know what positive impact grandparents can have on the lives of their grandchildren.

VALUES AND BELIEFS My parents had an enormous impact on my values and beliefs. My dad taught me self-discipline and the ability to focus on the task at hand. He always said he could never distinguish between work and play because he always loved what he was doing. I am the same way. During my diplomatic career I was often asked which assignment I liked best. I always said I liked it best where I was at the moment. My dad was an optimistic man and so am I. This spirit of optimism has been a major factor in my life. My mother gave me the love of reading, writing, and public speaking. She encouraged me to start a debating club in high school. When I was a senior, she took me to a psychologist for a battery of tests to find out what my talents might be. In our final session together he said I would do a lot of writing and public speaking in my lifetime. He was certainly on target. This book is the tenth I have written, and I have made over one hundred speeches every year since 1989. I thank both parents for modeling open-mindedness with regard to color, religion, race, nationality, and so on. When they married, my mother left the Catholic Church and my father the Protestant Church. They determined their children should choose for themselves which religious path to follow: certainly an unusual decision in those days. When I was thirtytwo years old, I was baptized into the Congregational Church. My sister made her decision a few years before that. Because I went to public schools in Washington, D.C.; El Paso, Texas; and Honolulu, Hawaii, I learned to interact with people of many different backgrounds. This upbringing has been an important part of my persona and has helped me in my diplomatic career and in my career as a peacebuilder. My parents also instilled in me a love of travel. I have now been to over 102 countries and all fifty states of the United States.

Earliest Beginnings

5

YOUTHFUL DEFINING MOMENTS Illness For me, the defining moment in my young life happened when I was eight years old in Culver, Indiana. I injured my right ankle ice-skating. The injury caused an infection that moved through my blood stream to my left upper arm. It was osteomyelitis, and in those days, before penicillin, it was a killer. Our doctor mistakenly treated it as inflammatory rheumatism. My left arm swelled up alarmingly, and my mother rushed me to the hospital in South Bend, Indiana. They operated immediately and, fortunately, saved my life and my arm. Because my dad was in the military, my mother, sister, and I moved to Washington, D.C., where I was placed in ward 8 at Walter Reed Military Hospital. My dad got transferred to Washington later that year. Over the next ten years, I was operated on thirteen times. For two years, I was not allowed to get out of bed. When I finally could get up, I had to learn how to walk all over again. My arm was in what they called an “airplane splint” for over three years. Because it had been immobilized for so long, my left upper arm did not grow as the rest of my body. It is three and a half inches shorter than my right arm. That illness impacted my whole life. I never was allowed to play any group sport for fear my left arm would break. Over the years I focused on tennis, swimming, and then college fencing, when it came to sports. Forced to remain in bed, I spent hours and hours reading. Television did not exist and radios were uncommon in hospital wards. I became a voracious reader of anything I could get because that was about all I could do. I also spent a lot of time just listening to the other patients. I learned a lot because I was the only child in an adult ward with some thirty men.

Education My mother home-schooled me in the hospital every day for over two years. When I finally left the hospital and entered public school, I was assigned to low fifth grade, but shortly thereafter I skipped high fifth grade and moved ahead of my class into sixth grade. I recently learned from my sister how neglected she felt during this time. She was not allowed into the ward and had to play alone for hours in the garden or in a separate room.

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I went to Paul Junior High School in Washington, D.C. In 1935, we moved to Texas, and I attended high school for two years in El Paso. When I was a freshman, I found the courage to invite a classmate to a school dance. On the day of the dance, I suddenly realized that I did not know how to dance. I asked a friend’s mother who was a dancing teacher for help. She gave me a one-hour lesson on the waltz. I finally learned the one-twothree step and felt confident I had mastered the art of dancing. Unfortunately, at the dance, they never played a single waltz. I used the one-twothree step in a straight line all evening long. I had not been taught how to turn. The young lady never went out with me again. However, over the years I took many lessons and have enjoyed ballroom dancing throughout my life. In 1937, we moved to Honolulu, in the Territory of Hawaii, where I spent my junior and senior years at Roosevelt High School. I graduated in 1939. It was at Roosevelt High that I became an activist. I started the National Honor Society chapter, joined the debating club, and was elected president of my senior class. I was a captain in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) and active in the Sea Scouts. In the summer of 1939, my dad was posted to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as head of the ROTC. I thought I was going to go to Dartmouth College, but when he learned that he had free tuition for his children he said “Boy, you’re going to Illinois!” My sister and I both got our undergraduate degrees there. Mine was in political science with a minor in history. My dad was reassigned after a year, so my sister and I had the exciting experience of being on our own. In those days there were no student dorms; students were housed in sororities or fraternities. I became a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon and my sister became a Pi Phi. I quickly got involved in campus activities. I earned my letter in fencing as a sophomore. I was a member of the Men’s League. I was on the first student board that the university created to help manage student affairs. When I graduated in 1943, I was identified in our university annual yearbook as a “BMOC” which stands for “big man on campus.” I’ve visited the campus several times since I graduated. In the student union a plaque on the wall lists the student board members for each year. I enjoy seeing my name on the plaque. In May 2004, the University of Illinois School of Liberal Arts and Sciences honored me with its achievement award, and, in May 2006, the University Alumni Association gave me its award for lifetime achievement. I have now moved from a name on a plaque to a large portrait hanging in the Illinois Union Building. I have felt greatly honored by my university.

Earliest Beginnings

Figure 1.2.

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John W. McDonald as a senior at the University of Illinois, 1943

Deciding to Become a Diplomat When I was in the ninth grade, in El Paso, the U.S. vice consul from Juarez, Mexico, visited our school and gave a talk about the world of diplomacy and the foreign service of the United States. I instantly made up my mind that I wanted to become a diplomat. It was a rather unusual decision for someone only thirteen years old. Today, many university graduates still don’t know what they want to do with their lives.

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Looking back on it, it was the idea of public service that triggered my desire to become a diplomat. Also, my dad had spent many years serving his country. That appealed to me. I knew that diplomats never got rich, but the accumulation of personal wealth has never been a part of my agenda. But the idea of public service, travel, getting to know other cultures and other nations certainly did appeal to me. Early on I had a chance to taste the excitement of travel. In the spring of 1939, during my last semester in high school, my dad was invited by the commander of the Coast Guard ship Roger B.Taney to accompany him on a three-week voyage to resupply the Line Islands, some 2,000 miles south of Hawaii. He accepted and got permission to take me along. It was a fabulous and historic experience. In 1938 the United States had decided to extend its influence in the Pacific Ocean and suddenly claimed as U.S. territory six islands spread across a large section of ocean. They placed six Hawaiians on each of the six islands (Howland, Baker, Canton, Enderburry, Jarvis, and Palmyra). The task of the Coast Guard, using its beautiful threehundred-foot-long ship, was to resupply the islanders every three months and to replace them every six months. I survived a three-day initiation as we crossed the equator (according to naval custom they shaved a southern cross on my head and painted my face and upper body in various colors), caught a seventy-pound tuna, swam in the Pacific, got sunburned, talked with the islanders, got to know the crew, and spent time with my dad—all in all, a great experience. During the summers while I was in college, I had the opportunity to see more of our country. In 1942, after finishing work in Fort Benning, Georgia, my college roommate Ed Allen and I bought a 1932 Ford Model A for $65. We drove from Fort Benning to Los Angeles, California, up to Vancouver, Washington, and back to Georgia. The car held up beautifully—we just had to replace the battery. Driving through Idaho we realized that we only had enough money left for gasoline. We drove straight through to Georgia, living off day-old bread and fruit and camping every night on the way. Then we sold the car for $60.

Developing a Work Ethic Shortly after I was released from the hospital in 1932, I took over a small door-to-door magazine route. At the age of ten, I was selling the Ladies Home Journal, Saturday Evening Post, and Country Gentleman. I worked for the same company when we moved to Fort Bliss and eventually became a “four star senior salesman.”

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I have never had a problem working with people at any level of society. As soon as I reached the age of fifteen and was eligible, I got my Social Security card. I got a summer job at the Dole pineapple cannery in Honolulu. My mother was horrified. How could I do that? “Well,” I said, “I want to earn some money.” I was the only blue-eyed blond among the two hundred workers. Of course, they were a multiethnic group as well. I was paid thirty-seven cents an hour making paper boxes for shipping the cans of juice. It was a swing shift, which meant working several weeks from eight to four and then switching to the four to midnight shift and then to the midnight to eight AM shift. This gave me very good working experience. We were paid every Friday in silver dollars. No checks or paper money for us. We wanted the real thing. In college, during summers, I worked at various jobs to earn money. In the summer of 1941, for example, I dug ditches for the air force base in Rantoul, Illinois, and was a latrine orderly there as well. In the summer of 1942, I worked as a construction supervisor for a new camp at Fort Benning, Georgia, where barracks for soldiers coming in for training were being built. I supervised about thirty-five people: two-thirds were black—they were the laborers; and one-third was white—they were the truck drivers. I was able to bring both groups together as a team. We had the highest production rate on the military base. It was Georgia and this was in the summer of 1942 and there was major animosity between blacks and whites. The truck drivers were better paid. They would sit around in their trucks waiting for their trucks to be loaded. So I would get in the back of the freight cars and help the black laborers load the trucks as though I was a laborer myself, just to speed things up. Well, that had never happened to these day laborers before—someone helping them and building a relationship with them. Then the truck drivers began to see that our team was producing more than the eight or ten other teams. Because we were working together as a team should, we were doing better than all the other groups. My team began to take pride in always being the number-one team. Once, over the Christmas holidays, I even worked as a floorwalker for a department store: “third floor, ladies apparel.”

The Piano: A Musical Rebellion As a youngster, I took piano lessons for a long time. Deep down inside—perhaps even unconsciously—my mother wanted me to become a concert pianist and pushed me hard toward that end. When I was on my

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own, as a sophomore at the university, I stopped playing. It was a youthful reaction to my mother’s insistence that I play the piano. I’ve always regretted my stupid decision. I did have some talent, but I never started playing again. The many years of piano lessons did instill in me a love of music, which I have retained throughout my life. In fact, when I first met my second wife, who was from Germany, she said that one of the things that attracted her to me was that I was the first American she had met who could distinguish between Mozart and Haydn.

YOUNG ADULTHOOD DISAPPOINTMENTS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS Rejection by the Military I had been a captain in the ROTC in high school and an officer in the ROTC at the University of Illinois. When the United States entered the war in 1941, I expected to follow my father’s footsteps into the military. In 1943, just after graduating from the University of Illinois, it was time for me to be drafted into the military. I was quite shocked when I was rejected as 4F by the Induction Center. A 4F rating meant a person was unfit for military service. The specific reason for it was that I had had osteomyelitis. Although I was certainly healthy enough to earn a letter in fencing, the law was clear on the matter: anyone who had ever had osteomyelitis was disqualified from the military—no exceptions. I had actually passed the physical exam, but when they asked me about the scars on my left upper arm, I told them my story. That was it. I got a letter shortly thereafter saying “You’re 4F.” I had to live with the 4F label for a long time. I would be stopped by a total stranger on the streets of Chicago where I was driving a laundry truck and asked, “Why aren’t you in the army?” There I was, a tall fellow walking around with a laundry bag on my shoulders. Obviously, I was healthy, so why wasn’t I in the military? It was okay when I was working in the defense plant because people understood I was trying to help in the war effort. But a laundry man? “What are you doing, fellow?” This “failure” to meet the requirements of the military had a longterm effect on my thinking. I have had to apologize for that for years, because in my generation everybody was in the military. When other people would tell their war stories, I wouldn’t have anything to say. Sometimes they would say, “Hey, McDonald, what did you do during the war?”

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“Well, I worked in a defense plant.” “Oh . . . ” I didn’t talk about the laundry man job very often. Looking back, my 4F rating is probably why I’m alive today. Many of my friends and colleagues and a couple of my roommates were killed in World War II. That was also certainly something I was very sensitive about.

Transitions: Marriage, Law School, and Job Hunting Having been rejected by the military I decided to go for a law degree. Also, I had learned that the Foreign Service had stopped recruitment. I guess it was felt that people should join the military. They just stopped recruiting. As the United States was moving on to become a world power, the State Department was totally ill equipped. Recruitment started again in 1946. In early 1942, my sister introduced me to one of her sorority sisters, Barbara Stewart, a beautiful black-haired woman whose father was a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Illinois—so she was a “town girl.” We dated for some months, fell in love, and got married in October 1943. It was a beautiful ceremony at the Methodist church in Urbana, Illinois. I wanted to do something for my country. After two semesters of law at the University of Illinois, I decided to leave law school and to move to Chicago and work in a defense plant. My wife and I moved into a nice basement apartment not far from the campus of the University of Chicago. I worked for over a year at Cuneo Press, a publishing house converted into an ammunition factory. I became a member of the machinists’ union, rose in the ranks, and became what is known as a “set-up man.” I had three enormous screw machines under my control, eight hours a day. The plant was running twenty-four hours a day making armor-piercing bullets. We had to hone steel rods down to within a thousandth of an inch. I broke the plant record four times in terms of number of bullets produced. I was always aspiring to be the best. Then the plant shut down and I was out of a job. I guess everybody thought the war was just about to be over. This was before the Battle of the Bulge, when the Nazis surged forward again. In any case, my doctor told me I was becoming anemic from working indoors at all hours up to my elbows in oil. He said I had to get some kind of an outdoor job.

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Learning a Powerful Lesson about Teamwork and Respect In 1944, I got a job as a laundry-truck driver. Two-thirds of my customers were black and they lived on the south side of Chicago. One-third lived on the west side, which was all Polish. The Quality Wet Wash Laundry Company was the only nonunion laundry in Chicago at the time. The Teamsters Union decided to change that. Everything bad you have ever heard about the Teamsters Union is true, but I became a Teamster. There I was, a member of two different trade unions. My job was reimbursed on the basis of the number of customers I had: the more customers, the more take-home pay. I had to get up at four o’clock in the morning, have breakfast, and load up the truck for my round. By the way, my truck was a five-ton electric truck. It went about thirty-five miles per hour, was totally silent, and did not pollute at all. We would plug in the batteries at night and the next morning we would drive off. It was a wonderful truck. Even today, such a truck would be considered very modern, but back in the 1940s I drove such a truck for a year and a half. My rounds kept getting bigger and bigger. Finally management called me in to try and figure out what was happening. They asked me how I had been able to get more customers. I told them I just went around and knocked on doors, or people would call me from their windows and ask me to come pick up their laundry. What I hadn’t really understood was the reason for this success. I finally put it together. All of the truck drivers were white, while twothirds of the customers were black. I had no prejudice whatsoever against people of color. What I learned was that when you knock on a door, within fifteen seconds the person answering the door can tell by looking in your eyes, listening to your voice, or getting a sense of the energy that is flowing out whether you’re for them or against them. They realized that I had no antagonism or animosity and was not opposed to people of color. The word got around. I literally had grandmothers who would look after my truck from their third-floor window to see that nobody bothered it. Nobody touched me or touched my truck in all that time. The grandmothers would call out and say, “Hey, laundry man, come pick up my bundle.” And I would climb up the flights of stairs, pick up their bundle, and bring it back down. That to me was a powerful insight, epitomized by the knowledge that people could tell in an instant whether or not you were anti-black or anti-whatever. I have applied that fundamental lesson throughout my life.

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I was fortunate to have parents who were not prejudiced and to have had the opportunity to live cross-culturally and multiethnically in Texas and Hawaii. It just never crossed my mind to look down on any race. Racism has never been an issue in my whole life. Though my parents were not prejudiced they were conscious of their position in society as a military family. I think I have evolved along those same lines, with basic guidance from them originally. Looking back, I can see that my upbringing prepared me to become a diplomat and peacebuilder.

GETTING BACK ON TRACK Returning to Law School and Welcoming a Daughter Although I had left law school and moved to Chicago, I certainly had not given up the idea of being a diplomat. In fact, that was why we saved our money and moved back to Champaign-Urbana in early 1945. I wanted a law degree. I saw it as essential preparation for diplomacy. I could have stayed on, maybe in business or whatever in Chicago. But I wanted a law degree. Just before we left Chicago, our first child, Marilyn Ruth McDonald, was born on January 17, 1945. I went straight through four semesters of law school and graduated in June of 1946. We had a tough time of it with a small baby in the house and little money. I worked in the law library and then got a job at the county courthouse in Urbana writing and publishing a daily record of court cases filed and decisions made for a hundred subscribers. When I graduated, I felt pretty proud of myself and thought I was a hot property and would have no difficulty finding a good job. Was I ever mistaken. I started applying for a job right away because the bar exam was six months later. I had to survive with a wife and a baby daughter to support. I applied to various law firms in Chicago and around the state with no luck. Finally, I went down to the southern part of the state looking for a job at the courthouse. The judge said, “Boy, you don’t know a goddamn thing about the law. Come work for me for a year or so, and then I’ll start paying you.” I said, “Well Judge, unfortunately I can’t do that.” Not finding a job as a lawyer but needing to eat while I waited for the state bar exam, I got a job as a day laborer in a cement block factory in Champaign-Urbana. I was unloading box cars filled with one-hundred-pound bags

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of cement; the heat in the cars was intense—sometimes 120 degrees. I did that for six weeks. Then a friend of mine helped me get a job as a carpenter’s helper for a company that was building houses in the area. About a month later the foreman said, “You seem a little smarter than those other workers. So I am making you an electrician’s helper and will give you a raise.” I had told no one that I had two university degrees and was an aspiring lawyer. In the spring of 1946, I read an ad in the Champaign-Urbana newspaper about a new program of the U.S. military that was asking for volunteers to go to occupied Germany as junior professional assistants. Successful applicants would be given trainee assignments in Germany. At the end of two years, they would be given permanent government positions. I applied for the program and was accepted. That summer the recruiters tried to convince me to start working right away. I asked them to hold the job for me until I took my bar exam. I knew that if I didn’t take the bar exam then, I would never take it. I insisted that I finish that phase of my career before I moved to Germany and entered the new program. They pushed very hard for me to join them immediately but ultimately acceded to my request. I am sure that they were having difficulty recruiting. The war was over, and everybody wanted to come home. Nobody wanted to go back over to Germany.

Passing the Bar Exam and Welcoming a Son I took a cram course for the bar exam and went up to Chicago for the three-day written exam in mid-November 1946. The average number of people passing the bar the first time was 30 percent. It was also interesting that there was only one woman in our graduating class. Now this has changed dramatically. Today, 51 percent of law school graduates are women. Early in the morning of the second day of the exam I was informed that I had a son. James Stewart McDonald was born about five or six AM on November 13. I went to the hospital to see how things were going and then had to go back and write two more days. How I passed the first time, I will never know. I think some higher power was looking after me. In those days, you knew you had failed if you got an envelope with a three-cent stamp on it—that’s what it cost to send a letter then. You knew you had passed if you got an envelope with two three-cent stamps on it. Letters to those who had passed included forms to fill out. The day I received my letter was the same day that my wife, Barbara, returned to Cham-

Earliest Beginnings

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paign-Urbana, with my son. So I met them at the train station and screamed, “I passed!” It was a great moment in my life, I can assure you. Because my departure to Germany was imminent, the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois held a special session for me on December 15, 1946, in which I was sworn in as authorized to practice before it.

SUMMING UP My background and the jobs that I have described proved invaluable when I became a diplomat. I can talk with anybody in this world, regardless of title, regardless of where they are in the scheme of things. I don’t have prejudices, so I can interact with anybody. It doesn’t bother me to take on working-class jobs and to be thought of as working class. I’ve worked at all levels of society, even as a ditch-digger—you can’t get much lower than a ditch-digger—and a latrine orderly. I worked as a laborer in the summers but never let on that I had two university degrees because I knew that that would set me apart. I didn’t want to be set apart. I wanted to work with my fellow laborers as an equal. To be a real diplomat and an effective negotiator, a person has to be able to interact with anybody, on any level of society, without fear or awe. I respect everyone, but that’s different than being in awe or afraid and standing back and worrying about how you are going to come across. In that sense, I am fearless because I don’t even think about impressing others or pulling rank on them. All people, no matter what or who they represent, are human beings, and they have the same hopes and aspirations as I do. Even if they don’t, I still treat them as if they do. That’s a very important lesson for everyone, but particularly for diplomats.

2 IN POSTWAR GERMANY AND FRANCE 1947–1954

N

ow began a new phase in your life: starting your diplomatic career in a brandnew program in occupied Germany.Would you say that a pivotal moment in your life and a dramatic era in the world coincided at that time? How did your favorite sport fencing impact your life as a diplomat? You were in Germany and France during very dramatic times: noteworthy issues were at the forefront.The Berlin Blockade, in particular, was an example of one of those magnificent occasions when people come together to accomplish the extraordinary and thus demonstrate what humanity is actually capable of. How did you experience these times, and what did you learn? Finally, how was the rebuilding in France different from the work you did in Germany and how do both compare with the ongoing experience of the U.S. in Iraq?

BERLIN A Civilian in U.S. Military Government On January 5, 1947, I took a military transport ship, the General C. C. Ballou, from New York to Bremerhaven, Germany, and arrived, by train, in Berlin, for my first real paying job, $2,800 a year. I was in the first group of civilian trainees to replace military government personnel for the occupation of Germany. We were twenty young men all with graduate degrees. The plan was that we would form a nucleus of a career military government service. Lieutenant General Lucius Clay was in charge of the new program. He was deputy military governor until March 1947 when he succeeded General Dwight Eisenhower as military governor and director of OMGUS—Office of the Military Government of the United States.

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Upon our arrival, we were ushered into the office of a colonel, the chief of personnel for OMGUS in Berlin. The first thing the colonel said was, “What in the hell are you doing here in Berlin?” We were thunderstruck, because we thought that we were part of a program that had been well advertised back home and that surely must have been developed overseas. So we told him what we had been told in Washington about the new program. It was to be a two-year assignment; personnel would be rotated every six months to learn about all levels of the occupation; and then we would be permanently assigned somewhere in Germany. The U.S. government was obviously planning a long-term occupation. The colonel had never been told anything about this new program, which he was supposed to manage. Here we were, twenty bright, enthusiastic young men ready to go to work, and no one in Berlin had ever heard of us. This was my first experience of government inefficiency!

The Allied Control Council Law Committee Eventually, OMGUS in Berlin got its act together. Because I was a young lawyer, I was assigned to the legal division and then to the secretariat of the Law Committee of the Allied Control Council. The ACC was the four-power body, composed of Soviet, French, British, and American representatives, that was governing the four sectors of the city of Berlin and all four zones of Germany. The ACC had a complicated structure with many substructures: a council and then committees for finance, economics, transportation, law, and so on. My wonderful boss was Ernie G. Wiener, who was the U.S. secretary of the OMGUS Legal Division to the ACC Law Committee. I served as his assistant, and, by the end of my tour, as acting deputy chief of the secretariat. Being assigned to the law committee was great. I observed how governments worked together or failed to work together in occupied Germany. I stayed in this first assignment for a little less than seven months. I did not realize it at the time, but this assignment set my career path for the next forty years. I have spent more time involved in multilateral, as opposed to bilateral, diplomacy than anyone in the history of the U.S. Foreign Service. The ACC governed the whole country through a small group of people who managed the day-to-day operations for the city of Berlin and the four zones. Everything that was required to run a nation in occupation was done through that small group.

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The ACC Law Committee drafted and adopted all the laws that dealt with the occupation. Once the ACC passed a law it became automatically the law in all four zones. There was no local independent German government yet at that time. In fact we, the occupying forces, were the government for Germany. In those days, the occupation government was quite efficient. The United States was still trying to be friends, more or less, with the Soviets, to collaborate with them, to avoid a breakup within the ACC. It is not surprising that there were differences among the four countries because of different cultures and national objectives and so forth, but somehow we were able to make progress. The city of Berlin and its infrastructure began to be rebuilt, and improvements around the country were noticeable. The reconstruction of Germany was underway. The ACC Law Committee met two or three times a week. I was responsible for attending every meeting, taking the minutes, and reporting back to the OMGUS Legal Division. My boss and I would negotiate the minutes with the other three members of the Secretariat, and then the minutes would be translated into the languages of the respective parties and passed up to the ACC main body for information purposes. Sometimes we sent a law proposal up and the ACC would officially rubberstamp it. In general, if the law committee passed something up, the full council adopted it.

Differing Philosophies on Occupation Each of the four countries that occupied Germany had suffered great losses during the war. Three of the four were almost bankrupt economically. The degree of suffering of the occupying countries often led to very different philosophies regarding the occupation of Germany and if and how to pursue Germany’s reconstruction. The United States and Great Britain adhered pretty well to the decisions taken at the 1945 Potsdam Conference regarding disarmament, occupation zones, and war crimes trials. The Soviets and the French demonstrated less willingness to begin Germany’s reconstruction. They became engaged in a dismantling of what was left of Germany’s infrastructure. They sided together on many issues in the committees of the ACC. Basically, they wanted to take the Germans’ equipment to rebuild their own destroyed industries. The British and the Americans were more concerned about how best to rebuild Germany and about the people whom they were occupying. They worried about food supplies, how the people were going to survive

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the winter, how help could be extended to rebuild housing. They were more people-oriented. While the Potsdam decisions still mirrored some tenets of the rejected Morgenthau plan, which had called for dismantling Germany as an industrial economy, by the fall of 1947, the U.S. government, in agreement with the British, moved instead toward the establishment of the Marshall Plan, which pledged aid for the rapid rebuilding of noncommunist Europe.

Life in Berlin Life in Berlin was brutal when I arrived in January of 1947, in the middle of the coldest winter in a hundred years. Large parts of the city had been reduced to rubble. The only part that was not too much destroyed was the Western part of the city, and that was the U.S. Sector. OMGUS headquarters were located here. I was assigned to a house, with two housemates, at Lansstrasse 15, in Dahlem Dorf, near the U-Bahn (underground train) stop. A surprise awaited me. After I had settled into the house, I wanted to call my parents to tell them that I had arrived safely and that my wife Barbara and our two children, Lynn and Jim, would arrive in Germany in about six months. My dad was stationed in Frankfurt and lived in the town of Bad Homburg. My mother had joined him a month before I had arrived in Berlin. I got their ten-digit telephone number and dialed their house from my house, without the help of an operator. Unbelievably, I got them on the telephone immediately. The civilian telephone system of destroyed, defeated, and battered Germany was twenty years ahead of ours in the United States. I cannot deny that it was very comfortable where I was living with my housemates, but the local population was having a very difficult time surviving the winter. Food, soap, clothing, and coal for heating were all difficult to obtain for the Germans. We, of course, had everything we needed. Coming from the plains of central Illinois to the rubble of one of the great cities of the world was a trauma for me. However, I was surprised at how quickly an occupier can become adjusted to that situation; we walked through all the misery, basically tried to ignore it, and did our jobs.

Fencing and Diplomacy In those days, U.S. personnel were not allowed even to talk to Germans. We were not allowed to “fraternize,” was the word. That ban was

Figure 2.1. John W. McDonald shortly after his arrival in Berlin in January 1947—listening to the American Forces Network in his room he was assigned to by OMGUS

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lifted later, but I did not agree with the ban and ignored it. I began to invite German fencers to join me at home and we began fencing together. Fencing had been an interest for me for many years. In 1940–1941, I earned my letter in fencing at the University of Illinois, and I tried to exercise that sport whenever and wherever I had an opportunity for decades to come. In fact, when I was living in Grinnell, Iowa, in the late 1980s, Grinnell College asked me if I would be its fencing coach. I turned the request down because I didn’t have time although I agreed to hold fencing classes for some of their students on occasion. When I was in Berlin I restarted the Berlin Fencing Club in my house. Every Sunday we would push the furniture aside, and we would fence, even though it was supposedly against the law. The law, as I read it, being a young lawyer, prohibited only German “Academic Fencing Fraternities.” In these fraternities, it was an honor for certain Germans to sport a big gash obtained in a duel. Many members of these fencing fraternities had actively supported the Nazis before the war. Therefore, the fraternities were banned. However, I was interested in the Olympic sport of fencing. Although Germans had excelled in this sport over the past decades, after the war they were no longer allowed to fence. Nobody drew a fine line between fraternity fencing and Olympic fencing. By the fall of 1947, fencing as a sport was tacitly allowed again. When I moved to Frankfurt, I was lucky enough to train with the great Italian master F. Tagliabó. My skills improved considerably. In one of my first competitions in early 1948, I placed third. I eventually moved to Bonn and was the only non-German in the Bonn University fencing club. I was accepted by them because I was considered a “pretty good fencer.” Here, too, I was able to further improve my skills and placed sixth among the formidable German fencers. I continued fencing when I was later stationed in France, Turkey, and Egypt. Sometimes fencing was a way to make contacts with important government people in the countries I was assigned to. For example, in Egypt, in 1963–1966, I was forbidden to meet with the mayor of Cairo because President Gamal Abdel Nasser didn’t want Americans talking to his key people. But the mayor was an excellent saber fencer, and we used to meet at the fencing club and on the fencing strip and were always able to talk afterwards. Fencing, of course, was good exercise and one of the few sports that I could do. I fence with my right arm and my left arm is always behind me, so that there is never any danger of injuring my “osteomyelitis arm.” Fencing was also a way to ease my frustrations because it required my undivided attention. I think it is important to have a physical skill to support mental agility.

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Figure 2.2. John W. McDonald (back row with white shirt) in front of his house with a group of German fencers, Berlin, early 1947

There are some parallels between fencing and diplomacy. They both are art forms that demand skill, hard work, and dedication. In addition, they are competitive, but they are individual, not group, activities. The United States spends a lot of time on group sports—football, basketball, and baseball are our national preoccupations. The one exception is golf. I have never played a hole of golf in my life, but I love to watch Tiger Woods on TV.

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Currency Reform In 1947, Berlin was a cigarette economy. The Reichsmark was worthless because of high inflation. It was a barter economy, and cigarettes were used instead of money. An American could literally buy anything for a few cigarettes. Many Americans imported cigarettes by the case, sold them, then converted the marks into dollars at the U.S. government post office, and sent the money home. OMGUS eventually realized they had a $400 million debt on the books as a result of these illegal transactions. To help recoup this loss, every American civilian was charged $15 monthly rent per room. The German landlords were paid in Reichsmarks, later Deutsche Mark, and the U.S. treasury got our money until the debt was paid off. The United States had planned for a currency reform since the spring of 1947. The Soviets had opposed it. Finally, in the spring of 1948, the United States, Great Britain, and France decided to go ahead alone. The United States had designed and printed the new bank notes in the United States. June 20, 1948, was the magic date for the conversion from Reichsmark to Deutsche Mark. It was a major operation to distribute the new money across all of Western Germany simultaneously to be available to every West German on June 20. The distribution of the new money—called Operation Bird Dog— was one of the most secret operations after D-Day. Everybody in West Germany—this is something very few people know—was given forty Deutsche Mark on that day in exchange for sixty Reichsmarks. Forty Deutsche Mark were worth ten U.S. dollars. Every West German citizen had exactly the same sum of money to start with. That is pretty dramatic. However, the Germans lost all their savings. Numerous conversion laws dealt with how to convert existing insurance policies, mortgages, salaries, wages, and the like into the new currency. Changing from the worthless Reichsmark to the Deutsche Mark brought about an angry reaction from the Soviets. They refused to accept the new currency for their zone and sector in Berlin and quickly decided to develop their own currency reform. In fact, the currency reform triggered the breakup of the four-power occupation and led to the Berlin Blockade. It also established the de facto division of Germany. Nobody foresaw that the currency reform would lead to rising tensions between the East and the West. On the positive side, over the next year or two, thanks to currency and economic reforms and German resourcefulness, the economy in the three Western zones of Germany was transformed rather quickly and eventually began to flourish by 1950.

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Coffee and Caviar In Berlin, I got to know a young Soviet lawyer who was also on the secretariat of the law committee. He had developed a strong liking for American coffee, which was totally unavailable on the Soviet side. And I had developed a strong liking for Russian caviar. I decided maybe we could do a little negotiating outside of the committee. I invited him to my house one evening. I set the scene by having the coffee brewing in the kitchen. The aroma drifted out into the living room. We sat around and talked for a while and finally reached an agreement: each month in exchange for one pound of American coffee, which I could buy for about a dollar a pound at the local army post exchange, I would receive one pound of Russian caviar. I thought that was a pretty good exchange. In 1974, I told that story to George Meany, the head of the AFL-CIO, a strong opponent of communism. He loved the story and said that was the ratio that we should continue to use in our negotiations with the Soviets.

Completion of the OMGUS Intern Program During May and June of 1947, the Intern program began to grow and develop. My fellow classmates and I were taken through every major division in OMGUS Berlin and the Berlin Sector, which governed the city of Berlin on a four-power basis, so that we would better understand the purposes and functions of our occupation. We learned something of the operation of each division of the military government. In early July of 1947, I was assigned to a state (Land) headquarters in Wiesbaden for one month where I observed the operation of military government at the state level. From Wiesbaden I was sent to a county (Kreis) headquarters in Bad Homburg, near Frankfurt, and assigned as deputy county resident officer to the Liaison and Security Office, Landkreis Obertaunus, of the military government. I became a prosecutor—a “district attorney”—of criminal cases before the military government courts in that county and was constantly in contact with Germans. I thoroughly enjoyed that grassroots experience. Finally, in August, I was reunited with my wife and our children Lynn and Jim, who had obtained permission to join me in Germany. They arrived in Bad Homburg for a joyous reunion, not only with me but also with my parents. My father, also in the military, happened to be stationed in the same town. He and my mother returned in 1947 to Koblenz to visit the place where they were married in 1920.

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Figure 2.3. John W. McDonald’s parents—Col. John W. and Ethel R. McDonald, also stationed in Germany—visit Koblenz and the City Palace in 1947, where they were married in 1920

In October, our group of twenty interns was ordered to go to Oberammergau in southern Germany to take a three-week course at the ECIS (European Command Intelligence School) to learn about the civilian side of the military occupation. The army had put officers in each Kreis in the U.S. Zone and wanted to begin to put civilians there as well, in anticipation of turning over these responsibilities to the State Department. After I had completed my three weeks of training in Oberammergau, I graduated first in a class of eighty. My wife was allowed to meet me after this training and we had an opportunity to travel for a few days before returning to Bad Homburg. Shortly thereafter, I was ordered to move to Frankfurt in November 1947 and I became a prosecutor in Stadtkreis Frankfurt.

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Figure 2.4. John W. McDonald with his wife Barbara in front of his office in Frankfurt/ Main in the fall of 1947

FRANKFURT Appointment as District Attorney At the end of 1947, OMGUS decided to create a criminal court system in the U.S. Sector of Berlin and the U.S. Zone because the German criminal court system had totally collapsed. The U.S. courts would have jurisdiction over all Allied civilians, all displaced persons, who were moving to the West by the tens of thousands, and all Germans who violated occupation law in the U.S. Zone. There was even a court of appeals located in Berlin. The U.S. courts used the German criminal code, which was an excellent document when it was de-Nazified, and American criminal procedures.

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This was an unprecedented and unique blending of systems. Under German law a person is assumed guilty until proven innocent. Under the U.S. system the accused is presumed to be innocent. Under the German system, the role of the defense attorney was to plead for a reduction of the sentence. This meant that German defense attorneys had no experience in the art of cross-examination, which is essential under the American system. Recognizing this deficiency, I held classes on cross-examination for interested German defense attorneys. They would practice their newly gained skills on me the next day in court. There were no juries; there was a judge, the defense attorney, the accused, witnesses, interpreters, and a district attorney. Under the German system, the judge read all the witnesses’ statements beforehand. In the U.S. system, all statements and proceedings were translated into whatever language was needed. Most of the accused and the witnesses were German, but, in our jurisdiction, there were also some 50,000 displaced persons from the eastern part of Germany and Eastern Europe. When the OMGUS court system was established, it drew on American lawyers already in Germany. Those with experience all wanted to be judges. They had more prestige and made more money because they were higher up in the civil service. OMGUS had to recruit district attorneys, who would prepare the cases for the judges to hear. That is when someone came across my name. I was a young lawyer with no court experience. In November of 1947, at the age of twenty-five, I was appointed district attorney for Frankfurt, Germany, and assistant district attorney for the Land (State) of Hessen. That assignment was made permanent in February of 1948. My year of internship was then over. I became the first American prosecutor in the area and so had to establish, organize, and operate the office. This was not Nuremberg, where the war criminals were being tried. It was an ordinary court taking care of local crime. I was in court almost every day for three years. It was a fascinating people-to-people experience. It was there that I learned German, because most of the trials were in German. I would ask witnesses or the accused a question in English. It would be interpreted into German, be answered in German, and then translated back into English for the judge and me. In six months I was speaking German, having learned it on a daily basis in court. One of my first acts was to review 1,000 cases of people imprisoned after the war, which had been pending while the OMGUS court system was being set up. I signed release orders for seven hundred of the cases, much to the chagrin of the local police department. But these people had

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already served more time in prison than they would have if they had been found guilty. Most were accused of minor crimes. Then I began to focus on the remaining three hundred cases. We had a small staff, and we plowed through a lot of work during those three years. We dealt mainly with break-ins, theft, robbery, and armed robbery; occasionally there might be a rape or a murder case. A lot of this crime was owing to the fact that the Americans had so many of the things that the German people needed. A number of the accused were displaced persons newly arrived from refugee camps, trying to adjust to their new environment. There was also a lot of black marketeering—illegal trading of cigarettes. Most interesting were cases arising from the de-Nazification process. Many Germans lied about their past before and during the war. For Germans to get a paid job with the Occupation Forces, they had to fill out a complicated questionnaire called a Fragebogen to show they had not been a member of the Nazi Party, the SS, or some similar group. A lot of Nazis committed perjury on these questionnaires. Fortunately, it was easy for prosecutors to uncover the truth. One of the interesting quirks of World War II was that the Nazi Party kept meticulous records of every person in the nation who had had anything to do with it. These records, which were stored in what was later called the Berlin Document Center, were captured intact by the American military in Berlin. There were whole rooms—even buildings—full of data about everybody in Germany: every scrap of paper that any Nazi had signed, every picture since childhood, was carefully stored away in those files. These data became a valuable resource for the Occupying Powers. For example, somebody would report to the police that a neighbor or acquaintance who got a job with the U.S. government, had been a member of the Nazi Party or a senior member of the SS or had supported the Nazis in the past. The police would pursue the case and often would find out that the accused had not truthfully filled out the de-Nazification papers. The case would eventually come to court with the accusation of Fragebogen falsification. When I would get such a charge, I would send the charging document to the Berlin Document Center and ask for the file on this person. I would get back a portfolio, sometimes four or five inches thick, that this particular person had been a member of Nazi Youth and then had risen in the ranks to become a key Nazi official. So we would charge him for perjury. He would come on the witness stand and deny everything. Then I would

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just present him with documents from his file. I would say, “Is this your signature?” or “Is this your photograph?” And he would always be in a state of shock because he did not realize how complete the files were and did not know that we had all the documents. I never lost a Fragebogen case.

First Encounter with the CIA Counterfeiting was also common in those days, because, up until the currency reform, the Reichsmark was worthless. People paid a million Reichsmarks for a loaf of bread. In anticipation of a currency reform but also even before that, people would print counterfeit money—dollars primarily—and sell them on the black market. I became fairly adept in counterfeiting cases because I had so many of them. Most cases were small, but then a big case came along. The police had arrested a gang of eighteen people from the U.S. Zone, including the master counterfeiter, a Pole named Polanski. They had the plates Polanski had engraved to make the currency, the inks, the dyes, the printing press, and even $50,000 in counterfeit currency. You couldn’t ask for a better case. I was sure I would get the maximum sentence of ten years. About three weeks before the trial my secretary told me that there was a major outside who wanted to see me. I said, “Fine, let’s show him in.” The major walked in, in full uniform, flashed something in front of my face—some kind of paper—and said, “I’m overt.” “Overt,” I thought, “means ‘open.’ What a strange name.” Again he said, “I’m overt.” And I said, “Well, Major Overt, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” “No, no, my name is Smith. I’m overt as opposed to covert, or undercover.” “Oh,” I said, feeling a little embarrassed, “well, that’s interesting. Who are you working for?” He proudly announced, “I’m working with the CIA, and I am here to see you about a man named Polanski.” I knew that the CIA—Central Intelligence Agency—had just been formed a few months earlier. Many personnel had been transferred to it from the OSS—the Office of Strategic Services. “Well Major, congratulations,” I said. “You are the first person from the CIA I have ever met. What is your interest in Polanski?” Then he said in a lowered voice, “He’s one of us.” “What do you mean, ‘He’s one of us’?” I asked. “He works for the CIA. He’s one of us.”

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I said, “Since when does this new organization hire counterfeiters? I have an ironclad case against him.” He said, “Oh well, he is a counterfeiter on his own time, not on ours, so it doesn’t count.” “Major, for me it counts.” I said. “What do you want?” “I want you to release him to me, because he’s the best counterfeiter of documents we’ve ever seen.” “You’re asking for the impossible,” I said. I couldn’t believe the CIA would do this. It was ridiculous. I asked Major Smith to leave. The next day I was visited by a colonel. We had the same conversation, and I asked him to leave too. This time I at least knew the difference between overt and covert. I said, “I’m sorry, I don’t care who you’re working for, this man is going to prison for ten years.” The following week I was visited by a general, a major-general. We sat down, and had a nice conversation. “You have eighteen charges against this man: for wearing a U.S. army uniform; for having post-exchange and ration cards; for having an army 45 revolver, and so on. Would you consider getting rid of all charges against him that have nothing to do with counterfeiting, so the CIA does not have to be embarrassed by testifying that he was on our payroll, that we worked with him? He is the best counterfeiter we have ever seen, but we didn’t know he was making money illegally on the side.” “Sure, I can do that,” I said. So I dismissed all of the charges he asked me to. That still left the counterfeiting charges. Polanski went to trial and got ten years. That was my first encounter with the CIA, and I have never forgotten Major Overt.

The Berlin Blockade The currency reform led to a crisis over the fate of the city of Berlin, and eventually to the Berlin Blockade. The Soviets ceased to allow any land transportation—trains, trucks, and automobiles—to cross the Soviet Zone to reach the city of Berlin. They could not control the air, however, and were not prepared to shoot down our aircraft and start another war. Shortly after the blockade was established, the Berlin Airlift was launched to save West Berlin. For about a year—and this is something that few people recognize—the West (the British, French, and primarily the Americans) supplied the population of West Berlin with their livelihood, exclusively by air. Everything, literally everything, was flown in, including coal.

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It was a dramatic and dangerous time in world history. I recall the excitement I felt when I was invited to go along on one of the many daily missions from the Rhein-Main airport just outside Frankfurt to Tempelhof airport inside the city of Berlin. I sat next to ten tons of coal being airlifted for the beleaguered city. The airplanes, most of which were two-engine DC-3s, had a maximum capacity of ten tons. They were the real workhorses of the air force. On our approach to the short runway, our plane flew low over hundreds of destroyed buildings in the city. We landed, turned around, unloaded and took off again. We were on the ground for ten minutes. This routine was repeated around the clock, every day, for about a year. The airlift was unique in history, and everybody was proud of what they had accomplished. The world was transfixed by this effort, and the Soviets were totally astounded at what the West could do and actually did. For me, the Cold War dates from the Berlin Blockade. Isolating the city was an act of war by the Soviets. At first, the Germans couldn’t believe that this airlift was happening; like the Soviets, they too were astounded. Here the occupying powers from the West were saving the people they had recently bombed. The enemy was now feeding Berlin! Thus, the airlift had a significant impact on the thinking of Germans, both in and outside of Berlin. They understood that, in a sense, it was an act of forgiveness on our part. It wasn’t done specifically for that reason, of course, but the need for forgiveness was certainly part of the West’s motivation.

The Fallacy of Win-Lose My experience as a district attorney in Frankfurt taught me a lot about the law and about managing my time and supervising a staff. But most of all I learned about people. All day, every day, I dealt with people from all walks of life and many different cultures and backgrounds. I saw their bad sides especially and sometimes their good sides. This experience had a great impact on my future career—a positive impact. In law school, I had learned about win-lose: I win and you lose. That’s what is taught in law schools to this day. Then I became a district attorney and I had a 98 percent conviction rate. I was really into winning. After three years I began to realize this was not the way I wanted to shape my life. I was becoming too suspicious of people. I would see someone walking down the street in Frankfurt wearing a mink coat and I would think to myself, “I know that man is a black market dealer.” I had already convicted him on

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sight. I felt that this kind of reaction was negatively impacting my whole vision of life, and I didn’t like it.

Transitions: Birth of a Third Child and a New Job During this time, I lived with my wife Barbara and two children inside a large U.S. compound surrounded by a twenty-five-foot high barbed-wire enclosure at 11 A, Frauenstein Strasse, Frankfurt/M. That enclosure came down when the State Department took over from the U.S. Army in 1949. And in June 1949 I became a State Department Foreign Service Officer. We lived comfortably, but modestly. Our third child, Kathleen, was born on August 9, 1949, at the U.S. Air Force Hospital in nearby Wiesbaden. In order to get out of the district attorney mode of thinking and acting, I applied for a job in the secretariat for the Allied High Commission (AHC), which had been created in late 1949, after the breakdown of the ACC, to regulate and supervise the development of the new Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), which had been established on May 23, 1949. The Soviet Zone became the German Democratic Republic on October 7, 1949. The AHC ruled the three Western zones. It was the only law-making body in the country. Delegations from the United Kingdom, France, and the United States were each headed by a high commissioner. John J. McCloy was the U.S. high commissioner. An international secretariat, charged with supporting the three high commissioners, started its work on September 21, 1949. I was interviewed by a brilliant young man named Joe Slater, who was the U.S. executive secretary to the Allied High Commission. He asked me for three references and I said, “I can give you ten.” And he said, “OK, give me ten.” So I had to get ten references lined up. He started with the tenth and called every one. That was a pretty stupid mistake on my part, which I never tried again. But I got the job and started work on April 16, 1950. I was the fifteenth American in Bonn.

BONN/BAD GODESBERG/THE PETERSBERG Appointment as Secretary to the Law Committee of the Allied High Commission The AHC was housed in a beautiful hotel called the Petersberg, situated along the Rhine River, on top of a hill across from Bonn/Bad Godesberg in

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the British Zone. This well-known hotel is still standing. There Hitler met with British prime minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938, just before World War II. Bad Godesberg was where most of the international secretariat staff lived. We moved into a house at 40 Ubierstrasse, and I crossed the Rhine by ferry every morning and evening to and from work. The Petersberg was designated as a “British Mess” which was subsidized. We were served elegant four-course meals for lunch, with wine, for forty cents. The waiters, who had worked there for years, served us in white tie and tails and wore white gloves. My office was a hotel room with bath. We looked out at a gorgeous view up and down the Rhine. My title was U.S. Secretary to the Law Committee of the Tripartite Allied High Commission. The three high commissioners got together several times a week at the Petersberg. The law committee was one of about half a dozen committees that looked at various aspects of the occupation and reported to the commissioners. We developed, drafted, debated, and then recommended laws to the AHC that would impact on the three former zones that made up West Germany, or the Federal Republic of Germany. Initially the role, mandate, and power were basically the same as in the four-power body in Berlin, the ACC. However, now the goal was to help West Germany to become an independent nation. For the second time in my short career I was thrown into a multilateral system and learned how to work with other countries and governments.

Creating a New Germany Those were exciting years because we were helping to create a new country. I would say that 1950 was a most critical year for Europe. In Germany, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was playing a major role, trying to create a democracy out of the ashes of the past. He would come “up to the hill,” as we used to say, up to the Petersberg, every few weeks to meet with the AHC or with U.S. High Commissioner McCloy. McCloy was a well-known and distinguished figure in the post–World War II world. He had served in the Pentagon, had been president of the World Bank, and now was an Allied high commissioner with access to the White House. He was a voice of reason, a great human being, and a great American. McCloy and Adenauer were engaged at that time in important conversations about Germany’s future. It was at the Petersberg and in Bonn/Bad Godesberg that they began thinking about implementation of the Schumann Plan’s provisions for sharing coal and steel resources. This plan laid the foundation for what became later the European Coal and Steel Community in 1953 and then led to the European Economic Community in 1957 (what is

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now the European Union). Everybody—Germans and Western allies alike—was trying to encourage this development.

The One-Page Rule One of the things that I learned in my Petersberg experience was to prove invaluable over the years. My boss, Joe Slater, told me that High Commissioner McCloy read only one-page reports. You could include attachments, but you had to state everything for consideration of the AHC on a single page. I said, “I can’t do that. These are laws. These are important. You need space to write and explain these things.” “If you don’t learn that, you don’t stay in the job,” he said. So I learned very quickly how to say what I needed to say on one page. I tell my interns today, “I could put the Bible on one page. You have to learn this skill too.” So everyone that has worked for me since then has had to learn how to put everything on one page. What this requires a person to do is to think before writing. Very few people do that. They start writing and think along the way. In my Petersberg days, I became very good at thinking carefully about what I wanted to say and then cramming it all on one page: statement of the problem; background of the issue; and recommendations for action—all on one page.

Another Transition: From Germany to France I spent five and a half years in Germany working on rebuilding the country. In 1952, my boss Joe Slater was invited by General William Draper, the newly appointed czar for the Marshall Plan in Paris, to be his executive secretary. Joe asked me to go with him and I accepted. That is how I became involved with the Marshall Plan and NATO—the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. My family and I moved to Paris, where we enjoyed two and a half exciting years in that beautiful city. Before starting my work in Paris I was able to make all the necessary arrangements to be admitted to practice law before the U.S. Supreme Court.

PARIS The Marshall Plan and the Special Representative for Europe: USRO A new institutional framework was created in Paris by Washington as a result of the Marshall Plan. It was called USRO, the United States Regional Organization. General William Draper became Ambassador Draper

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and was in charge of USRO as the special representative for Europe (SRE). He had two career U.S. ambassadors from the State Department as his deputies. I was assigned to General Draper’s office as part of his personal secretariat on April 13, 1952. We were located in downtown Paris next to the U.S. Embassy at 2, rue de Talleyrand and across from the Petit Palais Museum. USRO was the first effort of the United States at managing a regionwide structure, as it was learning how to become a superpower. The U.S. government had to start thinking of Western Europe as a whole. I became a great admirer of General Draper. He had been an investment banker, a general in the military specializing in finance, and now he was the SRE. He was low-key, brilliant, firm, and knew how to listen. A rare combination. It was a privilege to be working for him. The man had more power than any American in the world, outside of Washington, D.C., and much more power than most people in Washington. He was the U.S. Ambassador to NATO and to the OEEC (Organization for European Economic Cooperation), which was created at the request of General George C. Marshall to be the structure that the Marshall Plan funds would flow into. Draper was responsible for all Marshall Plan money and the allocation of that money to the Western European governments who were members of the OEEC. Everybody in Europe visited Draper to plead their particular case about their particular needs. These new institutions were beginning to make an impact by 1952. To put this in perspective: In 1952, 3.25 percent of our gross national product went to the Marshall Plan and to aid for Japan. Today, our aid to the world is 0.18 percent! The whole endeavor was a major nationwide commitment by the people of the United States to rebuild Western Europe and Japan. This action to rebuild and forgive our enemies—just a few years after the most violent war in history—is also unprecedented. Draper’s was an action-oriented office because he had the power and money in his own hands. He didn’t have to go back to Washington for authority. That is the key difference compared to aid structures that were set up later. He had the authority, he had the ear of the president, and he used that authority efficiently. There were U.S. aid missions and embassies across Western Europe but all the money went to the SRE, all the power resided in Draper. It was a unique structure in our history as a nation, and it worked beautifully. In addition, General Draper played a critical role in the establishment of NATO and the development of its policies and strategies as it began to face off against the Soviet Empire.

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I became an expert in working in the SRE Secretariat. The job was to move reports and paperwork and to try to help top people do a better job through vetting what they were supposed to look at.

Family Life in Paris; Our Fourth Child Arrives We had a wonderful time in Paris as a family in spite of the fact that we lived in three different places in two and a half years. Our first year we lived in the village of Herblay sur Seine, thirty minutes by train from Paris. It was ten acres of semi-forest on the River Seine and a twelve-room, threestory haunted house. Then we moved to the apartment of the former U.S. labor attaché, in the communist section of Paris, at 70, avenue de la République. Finally, we spent the last few months in a beautiful, modern apartment built for U.S. government employees near the Bois de Boulogne. Laura, the youngest of our four children, was born on September 22, 1952, while we were in Paris. Barbara wanted to give birth to the baby in Wiesbaden, Germany, at the same U.S. Air Force Hospital where Kathleen had been born in August 1949. I agreed to make the eight-hour drive several weeks before the baby was due. On arrival the doctor told me I should go back to Paris because the baby would not arrive for two weeks. On my return to Paris I found a message saying I was the proud father of a baby girl! Clearly the eight-hour drive had sped things up because the roads were not that smooth. We lived among the French people. Lynn and Jim were in French schools. Kathleen was still at home. Our dog, a boxer with the impressive name of Eitel von Finsterheim, most enjoyed life in the countryside where he got us into trouble several times by stealing a neighbor’s “best rabbit,” for which we had to pay dearly. We learned a great deal during this assignment, traveled the country whenever possible, and had a wonderful time getting to know one of the great cities of the world.

The McCarthy Period During the time I was in Europe, something happened in the United States that one doesn’t usually talk about. In October of 1951, the Mutual Security Agency was established in Washington, D.C. It oversaw, among others, the numerous missions under USRO, NATO, and OEEC. Its first leader was W. Averell Harriman, followed by Harold Stassen in November

Figure 2.5.

A garden picnic at the McDonald home in Herblay s/ Seine, outside Paris, 1953

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1952. In June 1953, Stassen was directed by Congress to fire 10 percent of the MSA staff and to slash by a third the number of jobholders earning $12,000 a year or more in order to reduce expenses abroad. Half a dozen special agencies were consolidated. Because of his actions, his name became a verb that passed like wildfire from office to office. When he fired you, you were “Stassenated.” This happened during that terrible, black chapter in our history, the “McCarthy era.” Wisconsin senator Joseph P. McCarthy was convinced that almost every government official was a communist and that those working for the State Department were certainly communists. Congress seemed to agree because it did a remarkable thing. It passed a law that said Stassen personally had a thirty-day window in which he could fire anybody in an organization under MSA oversight, without appeal, and without giving a reason for that firing. That has never happened before in our democratic history, total power over everybody on his staff, worldwide, regardless of civil service or diplomatic status. Rumor had it, and I’m sure that it is correct, that every night he would take home a bunch of files, read through them, and come back the next day with red checkmarks and pass the word, “out.” No explanation to anybody, just “out.” I was in Paris during that period. Roy M. Cohn, chief counsel, and G. David Shine, chief consultant to Senator McCarthy’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, came to Paris to help Stassen. My boss, Joseph E. Slater, the man who brought me to Paris to work for General Draper, was on the “out” list. His principal deputy and my immediate boss, Maxwell McKnight, who was, among others, responsible for implementing all the paper work, got axed as well on the last day of the thirty-day period. I was very close to them both, and they were devastated, and so was I. Slater, it turned out, had attended a couple of rallies as a student at University of California-Berkeley in the early 1940s; some communists had also attended. It was the only thing he could think of. It must have appeared on his record. That was enough. McKnight didn’t have a clue as to why he was fired. He had been district attorney in New York City and had had a very distinguished career. To his death, he was unable to figure out what he had done. It was pretty terrible to see so many careers ruined. Nobody has ever, before or since, been given that kind of power, where all government rules and regulations were out the window, no appeal, nothing. Lives were destroyed in the name of anti-communism. General Draper personally fought for both of these men. He went to the president, went to the secretary of state; no appeal; nothing. Not one decision by Stassen was ever changed. Some forty people in Paris alone were fired.

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Foreigners thought we were crazy, absolutely crazy. They couldn’t understand what was going on. The double irony of this sad tale is that Roy Cohn was a homosexual and probably his associate Shine, was too—something that was abhorrent to Senator McCarthy, and yet they were both on his payroll.

THE POSTWAR YEARS IN EUROPE: REFLECTIONS AND LESSONS LEARNED Working Multilaterally I spent five and a half years in Germany and two and a half years in Paris during the defining eight years after World War II. For me, the pattern established in both countries of working multilaterally became a consistent pattern throughout my career. In Berlin I worked with four countries, in Bonn with three countries, and in Paris with fifteen countries. These years were focused on the idea of service, of trying to build a better world. We were doing something unique in history as a nation. We were helping our two former enemies: Japan and Germany. And I felt very proud to be a part of that process. Three years as district attorney were quite unusual but great for learning about people. It certainly was not the normal path of the career Foreign Service. In fact, I’ve always had an unusual career path in the Foreign Service.

Germany Then and Iraq Now Even though Iraq is a totally different scene from postwar Germany and Japan, many lessons could have been learned. During the ten years we occupied Germany, not a single American soldier was killed by the Germans. Compare that with the daily death toll in Iraq in 2006 and 2007. The German people were so happy to be saved from the Soviets and from Hitler that they looked on the Americans as liberators and future friends. I firmly believe that a far more careful study of our occupation of Germany and Japan would have prevented us from making many of the mistakes that we made getting ready for Iraq. I think we unwisely rejected lessons from the past. The most egregious story, which is already in print elsewhere, is the following. In April 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell set up twenty task forces in the State Department to look at postwar Iraq, because that was State’s responsibility as it has been after every war. In January 2003, Presi-

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dent George W. Bush signed an executive order saying that the Pentagon was responsible for postwar Iraq, not the State Department. The same military leaders that were fighting the war were to be responsible for the postwar period by executive order from the president—a serious error in judgment. Secretary Powell, the good soldier that he was, told the secretary of defense about his task forces and offered the task forces and staff to help the Pentagon approach this particular problem. In fact, two State Department senior staff went over to the Pentagon to talk to people and offer them their services. They literally were escorted out of the Pentagon and told not to come back: their views were not needed, the Pentagon was in control. For me, as a former prosecuting attorney, that was a criminal offence called dereliction of duty. That is how serious I consider that action to be. That wrong-headed decision started us off on the wrong foot as a nation, and we never recovered. We have made many more mistakes since then. Books are being written about those mistakes. The State Department story is now public knowledge. Bob Woodward recounted it in his book Plan of Attack. But I knew about it long ago before from people who had been escorted out of the building. Another difference between postwar Germany and Iraq: looting. I was shocked that the looting of Baghdad after the military victory was not stopped. We had over 130,000 troops there in total control. They did not lift a finger to stop the looting. Nothing like this ever happened in occupied Germany. I still don’t understand why we allowed this looting to take place—especially of the museums. We seemed to be in control in Germany but not in Iraq. Of course, what to do with Germany after the war had been discussed and planned and had been part of the occupation preparations for several years before the fighting stopped. No such discussions took place with regard to Iraq in the Pentagon. The raison d’être for the war was the supposed presence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. That was the whole rationale. I never believed it from day one. When the administration tried to link al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden with Saddam Hussein I just laughed. The two men hated each other and wouldn’t even speak to each other. Then there was the assertion by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that two trailers found in Iraq after the end of the original attack were capable of producing biological weapons of mass destruction. In effect, this whole thing was a farce. The Defense Intelligence Agency had sent a nine-person team to Iraq shortly after the trailers were found—a British expert and eight Americans, all knowledgeable in the area of bio weapons. Within four hours after they

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arrived and inspected the trailers they reported back to Washington that there was no possibility that these trailers could have produced bioweapons. A few days later they said that the trailers were designed to produce hydrogen for high wind weather balloons. No correlation whatsoever with biological weapons. This corrected story was issued by the CIA, but the White House and the Defense Department never changed their story. It is another example of how we were duped by the administration. Nothing like this ever happened in the occupation of Germany. It is certainly true that many people wanted to remove Saddam Hussein from power, and perhaps part of what motivated them was the memory of fighting Adolf Hitler. But we did not have to go to war to achieve that end. And if war is called for, an exit strategy must be planned. For example, in Germany a whole section of the occupation focused on rewriting the laws that Hitler had changed. In Iraq, the same thing could have been done from day one. Another example. We developed a clear concept of de-Nazification. Key people who had been members of the Nazi Party were identified. Every German had to fill out a questionnaire, if they wanted a job anywhere in occupied Germany. In contrast, de-Baathification was botched dramatically in Baghdad. I have never seen those twenty State Department task force reports because they have never been made public, but I’m sure the appropriate issues were covered—whether, for example, a criminal court system should be established. I talked to a person knowledgeable about Iraq a little while ago and learned that the occupation has not established a criminal court system in Iraq. So whatever courts are prosecuting are all Iraqi courts, and there are no Americans involved. At least in Germany we were impartial, or evenhanded, because we applied the German criminal code together with American criminal procedure. We had jurisdiction over all Allied civilians, displaced persons, and Germans who violated occupation law. To this day, there’s no similar court system or U.S. court system in Iraq. There are lessons from postwar Germany that at least could have been explored. There are always a range of systems or approaches available. The U.S. occupation in Iraq may have decided not to adopt what we did in Germany, but if they didn’t even know what we did—that is a pretty sad commentary.

Leaving Behind a Peaceful Community I was astonished when President Bush stated publicly after the war in Iraq was over, “We’ll be out of there in a year.” Two days after I read that

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in the Washington Post, I was lecturing to a class at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, which is part of the U.S. National Defense University. I lecture there three or four times a year to colonels and a few senior civilians who take a year-long course to educate them about a different way of facing conflict. I told them how astonished I was when I read Bush’s statement. I said, “I estimate the occupation will last for twenty years, a generation. And you’re going to be a part of that, and you’ve got to realize that this is no one-year thing.” I reminded the colonels that the military usually wants to know what its exit strategy is going to be when they become involved in a conflict. This is a very reasonable thing to do. But they should realize that the only exit strategy that ever works when a country, area, or region has been occupied is to leave behind a peaceful community. If they can’t do that, the odds are that they will have to go back a few years later to resolve the conflict that has broken out again. It is critical for the military to understand the importance of building a peaceful community after the conflict dies down. This is a powerful lesson, but the Pentagon hasn’t learned it yet, even though we have 7,000 troops in Bosnia, ten years after the Dayton Accords were signed!

3 DEVELOPING A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Washington, D.C., 1954–1959

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hen you returned to the United States, after almost eight years in Europe, the U.S. perspective on Europe and the world was different, domestic and foreign policy had changed focus.What had changed for you and what was your focus then? Your assignments in Washington offered a great opportunity to analyze world events quickly and put them into a relevant perspective.What were some of the major issues that U.S. foreign policy, President Truman or President Eisenhower, were especially concerned with during those times? What new ideas did you try out? And how would you characterize that period?

THE STATE DEPARTMENT: OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE At the end of November of 1954, I was invited to come back to Washington, D.C., to the State Department, to work in the office of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Based on my previous executive secretary experiences, I was assigned to the Policy Reports and Operations Staff, in the Executive Secretariat of the Department of State. Before I could begin work, I had to undergo a new security clearance investigation. The McCarthy shadow still loomed. The security officers unearthed one of the crimes I had committed when I was in Paris, which proved to them that I was a communist: I had lived in the communist sector of Paris! It turns out that the communist sector of Paris was more than half of Paris, at that time. But, as I mentioned earlier, I was living in an apartment that the U.S. Embassy had assigned to me. The U.S. labor attaché had formerly occupied it. When he was transferred, the apartment happened to be open when my family and I needed 45

Figure 3.1. Virginia

Lynn, Jim, Kathleen, and Laura McDonald at Easter 1956—for the first time living all together as a family in Arlington,

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a place to live. I went where I was assigned. I had no choice. I told the security officers that this charge was ridiculous. The government had put me in that apartment and they could not now accuse me of being a communist because I happened to go where the government sent me. I finally was recleared. The incident shows the mentality that existed in early 1955 at the State Department in Washington, D.C. In fact, I found the atmosphere of suspicion so unpleasant that I toyed with the idea of leaving the Foreign Service and returning to Illinois. I even began a job search but dropped the idea after being told that I would work in Secretary Dulles’s office.

GLOBAL BRIEFING OFFICER During the year I spent in Secretary Dulles’s office, I was a top-secret briefing officer and later became his global briefing officer—a job that I created and really enjoyed. My main responsibility was to be available, at an instant’s notice, to give a global briefing to some high-level visitor who had come to the seventh floor of the State Department for a meeting and wanted insight into this conflict or that problem. I had to be up to date literally on a daily basis. I became a public speaker for visiting dignitaries. I would take them into a briefing room, lined with maps on the wall, and, in a forty-five-minute period, I would give them a current update on what was happening in various areas of interest to the United States. Part of that year, I also wrote the daily top-secret summary of world events for Secretary Dulles. I got up every morning at 4 AM to have the reports on his desk by 8 AM. I was also involved in other activities. One of them was rather unusual. Herbert Hoover Jr. was the deputy secretary, number two in the State Department. It soon became evident that Hoover was not that knowledgeable about foreign affairs. My boss, Ken Scott, the executive secretary to the secretary of state, called me in one day and spoke very frankly about Hoover’s limitations. He wanted me to be responsible for educating Hoover. Because my role as global briefing officer required me to be up to date on all the critical issues facing the State Department and because I had access to all the cable traffic and other highly classified information, I came up with the idea of developing a special, top-secret briefing book just for Deputy Secretary Hoover. The briefing book, which was issued on a weekly basis, contained six-month predictions as to what part of the world would blow up, or what part of the world would become a problem, or

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which current problem would need the attention of the secretary and the deputy secretary of state. I had a special green leather folder made with twenty pages in it: one page per crisis. I summarized twenty of the world’s problems. This was an art form I had learned in Germany under John J. McCloy. With fear and trepidation, I gave Hoover the first issue. He fell in love with it and bragged about his book so much that soon everybody on the seventh floor, all the principals, were getting a copy too.

AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY DURING THE MID-1950S By the mid-1950s America’s work of building Western Europe and Japan was gradually winding down and we began to think seriously about the rest of the world. The major focus of our attention was, of course, the Soviet Empire and its threat to the United States and Western Europe. This meant we also had to follow the antics of the Soviets and their minions across the Third World, also called the developing world. This is where International Cooperation Administration (ICA) came into action. Point Four, the earliest aid program of the United States, began in 1949 under President Harry S. Truman and focused on Latin America. It was primarily comprised of small-scale technical assistance projects but it was a most useful beginning. Because President Truman had mentioned the program in his inauguration speech in 1949 as the fourth of his foreign policy objectives, it was named Point Four. Our government bureaucracy did not realize the vast difference between Western Europe and the Third World. In Europe we were rebuilding a destroyed infrastructure. In the Third World there was little infrastructure to begin with. We had to start from scratch. In Europe we were dealing with a highly skilled work force and highly educated and well trained people at all levels of society. They just wanted to feed, house, and clothe themselves and get back to work. In most of the developing world there were very, very few skilled people to work with, and one had to start with basics. When the Belgians left the Congo in 1960, for example, there were six college graduates in the whole, vast country, three and a half times the size of Texas! The United States was looking beyond Europe to other countries and regions. Even at that time, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos were the focus of some attention, and we gave great assistance to South Korea after our devastating war there. Critics called South Korea a “basket case” and said it was impossible to save. We disagreed, and look at Korea today! The Middle East

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was a key area. We spent a lot of effort on helping Iran. In 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower had to force our allies, Britain and France, to back off in a dispute with Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser over control of the Suez Canal. Central America always presented problems because of continuous local unrest. Africa was more or less ignored, although we were trying to help Ghana, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Also, Dulles was starting to consider the formation of other regional alliances like the Baghdad Pact and ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty) in his constant focus on how to contain the communist threat to the United States and the world.

Executive Secretary to the Administrator of the International Cooperation Administration In mid-1955, John B. Hollister was appointed the administrator of the International Cooperation Administration (ICA) that took over from FOA (Foreign Operations Administration) as the international aid agency. Hollister was a lawyer from Ohio, a conservative Republican, and at that point opposed to the concept of foreign aid. Ken Scott, my boss at the State Department, was asked to be the director of management for the new agency, the number-three position. He decided to take me with him as executive secretary to the new administrator. Fortunately for me, Hollister remembered receiving a global briefing from me and agreed to the assignment. On January 19, 1956, I was sworn in after having been the acting executive secretary of the agency since September of the previous year. I became the first Foreign Service officer ever assigned by the State Department to ICA. I was temporarily promoted five grades, in the civil service context, from a GS-12 to a GS-17, a super-grade position. This was a great career leap, which was both sudden and rather dramatic. I had a staff of thirty-five people, and we were involved in supporting the top-level staff of ICA. In my opinion, ICA, and later USAID—the U.S. Agency for International Development, which succeeded ICA in 1962, can take an enormous amount of pride and credit for the re-creation and restructuring of a number of developing countries around the world. Most of the people involved in these programs, the people I knew and worked with, felt that we were making a major humanitarian commitment to the Third World. We were helping new and old nations find their way and move gradually up the ladder into the more developed world.

Figure 3.2. John W. McDonald (middle) is sworn in as executive secretary of the International Cooperation Administration (ICA) on January 19, 1956

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In the late 1950s, the State Department had literally no interest in and no talent for development assistance programs. There were no economists in the State Department involved in developmental issues. Economists and financial experts reported on the situation in their country of assignment, but development assistance was not a part of their scene. They were always dismissive of the subject and looked down on ICA staff as lesser beings whose work was not important. I totally disagreed with this approach and tried to do something about it. I brought three brilliant, young Foreign Service Officers from State onto my staff. I remember Bob Brewster, who worked for me and later became not only an ambassador but also chief of personnel for the whole Foreign Service. Bob Keeley and Roger Kirk joined me and later became distinguished ambassadors. I wanted to help them to expand their horizons. The job was practical, hands-on reality. These young officers learned how to manage staff, write succinctly, and interact with top American and foreign officials. As junior Foreign Service officers, they were called upon to brief the administrator or deputy administrator of ICA on particular issues or on areas involving their own expertise. I tried to bring some area expertise into the secretariat so that these young officers could learn how to handle issues concerning Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It was a great opportunity and they loved it. They were much more open to new ideas than most State Department people.

THE INCREASED IMPORTANCE OF DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE Friends at State considered me to be out of my mind to have taken the position at ICA. In fact, it was one of the best career moves I ever made because I learned so much. And when I brought these young officers to my office their colleagues told them how unwise they were. But, years later, all three told me that their experience with ICA was one they would never have gotten anywhere else. They thanked me for giving them this opportunity. In the 1960s, the State Department began to realize that not paying attention to the whole business of development was detrimental and began to expand its horizons. For a long time State had denied itself this opportunity. It had been invited but had said, “No thanks.” When Hollister became ICA’s administrator, I think he intended to abolish the agency. However, within six months he became ICA’s foremost

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advocate. It was the fastest conversion that I’ve ever seen! A total reversal. He was opposed to foreign aid until he had a chance to see it in practice. He learned fast. One of the first things I did was to help him understand what we were doing. After all I had helped Hoover. I wanted to get Hollister and his delightful wife out into the field to see things they had never seen before. Over the next six months I arranged several regional ICA mission directors’ meetings in the field and several other international trips for both of them. I took a headquarters team along on these trips and we visited Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Hollister came back a total convert. It was a mind-boggling experience for him and his wife. For example, on our Africa swing in 1956, we visited Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Sudan. Several of these countries were a part of the British Empire and were due to become independent nations in a few years as that empire was beginning to shrink. In some instances, we dined with the British governor, or high commissioner, just before the country was being handed over to the respective local government. That was an exciting period in history, actually to see the British Empire handing over the reins to countries that used to be their colonies. Everybody knew the empire would be gone in a matter of a few years. The British were eager for the United States to pick up some of the slack. We were very well received. The local leaders themselves were also very welcoming. When we were in Addis Ababa, for example, the whole party had dinner with Emperor Haile Selassie I. The national leadership in the countries we visited had seen what we had done in Europe with the Marshall Plan and they wanted help too. With that personal experience, Hollister came back to Washington and told Congress about the need to concentrate more on the problems of the developing world and to develop projects and programs for those countries. He became one of ICA’s greatest defenders on Capitol Hill and was actually able to increase the organization’s budget. Congress was surprised at Hollister’s conversion. He knew people all over the Republican political system and was very influential within the party. He was then in his mid-sixties. He had had his career as a successful lawyer and politician, and Congress listened to him with respect. With my encouragement, from time to time he took several members of Congress along with him on trips, and he got the money he needed for his agency! South Korea is a good example of ICA’s work. Some called South Korea a “basket case,” but ICA took on the challenge of helping to raise it up. C. Tyler Wood had been mission director in South Korea for several years

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when he came back to Washington to head the Office of Policy Planning. Wood had been a major player in the Marshall Plan days and knew his business. James C. Warren had also served as mission director in South Korea and later in Iran. These two brilliant leaders decided to focus on basic education, training, and infrastructure rebuilding after the Korean War. They recognized that until the dams, roads, and schools were built, until the fertilizer plants and power plants were up and running, development was not going to happen. At the same time, they also were feeding people. But the principal need in that war-torn country was basic infrastructure. Wood’s and Warren’s efforts laid the foundation for the explosive growth of South Korea in later decades. Theirs was a very well designed program, from my perspective. From its beginnings, ICA focused on drinking water and sanitation, health, education, and agriculture. There were abysmal levels of literacy and high mortality, especially among children. These areas became important parts of the aid program. The U.S. government had learned a lot from Point Four and applied those lessons worldwide later. The major thrust in the early years of ICA was with the collapsed British Empire, and Liberia, which has strong U.S. ties. Our effort in francophone Africa came later and was limited. The French did not welcome us at all. They didn’t want our experts in their colonies or our aid missions in their countries. They were standoffish. We started helping the Belgian and Portuguese colonies because they were so desperate for assistance. Human rights, religion, and democratization were rarely discussed. They were not a part of the program then but would be focused on later.

PIONEERING “CRAZY” IDEAS In late 1957, Hollister moved back to Ohio, and James H. Smith, Jr., a developer from Aspen, Colorado, took over as ICA administrator. He was a much younger man and a liberal Republican with an open-mindedness that I enjoyed. We clicked and he asked me to stay on as his executive secretary. He was receptive to new ideas, so I decided to test the waters. By this time, my former boss in Paris, General William Draper, had retired and settled in Washington, D.C. He decided to dedicate his remaining years to the problems of world population growth and formed his own NGO called the Population Crisis Committee. We got together with my other old boss from Paris, Joe Slater, and decided to try to get ICA involved in global family planning.

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We put together a modest proposal and I arranged for us to meet with Smith, who thought it was a great idea and took it to President Dwight Eisenhower. Although Eisenhower liked the idea personally, he turned it down as too risky politically. He believed that Congress would not approve the funding we needed. Later, when John F. Kennedy became president, USAID, the successor to ICA, finally backed into the family planning business. The agency granted Turkey money to buy fifty jeeps to take doctors to villages and AID hoped these doctors would talk about family planning. In 1958 I tried out another idea on Smith. I brought a small solar cooker into his office, boiled some water, and brewed two cups of tea. I wanted his approval to invest in this new but cheap and practical way to save fuel at the village level in many developing countries. He enjoyed the tea and loved the solar cooker, but, after checking with his more conservative top advisers, he rejected the idea. He thought Congressman Otto Passman, the conservative chairman of the House subcommittee responsible for reviewing ICA’s budget, would have a heart attack if he got wind of this “crazy way of wasting the taxpayers’ money.” A few months later I tried out another crazy idea. King Idris of Libya had repeatedly asked ICA for help in bringing fresh drinking water to his palace and to Tripoli. This could be a very expensive undertaking. I quietly suggested, “Why not try a New England dowser instead?” One particular dowser had found fresh water all over New England. Smith agreed to try him out, if we could keep the whole project a secret. The dowser and two assistants went to Libya. Unfortunately, the water they found had a little too much salt in it to satisfy the king. However, I have always honored Smith’s willingness to take the risk that he did. The project has remained a secret until this moment! During this time, I was asked by Colonel A. J. Goodpaster, who was then assigned to the White House, to help him establish an executive secretariat in the White House. I was delighted and honored to do so and worked for some weeks on the project. (Colonel Goodpaster later became a four-star general.) Sherman Adams, a close personal friend of President Eisenhower, and officially special assistant to the president and White House chief of staff, wrote me a beautiful letter on White House stationery commending me for my work. With some pride I sent this to be included in my personnel file at the State Department. Three weeks after I had received the letter, the Washington Post reported that Adams had received a vicuna coat as a gift from someone he had helped based on his position at the White House. The next day, President Eisenhower fired Sherman Adams. The high standard of ethics in the Eisenhower White House was remark-

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able. I wondered about the future usefulness of my letter of recommendation from Adams.

ANTI-COMMUNISM: U.S. FOREIGN POLICY FROM 1946 TO 1991 Over the forty-five-year period from 1947 until the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1991, the driving force behind U.S. foreign policy was anti-communism. If a country was anti-communist, no matter what else it was, it was okay, and we supported it. A country was either for us or against us, either anti-communist or supportive of communism. That simplistic idea was our defining policy. For example, we supported Paraguay, which was led by one of the most vicious dictators in the world. He was anti-communist, therefore we were for him. His actions didn’t bother us at all. It was the same across the world. The Paraguayan dictator was just one of many. Of course, the United States has been criticized for that misguided foreign policy in recent years, as it should be. As for me personally, working with our aid agency made me into a global thinker or strategist. I have maintained that global outlook since 1955, when I first became involved in development assistance. When I retired from the State Department in 1987, I wondered what to call myself on my calling card. I finally came up with “Global Strategist,” which still sounds pretty good. Not enough people in the United States think globally.

4 WORKING IN TURKEY, IRAN, AND PAKISTAN 1959–1962

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ou had been with the International Cooperation Administration in Washington for three and a half years; you had four children; Eisenhower was still president. His focus was to ease tensions with the Soviets, and, on the home front, he pushed for desegregation of schools and the armed forces. In the early sixties, decolonization, especially in Africa, was in full swing.And what was in store for you at that time? Generally, only children of diplomats and career military officers can appreciate what it means to grow up outside the United States and what a privilege it is to be exposed to different languages and cultures.What did your assignment during those first four years in the Middle East entail?

ANKARA U.S. Economic Coordinator Accredited to the Central Treaty Organization In late 1958, the powers that be decided it was time for me to go overseas again. In response to a request from Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, the International Cooperation Administration—ICA—decided to create a regional office, based in Ankara, Turkey. Working in that office was to be my next assignment. I was accredited to Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan for four years and then to Egypt for four more years (my experiences in Egypt are covered in chapter 5). My wife Barbara, our four children, Lynn, Jim, Kathleen, and Laura, and I arrived in Ankara on January 1, 1959. We were welcomed by the

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deputy chief of mission from the U.S. Embassy and provided with a lovely home, right across the street from a riding academy. The Office of the U.S. Coordinator to the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) was the first regional office in ICA’s history. I became the U.S. Economic Coordinator to CENTO and reported to the U.S. ambassadors and the ICA mission directors in Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan—to six persons. It meant, in fact, that I was my own boss. These six men did not want to be bothered with my problems; they just wanted progress reports. I started out with an assistant, Berger Indseth, and a secretary. At the end of four years, I had branch offices in Tehran and Karachi, staffed with some fifty Americans, three airplanes, and some 10,000 people working on our projects. In addition, I was the ICA contract officer, authorized to spend funds without contacting Washington. This post presented me with a great career opportunity to make things happen in the field. The State Department did not recognize this, however. At ICA, my ranking was GS-17 super-grade, but in Ankara, I was a middle-grade State Department Foreign Service Officer-Class 3 (FSO-3), still paid by ICA. There were six FSO grades at that time, with FSO-6 at the bottom. I was in the middle ranks in spite of my responsibilities. I did not complain, however, because I loved the work and the challenges. I remember having a major series of battles with the ICA mission director in Ankara. He kept insisting I had to report to him. I refused. He finally received instructions from headquarters that I was right because the terms of reference for the office had been approved by the secretary of state himself.

Mission of the Central Treaty Organization CENTO was created by Secretary of State Dulles in 1955 to thwart the Soviet’s long-term objective of expanding its empire southward and taking over the Middle East’s oil. It was part of Dulles’s Cold War strategy. He also created SEATO in Asia—the South East Asia Treaty Organization. CENTO was originally called the Baghdad Pact. It was a mutual cooperation and protection agreement between Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1958, when the King of Iraq was killed, the new government dropped out of the organization, and a few months later, CENTO’s headquarters, which were in Baghdad, were moved to Ankara where it remained for twenty-one years. Bringing Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan together in an allied position was a very interesting effort on the part of Dulles. While they had been neighbors since they were created as nation states, they had never really commu-

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nicated with each other or trusted each other. The United States provided most of the money for CENTO projects.

Family Life in Turkey A key problem for my family was the education of our children. By the end of the first spring semester we decided that the local American school was not up to par. I announced to the four children, “You have two choices. You go to the school at the German Embassy, or you go to school at the French Embassy. You decide which language you want to learn because they only teach in their respective languages. There is no English instruction.” Kathleen decided to go to the French School, and the other three went to the German Embassy. It was tough going at first but they persevered and did well. They still speak those languages because they learned them at the right age. We loved our four years in Turkey and related well to the people and Turkish culture. We traveled with tent and bedrolls all across the country. In those days tourists had not yet discovered Turkey. The only Western-style hotels were in Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir. If you wanted to travel, camping was the only way. There were more Greek city-states in what is now Turkey than there were in Greece, and I think we visited them all. Eating out was an experience. We always were invited into the kitchen to choose what we wanted from the food being cooked. We loved the food, and no one ever became sick. Shopping in the markets and the bazaars was also a great experience for the whole family. The kids learned the art of negotiation at an early age.

PROJECTS TO BRING THE COUNTRIES IN THE REGION TOGETHER Linking Ankara with Tehran by Railroad To meet the challenge of getting CENTO countries to work together, I developed several major projects and a number of small-scale technical assistance projects. It was a fascinating management experience. The projects were eventually all completed successfully and are still operating to this day. My first major assignment was to build a 350-mile railroad that would link Turkey and Iran for the first time in history. I don’t think that any diplomat in the history of the United States has ever built a railroad. It is a great story. In 1936, the Reza Shah of Iran, the founder of modern Iran,

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and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, signed a treaty agreeing to link their two capitals, Ankara and Tehran, by a 1,500-mile long railroad designed to improve communication between the two countries. They each started building the railroad shortly thereafter. Construction stopped during World War II but started up again after the war until the two countries ran out of money. Secretary Dulles’s primary goal for CENTO was to complete that railroad. I was basically sent out to get the job done. By the time I arrived in Ankara, a U.S. engineering firm had been hired to re-survey the route. A four-country engineering team was organized to survey the most challenging mountain terrain dividing the two countries, with a special focus on the Kotur Canyon, the most difficult part of the route. We were about forty people in the group, all on horseback, with tents and so forth. About half way through the canyon, we came across a tomb. It turned out to be a tomb of one of Alexander the Great’s generals whose army had passed through there in 331 BC on the way to what is now Tehran. His army was to meet another army going through Damascus. They did meet and conquered Iran. As an amateur archeologist I was very excited about that find. Once we arrived in Tehran, I held a press conference to talk about the railroad and the good things it would bring to both countries. At the end of my comments, I mentioned that we had come across the tomb of one of Alexander the Great’s generals, dating back to 331 BC. The very next day, the headlines in the Tehran newspapers talked about an Imperialist— that was me—who reminded them of their defeat at the hands of Alexander the Great in 331 BC. They hardly mentioned the railroad. This was a great lesson for me. I realized, vividly, that people never forget their history, particularly when they were defeated in battle. It was also on this trip through the canyon that our group was honored by one village chief. He ordered a sheep to be slaughtered in honor of our arrival and a feast was held that evening for the whole party. As the honored guest and chief of party I was required, by the custom of the area, to eat the eyes of the sheep. I did so by imagining they were like oysters. It worked. The 350-mile railroad was designed to link Erzurum in Turkey with Tabriz in Iran. It presented several major engineering challenges that required innovative solutions. Part of that 350-mile stretch was Lake Van, which is one of the highest and largest lakes in the world. It lies at an altitude of about 5,000 feet, is about eighty miles long and is ringed by mountains. Mount Ararat is visible in the distance. There was no way we could build a railroad around the lake. Instead we built a railroad car ferry that would cross the lake from Tatvan to Van. The ferry was built in Istanbul, then transported, piece by piece, across the country and assembled in

Figure 4.1.

Inspection of the progress for the railroad bed in Eastern Turkey, July 1960 (John W. McDonald on the left)

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Figure 4.2. Linking East and West: A group of Iranian (left) and Turkish (right) railroad officials stand with hands on the border marker of the Turkish-Iranian border with John W. McDonald between them

Tatvan. A port had to be built at each end of the lake to hold the ferry. The other major challenge was construction of a giant bridge across a part of the Kotur Canyon in Iran. That took extra time and extra money. Across the plains of Eastern Turkey, winters are severe. The working season for building the railroad was restricted. We had to build snow tunnels right in the middle of the flat wheat fields; otherwise the strong winter winds would dump mounds of snow over the railroad tracks. These were enormous tasks and very costly. The engineers that both the countries provided were fascinated by the challenges.

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Later, in 1976, my wife Christel and I took a ride on the completed railroad. We crossed Lake Van on the ferry (and still keep in touch with the ferry captain). It was exciting to see it all finished. It wasn’t finished in the four years I was there, though I had ensured that the funding was secured.

Linking CENTO Countries with New Communication Systems Another project designed to bring the CENTO countries together was construction of a 3,000-mile-long, line-of-sight, microwave system, which was basically a backbone telephone system, linking the three capitals: Ankara, Tehran, and Karachi. This was another major project approved by CENTO’s Economic Committee. The system consisted of 103 towers on tops of mountains and across deserts; radio microwaves were transmitted from tower to tower. The United States was responsible for the aerial identification of the sites for the towers—two aircraft were assigned to me for that purpose—and for all of the microwave equipment, which was provided by the American corporation RCA. The three host countries had to build the access roads and the small buildings to house the equipment and the towers. Planning and coordination at the local and the national level were often complicated. Cooperation was essential. I organized and chaired monthly meetings in all three countries, bringing all parties together on a regular basis to ensure coordination and cooperation. A third major construction project took advantage of the microwave project. In those days there were no air-to-ground communications in the region to help aircraft find their way, especially in stormy weather. Several U.S. commercial aircraft had strayed into Soviet airspace and had been forced to land in Yerevan. The air space between the Soviet Union and Iraq was only fifty miles wide where Turkey and Iran met. We set up a major air-to-ground communication system along the whole 3,000-mile length of the microwave project. As a result of this project, I suddenly was named by the U.S. FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) as chief of a regional CAAG (Civil Aviation Advisory Group) with U.S. and local staff in all three countries reporting to me.

Funding and Coordination These projects were funded by ICA and later by USAID. I became the contract officer in the field authorized to sign the multimillion dollar documents. The work was divided up: the United States, through my office, provided the foreign exchange needed for the steel rails, microwave equipment, and so on, and the governments of Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan provided the domestic labor and local materiel. For example, the railroad ministry of each

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nation physically built the railroad. I would deal with the ministers or with the chief engineers to ensure that the same criteria for track standards and other requirements were used in both countries.

ENCOURAGING AMBASSADORS AND MISSION DIRECTORS TO THINK REGIONALLY As U.S. economic coordinator to CENTO, I was the first to be charged with making a regional operation actually work. A true regional office had never been created before and for a very important reason. The ambassador, but particularly the ICA country mission director, who had all the money and staff allocated to “his” country, only thought about his country. I saw this all over the world. A map of his country would hang on the walls of a mission director’s office; no neighboring countries would be shown. That was his country and his total focus was that country. Cooperate with a country next door? It never crossed his mind. He was thinking only about the country he was in and was not interested in expanding his horizons beyond that. Here I was, a newcomer, asking mission directors and ambassadors to do something they had never dreamed of doing. Initially, they didn’t want to cooperate. But when the goal is to connect two countries by rail, or three countries by telephone, a mission director obviously has to think about more than his “turf.” It was a revolutionary concept. I was accused of trying to take the turf of mission directors and ambassadors away. But this was not the case. I was trying to build a broader vision. It took hours and hours of discussion on this issue to help them think regionally. It was only because I had a mandate signed by the secretary of state (I carried it around with me) that I was able to get away with what I did. So this was the first regional office in the history of U.S aid agencies, going back to the Marshall Plan, where there was a central core staff overseas. The U.S. Agency for International Development—USAID—which succeeded ICA in 1960, used my model in other places over the years and still does.

FROM BUILDING ENGINEERING PROJECTS TO BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS Overcoming Distrust in CENTO In CENTO there was a great deal of distrust between the three countries. The Turks didn’t like the Iranians and the Pakistanis didn’t like

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the Iranians and didn’t know the Turks who were too far away, so there was tension. I wanted to try to build trust among them and to improve their relationship. I decided to bring together professionals in a particular field from all three countries. As I was trying to organize this, I was told by people from all three countries that they would never learn how to work together. To address this issue, I decided to figure out which country was ahead of the other two in a particular field of economic development and then to host a workshop and dialogue in that country. Next, there would be an exchange of experts—experts from the host country would visit the other two countries to see how they handled the same issues. We would repeat that, rotating among countries, depending on their expertise.

The Mining Symposium The first experiment was a symposium on minerals in Turkey. The Turks had great coal mines and other mines that the other two countries could learn from. At the very beginning of that first gathering, the head of the Turkish delegation came up to me and said, “You know, I don’t trust those Iranians. I don’t know why you are trying to get us together.” I said, “Well, I want you to learn about each other.” Ten minutes later the head of the Iranian delegation said to me privately, “You know, I don’t trust those Turks. I’m very skeptical about this meeting.” I said, “Well, just stay with it a while and see how it evolves.” The minerals symposium met for a week in Ankara with experts from the United States and the United Kingdom and talked about what was happening in Turkey and then Iran and Pakistan. We visited coal mines in Turkey and other places to see how the work was actually done. The key players then went to the other two countries. Mining experts from all three countries and from the United States and the United Kingdom traveled together to learn from each other. By the end of six weeks, skeptics had become friends for life. They had bonded.

The Preventive Medicine Symposium The second symposium was on preventive medicine. We found out that there were eighteen medical schools in the three countries. Only one school had a course in preventive medicine, and that was in Shiraz, in Iran.

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Figure 4.3. Dr. Carl Taylor, Johns Hopkins University (left), preparing for the Shiraz conference with John W. McDonald (second from left); Miss Mary Jo Kraft, Public Health Division, Washington, D.C.; and Dr. Nusret Fisek, dean of the School of Public Health and undersecretary of the Ministry of Health, Ankara

We gathered in Shiraz, using the same model used in the mining symposium: experts in the field from all five countries coming together. All eighteen deans came. They wanted to learn about this new field. I found out years later that whenever preventive medicine was mentioned it was always referred to as “pre-Shiraz” and “post-Shiraz.” Within five years, every one of the eighteen university medical schools had major courses and programs in preventive medicine.

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Changing the Agricultural Credit System I learned something important about farming because of one of the symposia. We brought together a group of agricultural economists—practical people from all three countries with the British and American experts. We were trying to figure out why agricultural productivity in the three developing countries was so low. Nobody knew why, but all agreed it shouldn’t have to be like that. I said, “I don’t have any answers, but I want you experts to try and find some. I want you to spend a month in each country. You just take your time, and you all go together.” So farmers and agricultural economists from five countries went to Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan. They visited universities and they talked with farmers working in their fields (they would sit down with a farmer for half a day with interpreters) to find out what the problems were. They finally came back and wrote up their report. What they found was that even though all three were Islamic countries and even though the Koran prohibits charging interest, farmers were being charged 100 percent interest—sometimes even more—on the seed and fertilizer and equipment that they needed. They were constantly paying off the debt and they couldn’t afford to buy adequate amounts of seed and fertilizer and other materials needed to boost production. Over 100 percent interest! That was the root cause of their very low productivity, but nobody in power knew that. The governments were in a state of shock when I sent them the report. They quoted the Koran, but I said, “I’ve read the Koran too, but this is not what is happening.” Within two years, agricultural banks were set up in each of the three countries to make controlled low-interest loans to the farmers. These took the place of the village money lenders. Productivity increased dramatically. This shows the value of getting an idea and going with it. It is possible to change whole systems. That is what I try to do.

Results of the Symposia I spent four years organizing these symposia on twenty different subjects and thoroughly enjoyed it. These symposia were a powerful learning experiences for everybody involved. Cultural barriers and differences melted away by the second or third day. When professionals in a particular field were brought together they had a common language, a common goal, a common belief system in what they were doing. They stayed away from politics. By bringing experts together, again and again, in a variety of fields, we helped to build productive relationships among the three countries.

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These symposia are just one example of bringing people together in a positive, constructive sense. We developed this very successful program to get people together so that they could talk to each other and come to understand each other. I found out immediately that if you bring people together at a professional level to talk about their particular concerns they forget about their other differences. I applied this technique over and over throughout my career, because it works and it’s so simple. In our symposia in Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan no political leaders or elected representatives were involved. Perhaps the minister of transport would participate, but he was an engineer and he knew about engineering. And that’s what we would focus on. All those medical doctors, they couldn’t care less about who was running the country. They wanted to learn about medicine and apply it in their own hospitals. Those were the levers that we manipulated. We always tried to maintain a balance among the three countries; we didn’t want them to think that we were putting one above the other two. I would say, “Look, each of you has your own background and history across the spectrum of development, some are stronger here and weaker there. What we are trying to do is learn from each other.” And they all appreciated it.

POLITICAL CONCERNS IN EASTERN TURKEY No Turk that I met in the central government had ever been east of Ankara because of the Kurds who lived there. Like a lot of New Yorkers who have never been west of the Mississippi, they had misperceptions about the unknown. Back in 1959, when I would announce to my Turkish friends that I was going to Diyarbakir or to Van or to Tatvan, they would always gasp. They would ask how I could possibly go there, and wasn’t I worried about my life. I worked in Eastern Turkey for four years and never had anything bad happen to me. I was always welcomed wherever I went. I had great relations with the Kurds in Turkey and in Iran. The Turks in the west did not go east. And of course that is where the great agricultural lands were that weren’t even being utilized appropriately in those days. Thirty percent of the population of Turkey is Kurdish. Unfortunately, the Turks have been very tough on the Kurds over the decades. For me, the root cause of the conflict in Turkey, to this day, is the fact that the Turkish government does not allow the Kurdish population to speak, read, or write Kurdish. The government will continue to have problems in the east until they agree to

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change the rules and assimilate that 30 percent of the population with the rest of the nation.

KNOWING THE LAW AND STRATEGIZING SOLUTIONS Since I was the contract officer for the projects, I was being watched very carefully by the Government Accounting Office (GAO). I remember being visited by someone from the GAO after we had signed the contract for the rails. I was accused of violating U.S. law. I asked, “What are you talking about?” They said, “The law requires you to buy in America. We believe that the requirement of U.S. purchase is critically important and you didn’t buy those steel rails from the United States. You bought them from Germany. Therefore you violated the law.” I said, “Well, there’s another section in that same law that you accuse me of violating which says that it’s essential that we buy at the lowest possible price. And Germany offered the lowest possible price on those steel rails. So I have not violated the law. The law may be inconsistent, but I have followed it.” I enjoyed that exchange very much because my accusers were forced to admit that I was right. I had not broken any law whatsoever. “Thank you, you’re right,” they said. “We’ll clarify the law in the future.” There’s another story about that railroad. We needed $21 million more to finish the linkage because a bridge that had to be built turned out to be far more costly than anticipated. I requested another $21 million as a loan, not as a grant, for finishing the railroad. By this time John F. Kennedy had become president. There was a new USAID administrator. His staff people, the economists, turned down the request, even though it was for a loan, not for a grant. I was told that we had not made a sufficient enough case. The project was not cost effective. I thought that was absurd. Here we had spent all that money and all those years to try to complete the project and they said that we hadn’t proved the need sufficiently. I came back to the States and argued about this. Unsuccessfully. I went to USAID and to the State Department. Nobody paid any attention. The administrator refused the loan. Another thing I’ve learned over the years: perseverance is critical. It’s also important not to accept no for an answer if you believe in what you’re doing. If you can’t go in the front door, go in through the back door, or through the window or whatever is needed to achieve your goal.

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I thought it was insane to have a group of economists who had never been outside of Washington, D.C., telling me that this was not feasible economically or justified from a cost-analysis point of view, especially after people had been working on the project since 1936. In addition to its Economic Committee, CENTO also had a military committee. A three-star general from each of the five nations sat on the committee. I knew two of the generals—the one from the United States and the one from Iran. I explained my case to each of them separately and urged them to pass a resolution in the military committee stating that the railroad project was essential from a military point of view because there had never been a railroad linking the two countries. It was the only way that heavy equipment, like tanks, could be transported back and forth. There also wasn’t any road connecting the two countries. The railroad was literally the only communication between the two countries at that point in time. I said, “What you’ve got to do is pass this resolution and then send it to the Pentagon. Ask the Pentagon to ask the State Department to tell USAID to give the $21 million to that project to finish the railroad.” The two generals said, “OK.” And within a month they had done all that I had suggested. The administrator of USAID was overruled by the secretary of state. We got the $21 million as a loan, and the railroad was completed. Ten years later, I met the administrator for the first time, and I mentioned the railroad, just in passing. He looked at me and said, “So you’re the guy!” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “In my six years as administrator I was never overruled by the State Department except that one time on that railroad, and I’ve never forgotten it.”

THE FIRST WRITTEN PEACE TREATY AND FIRST LAW SCENE Another story has some relevance here. In 1274 BC the Egyptians and the Hittites from central Turkey were fighting each other on the plains of what is now Syria in what was known as the Battle of Kadesh. They fought for days, but there was no victory. They ultimately fought to a standstill—neither side could win—and finally signed a peace treaty, a written document. Then they went home. To my knowledge it’s the first international peace treaty in history.

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On their return home, the Hittites built an enormous, beautiful entry gate to their capital city, Boghazkoy, in honor of their victory over the Egyptians. I have seen the gate: it must have been magnificent in its day. When the Egyptians returned home they built the splendid monument called Abu Simbel, along the Nile, in honor of their victory over the Hittites. I visited the monument before it was moved—because of the construction of the Aswan High Dam—and was greatly impressed with its beauty. Tell me what has changed? Not much. A plaque on our dining room wall depicts about a dozen prisoners being brought to the bar of justice in shackles. There is also a scribe with a pen behind his ear carrying an inkpot and his reference books. The Egyptian prisoners are being charged with grave robbing. The event recorded took place about 1450 BC. It is the first recorded law scene in history. I saw the original cartouche in one of the tombs in Sakara, south of Cairo, and I got the Cairo Museum to make a plaster copy of it. It’s interesting to see how far back grave robbing went in Egypt’s history.

INTEREST IN ARCHAEOLOGY During my years in the Middle East, my family and I actively pursued our interest in archaeology. We took a long trip to Jerusalem in 1959 and visited sites in Southern Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon along the way. My oldest daughter Lynn still remembers this trip vividly and how moved she was by the beauty of Jerusalem. We camped as a family around Turkey and later Egypt and loved to visit museums, ruins, and digs. In 1959, a group of British archaeologists explored one of the many hundreds of mounds all over Turkey. It was about fifty kilometers from Konya in the middle of the semi-arid desert. They gave a lecture in Ankara on this site before they went back to the United Kingdom. The site was quite old; they estimated it dated from about 7000 BC. A group of us from the international community got together a few weeks later and went to the site for the weekend just to see what it was like. There was no one within fifty kilometers, so we camped there and had a great time exploring. I discovered and gradually uncovered a wall painting in an open room on the side of the mound. It was about five feet long and two feet high. The paint was paper-thin—almost like watercolor—so I could not remove it. We took pictures and made sketches of it. I still have a copy. The design looked something like a swastika; the colors were black, gray, red, and white. It was in a room that had been occupied 9,000 years before. On the

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surface of the mound I kicked up several obsidian arrowheads of the same age, which I still have. The British archeologists came back the next year, and I showed them the picture and sketches and told them where “my” room was. I suggested that they explore “my” room further. A blackened hole in one corner indicated to me that there was another room beyond. They followed the black hole I had spotted and broke into another room. There they found a large clay figure of a woman, a big fat woman, an earth goddess perhaps, giving birth to a boar. They still haven’t figured out what that’s all about. But they wrote a book about their finds at what is now called Cˇatal Hüyük, a Chalcolithic village, which is one of the most famous sites in ancient Turkey. In a footnote in their book they said that this artifact was found “accidentally” and I did not get any credit. I heard years later that they had dug down to the next level into another room and had come across a skeleton wrapped in woven cloth. It was 2,000 years older than the cloth that was found in Jericho and was 2,000 years older than any other cloth found in history. Unfortunately, then they then took some artifacts out of the country illegally and were barred from further exploration.

PROMOTION AND MOVING ON The U.S. Foreign Service requires each year that supervisors fill out a detailed and comprehensive report on the performance of their staff. I had difficulty with this requirement because I had six bosses, three ambassadors and three mission directors, but none of them was closely enough involved to be able to write a performance report. Also I was detailed to ICA and later to USAID and was not on the State Department payroll. In light of this dilemma I asked that I be visited each year by a member of the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General who could then write a report on me. This was a great idea, but it did not work very well. Each year I spent half a day with this very busy representative of the Inspector General’s Office and tried to explain what was all involved in coordinating three countries in the region and keep the United States and the United Kingdom informed about all my projects. Each year my responsibilities kept expanding. The representative was not really able to understand my unique role in the system.

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I was finally able to get promoted from FSO-3 to FSO-2 and to become a member of the Senior Foreign Service, thanks to the special intervention of the then deputy assistant secretary of state for the region, Ambassador Howard Cottam. He had followed my progress and decided to see for himself how this regional office was actually working. He came out to Ankara and spent five days with me, flying out to see our various projects and meeting with most of my six bosses. He returned to Washington and wrote a glowing special report to the Office of Personnel about my activities. Because of his personal intervention I got promoted at the end of my fourth year and then was transferred, directly, to the U.S. Embassy in Cairo in January 1963. Interestingly, I was replaced by USAID with an FSR-1, the same rank as an FSO-1.

5 POSTED IN EGYPT 1963–1966

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he early sixties were the Johnson years in the United States. President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s foreign policy was focused on dealing with the perception of the communist threat and the Eastern Bloc’s involvement in world affairs—a fight that was largely played out in Vietnam. Domestically, Johnson’s attention was on building his “Great Society.” How did this scenario impact your work during those years in your new assignment in Egypt? What were your responsibilities there? Why did the Soviets have a particular interest in the region? And what did you take away from your experience in Egypt—and in all the countries of the region in which you served?

CAIRO: SENIOR ECONOMIC OFFICER PLUS My first regular assignment to a U.S. embassy was in Cairo. I became the senior economic officer and, as needed, I assumed the duties of the agriculture attaché, the science attaché, or the acting economic counselor. Because of my background with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), I was interested in our large aid program, and, of course, I wanted to find out more about the enormous Eastern Bloc’s new economic assistance program in Egypt. The whole family and our cat were moved from Ankara to Cairo, a direct transfer, in January 1963. We lived in a beautiful home in a lovely suburb called Mahdi for three and a half years. President Gamal Abdel Nasser was in charge of Egypt during our time there. It was our first experience of life under a dictatorship: our telephones were constantly monitored, the license plates of our guests’ cars were noted

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by the police, and we were followed wherever we went. It was a fascinating period. Nasser was experimenting regionally, trying to build the Arab Nation and, as a start, allying himself with Syria and Yemen. The Soviets were obviously ascendant with a major aid program, both military and economic, and they were beginning the construction of the Aswan High Dam in Upper Egypt. One of my responsibilities was to report on the dam and its growth.

JOHN FOSTER DULLES, THE SOVIETS, AND THE MIDDLE EAST Nasser’s Gamble To flash-forward a bit, in 1966–1967, while a student at the National War College in Washington, D.C., I wrote my master’s thesis on Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and the Middle East. My thesis was that Dulles, the greatest anti-communist in the administration of Dwight Eisenhower, was singularly responsible for bringing the Soviets into the Middle East. I always thought that was an irony that few Americans really appreciated. What happened was that Nasser, a powerful figure and highly respected by the people of his country and in the region, was trying to modernize and develop Egypt. He wanted to build a dam at Aswan to bring electricity to his country. The United States offered to help. U.S. engineers designed the dam and the U.S. government pressured the World Bank to provide $200 million—which was a lot of money at that time—to build the dam. The United States itself had invested $56 million in the project. President Nasser asked Secretary of State Dulles if he could get some military equipment from the United States to protect himself from Israel. Each time, Dulles personally turned him down, because he didn’t trust “the s.o.b.” That was basically the problem. Finally, Nasser said, “If you don’t give me the military equipment that I need, I will go and ask the Soviets.” Dulles rejected the idea and said that Nasser would never do that. He thought Nasser was bluffing. But Nasser was not bluffing. He did exactly what he said he would do. The Soviet Empire responded with alacrity. The history of the Middle East was changed forever. The Soviets set up a massive military and economic aid program. They took over the Aswan High Dam project using their own design. They totally discarded the American design with unfortunate effects for Egypt. The U.S. project was modeled on the Hoover Dam and the TVA (Ten-

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nessee Valley Authority). The Aswan High Dam was to be an enormous concrete dam, with sluices for the water and the fish and the silt to go through, and locks for boats to go up and down the river. The United States was expert in that type of dam design. The Soviet engineers didn’t know how to build those kinds of dams. They only knew how to build earth dams, and an earth dam is just what it says, earth and some concrete, but no sluices and no by-ways for boats. The river is blocked and a major causeway is built around it to channel the water. Nothing goes through—no fish, no silt, no boats. The lake behind the dam—Lake Nasser—flooded a huge area, tens of thousands of people were displaced, archeological sites were destroyed, valuable land became unusable, and so on. The Soviets built a disaster of a dam at Aswan. The Soviets were interested in the Middle East because they saw that the oil was there. They had a broader picture of the region than the U.S. State Department did and understood the weaknesses in our policy. They moved into Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Libya. They became a major presence in the Middle East. East Germany had a major aid program in Egypt as well, as did others. I am sure that their long-term strategy was eventually to take over all of the Middle East. It was a very real threat. They already had four countries in their orbit. We didn’t see that. And, as I mentioned earlier, I never saw any U.S. policies that were regional in nature. We looked at the world one country at a time. This is what we did with country X and separately with country Y. I just don’t believe that the regional approach which we took with CENTO was recognized. I give the Soviets great credit for doing things that we did not think of.

A Bit of Irony I used to go down to Aswan every three months to report to the Washington foreign affairs community on how the project was going, even when the temperature was 130 degrees! They had their problems. For example, they found that the areas on both sides of the Nile at the spot where the causeway was to be built were granite. The granite was so hard and the construction was so difficult that the Russian trucks were not powerful enough to carry this rock up the steep embankments. They had to buy enormous U.S. trucks to build the dam. Then they learned that the steel in the drilling bits, used to drill holes in the granite, were not hardened enough and did not work. They had to buy American drilling equipment and bits to finish the High Dam. That was somewhat ironic at the height of the Cold War.

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Food: A Balancing Factor As the economic officer, I negotiated about a billion dollars in food aid under the PL-480 program (Public Law 480 was about our food aid). Egypt could not produce enough food and couldn’t live without our food. The United States was the breadbasket of the world. The Soviets had no surplus food, so the Egyptians had to import food from the United States. In fact, the Soviets themselves were importing food from us. Food was our entrée, the balancing factor that kept all doors open. The Soviets knew and Nasser knew that they needed U.S. food to survive.

LESSONS FOR DIPLOMACY Understanding Egypt’s Venerable Bureaucracy Egypt is a beautiful country and I loved my time there. I learned after a year and a half or so that every minister in Nasser’s Cabinet considered himself a direct descendant of the pharaohs. As long as I realized that and treated them accordingly, I had great access. I remember meeting the chairman of the Parliament Anwar Sadat, who was always in the deep shadow of President Nasser. You would meet him at a cocktail party and shake his hand and move on to talk to somebody important. When Sadat became president of Egypt, things changed. He blossomed. He became one of the world’s great statesmen. Egyptian bureaucracy was ancient, stolid, and unrelenting. It took patience and perseverance to carry out any task involving the government. One had to listen, to learn, and then to report what one had heard. This was my first regular diplomatic assignment, and I had much to learn about our own system and protocols. I was learning at all levels and found it an exciting process and a stimulating assignment.

Building Trust During my stay in Egypt, I became friends with a young man from the Soviet Embassy. At one point I started asking him questions about their aid program and he asked me questions about our aid program. I said, “Why don’t you come to my office and we’ll talk about it?” So he did, and then I went to his office. I’m sure he thought my office was bugged. I knew his office was bugged, but we went back and forth every three or four weeks for almost three years. He told me all about the Eastern European and So-

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viet aid program in Egypt. I explained everything about the U.S. aid program, including the mysteries of PL-480. I explained what it was about, how it worked. And we each respected each other’s professionalism and reported back to our headquarters. We never lied to each other. If we had a problem we’d say, “I don’t know the answer” or “It’s not relevant.” However, whatever we did say to each other was absolutely accurate and correct. After a year or so of this, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Soviet’s counterpart agency—the KGB—took notice of our meetings. Almost simultaneously each of us was instructed to try to obtain information about politics, the military, and so forth from each other. I knew that wasn’t going to work, and so did he. So we would ask each other these questions and we would each say we didn’t know or it wasn’t relevant, back and forth. We reported back to our governments that we were unable to get any information. Our respective intelligence agencies kept reading our reports, but after a while they didn’t bother us any more. Before I was transferred back to Washington, my successor tried to continue these contacts. I introduced him to my friend. They had one meeting and that was it. The rapport wasn’t there, the trust wasn’t there, and they just stopped seeing each other. Success in diplomacy is about people, about spending time with people and about building trust relationships. During my career, I found that if you can’t build trust you can’t do anything. Trust is critical, particularly in conflict resolution. It takes time and skill to build a trust relationship with another person, and it’s amazing what you can do with that relationship. I learned much later that my reporting on the Soviet aid program was unique in the Cold War and that everything my Soviet friend said was confirmed as 100 percent accurate.

Going to the Source Another lesson I learned is that reliable information comes from sources that have first-hand knowledge. When I was in Egypt, someone from Washington sent out three PhD agricultural economists to see if Egyptian agricultural production could be improved. The principal Egyptian crop was corn. The experts went out into the field for a week or so and came back and said, “We want to make Egypt into a hybrid seed country and double corn production, but nobody wants to make that change.” “Have you asked the farmers why they don’t want it changed?” I asked.

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Their answer was something like, “No, we haven’t because we know better.” I said, “In my experience there’s no such thing as a stupid farmer. They may be illiterate, but they’re not stupid, otherwise they would be dead from starvation. They live too close to the land not to know how to manage it. Why don’t you go back to the fields and villages and ask the farmers why they don’t want to change?” They were a little annoyed at that suggestion, but they went back out and talked to the farmers. A week later, they came back a little shame-faced because they hadn’t understood the culture and history of Egypt. For thousands of years, Egyptian farmers had planted the seed broadcast; they just spread the seed out across the land. All land in the country is irrigated by the river Nile. When the corn was about four feet high they would thin out the field and make those corn stalks into fodder to feed the bullocks. There was no grazing land in Egypt, like what we have in America. The farmers have to feed the cattle something, and the traditional practice provided the food. The best the visiting Americans could do was to get a couple of farmers to try the new method on one tenth of their plot, but, after the Americans left, it appears the Egyptian farmers went back to the old system that had worked for them for thousands of years.

Diplomatic Bluntness or Blunder? In 1965, Egypt’s cotton crop failed because of a drought. It was a disaster. For the first time President Nasser called on the International Monetary Fund for advice and assistance. The IMF is the agency of last resort, a part of the World Bank family. If a country’s economy is in disarray, for whatever reason, if it asks for help, the IMF will make recommendations about what should be done and provide the necessary loans. The IMF responded immediately because IMF officials were ecstatic about the fact that for the first time ever they could visit Egypt. They sent a fifteen-person team, all men of course. I was asked to be the first briefing officer. By that time, I had been in Egypt three years, and I knew something about the country. We met for a briefing session in the Hilton Hotel, where the IMF team was staying. I opened my comments by saying, “I just want you gentlemen to know that this room is bugged and that everything we say will be recorded by the government.” I added, “I know this from experience and I wanted to share it with you.” Of course there was a loud gasp from the whole team. I knew they were all thinking, “What kind of American is this?”

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I said to the group, “I actually use the bugging as a way to get my message across, because I know that some important people will listen to it.” The briefing went on for three hours. Somewhere toward the end—I was getting a little tired—somebody asked me about the head of the Central Bank and I said, “Oh, he’s an ass.” Then I caught myself and tried to cover up. But it turns out that I wasn’t very successful. The next night we were all invited, including the briefing officers, to a reception given by the head of the Central Bank. I knew this man pretty well. When I went through the receiving line to shake his hand, he totally cut me dead. He wouldn’t shake my hand. He gave me a cold stare and did not say a word to me. What I realized was that not only had the room been bugged but the tape had been recorded and the transcript had actually been read by the head of the Central Bank by the next afternoon. At least he heard my message. The Egyptian security apparatus was the most efficient part of the whole government.

PRESIDENT OF THE P.T.A.: CAIRO AMERICAN COLLEGE Just two weeks after we arrived in Cairo, I was elected, without my knowledge, to be president of the Parent-Teacher Association of Cairo American College (CAC) because we had four children in school there. CAC was located close to our house, in Mahdi, and was the only English-language school in the country. It was an old dilapidated building and had about 450 students, from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The next month the chairman of the school board resigned. I was informed by the U.S. ambassador that I was the new chairman of the school board. I got involved very quickly. After seeing the state of the old school building, I decided to build a new school. The head of the Ford Foundation in Egypt had kids in the school and agreed to help me get started. We got a $20,000 grant from the Ford Foundation and eventually contracted with an outstanding school architect in the United States to make two trips to Cairo and, working with the best architect in Egypt, to lay out the design of a modern campus that would accommodate 1,500 students. They did a fantastic job. I had located a beautiful fourteen-acre plot of empty land just a few blocks from the old school as the site for its replacement. This land had belonged to one of King Farouk’s daughters. The problem was to negotiate the transfer of the land to the college. The land was owned by the state, of course, but we would get it for free if we could work out the details. We

Figure 5.1. John W. McDonald (second from left) discusses with renowned Egyptian architect Mr. Zeitoun (center) and other Americans the plans for a new school for Cairo American College

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finally got thirteen cabinet ministers to sign the deed. Nobody wanted to acknowledge they were doing this for an American. But it finally worked. I eventually raised a million dollars, with great help from the State Department’s Office of American Schools Abroad. Construction started as I was leaving for my next assignment. In 2005, the Cairo American College celebrated its sixtieth birthday. Now, with an enrollment of 1,450 students, it is still the most modern school in the whole region.

CIRCUMVENTING THE U.S. BUREAUCRACY IN THE INTEREST OF SCIENCE As acting science attaché during the last year of my assignment to Cairo, I had the opportunity to work with Luis Alvarez, a physicist from the University of California. In 1968, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. He had proposed to the State Department that he x-ray the pyramids near Cairo, the two largest pyramids (Cheops and his son Chephren) ever built, to find out if they contained any secret chambers that had not already been discovered. State agreed to let him carry out this challenging project, and I was assigned to make it happen. Professor Alvarez came to Cairo on several occasions, and we worked closely together to try to convince the Egyptian ministries concerned that this was a useful idea. We finally achieved our goal. I actually got eight ministers to sign the agreement. But then it turned out I also had to get agreement from various other parties outside the State Department. We had to get the approval of the University of California, which was going to pay for this work. Also, various bureaucracies in the State of California and the U.S. government had to agree. I finally ended up with all the required signatures, except for the approval of the U.S. Atomic Energy Agency. It refused to agree to this experiment. I frankly never understood its role in the first place. Officials there refused to tell me what the problem was. They just said no. I decided before I was transferred back to Washington, D.C., that I would sign on their behalf because I wanted this project to take place. So I signed, the contract was agreed to, everyone on the list was so advised, and the project began to get started. I then got on the airplane and retuned to Washington, D.C. I was met at the airplane steps by members of the Atomic Energy Agency who bitterly complained about my actions. I pointed out that they were one of over twenty different agencies involved in this project, every one of which had agreed. I therefore signed the document on behalf of the U.S. government, and they could not do anything about it.

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It is interesting to note that the experiment proceeded. It was interrupted by the 1967 war but was eventually carried out. Some considered the result to be disappointing: no new burial chambers or great treasures were discovered. The question that had lingered for so long was answered. Instead of being disappointed, Luis Alvarez was delighted with the certitude: “We found that there are no chambers.”

REFLECTING ON CAREER MOVES In early 1966, I was informed by friends in USAID Washington that I was to be the next USAID mission director in Egypt. This was a great honor that I had not sought. I would be promoted to the joint State/USAID position of mission director and economic counselor of the embassy, a dual role which my boss had. He was being transferred and I would take his position, the numberthree position in the embassy. I thought this was fantastic. I received phone calls, I got congratulatory telegrams, but then nothing seemed to happen. It turned out that my boss had told the ambassador that this promotion was not a good idea, that he didn’t think I was up to the job. So, much to my disappointment and chagrin, I didn’t get that job. My boss was then transferred, and I became acting mission director and economic counselor for several months until my next move. In spite of such disappointments, I loved wherever I was posted. People often asked me what my favorite post was. I always answered, “My favorite post was where I was at the time.” I do not look back with regret or look forward with anticipation. I enjoy where I am and the job that I have been asked to do. My family had a wonderful time in Egypt. We continued camping, as we had in Turkey, and got involved in archeology, visiting many sites together in Egypt. It was a good experience for the children and for Barbara and me as well. My four children grew up overseas. They learned other languages and explored other cultures and religions. They developed a much larger sense of the world than children their age who grew up in their home towns. The down side, of course, is that they did not have the hometown stability and lifelong friendships that develop in that environment. I believe, however, that those years were in balance positive for us all. Sixteen of the first twenty years of my career and my marriage had been spent outside of my country. We would all have some reintegrating to do when we moved back to the United States.

6 THE NATIONAL WAR COLLEGE Washington, D.C., 1966–1967

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arlier you talked about the analysis you developed for your master’s thesis at the National War College: the major forces and players in the Middle East. How did it happen that you left Egypt and went back to school in Washington? Having grown up in a military family, having been in the ROTC in high school, wanting to enlist in 1942, and being in Germany during the Occupation, you must have found yourself in a familiar environment at the National War College. I also assume that the focus there was on the Cold War. How did your way of seeing things differ from that of your classmates—especially after you had seen the world from a different angle?

DISAPPOINTMENT TURNS INTO OPPORTUNITY Back to School While still in Cairo, out of the blue, I received exciting news from the State Department. I would be transferred to Washington, D.C., to attend a yearlong program at the National War College. This institution is the senior training arm in the U.S. government, a place where military and civilians come together for the only time in their career. Completing the program at the National War College is an essential step toward an ambassadorship or toward becoming a general in the military. This great opportunity came just several months after I was disappointed about not getting the promised position in Cairo. If I had stayed in Egypt for another tour, I would probably have been deemed too old to go back to school. I would have missed that great experience. I would have been stuck there because of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. I would have stayed on as USAID mission director and economic counselor. 85

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The lesson I learned is that sometimes changes in your life appear at first to be negative and then turn out to be a positive. That has happened again and again to me. But this event was one of the most dramatic of my diplomatic career.

One of the Best Years My year at the National War College, from August of 1966 to August of 1967, was one of the best years I have spent in the U.S. government. For the first time in my career I had the opportunity to work together with about 120 future leaders of this country—many from other branches of the government. The military way of thinking was different from the civilian and from the State Department way of thinking. So we all learned from each other. There was constant interaction, exchange, and dialogue with a group of very bright career persons. In my class, 25 percent of the students were from the air force, 25 percent from the army, 25 percent from the navy and Marine Corps, and 25 percent were civilians from various government agencies, the largest being the State Department with about a dozen individuals. The CIA and USAID had one or two people. There were no women in the class. The military were all lieutenant colonels on the way up. The civilians were usually GS-14 or FSO-2. Many members of the class later became three- or fourstar generals, ambassadors, or members of the Senior Executive Service, if they were civil servants in the government. It was an outstanding learning experience. Every day lectures were presented by key leaders from many policy fields from around the country. People were not sent to the National War College to be sidelined. The State Department and all of the military saw attendance at the National War College as a real honor, a rung on the way up the career ladder. Those who wanted to become leaders had to punch that ticket. This was clearly understood by everybody in my class. They knew that they were a part of the elite. I still keep in touch with some of my classmates from the National War College and from time to time attend events sponsored by the alumni association.

THE MILITARY MINDSET IN THE 1960S It was the height of the Cold War, and the faculty of the National War College and the military students believed they had the answers and didn’t want

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to hear other opinions. The foreign policy of the United States during the Cold War was to judge countries by one criterion: “Are you supporters of communism or are you anti-communist? If you are the latter we will support you.” That’s what it was, and the United States certainly supported some strange bedfellows. It was a phobia. For example, during our first small group exercise, we broke up into groups of fifteen persons each. We were supposed to study a problem and then solve it in three hours or at least come up with a recommendation for a solution. I don’t remember the nature of the problem, but it was complicated. About a half hour into the exercise, while I was still trying to figure out the problem, an air force colonel in the group spoke up and he said, “Oh, I’ve got the answer.” We all stopped. I was stunned by the brilliance of this air force colonel. We asked him what it was. He answered, “Nuke them.” I had never heard the word before. I asked, “You mean your solution is to drop the nuclear bomb?” “Yes,” he replied. “That’s what nuke them means. That’s what we do in the air force.” It turned out that he was a B-52 bomber wing commander and that’s what they learned in the air force. They were trained to drop the bomb. I was in a state of shock. “That is not the solution to this problem,” I said. Fortunately, by the end of the year, he also realized that his was not the solution, but this was the mindset that we were exposed to. The four different services, the army, air force, navy, and marines, had separate mission statements, which basically outlined what they were supposed to do in their respective arenas. They were all going down separate paths. I learned that there was no communication among the four services. I tried to convince them that they should at least indicate in their mission statements that they should try to work together, and therefore become more effective as a team. I even tried to get classmates to talk about amending or updating their mission statements. I got nowhere. I was told by faculty and students alike that these mission statements were written in stone, that they were immutable and immovable. It was unacceptable even to discuss the idea of changing a mission statement. So I didn’t get anywhere with that idea. But twenty or so years later, the military did start discussions and did change their mission statements. They began to realize that they had to work together to be more effective. In the spring of 1967, the class divided into areas of interest and we traveled overseas for three weeks. I had never been to Asia, so I opted for

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that trip and we had a fabulous time visiting Japan, Okinawa, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Indonesia, and Malaysia. It was a very enriching experience for me. While I was at the War College, the Six-Day War broke out. In the spring of 1967, Israel believed that Syria and Egypt were preparing an attack. Israel mobilized, the neighboring Arab countries mobilized, and on June 5, Israel launched a preemptive strike against Egypt.

THE ADVANTAGE OF UNDERSTANDING THE MILITARY The fact that I attended the National War College has been a critical, positive element in my development as a peacebuilder. It has also served as a very fine entry point into the military as a peacebuilder and an ambassador. For example, I lectured on the United Nations at the National War College for three years in the late 1990s, and, for the past six years, at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces on ethnic conflict. When the colonels hear that I am a National War College graduate they are more receptive to what I have to say. It gives me access to all sides now as a citizen peacebuilder. The title of ambassador, which was bestowed on me when I was active in UN conferences in the late 1970s and early 1980s, also helps. I can go to the State Department, to the Pentagon, or to the National War College and be listened to. Some of the military have difficulty coping with my ideas, but they can’t call me a “peacenik,” because I am one of them. A recent project of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy (IMTD), where I am now fully engaged, illustrates how my experience at the National War College still reverberates. In the early 1990s, I connected with Dr. Alan Whittaker and asked him to join IMTD, then a relatively new nongovernmental organization. In fact, he is member number twentythree out of some 1,500 members that we now have. He was a professor at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, which, along with the National War College, is now a part of the National Defense University at Fort McNair, in Washington, D.C. At some point he invited me to give a lecture on Track Two and multitrack diplomacy to one of the classes he was teaching. I did so, and the lecture was so well received that I was invited back semester after semester. In November of 2005, after a lecture, I proposed that IMTD teach a full course to the colonels and senior civilians on conflict resolution and peacebuilding. I argued that the lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq were clear. The military needed training in ways to resolve conflict other than

Figure 6.1. Celebrating graduation from the National War College, class of 1967, with family. Florence Raynor, Ethel and John W. McDonald Sr., Genevieve Joos, John W. McDonald (the graduate), and his sister Ethel DuBois.

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with a gun. Whittaker agreed and gave me his strong support, arranging for me to meet the dean of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, a full colonel in the marines. The dean eventually approved the course, which has been a great success. (See chapter 14 for a more detailed description of the course.)

GOING WITH THE FLOW I graduated from the National War College in August of 1967 and decided to let the personnel system at the State Department determine my next assignment. Most of my colleagues were spending a great deal of time politicking for their next assignment. I decided not to do that at all but to go with the flow and accept whatever happened. There was no particular place that I was dying to go to. I learned later that my deputy chief of mission from Egypt, Bill Boswell, had been transferred to Washington and was head of senior personnel assignments for the Foreign Service. We had worked well together in Cairo and my fate was in his hands, but I did not realize that at the time. He knew I had spent a lot of time with smaller, regional organizations, starting with Berlin, Bonn, Paris and the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO). I asked him later about my assignment and he said, “You know, I thought you’d be interested in the United Nations, the economic and social side of things, so I put you in IO (the Bureau of International Organization Affairs) at the State Department in Washington, D.C.” That’s how it happened. It turned out to be another stroke of fate; the experience changed my life.

7 GETTING INVOLVED IN THE UN SYSTEM 1967–1974

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o there you were in 1967, back to a more regular career, after a one-year break at the National War College.You were forty-five years old, and you felt fortunate to have been given assignments in multilateral affairs.The Johnson years came to an end. Space exploration—bringing expanded visions and opportunities into the public mind—had advanced enormously under President Johnson’s watch, and he tried to terminate the Vietnam War by initiating peace talks. And, one could say, the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 was the most important event domestically, an event that also impacted the world.When President Nixon took over in 1969, his first order of business was to bring a divided nation together. He attempted to normalize relations with the Soviets and with China. With that as a backdrop, what were your assignments in the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs and what did you concentrate on? Was your work affected by the different administrations you worked under? What was your direct involvement in the UN system? And how important is timing when it comes to launching new ideas—in your case, spurring the creation of four UN agencies? Looking back now, how do you judge the role of the United Nations at the time? How did the day-to-day politics of the United States or what happened in the world at the time, influence what you were doing? Was your decision making or your creative process—always very future oriented as I understand you—impacted by everyday events or U.S. policy decisions of the times?

A CAREER TURNING POINT When I accepted an assignment to the Bureau of International Organization Affairs—IO—my friends, once again (as when I had accepted the ICA

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position some ten years earlier) were startled. A posting in the State Department Bureau charged with looking after the United Nations was considered a backwater because “nothing ever happened there.” You never became an ambassador by going down that path. Anybody that wanted to be on a fast track opted for a regional bureau, where the action was, like the African Bureau, European Bureau, and so on. IO was considered a career backwater. It was multilateral. People wanted bilateral assignments to a country so they could eventually become an ambassador. The multilateral approach to foreign policy had no future, it was said. If a foreign service officer absolutely had to go to IO, at least he or she wanted to be assigned to UN Political Affairs, which was focusing on the Security Council and peacekeeping. A fellow National War College classmate, Pierre Graham, and I were both assigned as deputy office directors in IO. A few months later, my boss Bill Stibravy, was transferred and I became office director of economic and social affairs in August of 1967 and stayed there until December of 1974. Graham then became U.S. representative to UNESCO and later ambassador to Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso). Eight years with IO was phenomenal in our Foreign Service system, where the normal tour was two years. Everybody else wanted to be rotated out, to get on with their careers. This assignment was a turning point in my life. I had been thinking globally since 1955 when I became involved with international aid. This assignment kept me on a global path. During those eight years, I learned how the UN system worked and was able to make it work for the benefit of the United States and the world. In fact, my association with the United Nations was a very long chapter in my life. It covered, in total, sixteen years, from 1967 to 1983. I was involved with UN affairs as a Foreign Service officer (not a civil servant) longer than any other person in the history of the Foreign Service. Generally speaking, during the Cold War, the White House did not have much interest in the economic and social side of the United Nations where I worked. It was an exciting side for me, however. I was dealing with specialized agencies of the United Nations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), and the UN Development Program (UNDP). In fact, I was responsible for U.S. relations with thirty different UN bodies receiving about 90 percent of U.S. funding. For me this was where the real action was, where a person could make a significant impact globally if he or she learned how to manage the system. As long as my bosses had a broad outline of what I was doing and saw that I was success-

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ful, they left me alone. This freedom allowed me to move ahead in a positive sense to expand the number of institutions in the UN system in response to global needs and to try to increase their funding. My staff of thirty-five and I were responsible for Committee Two (Economic Development) and Committee Three (Social Development) of the General Assembly in New York. I attended part of each General Assembly session for eight years. Early in this period I met with several people from the State Department’s Bureau for Congressional Relations and asked if they had any objection to my lobbying on behalf of the State Department for more funds for the UN system. They said, “Please, go ahead. We have no time or interest in what you are doing. Just keep us informed from time to time and do what you can.” That was carte blanche for me. Over the years, I developed relationships with various staff members in the House and Senate and with various nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). I was able to push for more funding for the UN system, especially for UNICEF, UNDP and the UN Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), which were all “voluntarily” funded, in other words, at the discretion of governments and not bound by treaty contribution levels.

CREATION OF THE UN FUND FOR POPULATION ACTIVITIES An Opportunity Presents Itself As I mentioned in chapter three, in 1958, when I was executive secretary of the International Cooperation Administration, I tried, with General William Draper, to get ICA involved in population and family planning. At that time we were turned down by President Eisenhower. Nevertheless, I had maintained my long-standing interest in population and family planning, believing that it was a critical element of development assistance. Anybody who looked at the world population statistics could see the dramatic growth in population. Governments were not paying much attention to population. Draper was really the man thinking ahead on this issue. After he retired, he set up a little NGO in Washington, D.C., the Population Crisis Committee. He and I became close friends over this particular issue. An opportunity to do something about population and family planning came along, ten years later, as I was getting more involved and more immersed in the United Nations.

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In 1968 the Danish government donated $500,000 to UN Secretary General U Thant for work on population and family planning issues. No entity in the UN system dealt with that particular issue. The secretary general did not know where to put the money, so he finally put it in the population division of the UN secretariat in New York. This division had been created in 1946 as a statistics-gathering operation to track population growth rates in every country. The division had no capacity or interest in going beyond its original mandate. So the donation would not really achieve what the Danish government had intended it to achieve. I decided to take advantage of this opportunity. USAID had recently appointed Ray Ravenholt, a family planning expert, to lead its modest start-up program in family planning. He was courageous and open to new ideas but was struggling to create an international population and family planning program. Up to that point, only one project had been initiated: as I mentioned in an earlier chapter, it consisted of giving a major grant to Turkey to buy jeeps which would be used to take Turkish doctors to the villages, hopefully to talk about family planning issues—a pretty far-out disconnect. That was how timid USAID was at that point in time and how it backed into that socially difficult issue for the United States. I managed to interest Ravenholt in my proposal. “Look,” I said, “if you can let me have a million dollars, I’ll use that to try to stimulate the United Nations to do things that you’re not able to do at the moment in the area of family planning.” He agreed to my plan. I didn’t introduce a resolution; I just made a speech at the United Nations in which I challenged U Thant to accept a donation of one million dollars from the United States government that would be given to UNDP. (UNDP had just been started in 1966 and was the technical assistance arm of the UN family. It was led by a distinguished American, Paul G. Hoffman, former president of Studebaker Automobile Corporation and then UNDP administrator.) My only condition was that the UNDP set up a real population program with that money. My challenge to the secretary general was to take the authority for population and family planning away from the population division, through internal, intra-secretariat action, and give it to the UNDP. I give Secretary General U Thant great credit. Four months later—this was pretty fast considering the bureaucracy involved—he issued a decree passing the responsibility to UNDP. Then the United States made the million-dollar contribution to the UNDP.

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Plans for Using the Money A month later, Hoffman called me and said, “OK, McDonald, we got your money, but we don’t know what to do with it either. I’m appointing you as chairman of a small, ad hoc group of six people from five other countries to come up with some plans as to how we can use the money and how we can structure ourselves to implement the plans.” I was delighted to accept this challenge. The group met on and off for six or seven weeks and developed what became the UNFPA. We named it, we set it up within the UNDP, as a separate bureau headed by an assistant secretary general of the United Nations, and we developed its terms of reference. Our proposals were all accepted by the UNDP Governing Council, and the UNFPA was launched. Later I received another phone call from Paul Hoffman. He said, “My secretary has just told me that there is a man in my outer office, named Rafael Montinola Salas, who said that I had hired him to be the head of this UNFPA.” I asked him how that happened and he continued, “Well, I made visits to half a dozen countries regarding some money issues, and I did talk to half a dozen potential candidates, but I haven’t made up my mind yet on who is to be the head of UNFPA.” I said, “Tell me more about him.” “He comes from the Philippines,” Hoffman said. “He must be Catholic,” I said. “It would be great to get a Catholic to head that organization. What’s his background?” “He was a chef de cabinet to President Ferdinand Marcos. So he has had experience as a cabinet minister. He is highly educated and totally dedicated to this idea.” “I think you ought to hire him for the position” I said, and he did. Salas led the UNFPA brilliantly until his untimely death in 1987. He was also promoted to under-secretary general in the mid-1970s. He and I became fast friends and worked together for years. When I became deputy director-general of the ILO in 1974, he told me he was having great difficulty in convincing the other agencies of the UN system to support UNFPA activities in their programs. We talked at length, and then I came up with an idea. I said, “The key is money, or the lack thereof, in our regular budgets for new ideas. What you have to do is fund an office for population and family planning in each UN agency. You can start with the ILO, but it is essential that the new office be staffed by only ILO personnel. You can train them on population issues, but they know how the ILO system works and can make things happen.” I estimated the ILO costs at about one

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million dollars a year. “You have the money so let’s start now,” I said. He did and then set up similar offices throughout the UN system, with funding from his budget. In this way, UNFPA increased interest in population and family planning around the developing world. The ILO population office is still active to this day. Eventually, the United Nations took a leading role on the population issue and held a major UN World Conference on Population in Bucharest, Romania, in 1974. I was a senior member of the U.S. delegation, which played a major leadership role in negotiating an outstanding plan of action for the world. The world was ready to take global action on this major development issue. Two subsequent UN conferences on population were held in Mexico City in 1984 and in Cairo in 1994.

How UN Funding Works To work successfully in the United Nations, you have to know how its funding works. There are two different streams of funding within the UN system: The United Nations itself and the major UN specialized agencies created shortly after World War II by international treaties. Each treaty described how its budget and staff were to be supported financially. Every nation that ratified the treaty had to pay annual dues to the agency. Thus, the United Nations, ILO, WHO, FAO, World Bank, and so on all had regular incomes and budgets controlled by member states. The other source of funding is called voluntary contributions and refers to agencies or programs established by UN resolutions. Such institutions do not have the power of law and are sustained basically by contributions from the developed world. Countries make voluntary contributions to programs that they like. That can change from year to year. These rules apply to the UNFPA, UNDP, UNICEF, and others. Being funded in this way makes it difficult for the agencies to plan ahead. But that is the way the system works. UNFPA has become by far the largest and most successful program in the world in the field of population and family planning. I checked recently and the total amount of voluntary contributions to the UNFPA, from its inception in 1968 to December 31, 2006, has been the incredible sum of $6.8 billion! This program has affected many millions of women around the world and is probably the most successful program in UN history.

Figure 7.1. Prior to departing for the first UN World Population conference in Bucharest, Romania, in 1974, Secretary Weinberger (left) posed with the secretary general of the conference, Antonio Carillo Flores, former Mexican ambassador to the United States, and members of the U.S. delegation: (left to right) Philander P. Claxton Jr.; John W. McDonald, coordinator of Multilateral Development Programs; General William H. Draper; and Dr. Louis M. Hellman

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U.S. Population Policies and the UNFPA From 1968 until the Mexico City UN population conference in 1984, the United States was clearly the leading nation in the world concerned about the exploding world population and practical ways to manage that issue. The United States was the principal funder of UNFPA every year until 1984, when U.S. policy shifted dramatically. A few weeks before the meeting in Mexico City, President Ronald Reagan dissolved the U.S. delegation, which was pro-family planning, and appointed a new delegation, which was anti-family planning and anti-abortion. It is hard to imagine how astounded the delegates were to see the total reversal of U.S. policy on this major issue. Since 1984, U.S. policy has shifted repeatedly, depending on the political party in power in the White House. During Republican years we have contributed practically no money to UNFPA for fear that it might be used for abortion issues. In so doing, the United States has actually defied its own law, laid down by the Supreme Court, which allows U.S. women to make a choice. The United States has tried to impose on other nations and NGOs its Republican response to this issue by refusing to give aid money to countries or NGOs who support free choice for women. When the Democrats have come into power, they have reversed the policy and have begun again to be a major funder of UNFPA and bilaterally of NGOs and countries interested in this issue. To say the least, this constant reversal of U.S. policies continues to puzzle the rest of the world.

UN CONFERENCES ON TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT The Power of Consensus Building In 1964, the first world conference of the United Nations on trade and development was held in Geneva, Switzerland. It was called UNCTAD I (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) and lasted for three months. It was a historic event because it was there that the developing world really came into its own for the first time. The conceiver and organizer of the conference was a distinguished economist from Argentina, Dr. Raoul Prebisch, who was at that time head of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America in Santiago, Chile. At the time, there were seventy-seven Third World countries. They called themselves the “Group of 77.” In UNCTAD, the world was divided into five regional groups: Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Soviet Union and

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its satellites, and Western Europe and North America (these were called groups A, B, C, D, and E). These five groups are still used today. In 1945, the UN Charter was signed by fifty-one nations—every nation, except Switzerland. Now there are 192 nations in the United Nations. As empires collapsed new nations were created. The “Group of 77” still keeps the same name even though today there are 130 members. At that first world conference on trade and development the Third World had the votes. They pushed through fifty resolutions, every one of which went to a vote. The resolutions were so radical that the West voted unanimously against all of them. Of course the Soviets voted with the 77. Clearly, the overwhelming majority of the world wanted these fifty resolutions passed. The resolutions basically demanded that the West fund all of the requests from the South. The 77 were very proud of themselves and went home satisfied that they had laid down the law. After the 1964 conference, the General Assembly passed a resolution making UNCTAD a new UN agency, to be funded by the regular UN budget and headquartered in Geneva. Prebisch was put in charge, and he started to plan for a second world conference to be called UNCTAD II. This second conference was held in New Delhi, India, in the spring of 1968 for ten weeks from February 1 to March 29. I was a member of the U.S. delegation of fifteen people. It was a great experience for me because I had never been to a world conference before, outside of the New York General Assembly. I watched with fascination. It was the greatest learning experience I had had up to that point.

A Mass Learning Experience About 3,000 delegates from all over the world met in the conference hall. The first item on the agenda was for the West to report on what it had done with the fifty resolutions voted on in Geneva in 1964. Delegate after delegate from the West got up and said in effect, “We haven’t done a thing about those resolutions because we voted against them.” Because all UN resolutions are merely recommendations for action, there’s no requirement for any country voting against the resolution to do anything. The only exception is under chapter 7 of the UN Charter where a resolution on issues of war and peace becomes legally binding under international law. As the delegates from the West spoke, the Third World suddenly realized—in the greatest mass learning experience I had ever witnessed—that the power of the vote was meaningless in the United Nations. To get anything done in the United Nations, resolutions had to be negotiated by consensus.

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UNCTAD II also passed fifty resolutions. Forty-seven of them were negotiated and adopted unanimously by consensus by the whole conference. Three were voted on, and everybody knew nothing would happen to them. That is when I recognized the power and necessity of consensus, when I adopted it and incorporated it into all of my future thinking and work in the UN system and all of my future work since then. It was then that I completed my shift from win-lose to win-win. It was a major lesson for me personally and for a lot of other people around the world. Today, I understand that about 90 percent of the resolutions that are adopted in the General Assembly are by consensus. This has become part of the UN culture.

Transitions: Family Changes In 1970, my marriage to Barbara ended in divorce. Later that year, Christel Meyer and I were wed in my parents’ home in Fairfax, Virginia, and a week later in her hometown, Hamburg, Germany. I had met Christel at the UNCTAD II conference in New Delhi. She was one of the early European civil servants working for the Council of Ministers of the European Economic Community (now the European Union) in Brussels and later in its Geneva office. She was part of the EEC delegation to UNCTAD II. Christel’s international understanding and multilateral experience as well as her language skills are a great asset in our marriage and my work. We were wed October 24, the birthday of the United Nations—an easy date to remember. To this day, I have never missed our anniversary.

CREATION OF THE UN VOLUNTEERS Celebrating the UN’s Twenty-fifth Birthday In early 1970 a memorandum was circulated by Dr. Daniel Moynihan in the Nixon White House. Moynihan, who later became UN ambassador and a U.S. senator, was a brilliant thinker. His PhD thesis was on the ILO, as I learned much later. He wanted to do something special to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the United Nations. The memorandum came around to the State Department and a copy arrived on my desk. He essentially asked, “Has anybody got any ideas about how to celebrate this anniversary? If so, let me know.” I saw this as a great opportunity and seized it.

Figure 7.2. Christel Meyer from the EEC delegation and John W. McDonald, U.S. delegation to UNCTAD II, are on their way to a reception at the Presidential Palace, New Delhi, 1968

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There had been efforts in various parts of the UN Secretariat to create a world peace corps, based on the U.S. Peace Corps idea. The U.S. Peace Corps didn’t particularly like the idea, although they should have been proud of the fact that someone wanted to model a worldwide effort after the United States. At that time, the U.S. Peace Corps was working in about forty countries. I thought, “Why not extend the concept to over 100 countries?” The need was certainly there. I drafted a memorandum saying that it would be possible to create a world peace corps and met with Moynihan, who said, “Great, give it a try.” I became very involved in the process. First, the UN Secretariat had to like the idea, and then a nation-state had to draft a resolution and take the lead at the governmental level to carry it out. With White House approval in my pocket, I drafted a resolution for the General Assembly proposing the creation of a new UN agency to be called UN Volunteers, the UNV. The idea began to pick up support, especially from the developing world. However, several blockages also began to appear. The U.S. Peace Corps was a little worried, so we negotiated some changes in the UNV mandate giving the Peace Corps control over Americans who might want to join the UNV. We finally agreed that any American who went to the UNV had to join the U.S. Peace Corps first. Similarly, several small volunteer organizations in several Western European countries had to be brought on board. They were all worried about UNV competition, not about the broader picture relating to the world’s needs. It was my greatest concern to get the approval of another U.S. volunteer NGO working in some dozen countries. The organization had a six-person staff and was struggling financially to survive. I was able to get its leader a post in the UN system, and got jobs for several of the people working for him. The organization then closed with the understanding that we would get UNV to work in countries where it had previously placed volunteers. Finally we were ready to go public.

Saved by the Kenyan Ambassador I took my resolution to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) meeting in Geneva in July 1970. It was a meeting I will never forget. I thought that if the ECOSOC passed the resolution, the General Assembly would do so also. The twenty-seven national delegations making up the ECOSOC were seated around a large U-shaped table according to the French alphabet. I was Etats Unis. Next to me, on my immediate left, was

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the delegate from Congo-Brazzaville, which was a hard-line communist nation. When my resolution came up for discussion, I was in the chair for the United States. After I had introduced the resolution to the delegates, the representative from Congo-Brazzaville spoke and made a vicious and impassioned half-hour attack on the idea. He said that his country had had U.S. Peace Corps volunteers in Congo-Brazzaville and he had seen them walking down the streets of the capital city with machine guns in their hands ready to shoot anybody that disagreed with them. His speech was a total shock to the delegates because it was filled with lies and misperceptions and was totally untruthful. I didn’t know what to do: Should I call him on a point of order, should I intervene, should I demand an immediate right of reply? I was still mulling this over when I noticed a piece of paper being passed around the table to me. I unfolded it and saw that it was from my friend, the Kenyan ambassador. The note said: “Would you like me to respond?” I almost embraced him across the table and I nodded vigorously. When the Congo-Brazzaville delegate finally finished, I didn’t say anything—much to everybody’s astonishment. Then the ambassador from Kenya told his story about how great the Peace Corps was in his country and how much Kenyans appreciated it, and he said that he strongly supported the idea of a worldwide UNV.

UN Volunteers Successfully Launched The resolution finally went to a vote. It was approved unanimously with two abstentions: the Soviets and Congo-Brazzaville. They abstained, but they didn’t block the resolution. The UNV organization was established in Geneva and then, some years later, moved to Bonn, Germany. It has been a very successful operation. Our initial concept was that most of the volunteers would be from the West, from the developed world, because they had skills that were needed. Over the years, this situation was totally reversed, so that today the vast majority of the more than 1,000 UN Volunteers are from the Third World. Many highly educated and trained people from the developing world have difficulty finding a job in their own country and so sign up to become members of UNV. Doctors and lawyers and engineers and many other professionals apply to UNV in response to the needs of the poor countries of the world. The program has helped many thousands of people across the world for some thirtyfive years.

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CREATING THE POST OF DISASTER RELIEF COORDINATOR Disaster Relief: A Crowded Field For over twenty-five years after World War II, the United States was the preeminent power in the world for disaster relief, helping other countries cope with the tragedy of natural disasters. Why was this so? Aside from our willingness as a nation to help others—the Marshall Plan is the prime example—we were the only nation to have the airlift capability that made it possible. We had the planes, huge aircrafts, skilled manpower, the money, and the will to move large quantities of supplies, food, tents, medicine, equipment, and people quickly. Thanks to the military, we dominated the scene, did a brilliant job, and helped untold numbers of people. The favorable public image was invaluable, and the Pentagon was not about to let anybody else into the game. The United Nations thought that it also had a role to play, but the United States, particularly the Pentagon, kept the door shut for them. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the field of disaster relief became more crowded because the British, the French, and the Russians also were developing airlift capability through their military and were responding to calls for help. So many people and countries getting into the act, with no coordination and no communication, caused additional chaos at the scene of a disaster. Something had to change.

Changing the Pentagon’s Mind I tried to figure out how to change the Pentagon’s view of the situation, and how to get the military to agree to let the United Nations play a global and an on-site coordinating role. At that time, I did not consider coordinating with the League of Red Cross Societies (later named the Federation of Red Cross Societies) or other humanitarian NGOs. I was totally focused on governments. I used the budgetary approach with the military. Money is one thing that they always pay attention to. In 1971, by doing some research, I found that in the previous four natural disasters to which the Pentagon had responded, they weren’t the first people on the scene. Perhaps the hospital that they had airlifted in at great expense was the second or the third to arrive. I proved in these four examples that the Pentagon was actually losing money on this operation. If they would allow the United Nations to play a coordinating role they could save money and be more effective.

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I was finally successful. Reluctantly the Pentagon agreed to let the United Nations get involved. The UN Secretariat was delighted. My staff and I drafted a resolution that created a new post we called the UN Disaster Relief Coordinator. We set the post at the under-secretary general level so that the UN system and the world would know this was serious and we put the office and staff in Geneva, where most of the UN agencies were located.

Soviet Negativity The U.S. delegation went to the Economic and Social Council meeting in Geneva with the resolution, knowing that the Soviets would be the principal problem. They were even worse than the United States when it came to new initiatives that might cost money. Our idea was to have the United Nations set up a central office to receive information from countries devastated by an earthquake or landslide or other natural disasters. The office of the coordinator would find out what external help was needed and then notify potential donors and ensure there was no duplication. It would send personnel to the site of the disaster to help with coordination. In addition, over time the staff would train people in disaster-prone countries in emergency techniques and would help to pre-position materials in those countries such as tents, blankets, or medical supplies. As expected, during the ECOSOC meeting, the Soviets were very negative about the whole idea. They didn’t want to set up a new position. They didn’t want to put the money into the budget. However, after weeks of on and off discussions, things finally worked out. When the resolution came to a vote, the Soviets abstained. The resolution was adopted by ECOSOC and passed on to the UN General Assembly that also adopted it. The office came into operation in 1973. For the first time in history, there was a round-the-clock office in Geneva, fully staffed to respond to disasters. My original draft of the resolution had language in it that authorized the office to respond not only to natural disasters, but also to man-made disasters. I was thinking beyond the humanitarian assistance aspect. The inclusion of this latter idea caused one of the major battles over the resolution. It was finally accepted, however, over the major objections of UN agencies like UNICEF and UNHCR (the UN High Commissioner for Refugees), which felt that their turf was being taken over by the new office. The General Assembly, influenced by those UN agencies, thought the language was too forward-looking. The language was there for twenty years

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but was finally removed in 1992 by the General Assembly during a UN reorganization. The UNDRO office works well. It has key UN staff on the ground to manage the chaos. It is practical, hands-on, down-to-earth, trying to help people in an emergency.

The BBC Steps In While we were getting ready for the ECOSOC meeting in Geneva, I received an interesting phone call from the BBC in London. A Mr. Smith said that the BBC wanted to do a documentary film on the United Nations and did not know how to start the process. I said, “My suggestion is that you walk down to 10 Downing Street, and tell them that you want to do a documentary. That’s the best place to get started.” Mr. Smith said, “We’ve tried for the last seven weeks to do just that, and we have never been able to set up a meeting. We have some Ford Foundation money. We heard about you and we would like to come and see you.” “Fine with me!” I said. “Come ahead.” Three people from the BBC flew over, and we spent half a day together figuring out what they might do. I told them the story about creating the post of the UN Disaster Relief Coordinator. I said, “What you want to do is to film behind-the-scenes negotiations that are going to take place to pass this resolution through the UN General Assembly, starting at the Economic and Social Council. This will be a great educational process.” A few weeks later, they flew back to Washington with a whole team and filmed our interagency organizing sessions in Washington getting ready for the Geneva ECOSOC. Then they flew to Geneva, and I was able to get permission for the filming from the UN Secretariat and from various governments, which were delighted to have their ambassadors on the program. I was not in Geneva, but the U.S. delegation, led by Ambassador Bernie Zagorin, did a brilliant job, and the BBC produced a powerful onehour documentary. They must have shot thirty hours of film with handheld cameras. They were invited into the inner councils of the Embassies of Britain, France, the United States, and even the Soviet Union. They recorded behind-the-scene conversations at the swimming pool and the cocktail parties, where negotiations often take place—away from the conference table. In fact, this confirmed my experience over the years: The most productive negotiations take place away from the formal sessions of a conference.

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The one-hour documentary is the only film I know of that shows how multilateral negotiations actually take place. The BBC was delighted with the final product and has shown the film a number of times. It was also a great training tool. I used it for many years in teaching multilateral diplomacy at the State Department.

THE UN ENVIRONMENT PROGRAM The Single-Subject Conference Idea In 1968, the Swedish ambassador to the United Nations presented a brand new idea in a big speech at the General Assembly. He said, “We meet three months a year in New York. We have 250 items on our collective agenda. We come out with 300 resolutions each session. But we really don’t get the top people in our respective governments to stay in New York for that long a period of time. What I would like to propose is that we have a twoweek conference—not a three-month one—in which we discuss only one subject.” He went on to suggest that the first such conference be on the environment. He argued that ministers responsible for the environment would welcome the opportunity to come together for two weeks to discuss with other ministers the policies needed to deal with global environmental issues. Everybody thought this was a great idea, and the General Assembly immediately set 1972 as the date for the first “single-agenda-item conference.” The Swedish ambassador was right on target. His model has been followed to the present day with over thirty single-agenda-item conferences held by the UN system since 1972.

First Conference on the Environment In early 1970, I thought it was time to get ready for this first Conference on the Environment. No country had proposed a site for it yet. I suggested to my bosses that we offer the United States as a site, perhaps San Francisco. They agreed. I contacted Senator Edmund Muskie from Maine, who was interested in the environment, and asked him to introduce a bill in the Senate for a $4 million supplement to the State Department budget so that the United States could host the conference. He liked the idea. Unfortunately, the very day Senator Muskie put in the bill I received a note from the UN Secretariat in New York advising that the Swedish government had just proposed that the meeting be held in Stockholm.

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Since they had proposed the conference idea in the first place, obviously that’s where the conference was going to be held. My timing was a little off on that one. We still had to get organized. There was a growing interest across the United States in the upcoming world conference on the environment. A State Department colleague of mine, Christian A. Herter Jr., in the Office of Science and Technology, cochaired the first meeting in 1970 of all the agencies in the U.S. government that were interested in the environment. Forty-three agencies and about a hundred people showed up at that meeting. The group later became the U.S. Interagency Task Force that spent hundreds of staff-hours preparing for the global conference. I made a mistake at our opening session that I never made again. After welcoming everyone I said, “I’d like to go around the room and have each person introduce themselves and their agency and then explain how they define the word ‘environment.’” At the end of two hours we had forty-three definitions of the word—every agency had its own interpretation. They were all involved and interested because, at that time, the United States was moving ahead on environmental issues and concerned about the environment. We set up numerous task forces, looked at individual items on the agenda, and began to prepare for this first ever two-week global conference. We also established a forty-person NGO Advisory Committee designed to bring people into the process and strengthen relationships between the government and interested people, NGOs, and the business sector. The committee gave us invaluable advice over the next eighteen months, and a number of the members later were included in the U.S. delegation.

Need for an Entity to Carry Out Recommendations for Action on the Environment As we got deeper into our preparations for the conference I began to realize that no entity existed in the UN system to receive and then carry out the many recommendations for action that were being generated by our task force, let alone ideas from other nations. No central structure existed. Every UN agency had a little environment program here, a little program there, something at the WHO, something at the FAO. Responsibility for the environment was spread throughout the UN system with no coordination at all, as it was in most national governments. I thought, “Why don’t we create a new agency in the UN system?”

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This was during President Richard Nixon’s Administration, and I had been told before: “No more new agencies in the UN system.” The Interagency Task Force approved of my idea, but there was also a great deal of opposition to adding a new agency. Critics said, “You already have the UNDP and don’t need anything special.” Referring to my experience with population, I said, “Look what’s happened with the creation of the UNFPA. Look what’s happened with UNV. These organizations are focused on specific subjects. Environment should stand by itself; it is that important. If you want people around the world to realize that we are taking this subject seriously, then we need a new agency in the United Nations. This is the world’s first single-agenda-item conference. Let’s create a new agency just for the environment.” It was a hard sell, but I began to build support. Our NGO Advisory Committee was very helpful in their support for a new UN Agency. Ultimately I drafted four UN resolutions designed to create a new UN agency to be introduced by the U.S. delegation in Stockholm. 1. The first resolution created the new agency to be called the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). It laid out the terms of reference and mandate of the secretariat and established the head of the new agency at the under-secretary general level. Modeled on the UNDP, it would be established by resolution, not by treaty, and would be funded by voluntary contributions from member states. 2. The second resolution created an intergovernmental body to make policy and supervise the secretariat. It would be a twenty-seven-nation body along the lines of ECOSOC, with regional representation elected by the General Assembly. 3. The third resolution created a special fund on the environment. It would be a voluntary fund, not part of the UN budget. That would allow governments to put in as much money as they wanted to. The fund and its terms of reference were designed to finance only environmental projects that had been approved by the governing body. That allowed governments to control their financial contributions. 4. The fourth resolution was to create an interagency committee within the UN system itself for coordination among the agencies so that there would be no duplication or overlap with UNEP. I began to push this package of resolutions within the U.S. government. Then I met with various members of the scientific community and got them on board. I talked to environmental leaders and the NGO-world

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interested in this subject. I also met with committee staffers on the Hill. Finally, I got the approval of the White House. The whole package was formally submitted to the UN conference secretariat for distribution to member states before the fourth preparatory meeting in advance of the conference itself, which was scheduled for June 1972. By the time I got to Stockholm, four other countries had put in their resolutions; however, none of them had been drafted in time for the fourth preparatory committee meeting.

Negotiating an Agreed Text for the Resolution I was secretary of the U.S. delegation of thirty-six people. Five days before the conference I arrived in Stockholm to carry out prenegotiations with the four other countries that had submitted resolutions on the idea of a new UN agency. After four days of discussions, we were finally able to draft a single document. However, it contained many words and phrases in brackets because we could not agree on them. But we had taken the essential first step of creating one document to work with. When the conference began, a fifty-country working group was established just to look at that one document. As secretary of the U.S. delegation, it was my responsibility to keep things on track. Our goal was to see that the final plan of action was consistent with U.S. goals and objectives and that it was adopted by the world conference by consensus. We had an outstanding delegation headed by Russell Train, a distinguished environmentalist, along with many other key people in the environmental movement. We met day and night for almost two weeks and finally came up with an agreed text and presented it to the conference as a whole. The conference adopted the document without change, and a new UN agency was created. I was delighted because about 95 percent of my original text had been approved. The conference itself was brilliantly led by the Canadian Maurice Strong, a UN under-secretary general who became the first head of UNEP. The U.S. delegation worked very closely with Strong and his staff before and during the conference. In fact, his deputy, Peter Thatcher, was a very talented American who also helped us a great deal. This conference on the environment was the first conference at which NGOs from all over the world met parallel to the conference of governments. I was given the Superior Honor Award by the secretary of state for my work in creating UNEP on the recommendation of Christian A. Herter Jr., Office of Science and Technology at State.

Figure 7.3. Receiving the State Department Superior Honor Award, July 1972. Assistant Secretary of State Samuel De Palma (left), John W. McDonald thanking Christian A. Herter Jr., and Christel McDonald looking on

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Involving the White House President Nixon was very interested in the UN Conference on the Environment. The U.S. delegation was moving ahead nicely when suddenly, from out of nowhere, one of the other delegations proposed language dealing with nuclear nonproliferation. We had no instructions on the issue, but including the proposed language seemed reasonably harmless. However, no one on the delegation or at the State Department in Washington wanted to approve the text. It was decided that it had to be cleared by the president himself, and we were running out of time. I was instructed to get presidential clearance. There was no time for a telegram, so I had to telephone the White House. The operator in Stockholm called the White House and asked for the chief of staff. Colonel Alexander Haig, who later became the secretary of state in President Reagan’s cabinet, answered the phone. I explained to him the issue and asked if it was possible to get the president to focus on this and get an answer. He asked what my recommendation was. I told him and he said, “Just a minute.” He came back five minutes later and said, “The president says OK with your position.” That was pretty impressive. And we got consensus.

Choosing a Location for UNEP Two days before the end of the conference everybody knew that a new UN agency, called UNEP, would be created, but it had not yet been decided where the new secretariat should be located. By the end of the conference thirteen nations—six from the West and seven from the developing world—stepped forward and said they would like the secretariat to be located in their capital. No one could resolve that issue in the time remaining. It was therefore referred to the UN General Assembly to resolve in September 1972 when the whole plan of action generated by the environment conference would be up for approval. It became quite an issue in New York. I was convinced that the U.S. position would prevail: New York, with Geneva as a fallback. I thought all of Europe would agree on Geneva, a very practical place where lots of other UN agencies were located. I failed totally on this issue. The Austrian government had decided that it wanted to make Vienna the third UN city. They were in the process of building an enormous building near the Danube, at great cost, but they had nobody to put in the building. They wanted UNEP in Vienna and sent their foreign minister to New York for several weeks to convince the world that the secretariat should be

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located in Austria. He failed miserably and just divided the West: half went with the Austrians and the other half went with the U.S. position. That wasn’t going to work. I watched what was happening with the seven contenders from the Third World. Their big pitch was: “We’ve never had a UN agency secretariat in the South. Now it’s time, because we’re concerned about the environment as much as you are. We want the UNEP offices somewhere in the Third World.” They finally narrowed the choice down to two nations, India and Kenya. At the time, Kenya was headed by President Jomo Kenyatta, who had been considered a terrorist by the British. He had been the head of the Mau-Mau until independence when he became the country’s first elected president. He was tough. In India, the prime minister was Indira Gandhi, who was also a tough person. It was quite a sight to see the ambassadors of the two countries arguing with each other as they walked down the hall. The Indian ambassador was approximately five feet, one inch tall and weighed about one hundred pounds. The Kenyan ambassador was approximately six feet, seven inches tall and weighed about three hundred pounds. His long robes flowed as he and his entourage strode down the hall. Finally, as we would say in a baseball parlance, they started playing hardball. President Kenyatta told his ambassador to tell the Indian ambassador to tell Prime Minister Gandhi that, unless the UNEP Secretariat was located in Nairobi, he would kick every Indian out of Kenya. This was not an idle threat. President Idi Amin, from next door Uganda, had done just that a few months before. Many of the Indians in Uganda had come to Kenya. There were a lot of Indians in Kenya. Gandhi got the message. Locating the new Secretariat in Nairobi presented difficulties, especially inadequate communication facilities, but that is where UNEP is to this day.

ON BEING AN INITIATOR The timing must be right for an initiator of new ideas and programs to meet with success. The institution has to be ready for new ideas, even though it does not realize this at the time. Initiators must also master the bureaucracy they have to deal with. I learned things about the UN system in eight years that I could never have learned in a normal two-year assignment. I was interested in approaching new problems and building new institutions. I believed it was part of doing a good job. It never bothered me at all if my bosses wanted to take credit for what I accomplished. The longterm results were what mattered. People had to benefit.

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PERSPECTIVE ON THE WORLD IN THE LATE 1960S AND EARLY 1970S By the end of the 1960s, the world was certainly a turbulent place. In 1967 there was a war between Egypt and Israel. In 1968, students in many countries, almost worldwide, demonstrated. The Vietnam War was ongoing. It was also the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, which caused tensions in many parts of the world. I believe that the United Nations had a calming influence on a number of these conflicts. The world organization was particularly concerned about North-South relations and bringing developing countries into the modern world—a major task on which progress was made. Empires were collapsing. British, French, Dutch, Belgian, and Portuguese ruling powers were failing, and new countries were coming into existence almost on a monthly basis. The United Nations was often charged with helping these new countries get adjusted to nationhood. The perceived communist threat colored everything, as the threat of terrorism does nowadays. I spent a month in Vietnam in September of 1967 before the Tet Offensive, which took place at the end of January 1968. If you wanted to visit Vietnam that was the right time to do it. Somehow, the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs had $3 million in its budget to set up an institute on social development in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City today). My big boss, the head of the IO Bureau, Assistant Secretary Joseph Sisco, didn’t know how to spend the money. One day he called me in and told me he was sending me to Vietnam. I thought, “What have I done to deserve that?” Then he explained my mission and I relaxed. In Saigon I worked on social issues with the local experts and got two social development centers started with the money.

THINKING BEYOND U.S. DAY-TO-DAY POLITICS Generally speaking, day-to-day politics in the United States didn’t have much of an impact on how I did my job. First of all, the State Department was fairly isolated from domestic political affairs. Its focus was international. Within the department, my role was even more narrowly focused. Very few people were truly interested in UN economic and social issues. My staff of thirty-five and I were managing the U.S. relationship with the thirty agencies and commissions across the UN system. These agencies were constantly

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having meetings that we had to prepare for. We briefed U.S. delegations, prepared briefing books, and helped to coordinate U.S. interagency policy on hundreds of issues. For the global Conference on the Environment, for example, we wrote fifty position papers on the substantive issues that we thought were on the agenda for the environment and cleared them across the U.S. government. Then we developed fifty position papers on political issues, anticipating what comments or objection might come from the Third World, or from the Soviets. These also had to be cleared across the U.S. government, so we wouldn’t have to waste time seeking clarity from Washington in the middle of the conference. We did this for every global conference. We needed a year or eighteen months to prepare for each of them. We were constantly in motion preparing for what was going to happen a year or a year and a half away. I was always thinking about the future and future problems and how we would cope with them. I really was not involved in the day-to-day political issues of the United States, the White House, or the U.S. Congress. I was promoted again in 1971 to what in those days was called FSO1, thanks to the strong support of IO Assistant Secretary Sam De Palma. This made me a minister counselor. I served twice, for months at a time, as acting deputy assistant secretary of state. They never took the “acting” off because it was a position to be filled by a political appointee selected by the White House. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in IO. On a personal level, I was also enjoying my new marriage to Christel and strengthening relations between her and my four children. We are a strong and united family to this day.

OBSTACLES ON THE CAREER PATH Serving on a Panel to Rule about an Alleged Discrimination Case Shortly after I had been promoted to FSO-1, I was asked by Chief of Personnel Robert Brewster, who was one of the young Foreign Service officers I had brought over to ICA in 1956 and a good friend, if I would serve on a specially convened panel, representing the State Department. John Harter, a mid-career Foreign Service officer, had sued the State Department for failure to promote him and had alleged multiple acts of discrimination. It turned out that the Foreign Service and the State Department had never established a grievance system to deal with complaints of this nature.

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The three-person panel functioned like an administrative court. One panel member was selected by Harter and his lawyers; another was selected to represent State—that was me; and the chairman was a person mutually agreed upon by the two parties. In fact, all three members of the panel were serving Foreign Service officers. We had the power of subpoena, could swear in witnesses, and were able to obtain any document needed. The claimant had agreed to abide by the decisions of the panel. The panel met for ten days and worked hard. We heard many witnesses from all sides about Harter’s claim and from Harter himself—he told a fascinating story. We read many documents. It was an open hearing and many people would come in and listen to this unique case. It was like a minicourt. We finally came to the end of the proceedings. The chairman of the panel had to go off on a trip, so I volunteered to write the report. It included a number of recommendations for action in response to Harter’s criticisms and recommended him for immediate promotion. The panel reconvened and approved my draft and submitted it to the higher-ups in the State Department. The report sent shock waves through the system because the panel had agreed with every one of Harter’s claims of discrimination. If our recommendations were accepted, fundamental changes in the system would have to be made. The Office of the Medical Adviser would have to be reshaped, the annual report process would have to be revised, criteria for promotion would have to be changed, a regular grievance system would have to be set up, and so on. We knew the State Department higher-ups were very angry. We did not know how angry, but we learned over time. The report was classified “top secret,” and all copies were confiscated and destroyed. The higher-ups then took our report to Secretary of State William P. Rogers. He read the whole report and said, “The panel is right. Do everything they recommended.” This horrified the career service, but they did what they were told. Harter was promoted immediately, but the other recommendations took much longer to carry out. In the end, a grievance system was established and other changes were also made.

Retribution I learned later in what form retribution came for our report on Harter. The chairman of the panel, a senior officer of the Foreign Service, was sent to a minor overseas post and resigned. Something happened to the other panel member, and we never heard of him again. I stayed on with what I was doing in IO. My time was to come, however. In 1973, I heard

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that I was being nominated as the first U.S. ambassador to the newly created nation of Bangladesh. It was exciting news for me because it was a nice segue to my involvement with economic development and the United Nations. In fact, the United Nations had been running Bangladesh for a year, and I knew the UN people there. But I was in for a disappointment: I didn’t get the post. Another U.S. diplomat who was an expert on Russia got it because the State Department said, “He’s going to watch Russia from Bangladesh.” That had nothing to do with the needs of the country. Several other opportunities came along, and I was not on the list. I finally went to see the deputy under-secretary for management, who oversaw the process of senior assignments. I had a very frank discussion with him and I said, “I don’t understand why I’m being passed over, because I have all the qualifications. I have a feeling that it’s a conscious effort on your part.” He said, “You’re absolutely right. I’ll die before I ever see you become an ambassador. You betrayed the Foreign Service when you wrote the Harter report.” That was a shock!

A Bumpy Road to the International Labour Organization My boss, Assistant Secretary for IO Bill Buffum, whom I had kept informed and who was very supportive of what I was trying to do over the years, called me in several months after my conversation with the deputy under-secretary for management. He said, “How would you like to be deputy director-general (number two) at the International Labour Organization, the ILO, in Geneva? They are looking for an American. You’re highly qualified, you’ve been following the ILO as one of your agencies for eight years, you know all about its pluses and minuses and how to make things work there.” I said, “It sounds like a wonderful idea to me. Let me talk to my wife, Christel.” I came back the next day and said, “Many thanks for your support. Let’s do it.” The ILO is one of the great institutions of the UN system. Created in 1919 by the Treaty of Versailles, it came into being in 1920 and is based in Geneva. In 1974 it had 3,200 employees from 102 countries and operated in 120 nations around the world. The number-two position was basically to manage the organization—a terrific challenge that I would certainly enjoy. Christel had served, for over a decade, in the Geneva Office of the Council of Ministers of the European Economic Community, and was delighted at the thought of returning to Geneva.

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I thought that this assignment would be made quickly. I was mistaken. A man from the Department of Labor, who had worked on my staff for years as the person in charge of ILO affairs, had moved back to the Department of Labor where he learned of my proposed appointment. He was somehow convinced that I was a communist supporter and decided to do everything he could to block my appointment. The ILO is unique among international organizations because it has a tripartite structure with representation from labor, management, and government. Every delegation has four votes, two for government and one each for management and labor. In the United States, at that time, Labor was represented by George Meany, the head of the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations) and a strong anti-communist. The Chamber of Commerce was the business representative, and the U.S. government was mainly represented by the Departments of Labor and State. The ILO was a great institution because it was balanced and was fair. However, Meany thought it was a communist organization, because representatives from the communist empire were members of the ILO—as they are in all UN agencies. The fact that the Soviet trade union movement, business movement, and government were present bothered him. He did not consider them as tripartite, but as one monolithic government unit. He considered them part of the communist threat. He loved what the ILO was trying to do but was unhappy with its membership. My Department of Labor “friend” decided that he was going to nominate other people for the number-two position. Eventually nine candidates were vying for the post that I thought was a shoe-in for me. This had never happened in the history of the United Nations—nine candidates for one post. The Tripartite Committee in Washington decided that it would interview all nine candidates, even though it was clear that I was the best candidate, because I had had eight years of experience with the United Nations, far more than anybody else. The laborious process went on for nine months. I didn’t know what was happening, but I was certainly upset. One day, I read in the newspapers that one of the nine candidates had been selected for U.S. domestic political reasons. Christel and I went off on a fourday vacation to adjust to this news. We came back and learned that the selected man had decided, two days later, to refuse the position. He had been using the offer as a steppingstone to some other position that he really wanted. A week later a letter from George Meany arrived on Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s desk. The letter read, “John McDonald is the only man for the job,” signed

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“George.” I guess Meany must have liked my curriculum vitae because I had never met him at that point. In my younger days I had been a member of two trade unions, the Teamsters and the Machinists, and I had had ILO experience. I couldn’t be all that bad. So he wrote that little note.

Another Crossroad Six months into what turned out to be a nine-month waiting period, I was approached by friends in New York who asked me to apply for the position of president of the United Nations Association of the United States of America. The UNA, a nationwide organization with chapters across the country, is the preeminent supporter of the United Nations in the United States. After discussing the request with Christel I decided to apply. It meant that I would have to resign from the Foreign Service, move to New York, and start a completely new life. I went to New York several times for personal interviews with the board of directors. The challenge was there. The salary was excellent. It was worth a try. On November 1, 1974, I received two letters in the same mail. One offered me the ILO position in Geneva. The other offered me the UNA position in New York. What an irony. What a decision. This was a major crossroad in our lives. We finally chose the ILO and started to pack. In what turned out later to be a very wise decision, I did not resign from the U.S. government to take the UN job, but asked to be seconded to the United Nations. The whole ILO saga is another example of how what seemed a disaster then turned into a success and moved me into a completely different arena. The Office of Management at the State Department had no control over this ILO position. By the time I came back to D.C. in 1978, the deputy under-secretary for management who had blocked my becoming an ambassador was gone. So he was out of the picture, and that opened other doors for me. I still know that I was right in what I did with regard to John Harter.

8 DEPUTY DIRECTOR-GENERAL AT THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION Geneva, 1974–1978

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o mention the general background of the times: President Ford followed Nixon in mid-1974.With his reputation for integrity, Ford tried his level best, as a self-declared “internationalist,” to prevent a new war in the Middle East and worked toward further improving relations with the Soviets. Europe, at that time, was growing and expanding as an economic entity. Its last two fascists, Antonio Salazar in Portugal and General Francisco Franco in Spain, died, thus freeing Western Europe of its last dictators.The European Union also created a type of balancing mechanism between poorer and richer regions in Europe—something that is of significance to this day on a more global scale. Then there was the aftermath of the oil crisis of 1973–1974. By assuming the post of ILO deputy director-general, you moved into a completely different arena, although with a continued emphasis on innovation. In 1974, the ILO was almost 100 percent male dominated in the decision-making ranks; you made a sweeping change in that regard. How did you go about modernizing the institution further? When you think back now, what would you say was one important key for your achievements?

AN INTERNATIONAL CIVIL SERVANT As an international civil servant at the International Labour Organization, I was required to take an oath of office, saying that I would uphold the constitution of the ILO, that I would not take instructions from any member state, and that I was independent from my government. The concept of independence was a surprise to a lot of Americans when they were first faced with the fact that the ILO, as part of the UN system, required such an oath.

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I was detailed, or seconded, to the ILO by the State Department under a U.S. federal law that was designed to encourage U.S. government employees to become part of international secretariats in international organizations. Such employees could be detailed to an international organization for up to five years and could then return to their original U.S. agency in a position that would recognize their service. They were not to be penalized for such service or miss promotions they might have gotten in their absence. This great law attracted many talented Americans to serve in organizations like the ILO. Seconded employees continued to pay into the U.S. government retirement system so that they got credit toward their retirement. I served as the senior deputy director-general; two other deputies, Bertil A. Bolin of Sweden and A. K. Jain of India, were appointed after me. I was acting director-general when the director-general, Francis Blanchard of France, was on travel.

MY TASK: MANAGING THE ORGANIZATION My task was to manage the whole organization, all 3,200 people working in 120 countries around the world. To do this, I needed to modernize an ancient bureaucracy: reshape the system, make it work more efficiently, and bring it into the modern world. I was managing a $200 million yearly budget and was responsible for six major departments: program, finance, personnel, administration, information systems, and publications. Eight hundred people worked under my direct supervision. It was challenging and exciting. I had nothing directly to do with the extensive technical assistance program which the ILO was famous for. That was the job of my good friend and fellow deputy director-general, Jain. He had had thirty years of experience with the ILO. Approximately one-third of the ILO budget was spent on technical assistance. Thousands of ILO experts around the world assist small industries, helping to educate and train people as machinists, carpenters, electricians, and the like and advising on job creation. What I did impacted those projects by making it easier for the staff to do a better job. It was a new experience for me to become a manager in a major bureaucracy, but I had worked eight years at the State Department on UN economic and social affairs, so I knew something about the system. In addition, my time in Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan was enormously helpful. There I had managed up to 10,000 people who were working on my projects in three countries.

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ATTENTION TO WOMEN’S CONCERNS Balancing Gender Numbers On December 15, 1974, I was formally introduced by the directorgeneral to the senior staff in Geneva. When that group got together to meet me I was shocked to see that there were seventy-nine men and one woman in the room. The constitution of the ILO says that the ILO is designed to represent the working people of the world—53 percent of whom were women. Here we had one woman in the top eighty positions. I decided, on the spot, that somehow I was going to change that. Rectifying this imbalance became one of my early goals. It was quite a challenge to find a way to change the system within an ancient, maledominated secretariat that did not want to adjust. My colleagues and the people I got to know on my staff thought I was crazy. They said, “You can’t do that. This is not going to happen. You’ve got to convince the directorgeneral, the Governing Body and the Annual Conference that meets every year. It is an impossible task.” I drafted a whole ream of paper to prove sexual discrimination in the ILO. My idea was to propose the creation of a new bureau of women’s affairs in the ILO, the first of its kind in the UN system, to be headed by a woman assistant director-general. She would rank after the director-general and the deputy director-general. Her bureau would be required to review every single technical assistance project carried out by the ILO to ensure that women’s issues were being considered. She would have the power to hold up the project until her concerns were taken care of. I assembled all the supporting documents and argued in the paper that nobody in the governmental structure, including the tripartite Governing Body, which met four times a year, or the tripartite Annual Conference, which met for three weeks every June, had a clue about the makeup of the secretariat staff. Nobody realized that there was only one woman among a senior staff of eighty because the topic had never been discussed. I was looking for a critical moment to present my case to the directorgeneral. He didn’t completely trust me at that time. Here I was, an American that had been parachuted in, and he wasn’t quite sure if I was trying to take his job or what I was trying to do. Christel even heard rumors that some people at the ILO were convinced I was with the CIA. In order to alleviate the director-general’s fears and in order to show that I had no hidden agenda, I began immediately to develop a “weekly feedback” report detailing my

Figure 8.1. Director-general of the International Labour Organization, F. Blanchard, introduces new Deputy Director-General John W. McDonald to the senior ILO staff

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actions of that week and explaining my plans for the next week. The director-general loved it and I achieved my goal of building trust. When Mr. Blanchard and I met regarding the women’s issues, I said, “Mr. Director-General, how would you like to be seen as a hero in the eyes of the women of the world?” That got his attention, and I made my case. He wasn’t even aware of the discrimination issue. I then asked him to support my plan. We would take the issue to the Governing Body, which would be shocked at the imbalance and would approve the plan and refer the matter to the June Annual Conference for its approval. I told him that the imbalance was against the principles of the ILO Governing Body and Annual Conference, that they would agree with the plan and thank him for bringing this issue to their attention. I suggested that the director-general ask his personal senior ILO representative to fly to Mexico City, where two days later the UN’s first World Conference on Women would take place. Within the first hour of that conference, the director-general’s representative would go to the podium and say, “We at the ILO are proud to announce that we have just created the first Women’s Bureau in the history of the UN system.” And that’s exactly what happened, every step of the way.

The First Women’s Conference in Mexico City, 1975 In late 1973, while I was still in International Organization Affairs at the State Department, I had convened the first planning session for the Mexico City World Conference on Women. Some thirty-five U.S. agencies were represented—an excellent turnout. I appointed a woman cochair who did a wonderful job. However, as we began to plan for the conference, I realized that most of the women present were token leaders in their respective agencies and did not actually have the power or influence they claimed to have. Papers planned never got written, clearances were slow, and by the time I had left for Geneva to take up my work at the ILO, the process was sagging. I learned later from those who attended the conference that there was a major dichotomy between the U.S. delegation and the rest of the world. The women in the rest of the world were interested in basic human rights for women. They needed food, clean water, education, and health care. The U.S. women, on the other hand, based on a growing consciousness about feminism, wanted women’s rights at a totally different level. The head of the U.S. delegation in Mexico City was, unwisely, a man. He went home after three days, and his deputy—a woman—took over, which was very sensible. Unfortunately, the United States did not

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have much understanding or empathy with the viewpoint of women from the developing world.

Later Involvement in World Conferences on Women As it happened, I became involved in the second (1980) and third (1985) World Conferences on Women, and I followed the fourth (1995). The second World Conference on Women and Development took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, 1980. The United States had a very able secretariat and a good delegation. A month before the conference was to start, a briefing session was held for women in nongovernmental organizations interested in the subject. About eight hundred people showed up at the State Department for the daylong NGO briefing. At the end of the formal briefing, we took questions from the audience. The first question was: “How many slots are there on the U.S. delegation for lesbian women?” The briefers on the stage, mostly men, froze. This question was totally unexpected. Finally someone said, “None.” That was a concern that we were not prepared to deal with. As I prepared for the Copenhagen conference in 1980, I brought a group of skilled women together, and we crafted a draft UN resolution dealing with battered women. The U.S. government agreed to the resolution, and our delegation took it to Copenhagen to present to the conference. This was the first and only resolution on battered women ever discussed at the United Nations. I was informed later, that, during the debate on the resolution, a man from the Ukraine delegation asked for the floor. He said that he disagreed with the resolution because there were “no battered women in the Ukraine.” There were several moments of stunned silence in the room of 2,500 delegates, when suddenly the entire conference broke out in a roar of laughter and derision. The Ukrainian delegate was never seen again. The U.S. resolution was adopted unanimously, without changing a comma, and was confirmed by the General Assembly. This resolution proved to be particularly effective over the next few years. When I attended UN conferences, I would inevitably be approached by women from various countries who would tell me how much they appreciated this UN resolution. It enabled them to push their governments to be more responsive to the concerns of battered women in their own countries. My interest in the topic harked back to an earlier experience at the ILO in Geneva and my efforts to help battered women in that city. Two women living in Geneva asked me if I could provide some space for them

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to manage a small NGO they wanted to put together to look after battered women. I guess they contacted me because they thought that the ILO was interested in people and there might be a friendly person there that could help them. I said that I didn’t know if I could be of help but suggested they go to see the mayor of Geneva. He was a friend of mine, and I could arrange for them to have a meeting with him. They told me that they had already met with the mayor, who had escorted them out of his office very quickly, saying, “There are no battered women in the city of Geneva.” I said, “Educate me, because my impression is that battered women are found only among the poor and the uneducated.” They said that I was totally wrong, that the problem existed at all levels of society, irrespective of economics or education, and all over the world. Both professional and nonprofessional women were affected, and the phenomenon had nothing to do with poverty. I was enormously impressed with their dedication and helped them to get started with their NGO, which subsequently flourished in Geneva. I was also involved in the third UN Women’s Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1985. This took place at the conclusion of the Women’s Decade that had been launched at the General Assembly after the Mexico City Conference in 1975. The U.S. secretariat for the Nairobi Conference was headed by a political appointee designated by the White House, a well-qualified woman. It was her job to put together the U.S. delegation. Seven weeks before the delegation was to leave for Nairobi something happened that was unique in my experience. Out of the blue the State Department received a draft press release to be issued by the White House announcing that President Ronald Reagan’s daughter, Maureen, would head the U.S. delegation to the Women’s Conference. It also listed the thirty-five people she had selected for her delegation without ever consulting the State Department. There was no overlap between the two delegations. The State Department was livid. It was their responsibility to name delegations and their prerogative to prepare for international conferences. What to do? They had never been upstaged, and blindsided like this before. The next day, the assistant secretary of IO, Greg Newell, phoned me for help. This was a bit ironic, as he had unceremoniously booted me out of IO in 1983. I was working at the Foreign Service Institute at the time. He sounded desperate, and I agreed to help. I told Newell to go with the flow but get the White House to let the State Department issue the press release. I also offered to meet with Maureen and work with her and her delegation to prepare for the conference. He agreed.

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The previously appointed White House person left the scene. Maureen moved into her office and kept a few of the staff, but she had her own ideas. She raised a great deal of money on her own and brought her thirtyfive-person delegation together in a five-star hotel in Washington, D.C., for a week of training to learn about the United Nations and the substantive aspects of the conference, discuss their various roles, and start to work together as a team. It was a great idea. The State Department was never able to provide such training and orientation for its delegations for lack of funds. I repeatedly met with the delegation, gave them a 101 course on the United Nations and spent hours telling the delegates how to operate in a multilateral setting. Two of my books, The Art of Negotiation and How to Be a Delegate, became required reading. The experience was enjoyable because they were great people who really wanted to learn. I was even invited to a small White House luncheon for the whole delegation, hosted by President Ronald Reagan. Vice President George Bush, whom I had known when he was ambassador to the United Nations, sat at my table, or, rather, I sat at his. The delegation did an outstanding job at the conference and actually defeated the Soviet Bloc’s political effort to equate Zionism with racism, a subject that would creep into many international meetings regardless of the subject. I followed the 1995 Beijing Women’s Conference from afar, through the eyes of Dr. Eileen Borris, chief of training for the Institute for MultiTrack Diplomacy, who was there and worked with the women from Tibet. It was remarkable to watch, over a period of twenty years, the gradual creation of a talented, viable, global women’s movement at the NGO level. NGO attendance at the 1975 Mexico City Women’s Conference was small but grew with each succeeding conference in size, skill, and professionalism. There were 40,000 NGO women at the 1995 Beijing conference. They have learned how, individually and in groups, to push their respective governments to take action on women’s issues. It is an example of how great the UN’s impact can be on a global social issue, over time. Also, U.S. women deserve great credit because they’ve grown dramatically in their understanding of women’s issues around the world.

BRINGING ABOUT CHANGE Managing by Walking Around Everyone knows that an MBA is a master’s in business administration, but few know what an MBWA is. It’s management by walking around. I

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didn’t invent the phrase, but such a management style has been a part of my way of operation for many years. It was particularly effective in the ILO where I was responsible for a huge bureaucracy. The first thing I did when I arrived was to be briefed by all of the divisions in the ILO. I would set up a time for a briefing with a division chief and then say, “I’ll come to your office and meet your staff and learn where you are located.” I did that with every division in the whole secretariat. I learned much later that this was the first time ever that the directors were not summoned to the office of the deputy director-general. It was unprecedented for the deputy directorgeneral to go to division offices. It never occurred to me to do otherwise: this was my MBWA. The practice endeared me to the top staff because I listened to them on their turf, where they felt secure. I also attempted to streamline various administrative processes and was thus able to save hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly.

Computerizing the Personnel Files One day I was walking down the hall and saw a messenger pushing a shopping cart loaded with personnel files. I asked him where he was going. He was taking these papers to one of our staff who was working on North Africa. I followed him to the staff member’s office. “What are you going to do with these files?” I asked. “That’s a lot of material.” He said, he was going to read through the files—all two hundred of them—because he was looking for a management expert who was trilingual in French, Arabic, and English and who could take on a task in Algeria. I looked at that pile and asked him how long it would take him. When he told me it would take about three weeks, I was aghast. “That’s incredible,” I said. “That has to change. Your time is too valuable for you to spend three weeks on this task.”‘ I went back to my office and called the computer team together. We used IBM equipment that consisted of four rooms full of cathode-ray tubes; punch cards were used for data entry. It was the top of the line at the time. The Bureau of Information Systems was using this fine equipment for payroll only. I asked them to write new software—in those days off-the-shelf software did not exist—to computerize the personnel files and those of the 15,000 consultants. I wanted summary information from all these files to be searchable so that the staff could identify five or six qualified people and then ask the personnel division for just five or six files, rather than a shopping cart full. The staff in the Bureau of Information Systems was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task and said they couldn’t do it. I replied, “Oh yes

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you can, because we’re going to reorder your priorities, and you’re going to do this task.” It took nine months, but they did it and did a great job. They also found out that about 1,000 of the experts had died and their files were now useless. The result was that ILO staff was able to reduce the time spent in searching for the right expert from three weeks to two hours.

Computerizing the Library The ILO possessed the best labor library in the world. The man in charge of it, John Thomson, wanted to modernize the library. I strongly supported him, against the opposition of a lot of people on the staff. Our goal was the complete computerization of the library. We started to computerize as of a given date. Every document received after that date would be summarized and entered in a database. Then, as we had time and money, we would computerize the older material. People were not allowed in the stacks, which was revolutionary in and of itself. Every table in the library had a computer on it, and those who wanted something from the library had to learn how to use the computer. It was a struggle at first, but we persevered. We became the first library in the UN system to computerize. We were twenty years ahead of the UN library in New York, which didn’t computerize until 1996. Today, given the ubiquity of computers, it is hard to recall the state of thinking in the mid-1970s. The ILO chief of labor statistics did not “believe” in computers and never used them. Only on his retirement from the ILO were we able to change that situation. In addition to work on computerization within the ILO, I also set up an information systems committee in Geneva; representatives of all UN agencies in the city met on a regular basis to discuss common problems. I became chairman and set up a small secretariat for the committee at the ILO. When we started out we learned that every agency had a different computer system and no agency could talk to any other agency by computer. One of our accomplishments was to establish an encyclopedia of common terms for the computers so they could talk to each other. That was a major step toward getting the agencies to interact with each other— at least by computer.

“Your Obedient Servant” One of my favorite stories about making changes at the ILO took place just a few weeks after my arrival. One day I was presented with a stack

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of about 140 letters each addressed to a member state asking them to pay their annual dues. The letters were fine, but as I started to sign them, I noticed the closing phrase of the letter, which read as follows: “Your obedient servant, John W. McDonald, Deputy Director-General.” That gave me pause. I thought “the last time that phrase had been used was probably when Benjamin Franklin reported back to Washington from Paris over two hundred years ago.” I decided one of my first tasks to bring the ILO into the modern world was to change that phrase. I called in Patrick Denby, chief of administration, a member of my senior staff who reported directly to me. Originally from the United Kingdom, he was a career international civil servant who had been with the ILO for over thirty years. The meeting started out very well. I talked about my plans and then began to focus on changing that closing phrase on all the letters I was supposed to sign. Denby got more and more agitated as I went on, and then, red-faced, he suddenly blurted out, “No, you can’t do that.” I must confess that I was astonished at this outburst, but I quietly asked him why not. He replied, “You can’t change it because we have always done it that way!” He refused to change the phrase. The meeting came to an end shortly thereafter. I ran into that same mind-set frequently in the coming months, but “we have always done it that way” was not a good enough reason for me. I tried to get around Denby, but he controlled all avenues that I tried to use, so nothing happened. A few weeks later I had an idea and telephoned a friend of mine in the British Foreign Office in London. After we had chatted for a while, I told him my story and asked for his help. He laughed and said he thought I would be involved in more serious issues but offered to be of assistance. I simply asked him to send me a letter of congratulations on my joining the ILO on Foreign Office stationery. A week later the letter arrived. I called Denby into my office again and showed him the letter from “his” Foreign Ministry. I said, “I would like the ILO to sign its letters the British way.” The closure on that letter read “Very Truly Yours.” Denby took one look at the letter and said “Yes Sir, right away.”

A New Performance Review Process When I set up my office I was alone. I wanted a secretary to help me out, so I asked the Office of Personnel to send me some files to look at people that they thought would be qualified. I received about forty files and read them all. They were identical; every person was given an “outstanding” rating in all areas. I thought, “This is crazy.” At my first meeting with

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the entire staff of the Office of Personnel, about thirty-five people, I said, “I’m really trying to understand how you work here. I have read all of the files that you sent me and they’re all identical. Everyone is brilliant! Obviously this is impossible.” I went on, “My question to you is: Do you have an old boys’ network for the selection process or do you have a secret file on every person?” There was stunned silence in the room. Finally, someone in the back of the room—I never found out who— said in a small voice, “We have both.” I said, “We’re going to change that, because the ILO can’t operate effectively under your current system.” I learned by word of mouth about a wonderful person who could be my secretary: Anne Gogarty, originally from Ireland. It turned out to be a superb choice. The annual evaluation report on each staff member was worthless. It took a year to change the system, but we succeeded. I had to get the staff union on board, because the ILO naturally had a very strong union. After a while, they began to see the necessity of redoing the report form. We finally agreed on a brand new annual personnel review form that made sense. One of the revolutionary changes was that the persons being evaluated had to project their own careers five years into the future and comment on aspects of their own performance. The old form provided no space for persons being evaluated to say anything. Another revolutionary change was that supervisors had to sit down with each person being evaluated and go over the report together. Previously staff had never even seen the report. The new system—in which the review was written by one boss, reviewed by another, and then discussed with the individual—was much more laborintensive, but it was also more effective. I took the lead in using the new forms by writing evaluations for my six department chiefs. They were all at the D-2 level in the UN-wide personnel system, which meant that they were at the top professional level. With one exception they were truly outstanding, including Denby, who became a good friend. The exception was a Soviet who was trying to manage the publications program: a $20 million a year business for the ILO. The organization carried out a lot of research, which was published in several languages, for a global audience. Unfortunately the Russian was a terrible manager. I couldn’t understand his English, and nobody else could either. I mentioned a few of these negatives, in a kindly fashion, in his first annual review under our new system. As soon as he read his report and we had talked about it, he rushed over to the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva and to the

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ILO. She was a strong, capable career diplomat. When she came to see me the next day, I explained what I was trying to do for the whole system. I also went into more detail about how bad he really was. She listened and took notes. The next day the Russian telephoned to say he had a sick mother in Moscow and had to go back to take care of her. I never saw him again. A week later the Soviet ambassador called me and said, “I have just the right man for you to take this vacant post. It’s the chief of my political section. I know him well and he will do an outstanding job for you.” I knew the man had to be a KGB agent, because many missions hosted representatives from their own countries’ intelligence services. I interviewed him and brought him into the ILO to fill a Russian position. He was fantastic. He spoke six languages and was a great manager. He revolutionized the department and was very personable and liked by everyone. He was a part of my team, but he could never adjust to the fact that I had no secrets. Everything I was concerned about was discussed at staff meetings, and he was an equal and respected member of the group. My friends at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and the ILO confirmed what I had suspected. In fact, he was a colonel in the KGB. I think I am the only Foreign Service officer to have had a colonel in the KGB working for him. (About six months after I left the ILO, someone blew his cover and he had to go back to Moscow.)

Streamlining the Organization During the new annual review process, the Office of Personnel, working closely with the Staff Union, identified fifty-one people, with lifetime contracts with the ILO, who were what we called “deadwood.” They came to work and did nothing, day in and day out, damaging the morale of the rest of their office. But they had contracts that allowed them to stay with the ILO until they were sixty, the required retirement age at that time. These people could be found at all levels, from an assistant director-general (a D-2) all the way down to a messenger. It took some time to get honest about this. I said, “I think that we ought to get rid of these people.” But personnel said, “Oh no, you can’t do that. Nobody’s ever done that in the history of the United Nations.” “I think we ought to try,” I said. “You know, there is a clause in the personnel guidelines which says that people can retire early. They can be given a ‘golden handshake,’ based on their longevity with the ILO and their salary.” I explained further, “What I would like you to do, with the support

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of the staff union, is to abolish those fifty-one positions. Here is how it will work. First you talk to the fifty-one people about their poor performance and tell them that we plan to abolish their posts. Then you pay a second visit a few weeks later and talk about how much money they’ll get if they resign. Then you pay a third visit with a document showing exactly how much money they will receive if they resign and tell them you will pick up their letter of resignation in a few days.” We abolished the positions specifically so that the fifty-one persons could say to their friends, “My position was abolished because the ILO had budgetary problems, so I retired.” The entire process was quiet, confidential, low-key, and took about nine months. All fifty-one persons retired. They knew they weren’t working. Here was a golden offer, a big amount of money. They all left without recrimination or anger, and not as single person filed an appeal or claim against the ILO. There is an ILO tribunal for the UN system that handles personnel complaints. Nobody complained. Later I worked up some figures on the impact of these retirements. The golden handshakes cost $1.5 million, but we saved about $10 million in salaries we would have paid the early retirees until their normal retirement. It was impossible to put a price tag on the dramatic increase in morale in every office. No one believed that it was possible to get rid of deadwood, but it did happen. It is interesting to note that no other agency took this approach until Secretary General Kofi Annan announced in the spring of 2006 that he would get rid of deadwood at the UN headquarters in New York. Unfortunately his ten-year term ended on December 31, 2006, without his plan having taken effect.

Establishing an Intern Program In 1975, I realized that no UN agency had ever developed an intern program. I decided to start such a program at the ILO. The first year I was there, the personnel department and I identified fifteen very bright young men and women, all with advanced degrees, to join the ILO for six months. We used this process as a potential recruitment device to bring new blood into the system. The program continued because it was very successful.

Organizing a Day-Care Center Several women on the ILO staff suggested that we organize a day-care center at the ILO. It was hard to find babysitters in Geneva. The center we

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established was not just for ILO employees, but also for those at the World Health Organization and the Office of the United Nations in Geneva. The yearly cost of about $1 million was shared by the three agencies. The fee was based on income of the parents. The morale and productivity of the users increased markedly. It was a great success. Another first for the UN system.

THE ILO AND HUMAN RIGHTS The ILO is the strongest human rights organization in the world. It had much more clout than the UN Human Rights Commission. Very few people are cognizant of this fact. Since the early 1920s, the ILO has drafted, negotiated, and adopted 188 international treaties through tripartite action. It is one of the organization’s main operations, apart from technical assistance projects around the world. Labor, management, and government work together and finally come to an agreement on human rights issues: the right to organize, the right of women to receive equal compensation, environmental protection and management, safety at the work place, and so forth. After the treaties are ratified, governments are required to report back every couple of years to the ILO to verify that the treaties have been adhered to. If individuals or labor or management disagree with the government reports, they have the right to appeal to the ILO and be heard. For example, an individual can report to the ILO that country X has not been following the treaty that permits organization of trade unions. A committee of experts from fifteen countries around the world meets several times a year to review the complaints. It is the only place in the world where an individual can complain about his government’s action or inaction and be heard. After the hearings, the committee of experts makes recommendations requiring action to rectify the wrongs. These recommendations are reviewed by a special committee of the ILO’s Annual Conference. The Annual Conference debates and then votes on the recommendations. If a country is “chastised” or “condemned” by the ILO, it has to carry out the recommendations. Public disgrace is a major element in this practice. During the Cold War, things got so tough on Poland at one point that the country decided to withdraw from the ILO. It takes two years to give notice of withdrawal. Just before the two years were over, Poland changed its mind and stayed on. Over the long term, the ILO has had an enormous effect particularly because it stimulated the creation of trade unions around the world.

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Figure 8.2. John W. McDonald welcomes President Carter, an ardent human rights advocate, in early 1977 at the ILO, Geneva

CONTINUING ON THE GLOBAL PATH I was fortunate in being able to develop an excellent relationship with my boss, Director-General Francis Blanchard. As mentioned, at first he was uncertain about my goals and may have thought I was after his job. I was able to clear that up rather quickly by developing a weekly “feedback report” for his eyes only. Every Friday afternoon I prepared a three-page paper outlining what I had done that week and what I planned to do the next week. No secrets. After that we got along famously. He did the politicking, and he was great at it, and I did the managing. What I really enjoyed about the ILO experience was that it kept me focused globally. It gave me much more insight into the UN system and bureaucracy. It was also an honor to be an international civil servant in one of the oldest, largest, and most prestigious specialized agencies of the UN system. There I had the opportunity to work on a larger scale and to apply my experience in working in a national government (the U.S.) as well as in the United Nations. I have remained on the global path until today.

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THE UNITED STATES PULLS OUT OF THE ILO—AND COMES BACK In 1978, the United States pulled out of the ILO. I was a victim of that withdrawal. After we pulled out, the 25 percent of the ILO budget that the United States had contributed was sorely missed. The director-general felt it was not appropriate for a nonmember national to hold the second highest position in the organization, so my job was abolished. My good luck was that I had chosen to be seconded to the United Nations instead of retiring when I went to the ILO and I returned to the State Department in Washington in April 1978. The irony is that exactly at that moment I had been asked to become the president of the American Club in Geneva which brought together the American business community and other Americans in Geneva. Before the decision to pull out was final, I launched a major campaign to try to keep the United States in. I had sixty senators and congressmen send letters to President Jimmy Carter, who would make the final decision. I even had the pope send a letter. Everybody was telling President Carter he shouldn’t pull the United States out—after all, the ILO was founded on the initiative of a great U.S. labor leader, Samuel Gompers, who was instrumental in making it a part of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. At the last second, President Carter was visited by George Meany, who, as I stated earlier, thought the ILO was dominated by the communists and wanted the United States out. The president agreed to Meany’s request, for domestic political reasons. Shortly after Meany died in 1980, Lane Kirkland, who became the new leader of the AFL-CIO, took the United States back into the ILO. Kirkland had never agreed with Meany on the withdrawal issue. One good thing came out of this. A tripartite committee was established in Washington, D.C., chaired by the secretary of labor, with the head of the AFL-CIO, and the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as members. They met quarterly and had staff support to oversee the work of the ILO. Formerly, oversight had been fragmented. The United States has been a strong supporter of the ILO ever since.

MANAGING A LARGE BUREAUCRACY In the course of dozen years between 1967 when I was assigned to the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs and 1978 when I left the ILO, I learned a very basic skill: how to manage a bureaucracy. I

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had to learn how bureaucracies in the State Department, the U.S. government, and the United Nations worked. Effective managers have to know their bureaucracy—how to manipulate it and how to make it do things that it might not really want to do, but should do for the greater good. Because I stayed in these positions for a relatively long time, I could achieve things that diplomats who wanted to move on could not achieve. I stayed. If one door shut in my face, I would try another one. Of course, I picked my battles carefully and didn’t fight the system too frequently. I firmly believe that change for the better can happen—in any bureaucracy.

9 SPECIAL ASSIGNMENTS IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT’S BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AFFAIRS Washington, D.C., 1978–1983

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ou returned to the United States while Jimmy Carter was president. I remember him best for his Camp David success assisting President Anwar Sadat and Prime Minister Menachem Begin to come to an amicable agreement regarding Egypt, Israel, and the Sinai. And, infamously, I think of Carter as the president during the long months when fifty-two Americans were held hostage by Iran. Domestically, he had to fight inflation and, at the same time, he pushed through some important social and environmental programs. How did your reintegration into this foreign policy and home setting go? What were some of the major consensus-building mechanisms and best practices you applied when you represented the United States at UN conferences? What were some of the highlights on this expanding global path?

EXPANDING THE GLOBAL PATH My wife Christel and I came back to Washington, D.C., from the International Labour Organization in March 1978. We looked all over for an apartment and finally bought a condo in North Arlington, Virginia, only a block away from the not yet opened metro station called Virginia Square. We still like living there after all these years and enjoy the easy access to the Washington subway system and proximity to the city. I returned to my old Bureau of International Organization Affairs (IO); however, they didn’t know what to do with me. I didn’t fit into any particular box on the organization chart. I was an oddball, but I did have certain talents, and I had worked on UN affairs for twelve years, longer than any other officer in the history of the U.S. Foreign Service. I was given a secretary and was assigned to special activities that had to be done but that

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no one else had time for. This arrangement made it possible for me to get involved in a spectrum of global challenges. I headed delegations to numerous global conferences. I was responsible for UN special days, years, and decades. I also served as IO’s “pinch hitter” on several occasions. To make me acceptable in the eyes of the world of global conferences and other UN activities, I was appointed ambassador twice by President Jimmy Carter and twice by President Ronald Reagan. I became what amounted to a roving U.S. ambassador concerned about UN economic and social affairs. In this chapter I describe some of the global-outreach activities I was involved with during my years at IO. They serve to illustrate techniques and practices that help build consensus.

EVALUATING TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE IN KENYA One of my first assignments was to head a team that was to evaluate all of the technical assistance projects in Kenya funded multilaterally by Western governments since the country had become independent in the early 1960s. Few people realize that the major agencies, like the International Labour Organization (ILO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the UN Development Program (UNDP), and many others in the UN system send thousands of technical experts to the field to assist farmers and medical institutions and trade unions and the like at the village level. They have a major impact on development, worldwide. I was to report back to the Geneva group in Geneva, Switzerland. This unofficial group of experts from developed countries that provided most of the foreign aid to the Third World met several times a year. If a country paid dues to the United Nations of 1 percent a year or more, then it was part of the Geneva group. The delegates to the Geneva group were concerned, institutionally, about whether or not UN technical assistance was effective. The UN’s work had never been evaluated before, so the Geneva group chose Kenya as a pilot case. The State Department had promised this report at the previous meeting of the Geneva group and then had forgotten its commitment. I was called in to produce a product quickly. My team of five and I had only about one month to take a critical look at technical assistance in Kenya. My old friend Bob Kitchen, a former U.S. Agency for International Development expert in UN affairs, was UNDP resident representative, based in Nairobi. He was responsible for coordinating all UN agency programs in

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his country. He was outstanding in his support of our team effort. We used his old DC-3 aircraft to fly all over the country to look at UNDP development projects on the ground. We also looked at some U.S. bilateral aid projects along the way. I remember attending a USAID briefing of some two hundred farmers who were being lectured to by a learned American agricultural expert. He did fine. But the audience was all wrong. The entire audience consisted of men. Not a woman in sight. I asked where the women were. In Kenya, they did all the farming. Did USAID expect the men to tell the women what they had learned? No answer. I learned there were six different ministries in Nairobi, all dealing, ineffectively, with rural drinking water issues. I recommended consolidation. I learned that most foreign aid agencies had their projects within a fifty-mile radius of Nairobi. I recommended this be changed. I also learned that USAID had by far the largest staff of any Western donor country. Most staff members never left Nairobi. They had minimal contact with the average Kenyan and spent most of their time writing reports to Washington to satisfy congressional requirements. At the same time, I had the opportunity to learn a lot about the different UN projects in Kenya and met with other Geneva-group bilateral donor missions and compared their projects with the USAID mission projects. After our trip, Christel and I returned to Geneva and personally reported to the Geneva group’s next meeting. I concluded that the UN projects were well managed and worth the money spent on them. The Geneva group was pleased with my report, which had confirmed my own previous experience. Kenya was doing a great job with its aid and I felt it was an excellent trip.

DRAFTING AN INTERNATIONAL TREATY ON TERRORISM In 1976, the UN General Assembly had appointed a thirty-six-nation committee to draft an international treaty on terrorism. Their goal was to close a legal loophole that allowed the creation of safe havens for terrorists. The draft treaty specified that if a country had captured terrorists, it must either prosecute them for their activities or extradite them to a country that would prosecute them. Terrorism was on the agenda then as it is now. In the 1970s there had been several hijackings of aircrafts. In response, the International Civil Aviation Organization had drafted several treaties designed to prevent

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terrorist actions. Every airport was going to install metal detectors. This was a German initiative. The 1972 Olympics in Munich, where a Palestinian terrorist assault left eleven Israelis and one policeman dead, triggered this concern on the part of the Germans. The drafting committee met for the first time in 1976 in Geneva. I did not attend but learned later that about eight hundred people were involved. In addition to the thirty-six nations that made up the committee, there were fifty observer-nation delegations. The world press was there, and NGOs and the UN Secretariat were well represented. The nations didn’t accomplish a thing with regard to their charge during the three weeks of meetings. They were distracted by talking to the press and beating their own breasts about how important the meeting was. They got good press coverage back home, but nothing happened. That was discouraging. The drafting committee decided to meet again in 1977. The same eight hundred people got together, and the same thing happened. They took no action whatsoever. So the committee decided to have a third and last meeting in 1978. A week before this third conference was to start, I was asked—for reasons unknown to me—if I would head the U.S. delegation to this meeting. State’s Legal Department had been responsible for this assignment the first two sessions. I went to see the man who had headed the delegation both times, and he told me some of the things that had happened. I read the documentation, and then I asked him, “What are my chances of success?” He thought for a moment and said, “About 10 percent.” “Pretty bad odds,” I said, and I thought, “I must do something about this.” I went to Geneva with a small, six-person delegation—all experts in this area of the law. I conferred at length with the president of the conference, a distinguished diplomat from Senegal. He had been the president for the first two sessions as well and was very frustrated by the inaction of his committee. I said, “Mr. President, this model is not going to work again. You tried it twice and it hasn’t worked. We have a last chance here, but we have to change the ground rules. Here is my proposal.” He followed my advice. Within half an hour after the opening, he announced that the committee was going to reconvene as an informal, unofficial working group consisting only of the thirty-six delegates that had been appointed by the General Assembly. He respectfully asked all fifty observer-nation representatives (some seventy-five people for each observer nation) to leave the conference hall, as well as all members of the press, all NGOs, all UN Secretariat representatives. He said, “We don’t even need

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UN committee reporters. All we need are the translators. We will do our own reporting, our own drafting.” His announcement created chaos and made a lot of people angry. It took a half hour to clear out the room. For the next three weeks, we met day and night. A half hour before the conference was to adjourn the president reconvened the official committee, which adopted a draft treaty by unanimous consent. This happy ending did not come without a lot of trauma among the thirty-six delegations. The key issue was how to deal legally with the paradox that “my freedom fighter is your terrorist.” Our draft was sent to the General Assembly that fall, and the next year, 1979, the General Assembly adopted the treaty at the request of its legal committee, and it became part of international law. In 2002, that treaty was cited by the British High Court in connection with the trial of General Augusto Pinochet, of Chile. Chile had requested Pinochet’s extradition from the United Kingdom to be tried in Chile as a terrorist. The High Court sent him back to Chile. Toward the end of our three-week session, the Soviets, who had been very cooperative in the first two weeks, began to realize that this treaty was actually going to be promulgated. There had been a lot of problems but it was clear that we were going to have a treaty this time. The head of the Soviet delegation began reneging on the specific language that he had already agreed to before. For efficiency’s sake, the committee had divided itself into five regional groups, each with a spokesperson: Asia, Africa, Latin America, Soviet Bloc, and the West. The Western group didn’t know what to do about this shift on the part of the Soviets. I finally said, “Why don’t you empower me, on behalf of the Western group, to call on the Soviet ambassador, whom I happen to know because of my ILO days, and let me tell her what is going on. I am convinced the Soviet representative has no instructions to approve this treaty because Moscow never thought it would happen.” With the approval of my regional group, I called on the azmbassador, and we had a very frank conversation. I said, “I think what has happened is that Moscow didn’t give any instructions to your delegation about approving a treaty, because they never thought it would happen.” I went on, “I think that this should be changed, because the world needs this treaty.” On the way out, I turned and said, “I would hate to see the lead article on the front page of the New York Times, ‘Soviet Delegation kills Terrorist Treaty.’” The Soviet delegate never came back to the meeting. A new Russian delegation was there the next morning, and the treaty was adopted. This was a case of playing hardball, but sometimes you have to resort to that.

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DRAFTING AN INTERNATIONAL TREATY OF RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF THE INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE ORGANIZATION (INTELSAT) STAFF The International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (INTELSAT) was the first international entity to manage satellite technology. (It is now called the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization— ITSO.) It was not a part of the UN system but was based as an international organization in Washington, D.C. The United States was one of its founding members. In 1978, the UN Secretariat decided to draft an international treaty that would specify the privileges and immunities of INTELSAT’s international staff. The Secretariat sent out a draft treaty to member states for comment before convening an international conference to adopt the treaty. Remarkably, some two hundred amendments were put forward for the text of the twenty-page document. Since the United States hosted the organization, it was decided that the U.S. delegation would have a major influence on the conference. I was asked to head the U.S. delegation about a week before the conference took place. A day before the opening, I was told that I would be elected president of the conference. This came as a major surprise to me, but should not have been. INTELSAT was only abiding by the courteous UN practice of selecting the head of the host country delegation as president. I had been told initially that it would be a small gathering—maybe fifteen countries. In fact, there were over four hundred delegates from eighty-five countries. They were all active participants at the conference. INTELSAT had set aside three weeks for the conference. Immediately after the meeting convened and I was elected president, several delegates proposed that the conference be postponed. I overruled the voices on that issue and we began to review the document. We had to find some way to cope with the two hundred proposed amendments within three weeks. That was certain to be a challenge. It soon became apparent, as we went through the document, line by line, that sometimes multiple countries had put forth amendments on articles of no particular interest to the rest of the conference. I sent the representatives of those countries off to another room to negotiate the language of the article they were concerned about. They would report back to the full conference when they had reached agreement, and the plenary would undoubtedly approve their language. This technique had never been used before to my knowledge. I used it extensively. On some days, there would be as many as five to six sub-

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committees meeting outside the plenary session. Through this mechanism we were able to consider all the amendments and to achieve the impossible by convening the full conference a half hour before we were to close and adopting the draft treaty unanimously without a vote. The treaty was ratified within the next six months and became a part of INTELSAT’s organizational structure.

WORLD CONFERENCE ON TECHNICAL COOPERATION AMONG DEVELOPING COUNTRIES South-South Cooperation with Assistance from the North Shortly after I had come back from Kenya, I was asked by the State Department to head the U.S. delegation to the UN World Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries, to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in September of 1978. The conference was to be based on the two-week model that the United Nations had adopted after the Stockholm Conference on the Environment in 1972. The idea behind the conference was to foster South-South cooperation with assistance from the North. The challenge would be to get developing countries to cooperate and work together. That was a new concept to me, and I liked the idea. It turned out to be more of a challenge than I expected. The conference was to take place in six weeks, not the year and a half that is normally set aside for preparation. However, I was told that the delegation had been selected and the papers prepared. “Yes, yes,” they told me. “That’s all been taken care of.” I found out that none of that was correct. Nobody had lifted a finger for that conference. I figured out later that the State Department had actually forgotten about the conference. Here they were, suddenly faced with having to put together a U.S. delegation. So they asked me. It was a major challenge but also a major opportunity. I was able to select a ten-person delegation myself without worrying about political clearance or getting the Hill or the White House involved. During the six weeks of preparation, I began to realize that the West was really not that interested in this concept of TCDC. All of the developing countries were sending cabinet ministers as head of delegation. No European countries were doing that—they were sending ambassadors. And there I was. I wasn’t even an ambassador. I was a senior Foreign Service officer, but with great UN experience. Before the conference started, I was appointed ambassador by President Carter—it was my first ambassadorial appointment.

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Extending Appropriate Respect As I began to look at the problems that we were facing, I thought it would be great if I could get President Carter to approve a speech that I would write for him and deliver on his behalf at the opening session. I thought the topic of Third World cooperation would appeal to him personally. I realized that if I went through regular channels it would probably take three or four months before I ever got an answer back. So I called up a friend of mine on the National Security Council staff who was close to President Carter. I told him what I wanted to do and asked him what he thought of the idea. He said, “Great idea. Don’t worry about bypassing all the bureaucracies.” I wrote the speech and walked it over to the National Security Council at the White House. By this time the conference was just three weeks away. Four days later, I got a request from the office of the secretary of state saying that there was a message from the White House asking me to approve a speech that the president wanted to give at my conference. They sent it down to me. My friend had not even changed a comma. I went back up to the secretary of state’s office and said, “This is a brilliant speech and I’d love to give it.” So the State Department approved the draft; it was sent back to the White House; and President Carter signed it. I gave that speech at the opening session. As a newly minted ambassador, I had the credentials to represent the president. It was the only speech from a head of state at that conference. It changed the whole atmosphere, the whole spirit, the attitude toward the United States and the U.S. delegation. The conference was a success. In fact, the local press called it “the Miracle of Buenos Aires.”

Working with Leaders The TCDC was a fascinating international conference. In attendance were about 2,000 delegates, 200 members of the press, and a few NGOs. Because it was underfunded, there were all kinds of problems in getting ready for it. There was only one committee of the whole (unrestricted regarding the number of countries attending and normally the committee of the whole was attended by more junior delegates) and one plenary (limited to heads of delegations and some of their staff ). The committee of the whole was attended by 435 people; the remaining delegates attended the plenary. In the two-week period, the conference was required to review a thirty-page draft plan of action that the UN Secre-

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tariat had put together in anticipation of the conference. We had to talk about it, amend it, and hopefully approve it by consensus. It was a formidable task. After I made my opening speech in the plenary, I moved to the committee of the whole, which had been tasked to review and amend the draft plan of action. I listened and watched for three days. I didn’t say a word— a pretty hard thing for me to do. After three days, the committee of the whole had finished reviewing just one page of the thirty-page document. I decided it was time for me to visit the president of the conference. He was a major general in the Argentinean Army and had never been to a UN conference before. He really didn’t know what was happening. I said, “General, I think what we should do is to bring together a dozen people in your office, for coffee, so we can talk about the conference, keep you informed, and see what is going on.” “That’s a great idea,” he said. “But,” he went on, looking out over the conference hall, “I don’t know who to invite.” “General, I just happen to have a list,” I said, pulling out a list of twelve names, including myself, from the five regional groups. “These are the leaders from each group at this conference. These are the people you should invite.” At the end of our first coffee, I suggested we meet each morning. We began to build trust relationships, and that group became the core group that advised the president. From past experience, I knew that there would be three or four issues that the committee of the whole would not be able to resolve. They now had an informal, unofficial group to whom they could refer these issues. The last two days of the conference, we were negotiating probably thirty-six out of the forty-eight hours, but we finally reached consensus. Who were those twelve people? I had watched people speak for three days in the committee of the whole and I had noted, regardless of title, regardless of country, who the leaders were, who had the fire, who had the enthusiasm, who was serious about this subject, who had the respect and trust of their regional group. I identified people that could represent their regional groups. When the core group agreed on an issue, the twelve members could go back and tell their delegations how the issue should be handled, and their delegations would go along with them because they were the natural leaders of the conference. Every conference has its leaders. They emerge, or sometimes do not emerge. The core group idea helped the leaders of this conference to emerge.

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Dealing with Political Fallout and Seeing the Larger Picture Two days before the conference was scheduled to end we had a potentially disastrous glitch in the committee of the whole. Totally out of the blue, the delegate from Libya stood up and started attacking Israel with violent and egregious statements. He stunned the whole session. His behavior was not appropriate, and what he was saying didn’t relate to anything being discussed. The chairman of the committee of the whole, an Egyptian, happened to be an old friend from my days in Egypt. “What’s this all about?” I asked him. “I don’t have any idea,” he said. “These accusations were never discussed in the Arab group. I don’t understand this at all.” I then went over to the Israeli ambassador, who I had also met before, and said, “Just calm down. We’ll look into this, but don’t respond at this point, please.” He was a professional and agreed. But he did report the incident to his foreign ministry and asked for instructions. They replied the next day and told him to respond with a “vigorous, inflammatory statement to this terrible attack.” It was now the last day of the conference. We were supposed to meet at 10:30 AM as a committee of the whole to adopt the plan of action by consensus and then pass it to the plenary session for pro forma approval. What to do? We tried to figure out how we could get around the problem. I was able to get the Egyptian and the Israeli to meet with me in a back room. I said to the Israeli, “Mr. Ambassador, please don’t make that statement. We are just about there. This conference is going to make history. Many people across the world will benefit from it. Let us not destroy the moment. Your statement could blow the whole conference apart.” Luck was on my side; the timing couldn’t have been better. I said, “Our three presidents are meeting at this very moment at Camp David. We can’t do this to them. We can’t have an internecine incident here blow up a world peace effort there. Please, Mr. Ambassador, just say that you disagree with the statement by the Libyan, the chairman will gavel it through, and we’ll go on to the plenary.” The Israeli ambassador saw the larger picture and agreed. He did a very courageous thing by violating his instructions. (The conference took place in early September 1978; the Camp David Accords were signed on September 17.) I have found that world conferences are often impacted by external events that have nothing to do with the substance of the conference but can derail it if not dealt with quickly.

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An hour later, on schedule, the plenary adopted the plan of action endorsing the concept of technical cooperation among developing countries, setting up mechanisms to promote and sustain it.

Creating the TCDC Office within the UN Development Program The conference had wanted a TCDC-UN Committee of the General Assembly. But that wasn’t going to work. In the wee hours of the morning, during our negotiations, I had to take the core group of delegates through a 101 course on the United Nations. I explained what the United Nations and its agencies could and could not do. These delegates were not experts in the UN system. They were experts in development in their own countries. They were getting into areas that they were not familiar with. What they finally had to settle for was an international conference on TCDC, to be held from time to time, which any member state could attend. The conference would report to the smaller UNDP Governing Council, not to the General Assembly. This model had never been used before, but it satisfied the delegates’ interests. We also ended up with an office in the UNDP called TCDC. It is still alive today and is doing good work. For example, Argentina is very sophisticated with cattle and leather. Kenya has a lot of cattle but no real skill on how to process the leather. So, with German money, TCDC brought Argentinean experts to Kenya to show them how to process the leather and make high-quality leather goods. That’s the essence of TCDC, the North helping to fund experts from the South to assist in development. The TCDC conference in Buenos Aires was the first one in which the United Nations tried remote interpreting. The United Nations sent a full team of interpreters to Argentina, but it also had a team of interpreters in New York. They too were hooked up to the conference in Buenos Aires through a satellite system. As Sergio Vecchio, a UN interpreter, remembers: “No one except the people technically or administratively involved was supposed to be in the know. As a matter of fact, both the team present in the conference hall—where I sat—and the team in New York were told to interpret normally, while the technical people switched the sound back and forth from one site to the other without telling either of the teams or the delegates, who only found out about the experiment at the end of the meeting. None of them had noticed a difference between local and satellite

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interpretation.” I later learned from my wife Christel, who sat in the main conference hall, that the message from President Carter which I delivered at the plenary was one of the first remote interpreted speeches.

NEGOTIATING ABOUT FUNDING AT THE UN CONFERENCE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY The UN Conference on Science and Technology for Development (UNCSTD) took place in Vienna in 1979. I was not a part of the original delegation, but, two weeks before the conference started, the U.S. team brought me in to try to solve a major problem that they were facing. The word was that the developing countries were going to ask for $6 billion to be donated by the West for science and technology in the Third World. The Europeans said, “No, we don’t agree to one dollar.” For its part, the United States had no position on this critical financial issue, although we thought the subject was a very important one. The U.S. delegation had worked very hard on the substantive issues to be considered by the conference but had not looked at the financing. For the developing world, the financing was the heart of the conference. What should we do? I thought $6 billion was a ridiculous figure and was confident the developing countries would come down. Would the Europeans come up? Why don’t we see, I thought, if we can get the White House to agree to a $250 million fund as a start-up for science and technology, but only use that as a final fallback figure? The White House agreed. But still nobody in Western Europe was prepared to contribute anything. I was asked to join the delegation and be responsible for the financial issue. At all UN global conferences a daily newspaper is put out by the participating NGOs. The first-day issue of the conference newspaper carried this headline on page one: “U.S. Fallback Position is a $250 Million Dollar Fund.” There it was, my approved fallback proposal for all delegates to read. I had to stick with that position and make it my strength. We worked day and night to try to reason with both sides on this issue. Gradually, we got the $6 billion down to $4 billion, and then to $3 billion. In the last hour of the conference, we got the European Union to move from zero to support the concept of the $250 million dollar fund and the developing world to come down to $250 million so that there was a consensus. My proposal to create a UN Committee on Science and Technology to manage the new fund was also agreed to. The plan of action was adopted by consensus and the conference was viewed as a success.

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THE UN INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION CONFERENCE—UNIDO III In the mid-1960s, the developing world produced two men of genius and vision with regard to the United Nations. The first was Dr. Raoul Prebisch of Argentina, the father of UNCTAD (the UN Conference on Trade and Development). This conference began as a 1964 UN world conference in Geneva and ended up as a respected UN agency. I mentioned Dr. Prebisch in chapter seven. The second man of vision was Ibrahim Helmi Abdel Rahman of Egypt who, in 1966, did the same thing with regard to Third World industrial development. His conference and then agency, UNIDO (the UN Industrial Development Organization) is based in Vienna, the third UN city, after New York and Geneva. I was privileged to know both of these distinguished leaders. In late 1979, I was asked to head the U.S. delegation to UNIDO III, which was to be held in New Delhi, India, for three weeks, starting in late January 1980. I was a compromise candidate because two bureaus in the State Department could not agree on a leader for the delegation. I was also appointed a second time by President Carter as an ambassador to lead the delegation. As soon as I was given the assignment, I knew there would be major problems. The Non-Aligned Movement was becoming more aggressive, particularly because the conference was to be in India. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had been a cofounder of the Non-Aligned Movement. It was developed by “radical” leaders in the late 1950s and 1960s: Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, India’s Nehru, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, and Indonesia’s Sukarno, among others. It looked upon itself as a political link between the United States and the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War. The United States viewed the group as totally pro-Soviet and did not think it was nonaligned at all. A month before UNIDO III was to take place, President Fidel Castro held a meeting of Non-Aligned countries in Cuba to prepare a group position for the conference. The position called for, among other things, the creation of a $2 billion fund to be paid for by the West but managed and dispersed by the developing world, more precisely, the Non-Aligned countries. In fact, Castro’s group produced a whole draft document to counter the official document that the UNIDO secretariat and the national government members of UNIDO’s executive board had prepared for the conference. My delegation was very sharp, and I was convinced that we could handle the situation. However, the atmosphere in New Delhi was tense. The Soviets had invaded Afghanistan the month before (on December 25, 1979)

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and some delegates were convinced the Soviets would continue on to New Delhi. We had an unusual opening session. Some 3,000 delegates waited for an hour and a half for the session to start. Finally, a distinguished looking Indian man walked out on the stage and said to the conference: “My name is Rao. I am your conference chairman. I was appointed foreign minister last night by Prime Minister Gandhi.” Mr. Pamulaparti Rao became a good friend during the conference. He did a great job under unusual circumstances and went on to have a brilliant career as prime minister of India. The conference proceeded quietly the first week, and some delegates were convinced that things would remain calm. I felt otherwise and was busy making personal connections with Rao and heads of other delegations. Ten days into the conference, the Cubans formally proposed that their plan be substituted for the Secretariat draft we had all been working on. The battle began. I proposed to Rao that we set up a presidential contact group—as we had done in Buenos Aires, and he agreed. We worked day and night to develop a compromise document but failed. The NonAligned Movement, the “Group of 77” developing countries, and the Soviets had the votes. In the last hour of the conference the Secretariat draft was withdrawn, leaving the Cuban draft the only document on the table, and we went to a vote. The West stood solidly against the text, but it was adopted by every other delegation. We made one requirement. The text was to go to the executive board of UNIDO before it was sent to the UN General Assembly for final approval. That actually saved the day. Six months after UNIDO III, the executive board “noted” the final conference report in one sentence and sent that sentence to the UN General Assembly. No action was taken on a single recommendation. The board realized that the conference report would destroy UNIDO. Saner heads prevailed.

LAUNCHING THE UN DECADE OF DISABLED PERSONS The International Year of Disabled Persons In 1980, the White House asked me to attend a meeting about the International Year of Disabled Persons. I wondered why I was even invited. Also invited were the assistant secretary for health and human services and the assistant secretary for education, both of whom had billions of dollars that they were spending on disabled people in the United States. We were asked if we would be a triumvirate to cochair and direct a U.S. national program to honor the 1981 UN Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP).

Figure 9.1. On February 6, 1981, President Reagan signed the Declaration for a National Year of Disabled Persons (John W. McDonald, top right)

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The State Department had forgotten about this UN year, which the Libyans had launched in the General Assembly in 1977 while I was still at the ILO. The disabled community in the United States raised such a protest with the White House about official inaction that the White House decided they had to do something. So they convened the three of us. I listened for an hour and a half while the two men argued over who would be the chairman of this effort. They couldn’t agree. Finally I said, “Gentlemen, I don’t have any money, and I don’t have any staff. But I do have some knowledge about the United Nations. Why don’t you make me chairman of the program?” They both got up and embraced me and left the room. I had settled the problem for them. They were sure the other guy wasn’t doing it. I was no threat to anybody—just another compromise candidate. I became chairman of IYDP, appointed by President Carter, to head the U.S. national effort on disability. I’ve been involved with disability issues ever since. This interest is a completely different strand in my career. I went back to those two U.S. cabinet officials and got people detailed and seconded to State. Our secretariat, with a staff of a dozen people, was led by a disabled person who was blind. I established an interagency committee of forty-five government agencies who met regularly throughout the year. This group of totally dedicated people was essential to the success of the IYDP. Believe it or not, but that committee still exists and meets several times a year. We worked together and developed hundreds of programs across the United States on disability issues. A few of many highlights are worth mentioning: We gathered 15,000 disabled people at both the U.S. and Canadian sides of Niagara Falls for a “hands across the border” event to highlight disability issues. Then we took the idea to El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, just across the border. A three-day conference was held there with disabled people from both countries. The highlight for me was an international wheelchair basketball tournament between the United States and Mexico. I was made an honorary citizen of Juarez by the mayor. During 1981, several Japanese disabled veterans, casualties of World War II, asked if they could bring some of their colleagues to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery in an act of forgiveness and reconciliation. I was deeply moved and, of course, agreed. A few months later, three hundred disabled Japanese veterans of World War II arrived in Washington, all at their own expense. We arranged a two-day program including a reception in the Diplomatic Reception Room at the State Department. I asked them if I could invite the Japanese ambassador to the event and was told absolutely not. This was a personal journey having

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nothing to do with the Japanese government. The ceremony at Arlington Cemetery was beautiful and filled with emotion. We spread the word about disability issues. At one point in time, we had about two hundred press articles a day across the nation. We made the country conscious of disability issues.

Extending the Year to a Decade The effort was so successful that we decided to try to extend the UN year to a UN decade. I drafted a UN resolution proposing a UN Decade for Disabled Persons, and, with the full support of the U.S. government, went to the UN General Assembly in the fall of 1982. We established a sixty-person negotiating committee very ably chaired by a delegate from the Philippines and after six weeks reached consensus. The UN Decade of Disabled Persons (1983–1992) was adopted unanimously by the General Assembly in December 1982. It was an enormous success on a worldwide scale with the intent to help the 500 million disabled people in the world. The Americans with Disabilities Act grew out of this momentum. That is the finest piece of legislation in the world with regard to the rights of the disabled. IYDP and the subsequent decade also stimulated the demand for an international treaty dealing with the rights of the disabled. After several decades of effort by thousands of people around the world, that treaty was adopted by the General Assembly in December 2006. I want to acknowledge and honor the lifelong dedication to disabled issues of a great American, Alan Reich, in 1982 the founder of the National Organization on Disability. He headed the movement from a wheel chair. His death in 2005 was a loss to the world.

Using Track Two Diplomacy in Japan and Korea to Teach a Lesson on Disability I was able to apply my experience with the IYDP later in my career. In 1991, I was invited by a group of Japanese disabled people to come to Japan in August to give some lectures on disability issues in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto. I decided that I was going to publicly embarrass the government of Japan for not doing anything about disability. I could do that then, as a private citizen, whereas I couldn’t have done it as a government employee. My wife Christel and I agreed with the organizers of our trip to have twenty disabled people come together for a whole day in Tokyo: persons in wheelchairs, blind persons with dogs, persons with multiple sclerosis, and

Figure 9.2. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, secretary general of the UN, honors key persons from around the world for their work in connection with the UN Decade of Disabled Persons—and welcoming John W. McDonald while Alan Reich, head of the National Organization on Disability is looking on (front center)

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so on. We spent the day together with two photographers and two reporters, proving that Tokyo, as a city, was totally inaccessible to the disabled. The next day, on the front page of four Japanese newspapers, there was a picture of me and three Japanese carrying a disabled person in a wheelchair up the steps to get to the train station. That was an eye-opener for readers. Christel and I went to Osaka and Kyoto, where I made speeches saying that disabled Japanese were being ignored by their government and were second-class citizens in their own country with no rights. Back in Tokyo, I asked to see the foreign minister, the minister of transportation, and the minister of health. By this time I was, shall we say, well known. They all agreed to see me. I met separately with each one but told them all the same thing: “Gentlemen, you have approved every resolution, every treaty that has anything to do with disability in the history of the UN system, but, as one of the richest nations in the world, you haven’t done a thing for the disabled. I am trying to get you to understand that there’s a money excuse for Third World countries but you don’t have that excuse. I urge you to do something for your own people.” Six months later, I received a note from a friend in Tokyo that the minister of transportation had announced to the world that he was making all railroad stations accessible to the disabled. In 1997, Christel and I were also invited to South Korea where I made a speech proposing ten recommendations for action. The tenth had to do with North Korea. I said, “Why don’t we bring disabled people from North Korea together with disabled people from South Korea? This is nonpolitical, it’s not a threat to anybody. They all have common interests and goals. Just let them dialogue together to see how they can improve things in their respective countries.” This got a lot of favorable coverage in the press and on the radio and TV. The government of South Korea loved the idea, but North Korea was silent. About six weeks later the foreign minister of North Korea issued a very brief statement. He acknowledged the idea of bringing disabled people together, which he thought was excellent. Unfortunately, he said, it didn’t apply to North Korea. There were no disabled people in North Korea. The United Nations estimates that one out of ten people in the world is physically or mentally disabled, regardless of borders.

LAUNCHING THE UN INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE People come to me from other countries asking for guidance on various issues, because of my many years of experience in UN economic and social

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affairs. In 1981, the ambassador to the United Nations from Costa Rica came to see me in my capacity as a member of the U.S. delegation to the General Assembly. He said that his president wanted to propose the establishment of a UN Year of Peace in his speech to the General Assembly. I told him that I thought it was a fine idea, but unfortunately the UN “years” were booked for the next ten years. Crestfallen, he went back to pass this information on to his president. A few days later the ambassador returned and said that his president was desperate to do something for peace while he was still in office. Did I have any other ideas? I thought for a while and then said, “How about an international day of peace?” The ambassador thought this was a brilliant idea. (I did not tell the State Department, of course, knowing their reaction would be negative.) I drafted a resolution and gave it to the ambassador. President Rodrigo Carazo presented the resolution, which was subsequently adopted unanimously. Adoption of the idea was slow at first, but in recent years the pace has picked up. In 2006, more than 2,000 NGOs in 140 countries celebrated September 21 as the International Day of Peace.

LAUNCHING THE UN DECADE ON SAFE DRINKING WATER AND SANITATION The Critical Need for Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation In 1977, a UN World Conference on Water was held in Mar del Plata, Uruguay, using the two-week model of a single-agenda-item conference. It marked the first time that the world had gotten together to talk about the problems of water shortages and water management. The plan of action passed by the delegates included about one hundred recommendations. I was at the International Labour Organization at the time and was not involved in this conference. However, when I returned to the State Department in 1978, the conference was called to my attention. I read the plan of action; one recommendation jumped out: that the UN General Assembly launch a decade focused just on drinking water and sanitation. That paragraph embarked me on what is now thirty years of involvement with that single issue. I had lived in the developing world for eight years, had traveled widely, and had seen the world through the eyes of the poor. I knew that clean drinking water and sanitation was a critical issue in many parts of the world. I decided that I would lift this paragraph out of the plan of action from the water conference and make it happen.

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The State Department gave the idea its blessing. In August of 1979, it issued a notice that I had been selected to be the coordinator for the UN Decade on Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation for the U.S. government. By that time I had taken my draft resolution launching the decade successfully through two UN conferences. After a year and a half, I finally got my draft resolution on the agenda of the 1980 UN General Assembly. However, I wanted this resolution to receive special treatment: I wanted a one-day special session of the General Assembly focused solely on this resolution. It is always a good idea to know your documents. The Charter of the United Nations says that two-thirds of the membership can call for a special session. The “Group of 77” represents more than two-thirds of the membership. I drafted a letter from the head of the G-77 to the secretary general asking for a special session on my resolution. The head of the G-77 was from Senegal and knew all about water problems. He signed the letter, and I got my special session. The UN Secretariat was furious with me, and became even more so. So many ministers from around the world—nearly four dozen—wanted to speak on the issue that the special session lasted for three days! It was gratifying to have that kind of political support. All the agencies of the UN system were there for a great event. The resolution was unanimously adopted on November 10, 1980. The decade was launched on January 1, 1981, and ended on December 31, 1990. According to World Health Organization figures (compiled later) the Decade on Drinking Water and Sanitation brought 1.1 billion people in the world access to safe drinking water and 789 million people access to sanitation facilities for the first time in their lives. It had an enormous impact on the developing world.

A Shift in Thinking How could such startling advances have been made in ten years? How was it possible? The answer lies in four shifts in thinking that took place. The first was the political will stimulated by the four dozen ministers. They went home and proudly talked about their speech at the special session of the General Assembly and prodded their governments to begin to take water and sanitation seriously. The second shift was in how water and sanitation technical assistance was carried out. Historically, technical experts from the West installed wells and pumps in Third World countries and then left operations and maintenance to the country. Six months later the pump—which had been manufactured in the West—would need spare parts. The village didn’t have the

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foreign exchange to buy the spare parts for the pump, nobody in the central government was interested, so they stopped using the pump. There are thousands of abandoned pumps all over the developing world. At our prompting, the World Bank and the UNDP developed three different models of simple pumps, all of which could be produced locally, with local materials and manpower, and sold for local currency. That was a fantastic shift. The best example is the Mark II pump produced in India. During the ten years of the water decade, India produced 1.5 million pumps, made locally with local steel, sold for local currency, with spare parts available on the local market. These pumps brought safe drinking water to 360 million people in India. I learned recently that the Mark II pump is still being made, and Liberia has just bought a number of these pumps. The third shift in thinking was the inclusion of women in water projects. Women are the water carriers of the world. Postcards often depict a woman in a colorful dress carrying a pot of water on her head—it looks very picturesque, but it’s hard, hard work. Millions of women and children around the world carry water because there’s no safe water in their village. They carry it from streams and rivers, walking for miles every day. The men don’t care where the water comes from; they just expect it to be there. It is women’s work. We urged that women become a part of the village decision-making process: Where should the pump be put? What kind of a pump should we have? Also, women must be trained to repair the pumps. They should become managers of the pumps and managers of the water for the village. That was a completely new idea, and it led to positive effects unrelated to water: for example, in the time women and children saved by not having to carry water, they could learn to read, put in a small garden, or raise chickens. Finally, the need for coordination was essential. A UN coordinator for the decade, Dr. Peter Bourne, was appointed at the assistant secretary general level and worked out of UNDP headquarters in New York. He kept the UN agencies on target. I was the U.S. government coordinator for several years. Many thousands of people were involved in making the water decade a success and in contributing to the very important shifts in thinking. In spite of its positive results, in 1990 the decade came to a close and fell off the governmental radar screen. Governments were not being pushed. Large NGOs were created over time and large conferences were held, but the impact wasn’t nearly as great.

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Global Water In 1982, Dr. Bourne, whom I had gotten to know when he was working in President Carter’s White House, and I launched a new NGO called Global Water, a name, by the way, that Christel came up with. Our goal was to stimulate the United States, particularly the U.S. Congress, to become involved in the issue of clean water and sanitation across the developing world. This small NGO is still alive, now twenty-five years old; both Bourne and I are still on the board of directors (our webpage is www.globalwater.org). Ted Kuepper has been executive director for the past ten years and is doing an outstanding job on a volunteer basis. He worked for the U.S. Navy for thirty years in desalination concepts and techniques and holds a number of patents in this field. We never were able to interest Congress in providing funding in the early 1980s and 1990s. There was great interest in Bread for the World, but not in drinking water and sanitation. We have struggled over the years and kept the NGO alive, focusing on providing wells and drinking water and sanitation to rural villages in Central America and several parts of Africa. We were not successful in raising money until two years ago, when Ted got a Canadian bottled water company called Clearly Canadian interested in Global Water. The company has been funding small-scale village projects in Central America.

A SECOND UN DECADE ON DRINKING WATER AND SANITATION Persuading Tajikistan to Take the Lead I decided, in 2002, that it was time to launch a second UN Decade on Drinking Water and Sanitation. I was speaking and writing about this idea when I learned, a little late, that in 2000 a major UN world conference in New York agreed on eight millennium development goals (MDGs). One of the subgoals of goal seven, on the environment, was on drinking water. Governments agreed that by the year 2015 the number of people in the world without access to safe drinking water should be halved: not a very risk-taking commitment by my standards. In 2002, the third UN Conference on the Environment adopted the language of the millennium development goal on water but also added “sanitation.” The irony was that governments, which continually stressed the great need for water and sanitation

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(1.1 billion needing water and 2.8 billion needing sanitation), were content to back such a modest goal and not to provide the whole world with safe drinking water and sanitation. During the first Decade of Drinking Water and Sanitation, 1.1 billion had been provided with safe water. I was disappointed that the bar was set so low, but I had learned that you work with the situation you are in. I took my draft UN resolution, calling for a second water decade to implement the millennium development goals to the State Department first. I had to move the resolution from Track Two, the nongovernmental level, to Track One, the governmental level. No NGO can introduce a resolution to the United Nations; it has to be done by a government. (Chapter 11 provides more details regarding the two tracks of diplomacy.) The State Department looked the resolution over and said, “This is a nice idea, but no, we’re not really interested.” Over the next year, I sent my draft to eight more countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, Norway, Sweden, Canada, and Japan. I approached governments in a variety of ways. Interns at the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy wrote letters and sent e-mails. I met personally with the French, the Swedes, and the Canadians. Friends of mine pushed the idea at the Kyoto Water Conference. Track One in the developed world was not interested. They all said, “No.” I was getting a little discouraged. On August 1, 2003, I had an idea: “Why not try the government of Tajikistan?” Now, who in the United States knows where Tajikistan is located? Why Tajikistan? In the early days when the country broke off from the Soviet Empire, it had major conflicts, an internal civil war. It had a pretty bad reputation. But its UN office had had a brilliant idea a couple of years earlier. Tajikistan successfully presented a resolution calling for a UN Year of Freshwater in 2003. I happened to be invited to the launch of that year in December of 2002 at the United Nations. It was a big gathering. Mrs. Kofi Annan made a wonderful speech, but I had sort of forgotten about it. When it did come to mind, it occurred to me that maybe the government of Tajikistan would buy into another kind of water venture. I talked to the staff of the Tajikistan ambassador and said, “How would you like to be on the front page for ten years, instead of just one year? You could do it if you launched a second water decade.” They thought it was a fantastic idea, but then the ambassador called me and said I would have to convince his president. I didn’t know who the president of Tajikistan was, and I told him so frankly. He said, “Well, his name is Emomali Rakhmonov. You can write him a letter and send him your resolution. Give it to me, and I’ll put it in the diplomatic pouch with

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a cover letter supporting the idea. I know he’ll read it, and we’ll see what happens.”

Water for Life A month later, President Rakhmonov was hosting a major Central Asian conference on water in Dushanbe, the capital. A thousand people came together. In his opening speech, he launched the decade, calling it Water for Life. Conference participants backed the idea and included it in their conference recommendation for the General Assembly. Then the president told his ambassador in New York, “Do it.” The ambassador and I worked together. I told him, “Don’t go near the West. I’ve tried that.” I told him the whole story. “What you need to do, based on my experience, is to get 120 signatures from the developing world on your draft resolution, and the West will start collapsing.” I promised to get all the Latin American countries to sign, with the help of Horst Otterstetter from AIDIS-Interamericana. By mid-November, the ambassador had 120 signatures. The word was out, and the West began to collapse, right on schedule. First, Canada signed up, then Japan, then Sweden, then Spain, Portugal, and then the European Union. The United States also finally came along. On December 23, 2003, by unanimous vote, 191 nations adopted the second water decade, called Water for Life, the name chosen by President Rakhmonov himself. March 22, 2005, was the official launch date. That same year, the government of Spain offered UNESCO $1 million a year, for ten years, to locate the secretariat for the second water decade in Saragossa, Spain.

Water for the Poor Act It wasn’t until 2005, long after I had left the State Department, that Congress became involved in the fundamental issue of drinking water and sanitation. In 2002, Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer (a Democrat) had attended the third UN Environment Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, and became convinced that he had to do something about drinking water and sanitation for the rural poor of the world. He came back to Washington and set up a drafting committee, of which I was a part, and produced the “Blumenauer Bill” which became the Water for the Poor Act that was passed by the House 319 to 34 in November 2005. About the same time, Tennessee Senator Bill Frist, the Republican Speaker of the Senate, visited Mozambique. As a medical doctor, he realized that something had to be done about clean drinking water and sanitation for the rural poor.

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He also produced draft legislation for the Senate’s consideration. When the House passed the Water for the Poor Act, Senator Frist graciously withdrew his bill and presented the Blumenauer Bill to the Senate. It was adopted without a vote, by acclamation. This was remarkable bipartisan action on the part of Congress. The bill was signed into law by President George W. Bush on December 1, 2005, unfortunately without any press coverage. The law instructs the State Department, not USAID, to develop a strategy across the government to implement the Water for the Poor Act internationally. Sadly, the State Department has done little over the past two years to establish a structure within the State Department to implement the law. In December 2007, the Congress included in an omnibus financial bill $300 million to implement the provisions for the Water for the Poor Act.

THE UN CONFERENCE ON AGING “Mr. Aging” and the Black Line In 1982, I headed the U.S. delegation to the first UN World Assembly on Aging. We prepared for this conference over a two-year period. I was appointed ambassador twice by President Ronald Reagan, once for the four regional preparatory conferences, and once for the main conference which took place in Vienna, Austria. The conference was the brainchild of former U.S. senator Claude Pepper, who was defeated in the Senate but came back as a member of the House of Representatives. He was known as “Mr. Aging,” because this issue was his passion. In fact, at one point in his career Senator Pepper was instrumental in getting legislation adopted that removed the age limitation of civil service retirement and raised the retirement age for Foreign Service officers from sixty to sixty-five. Senator Pepper led the Congress in the passage of a bill instructing the State Department to go to the United Nations and convince the General Assembly to agree to hold a world conference on aging. He was literally the father of this world conference and was expected to be on the U.S. delegation. The world didn’t realize that the population in every country was aging, and governments were not changing the rules to adjust to this phenomenon. Claude Pepper wanted to change this. Several preliminary meetings and four preparatory conferences were held before the main event. This was the first world conference of governments in history on aging issues. I put together a strong, talented U.S. delegation. Delegations to major world conferences usually included two members of the Senate and two of the House. Senator Pepper was, of course, on

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the list, which I sent to the White House for approval, as required. When the list was returned, there was a big black line drawn through Senator Pepper’s name. It turned out that President Reagan had personally drawn that black line. He didn’t want the senator on the delegation. I was shocked. This had never occurred before. I couldn’t figure out what had happened. I had a very close relationship with the senator, and I wasn’t going to be the one who told him he was not on the delegation. In fact, he already had his bags packed. I went to my boss, Assistant Secretary of State Greg Newell, who was a political appointee and had served in the White House. “I’m not going to be the one to tell the senator that he is not going to Vienna,” I said. “That’s your job.” He really didn’t want to do it either. So I said, “Why don’t you go back to the White House and get this black mark taken off.” I added, “I now know why the black mark was put there. Two weeks ago, President Reagan made a speech to one hundred people on the north side of the Capitol about Social Security. At the exact same time, Senator Pepper was making a speech on the south side of the Capitol to 10,000 people, about his views on Social Security. The president was annoyed by that and so he put the line through the senator’s name.” When Newell came back from the White House he called me into his office and said, “OK, you got your way, Pepper can be on the delegation. However, I hold you, McDonald, personally responsible for the senator’s behavior during the two weeks of the conference. If anything happens that I don’t like, it’s your fault.” A major debate about the future of Social Security was taking place in Washington at the time, and the two parties had different views on the subject. The White House did not want Pepper to sound off on the world stage. They did not trust him. The senator and I were good friends, and we laughed about this whole episode. He said, “I’ll be a good boy. Don’t worry about me.”

An International Crisis Intervenes We arrived in Vienna and everything was going beautifully. I thought we were home free with a solid plan of action that would be adopted by consensus. Then disaster struck, a thousand miles away. Three days before the final plenary session, on June 7, 1981, the Israelis bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor, and all hell broke loose on the conference floor. This was an illegal intrusion, an act of war. The whole Arab world and dozens of other delegations were clamoring for the floor to castigate the government of Israel. The conference was about to collapse over an external issue that had nothing to do with the conference agenda.

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We allowed two days for venting speeches. I had to keep the two issues separate: the political problem and the problem of aging populations. The energy of anger had to be kept from spilling over onto the proposed plan of action. I suggested to several delegations to craft a separate resolution condemning Israel for its act of aggression and to submit it to a separate vote from the vote for the plan of action. The United States and Israel were the only delegations who voted against the resolution, but everybody expected that. Finally the tension was relieved and the conference turned its attention to the plan of action—the substantive document that had been hammered out over many months with great effort by many delegations. It was adopted by consensus, without a vote.

American Association for International Aging My involvement with issues of aging has continued to this day. In 1983 I was approached by a British NGO that had tried, without success, to start a counterpart NGO in the United States. They asked if I would take on the task with some start-up money from their organization. I agreed and we soon created AAIA, the American Association for International Aging, a Washington, D.C.-based NGO dedicated to helping poor countries cope with the problems of the elderly. Few people in this country realize that the vast majority of countries do not have social security and are facing major challenges as their citizens live longer. I was chairman of the AAIA’s board, but the real work was started by Bill Kerrigan, a retired State Department colleague, who had been the secretary general for the UN Conference on Aging. Later the NGO’s work was greatly expanded under the outstanding leadership of Dr. Helen Kerschner. She was able to attract USAID dollars for years and to produce a number of excellent publications and several outstanding projects in the field. Dr. Kerschner moved on a few years ago, and the AAIA merged with another NGO in the same field.

CREATING STRUCTURES AND TAKING A LONG-TERM VIEW International Law: A Basis for World Government Global outreach and the creation of global structures and institutions through the United Nations have impacted on hundreds of millions of peo-

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ple across the world. It is important to recognize in the stories about my experiences that the United Nations and the world were flexible enough to see the economic and social gaps that needed to be filled. Special world conferences were designed to fill these gaps. The important thing is to create institutions that will build a better life for ordinary people. Since 1972, there have been over thirty, two-week-long world conferences on different subjects. Some have been more successful than others, but they have all tried to structure the UN system to be responsive to current world needs. The fact that the United Nations hosted four world conferences on women and development (Mexico City in 1975, Copenhagen in 1980, Nairobi in 1985, and Beijing in 1995) has had an incalculable impact on women around the world—their perspectives, their empowerment. Over a twenty-year period, this was “awesome,” as the young generation of today would say. The system itself is remarkably flexible, as are the nation-states, as a whole, when it comes to new ideas—in contrast with static bureaucracies, which I have certainly seen my share of at the local and national level. Over the past three and a half decades, there is a growing picture of new structures, responding to new needs. For example, the International Labour Organization negotiated its first treaty in 1924. It has now negotiated, tripartitely, with labor, management and government, 188 international treaties. These have helped to build a global social and human rights structure unprecedented in history. Most of these treaties deal with social issues—creating trade unions, wages, the rights of women, employment, safety in the workplace, child labor, and now child soldiers and minorities. This is a massive body of international law that can be built on over the decades, to improve the rights of the individual in society as a whole. Over the decades, UN specialized agencies have worked to create world law on which society can continue to build and grow. There is no dearth of examples. Few people realize that whenever you send a letter across a national border, half of the value of that stamp stays within the sending nation and the other half goes to the receiving nation to pay for the delivery. Now, the Universal Postal Union in Bern, Switzerland, which came into being in 1874, has a network of 1,800 treaties to make that possible. Nobody notices. They just put a stamp on their letter, expect it to arrive, and it does. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in Montreal, Canada, adopted three international treaties on terrorism in the 1970s. The organization was far ahead of the rest of the world. That’s why everyone has to go through metal detectors before getting on an airplane. It is also the agency that has set out what I call “highways in the sky.” Every airplane

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has to fly at a certain pre-cleared level, separated vertically and horizontally from other airplanes. ICAO also passed another simple rule. All pilots in the world must speak English. Can you imagine a Russian pilot landing at Kennedy Airport in New York speaking only Russian? These rules are all laid down by international treaties that the ICAO has negotiated over the decades. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) in London deals with shipping in the same way. There are international laws that all ships have to follow on the high seas and as they pass through straits. These determine where they can go and how they can pass each other. Also, IMO passed international treaties about the construction of oil tankers, requiring new ships to be double hulled to prevent oil spills, after the Valdez oil tanker spill off Alaska. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Geneva controls the positioning of all military and civilian satellites in the sky. It controls television and radio frequencies. Every time you turn on the radio or TV and get a good signal it’s because the ITU has allocated the space in the sky to the various countries in the world. These arrangements are organized by international treaties in a highly sophisticated manner. We don’t think about these treaties; we just take our radio reception for granted. This is the impact that the global organizations and UN agencies have across the world. Think about water: there’s a Danube Commission, a Rhine Commission, a Nile Commission. These deal with water issues, such as controlling the flow of water and coping with disasters. Many rivers and river basins are controlled internationally. The World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva has stopped smallpox in the world, and is now about to stop polio on a global scale. WHO is also leading the global battle against HIV/AIDS. Every agency in the UN system has this kind of regulatory pattern and power. This list goes on and on. I consider these structures to be the basis for a future world government that must be created within the next fifty years, if we are to survive as a species. It must be done by consensus, not confrontation. “We know what’s best for you” doesn’t work any more. There are 192 nations in the world who are members of the United Nations. One nation, regardless of who it is, is not going to tell the other 191 nations what to do. They are sovereign states, and they have their own rights and privileges and they’re not about to take orders from anybody else. The only thing that works is people-to-people, consensus building. Sitting down, face-to-face and talking about the problem. That’s what I keep trying to do.

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Revisiting the UN Charter and UN Reform The United Nations is the only existing worldwide structure out there. It has been working for sixty years, and it is going to work even better in the future. Few have read the UN Charter, a magnificent historic document, created in 1945 in San Francisco. The problem is to get the 192 member states who have signed the charter to come up with the political will to carry out its terms. Chapter 6 of the charter is entitled “Pacific Settlement of Disputes.” There’s some very lovely language about how the Security Council will urge countries before they get into a conflict to sit down and carry out “negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement.” Great language! The chapter goes on to say that if this does not happen, and if countries in conflict don’t get together, then the Security Council has the right— the right—to put sanctions on those countries at whatever level they want to. The problem is that chapter 6 has never been applied. No Security Council action has ever ordered two countries to try to resolve a problem, and then voted for sanctions. It’s never happened for lack of political will. The United Nations cannot reach into a nation internally, unless the nation welcomes it. The UN Charter is based on national sovereignty and is designed to bring nation states together peacefully. That’s the difference. The majority of all the conflicts today are, however, “intrastate,” within national boundaries. The United Nations has never crossed that boundary, but at some point it will have to. There is talk now about a genocide resolution that would allow the United Nations to enter a country without permission if genocide were taking place. International law will have to be changed before that can happen legally. Article 43 of the UN Charter calls for a standby military force. Article 45 calls for a standby air force. Article 47 calls for the creation of a military staff committee headed by the five chiefs of staff of the five permanent members to meet and advise the Security Council as to when to apply Article 43 and 45. None of those paragraphs has ever been used. It is not necessary to create new laws. The laws have been there since 1945. And every one of the 192 nations, when they signed the charter, agreed to them. The basis for positive action is there. It just hasn’t been used.

Agenda for Peace The second most important document in the modern world, after the Charter of the United Nations, is the Agenda for Peace, put together in

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1992 by the UN Secretariat, under Secretary General Boutros BoutrosGhali. It came about when—for the first time in history—the Security Council met at the head of state level. The Security Council instructed Boutros-Ghali to develop a plan for the future. The Agenda for Peace was produced in six months and was discussed by the General Assembly for the next four years. It lays out the whole concept of peace in four stages: preventive diplomacy; peacebuilding; peacekeeping; and post-conflict resolution. For me, it is the most fundamental, global guideline for the next fifty years.

EXPERIENCING RETALIATION—ONCE AGAIN After eight years in the IO Bureau at State, four years with the ILO, and five years back in IO, I was called into the office one day in 1983, by the same thirty-three-year-old political appointee, Assistant Secretary Greg Newell, whom I had worked with on the Aging Conference. He said, “McDonald, you’ve got to leave.” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “I want you to leave this bureau tonight.” I couldn’t believe my ears. “Why?” I asked. “I can’t tell you, but I just want you out of here.” He couldn’t fire me, because I was a career Foreign Service officer, but he could certainly transfer me. I asked, “Where am I supposed to go?” He said, “I’ve arranged for you to go to the unit which reviews and interviews new applicants to the Foreign Service. They have a place for you.” I said, “You’re not going to tell me why?” And he said, “No.” So, after seventeen years on UN economic affairs, the longest in the history of the Foreign Service, after serving as deputy director-general of the ILO, and after four ambassadorial appointments in IO, with no explanation and no farewells, I left. I had no opportunity to say goodbye to anybody. What could I say? It was on a Friday and on Monday I showed up at this new office called B/EX. That was pretty shocking. To this day, I have never been told why. I finally figured it out myself. I have two explanations as to why this action was taken. Six months before, I had, quietly, behind the scenes, reversed a personnel decision about an outstanding American who was going to be the number two person in the World Food Program in Rome. His

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appointment had been blocked by UN ambassador of the United States Jeane Kirkpatrick because he was a Democrat. Her action was against Federal law. I got the decision reversed, and the person got the job. Kirkpatrick must have learned about my actions. The second explanation also concerned Ambassador Kirkpatrick. I had been told to vote no on the General Assembly action adopting the plan of action for the World Conference on Aging because the United States estimated that it would cost $25,000 to carry out the resolution, and we were, at that time, not to approve any resolution that cost any money to implement. I went along with the rest of the world and adopted the plan of action, disobeying my instructions. I think she got mad when she realized this and ordered the assistant secretary to get rid of me. I know I did the right thing in both situations.

10 EXPLORING TRACK TWO, RETIREMENT, AND A NEW BEGINNING Washington, D.C., 1983–1988

H

ere we are, in the early 1980s.You were sixty-one, a few years away from mandatory retirement at the age of sixty-five, and whisked to a side-post. I assume that, as is your nature, you managed to make the best of it. It was about halftime of President Reagan’s first term in office. In his second term, he continued with his defense build-up program and simultaneously negotiated arms reductions with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Clearly a thawing of the Cold War was a major development in that decade, and the search for techniques of peaceful conflict resolution became increasingly a matter, not only of academic, but also of practical interest in the world. The terms “conflict resolution” and “peacebuilding” entered into your consciousness at that time, even though, in a way, that’s exactly what you had been doing throughout your career, and especially during your involvement within the UN system. Since then you’ve done quite a bit of formal teaching and a great deal of lecturing. How would you conceptualize what you found so fascinating and different about Track Two diplomacy?

THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS A New Concept In the three weeks I spent at the State Department’s Bureau of Personnel, Office of Foreign Service Examiners, I learned a lot about how Foreign Service officers are selected and participated in the oral examination process. I have used the information I gleaned to advise many candidates for the Foreign Service on what to look out for. However, it was not really the place for me.

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I had heard about a new office called the Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs that was being created at the Foreign Service Institute. Established in 1947, FSI was responsible for training Foreign Service officers, with a major focus on language training. I was intrigued by the name of this new office at FSI and made an appointment to see Steve Low, assistant secretary of state and director of FSI. I told him what had happened to me and said, “I would like to help you create this new center and I am available immediately.” “Great,” he said. “Start tomorrow.” I was the second person assigned to the Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs. The other person, Leo Moser, were also a senior Foreign Service officer. We spent many hours together discussing new ideas and designing programs that would build and expand the center. It was there that I became involved in conflict resolution. It was a life-changing experience and one of the best assignments I ever had. Here again, I went from potential disaster to a challenging and positive situation. At that point I didn’t know who was responsible for separating me from the Bureau of International Organization Affairs (IO) in what I considered an incredibly unprofessional way. I had given IO many years and had been appointed ambassador twice by Reagan. I kept my old friends in IO, but I was then on a different path. When I realized the transfer was political, I decided not to make an issue of it. After all, I was a senior career officer, and at that level things do happen. My new office was across the Potomac River in Rosslyn, Virginia, several miles from the main State Department offices. Looking out the window from my present office at the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, I can see the building where the Foreign Service Institute was housed for thirty-five years. Gold’s Gym is now located precisely where my office used to be over twenty years ago. The Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs was established in 1982. Assistant Secretary Low was able to sell the idea for the center to the top brass at State. He wanted to make it into a think tank. The concept was that senior Foreign Service officers would be assigned to the center for a year during which they could think, write, and do research—something they never had time for during their busy careers. This had never been done before by the State Department—and was certainly needed. The policy planning staff at State was supposed to provide this opportunity for senior Foreign Service officers but never had. Under Foreign Service rules, once officers have been appointed ambassadors and have completed a three- or four-year assignment to a coun-

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try, they have ninety days to find another high-level assignment, either to another country or to a bureau at the State Department in Washington. If their timing is good and they are able to find a suitable post, everything is great. If they can’t find a post, they are required to resign from the Foreign Service and are suddenly out of a job. If the timing is not right, good people can be lost. The center hoped to address that issue. People who were caught in the ninety-day time frame could come to the center for a year, do research or write a book, and look for a new assignment. It was a fabulous idea, and the Office of Personnel was an important supporter. The center really took off in 1984 when Dr. Hans Binnendijk, a political appointee with lots of energy, talent, ideas, and contacts, took over as director.

Developing a Publications Program One of the things that I did at the center was to create a publications program. During the four years I was there, we published twenty-four books reflecting the center’s work. The majority were written by the diplomats-in-residence, as we called them, or were based on seminars and symposia organized and hosted by the center. Officers heard about the book program and asked to be assigned to the center so they could be published. I hired a full-time professional editor, Diane Bendahmane, to make this possible. She did an outstanding job. All books were printed and sold by the U.S. Government Printing Office. I was told by experts in other parts of the government that this was an extraordinary accomplishment. Much of my career had been in the area of multilateral diplomacy, which is working with three or four or more countries at the same time, as opposed to most diplomatic relations that involve only two countries. After I had been at the FSI for a few months I realized that it did not offer a single course on multilateral diplomacy. I decided to change that and got Low’s approval to design a two-week course on multilateral diplomacy. I taught the course five times in four years and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. In fact, this experience led the top-secret National Security Agency to ask me to teach their experts a course on the United Nations.

Passing on Experience: How to Be a Delegate By checking with the Bureau of International Conferences, I discovered that 25 percent of the 6,000 U.S. delegates that attend 1,000 or so international conferences each year were going to their first conference! That

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is an extraordinary turnover of people. These people weren’t getting briefed properly. They had substantive expertise but knew nothing about how to get things done in a multilateral setting. To help rectify this situation and to improve the effectiveness of conference delegates, I wrote a handbook called How to be a Delegate. It was published by the Government Printing Office and was, and still is, very popular. In fact, the Institute for MultiTrack Diplomacy reprinted this book a couple of years ago and sold two hundred copies to the State Department (the book is now out of print at the Government Printing Office). It has become required reading, particularly for political appointees who serve as delegates to international conferences.

Bringing Academics and Practitioners Together As my work continued at the Foreign Service Institute, I began to recognize the need to bring academics and practitioners together. The diplomats say, “I already know that material, and I don’t have time to read anyway. I have to read my mail, and that is all I have time for.” The academics say, “I have all these great theories, but I don’t have time to put them to practice.” The two communities do not interact; they pass like ships in the night, each castigating the other. I made a conscious effort, during the four years that I was with the center to bring them together. I did this by organizing symposia that brought practitioners who had actually carried out negotiations, who had had practical experience, together with a core group of academics, all outstanding in their field. The two groups intermingled with the one hundred or so people attending each symposium. A week after each symposium, the core group and I would meet for half a day, debrief and discuss how to improve the process. Four books were generated as a result of this process. A member of the core group would write the final chapter in the book with an analysis of the symposium. These books, which were well received by practitioners and academics alike, have been used at various universities. The four books were: Perspectives on Negotiation: Four Case Studies (1986); U.S.-Soviet Summitry—Roosevelt through Carter (1987); U.S. Bases Overseas: Negotiations with Spain, Greece, and the Philippines (1990); Defining a U.S. Negotiating Style (1996). Unfortunately, the success of the Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs was short-lived. Shortly after I left in 1987, a new leader arrived, and over the next year or so the center began to fall apart. It was finally abolished in 1990 because of internal bureaucratic battles at the State Department.

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Promoting the Power of Peaceful Conflict Resolution During my time at the center I became increasingly interested in conflict resolution. At the time, I didn’t know much about nongovernmental organizations, although I had worked with NGOs at various world conferences. In 1983, the president of American University invited me to chair a panel on NGOs and peace at an A.U. conference. There I met some fascinating people from organizations that I didn’t even know existed. I met representatives from the Peace Brigades, people working for peace in Chiapas, Mexico, or who had tried to negotiate freeing the hostages in Iran. These people were not from any government, but they were doing great work at the people level. Many individuals were working in the field of foreign affairs without any government connection whatsoever. They were basically “Track Two” people. It was my friend and colleague, Joe Montville, a fellow career diplomat with an office next to mine at the center, who came up with the term “Track Two diplomacy.” Track One is government-to-government, which had been my emphasis for most of my career; Track Two is nongovernment-to-nongovernment, much more risk taking and much more innovative than formal State Department diplomacy. I became fascinated by this concept and decided to explore it further. After some months I put together an all-day symposium of eight distinguished professionals whom I had gotten to know. I wanted them to tell their stories about how they, as Track Two experts, had impacted peace processes in various parts of the world. Out of this symposium came the first book on Track Two, Conflict Resolution:Track Two Diplomacy. This book was ready to go to the U.S. Government Printing Office, in 1985 as a State Department publication, when my boss got cold feet. He wondered how the center would be perceived if it published a book, under the State Department label, that said there was another way to do business than the State Department way. He held up the book’s publication for various reasons. However, in the Foreign Service, officers eventually get transferred. So eighteen months went by, and my boss got transferred. In 1987, the day after he left, I got the book published. It was a revolutionary document that launched me on the path I am still following to this day. I recognized that there was a whole world out there that I was not familiar with, and I thought it was about time that I learned about that world. The book was dedicated to Kenneth Boulding and carried the following couplets penned earlier by Boulding.

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Track Two can do things that the State Department is afraid to do, or won’t do, for whatever reason. Track Two is more innovative, more imaginative, more risk taking, more flexible, more people-oriented, more handson. Track Two initiatives call for thinking outside the box: they bring people on both sides of an issue together and get a dialogue going. In contrast, the government is narrow in its thinking, has problems accepting new ideas, and is so afraid of taking risks that it is cumbersome and slow moving. Track Two is all about peacebuilding and foreign affairs without government involvement because there are too many government constraints. However, as Kenneth Boulding said—at some point Track One will have to meet Track Two to be successful. The Track Two field is growing and going global, in spite of funding problems, as more and more people realize that governments don’t have all the answers and that they, the people, can make a contribution to peacebuilding.

Conflict Resolution as an Academic Field One of the contributors to the Track Two book was Dr. Bryant Wedge. He was a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. I consider him a genius. In 1982 he convinced his university and the State of Virginia to offer a master’s degree in conflict resolution. It was the first such degree in the world! The program was so successful that in 1989 the university began offering a PhD in conflict resolution as well. This was leading-edge academic thinking and action. Wedge invited me to lecture in his class in 1983. That’s how I got to know about this course of studies. Then, in 1985, the university created an advisory board on conflict resolution, and I was asked to be a member. The program is now called the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR), and I am still on its board. Perhaps I am a bit prejudiced, but I consider ICAR the best in the world. At present, there are some 140 master’s students and 80 PhD candidates in the program, which has been moved to the George Mason University campus in Arlington, Virginia, to be closer to Washington.

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Jim Laue, who came from St. Louis to join the ICAR faculty, held the first Endowed Chair devoted to conflict resolution. He was also a member of the board of directors of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy that Dr. Louise Diamond and I started in 1992 in Washington, D.C.

FROM THE PEACE ACADEMY TO THE U.S. INSTITUTE OF PEACE Jim Laue was also involved with the idea of a national peace academy. While I was at the Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs in the early 1980s, I used to get letters in my inbox addressed to the secretary of state that I was supposed to answer on his behalf, asking about the peace academy idea. I never did learn why I was selected for this task. Just by dint of answering the letters, I became intrigued by the idea. I met Laue, who explained that tens of thousands of people across the country wanted to create a peace academy. Congress had set up a commission, which Laue was involved with. He was charged with going around the country and finding out what kind of interest there was in the peace academy idea. He held public meetings all over the country. Some 70,000 people signed petitions saying they supported a peace academy. In his report to Congress, he recommended a peace academy be established. We have West Point for the army, Annapolis for the navy, and we have the Air Force Academy. So why not a peace academy? Why not establish an academy with the word “peace” in it? The Senate Education Committee, which was responsible for acting on the report, looked at it and—I don’t know if this is the literal truth, but I believe that this is what happened—they couldn’t imagine what all those “peaceniks” would do when they graduated from the peace academy. If a person graduates from the Naval Academy, for example, he or she has a job for the next twenty years. But who will hire a peace academy graduate? They will be troublemakers. In any case, eventually the whole concept changed: the idea of a peace academy was shelved and instead an institute of peace was established. Here is how it came about. In 1984 the Senate was controlled by the Republicans. The Education Committee had completed its peace institute draft and wanted to take the matter to the floor and call for a vote. They had fifty-six signatures in support of the bill, but the leadership refused to take it to the full Senate because they knew that President Ronald Reagan

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would not like the idea of a peace institute. Things stalled for weeks. Finally, the distinguished senator from Oregon, Mark O. Hatfield, at midnight, on the Senate floor, tacked the peace institute bill onto a defense appropriation bill he knew the president would sign. The bill was adopted by the Senate, then the House, and finally was approved by the president. The second-last item of the defense bill authorized $1.5 billion for 155 mm atomic warhead shells. The last paragraph authorized a two-year budget of $16 million for a “U.S. Institute of Peace.” I got involved again. The day after President Reagan was elected for a second term, Assistant Secretary of State and Director of the Foreign Service Institute Steve Low and I were called by the Bureau of the Budget (as it was called in those days) to attend a meeting on the U.S. Institute of Peace law. The USIP law called for the creation of a fifteen-person board of directors to be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Four of the fifteen seats were to be occupied by representatives of the State Department, the Pentagon, the National Defense University, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. The other eleven seats were to be divided between the Republicans and the Democrats for three-year terms. The Bureau of the Budget convened the meeting; representatives from the four government agencies were in attendance. The chair opened the meeting by saying, “We’re here to kill this USIP.” We went around the room and all persons were asked, if they agreed. Everybody nodded wisely and said, “Yes,” until it came to me. I said, “Mr. Chairman, I think you’re doing the president a disservice.” That got everybody’s attention. ”You can’t kill this law based on money issues, because everybody will laugh at you. The budget is $16 million for two years. The only path that you could possibly take is to get the Congress to adopt new legislation canceling the present law. But, the Hill loves the USIP. Nobody is going to support its demise. If you want to control the nomination process for the eleven other seats, that’s a more realistic possibility.” My boss also agreed with the chair, who then said, “Well, I guess we all agree that we’re going to kill the USIP.” At that moment the USIP was dead. Six weeks went by. Suddenly, the same group was reconvened by the same chairman. It seemed that the Pentagon had changed its mind. Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle, who was at the first meeting, now thought the USIP was a good idea and agreed to serve on the board. So everybody nodded wisely and said, “‘Fine,” and the USIP was reborn. On the way out of the meeting, my boss said, “I want you to emasculate this legislation anyway.”

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I said, “You know I can’t do that.” He told me to try, and I fiddled inconsequently with the legislation, but I wanted the USIP to live again. He then sent my draft to the legal department at State for them to emasculate the legislation. I wasn’t worried, because I knew this attempt would not work. The White House might recommend some basic changes, but unless an elected member of Congress really pushes, nothing will change. Of course nobody on the Hill touched the changes.

APPLYING FOR THE PRESIDENCY OF THE U.S. INSTITUTE OF PEACE In 1986, the USIP was getting organized. A temporary board of directors had been appointed, and its chairman encouraged me to apply for the position as the first president. I really lobbied for this position, soliciting many letters of recommendation and meeting individually with each member of the board. I wanted the job very badly, thought I could make the concept work, and was quite optimistic about my chances. The board received over two hundred applications from all over the country. I learned that I was one of the final three candidates and was called in for an interview by the board’s selection committee. All three finalists were former diplomats. I knew the other two. I confess that I was very disappointed when I learned I had not been selected. Ambassador Sam Lewis, a talented and effective career diplomat who had served eight years as ambassador to Israel, was selected. He did a great job while he was there. I decided I would never lobby for another job again.

“RETIREMENT”: LAW PROFESSOR AT THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Foreign Service officers are required by law to retire at age sixty-five. In actuality, very few make it to that age, being forced to retire earlier. I reached sixty-five in February 1987 and so retired from my job at the Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs and the U.S. government. I was given a nice farewell party and a beautiful plaque honoring my forty years of government service and went on my way. Perhaps the greatest compliment I had about my years of government service came long after my retirement, in 2001 or so. I was standing in the lobby of the elegant Cosmos Club, a distinguished private club founded in

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1878, which I had been invited to join in 1978. I was to have lunch with former Assistant Secretary of State Princeton Lyman, who had headed the Bureau of International Organization Affairs after I had left. The two of us ran into former Assistant Secretary of State Bill Maynes, my former boss at IO. He turned to Lyman and said, “You know, the best thing about McDonald was that he always brought home the coonskin cap.” He was referring to Daniel Boone, the great Virginia Revolutionary War veteran, folk hero, pioneer, and hunter who opened up Kentucky in the late 1780s and always wore a coonskin cap. Bill went on, “I had so many people on my staff that would come back from assignments tattered and beaten and with no coonskin cap whatsoever, but McDonald always came back with a coonskin cap, regardless of what the challenge was.” I couldn’t have received a greater compliment than that from a man I highly respected and said this to another professional diplomat whom I also admired. In 1987, I may have been retired, but I didn’t really want to stop working, so, thanks to the hard work and strong support of my good friend Dr. Charlie Craver, a distinguished member of the faculty at the Law School of George Washington University, I joined the faculty as an adjunct law professor. I put together a course on international negotiation. First I had to wait for faculty approval of the course. Then I had to wait another month to be approved to teach the course. I was honored to be a member of this esteemed law school even though the pay for an adjunct professor was minimal. I estimated that I was earning about one dollar an hour. I am glad I had my State Department retirement pension. About 60 percent of the faculty at the law school were adjuncts. The school recruited lawyers from around the area to conduct courses. This was advantageous for the law school and also offered students a number of courses taught by practitioners. My second official professorship was when I was on the faculty of Grinnell College, as a professor of political science. I’ve also been an adjunct professor at George Mason University in Northern Virginia in the field of conflict resolution and an adjunct professor at Union Institute in Ohio, which has a PhD program in conflict resolution. I don’t consider myself an academic in the formal sense of the word. I consider myself a practitioner trying to help people learn new skills.

A FAMILY TRAGEDY AND A TWIST OF FATE In June of 1988, tragedy struck the McDonald family. Our beautiful, talented daughter Kathleen, a graduate of Smith College with an MBA from

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Wharton, was killed in an automobile accident in Portugal. She worked for Exxon and was on the way to an Exxon conference in a chauffeur-driven car with two other Exxon executives. She left behind her seven-and-a-halfyear-old son Sean. She is buried here in Northern Virginia, next to where Christel and I will be buried. Fortunately, she had made a will a few months before the accident, making me the executor of her estate and Sean’s guardian (Kathleen had been a single parent). At first, Sean moved in with us, but, shortly thereafter, Christel and I decided to accept my son Jim’s request that Sean live with him. By then, Jim was a successful architect living in Salisbury, Maryland, with his wife Kitty and their three-and-a-half-yearold daughter, Elizabeth. A couple of months after this terrible blow, I received a telephone call from two “head hunters” from Des Moines, Iowa, asking me to apply for the position of the first president of the Iowa Peace Institute (IPI), headquartered in Grinnell. I said, “I have no interest in applying.” This institute had been established in 1988. Iowa had tried to get the USIP to locate in Iowa. When this did not work out, a group of Iowa leaders decided to start their own peace institute. Thus, the IPI was created with a broad base of support and the organizational skill and input of Robert T. Anderson, the former lieutenant governor and its first executive director. The headhunters continued to woo me. I kept turning them down. Each time I said, “No thanks, I am happy where I am, and I’m going to stay here.” In September they said, “We’re coming to Washington to convince you that you should apply. We have some two hundred applications but we would like you to apply as well.” They came to D.C. We invited them to dinner at our apartment, and they talked at length to Christel and to me. By the end of the evening I finally agreed to apply. I never made a phone call. I never told anybody. I never wrote a letter. I did nothing. But I got the job. Someone told me later that the reason they wanted me was because I was in the final three for the U.S. Institute of Peace presidency. I had already proven myself. We had three fantastic years in Iowa; the experience changed my life again.

11 PRESIDENT OF THE IOWA PEACE INSTITUTE Gr innell, Iowa, 1989–1991

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his is a time period when monumental and mostly positive changes started to happen in the world:The Cold War came to an end, the Berlin Wall was demolished, the Soviet Empire fell apart, and President George H.W. Bush liberated Kuwait—with great American force, UN support, and allied troops—from Saddam Hussein’s short-lived invasion.Yet, ongoing civil strife prevailed in dozens of hot spots around the world. Considering this scenario, your personal history, and your age, what persuaded you to become the first president of the Iowa Peace Institute and assume this new professional challenge? What visions did you have when you came to Iowa from Washington and what are the projects you are most proud of? It is during your years at the Iowa Peace Institute that our paths first crossed. I was director of education and research at the institute and saw the success of the conflict resolution program in Iowa schools and am pleased that it lives on today. I enjoyed being a part of that wonderful program. Also, I was delighted that I had your support for the Partners for Development Program, in which foreign students in Iowa could apply for micro-grants for development projects in their home countries. (Main funding for that effort was provided by the Garst family—famous in Iowa because Nikita Khrushchev visited their farm in 1959.) Other memories of my IPI years are also still very vivid, for example the visit of John Garang, then the leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, who was to become vice president of Sudan. It is interesting that after you, Robert Anderson, and I left the IPI, we still kept working together.We all, in our own ways, have then been engaged in many initiatives that we had hoped to carry out through the IPI.

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MY INTRODUCTION TO IOWA AND GRINNELL COLLEGE Moving to Iowa to serve as president of the Iowa Peace Institute was moving into unknown territory. I didn’t know anyone in Iowa and knew next to nothing about the state. But I was fascinated by the challenge the move represented and was impressed with the dedication of the board members and other people I met during my interviews. Their enthusiasm about the idea of a statewide institute that would focus on international peacebuilding was totally unlike the disinterest I had experienced at the State Department. The position offered me a chance to put into practice some of my ideas about Track Two diplomacy and its relationship to Track One. I would be able to focus on the NGO world that was dedicated to peacebuilding and conflict resolution. Of course, I also liked the idea of being my own boss with the opportunity to pursue innovative ideas. The IPI board of directors told me they wanted me to internationalize IPI’s outreach. I expected to carry out that mandate I was blessed by a great staff at IPI: Bob Anderson, former lieutenant governor, and executive director of IPI, who had been instrumental in helping to create it; Noa Zanolli, a PhD with an international background and experience as an educator; Judy Hall as manager; then, after a time, Dan Johnson as volunteer librarian, wonderful administrative help, great Grinnell College student interns, the list goes on. Many of our friends in Washington thought Christel and I were crazy. “Where is Iowa?” “What is Grinnell?” “Why are you leaving Washington?” People generally didn’t know much about the Midwest. You fly over the Midwest. They did not know, and we ourselves only learned later, that Iowa, with a population of just three million, has forty-seven colleges and universities. The state has the highest literacy rate in the United States (99 percent); the ACT and SAT scores of Iowans rank among the top in the county. Iowa farmers are actually business people with MBAs and PhDs who manage farms of 1,000 or more acres and are interested in international affairs. This is in part due to the influence of the Des Moines Register, a newspaper that has been published since the mid-nineteenth century. Its owners have been interested in global affairs. Currently about 25 percent of food produced in Iowa is exported—in the 1990s it was about 40 percent. Christel tells the story that on my second visit to Grinnell for interviews, when she was invited to be interviewed as well, she landed at the airport in Des Moines a day ahead of me and spent the night in a nice hotel

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in the city. There was hardly any traffic around five PM and she wondered— she even asked someone—if there was a tornado warning or something. Where was the rush hour? The next day she drove east to Grinnell on beautiful I-80. She said to herself, “Let’s see if I can get National Public Radio and classical music here.” After finding it on the car radio dial as she left Des Moines, she said to herself, “If I don’t find this station in Grinnell, then forget it, John McDonald, we are not moving there.” Great was Christel’s surprise—we could get three public radio stations from three surrounding university towns! My three-year contract with IPI started on January 1, 1989, but we made several trips there before that. During one trip, Iowa governor Terry E. Branstad welcomed us to the Capitol in Des Moines, and the Des Moines Register ran a friendly article and a photo on the front page “Welcome to Peace Chief.” The next morning, people who had seen that article came up to greet us personally. This prompted our seven-year-old grandson Sean to say, “Granddad, if you are that famous, why don’t we move to Hollywood?” Our move from greater Washington, D.C., to a little town of 9,000 people was quite a cultural shift. Having made that commitment, professionally and financially, we planned to retire there. Shortly after my arrival, the president of Grinnell College, George Drake, and I talked about how the relationship between the college and the institute should be structured. We agreed that the college would make a $10,000 a year contribution to the institute. In return, I would serve as an adjunct professor of political science, taking on several tutorial students each semester and giving a few lectures. He wanted me to teach a course, but I couldn’t tie myself down from a scheduling point of view. He understood. Drake called me a few weeks later and said that college administrators had researched the history of Grinnell College and found that there had never been an adjunct professor in 150 years. He said they were not going to change that record. Instead, I would have to go through the steps required to become a full tenured professor. At Grinnell College, that meant breakfast, lunch, and dinner with the faculty and students, making presentations and giving lectures, and getting rated by all these groups. I finally passed all the hurdles and became a full professor (still unpaid) of political science. I had three wonderful years with the college and its fine students and faculty. We became good friends with the Drakes and with many of our neighbors and truly felt integrated with the community, the town, and the state.

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CATALYZING PEER MEDIATION IN IOWA’S SCHOOLS My first project proposal to the IPI board was to bring peer mediation to the whole State of Iowa. I told them a story that I had learned from Ray Shonholtz, who had started peer mediation school programs in 1982 in San Francisco, California. Peer mediation consists of training teachers in how to teach mediation skills to students in primary and secondary schools, with a goal of enabling the students to mediate and settle disputes by themselves with no adults around. I chose peer mediation as my first project in order to establish IPI as an organization, which would benefit the state and its citizens before going international. Community Boards, Shonholtz’s organization, had developed the ideas, the syllabus, the curriculum, the training manuals, and the videos. Teachers came from all over the country to attend the Community Boards workshops. About five years later, a survey of the teachers who had taken the course revealed that a high percentage of them were rejected by their schools when they tried to teach this new concept. Their principals thought it was a waste of time, or the school board didn’t like it, or the parentteacher association—PTA—was turned off. Sometimes the program failed because it was not sustainable in the long term. I told the IPI board that with their help, I would follow a political route to establish peer mediation in Iowa. I would first try to get the Iowa Department of Education on board. Then I planned to get some legislation passed on peer mediation in the schools. The board seemed to like my approach. The concept already enjoyed considerable support in Iowa. For example, Dr. Cordell Svengalis, who at the time was a consultant in the Bureau of Instructional Services at the Iowa Department of Education, was convinced that peer mediation was what the state needed. Carol Brown, social studies coordinator for the Des Moines school district, had started to introduce peer mediation and other conflict resolution programs in the late 1980s at the request of a school board member. The Department of Education agreed to partner with IPI. I then drafted a bill and, with the help of our board members, testified before the appropriate Iowa House and Senate committees about the bill. I also met with the governor. By April of 1989, the bill had passed both houses and was signed into law by the governor. The bill stated that the Department of Education and the IPI should carry out a pilot project in one school district, using peer mediation, at no cost to the state, and report back to the state legislature the following year on the results of the pilot. The support

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of state senator Jean Lloyd-Jones, a driving force and founder of IPI, was instrumental in the bill’s passage. In June 1989, the first training workshop was held for forty teachers drawn from all over the state. Experts from California, Shonholtz and Gail Sadalla, were the lead trainers. Participants received continuing education credits for the course. I also announced the creation of the Iowa Association of Conflict Resolution Teachers and made all workshop participants charter members. As the IPI director of education and research, Noa Zanolli was in charge of the program. She issued a quarterly newsletter to keep in touch with teachers who had participated. These teachers became our best advocates. With the help of the Department of Education I wrote to all of the school superintendents in the state—at the time some five hundred. We attached a copy of the new law, which I knew they hadn’t seen before. We told them about the forty teachers we had just trained and invited them to sign up to be the district for the pilot project. Thirty-two superintendents signed up. Clearly, our efforts to garner political support had made peer mediation acceptable to the people and the systems that otherwise may have been critical of the idea. Once the state legislature, the governor, the Department of Education, and several school superintendents backed the idea, it had credibility. Teacher training continued, and this important program became a reality in Iowa and beyond. Fortunately, almost every state, including Iowa, had money for teachers’ continuing education and could pay the modest price of our workshops. We did not have to get money from any other source. IPI made up to $1,000 on each of our workshops, we took on more projects, and peer mediation in the schools took off. The steering committee for the effort set ambitious strategic goals. One was that by 2000, every pupil in Iowa would have been trained in mediation. This goal was not achieved due to changes in IPI leadership over the years, but well over 2,000 teachers were trained either by IPI or by the University of Northern Iowa or some other entity, and every school district in Iowa had a conflict resolution program of one kind or another. Informal surveys generally confirmed the findings of similar programs elsewhere in the United States: a 72 percent drop in the number of trips to the principal’s office and more time for teachers to spend on instruction rather than discipline. In 1990, Noa Zanolli launched the first annual conference on peer mediation and conflict resolution in the schools. Some three hundred students from grade, middle, and high schools, with their teachers and some

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parents and school officials, attended the conference, which gave them the opportunity to be exposed to professional mediators. Three eighth graders—all girls from Des Moines—were the keynote speakers. They told how peer mediation training had changed their lives because they had taken the new skills home and used them there. One of the girls was an African American who lived in Des Moines. There was not a dry eye when she finished her comments. Dr. Susan Koch, at that time a professor at the University of Northern Iowa who had taken our first training, told the young woman that her talk had touched her heart. “When you are ready for college, please contact me. Financial support will be available for you, and UNI will be lucky to have you as a student. You are a future leader and I want to help you on your way.” A few months after I returned to Washington in early 1992, I was invited to brief the Maryland State Board of Education on my peer mediation experience in Iowa. I left the room directly after finishing my briefing, but I learned later that at that session the board allocated $500,000 to start a peer mediation program in Maryland. I also called on several officials at the U.S. Department of Education later that year to see if they would support legislation that would provide federal funds to the states to make peer mediation required in all schools across the country. I was not successful in this endeavor, but I still think it is an excellent idea.

BRINGING CONFLICT RESOLUTION SKILLS TO MOSCOW “Conflictology” Another memorable program was one that tried to bring conflict resolution to the Soviet Union. In October 1989, John Marks, Ray Shonholtz, and I were invited to Moscow. The invitation was extended thanks to Marks’s contacts with the U.S.-Canada section of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Marks was founder and president of the Washington-based NGO Search for Common Ground; and Shonholtz was working with the Community Boards program in San Francisco—he later founded and became president of Partners for Democratic Change, a California NGO. On our arrival, after meeting with our interpreters, we learned that there was no word in the Russian language for “conflict resolution.” After all, they had the KGB, the gulags, Siberia, they solved all conflict by force. We had to invent a word for the concept. I speak no Russian but came up with the word “conflictology.” Everyone liked it and it actually caught on and be-

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came part of the Russian language. I have lectured since then at institutes for conflictology in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Tbilisi, Georgia. On this visit, we had a historic meeting with five members of the freely elected Parliament. Two minutes into our meeting, we were asked to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh problem between Armenia and Azerbaijan. During his reign, Josef Stalin had created one province claimed by two other provinces, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Now that they were both independent nations, they both angrily claimed the province as theirs. I told them that we could not solve that problem and neither could they. I said, “There’s no magic wand in this new field of conflict resolution. You can’t resolve this complicated issue because to do so requires a trust relationship among all the parties. That you do not have.” That certainly got their attention. “Unfortunately,” I said, “nobody outside of Moscow trusts you. What you have to do is find a neutral third party who can help.” (They eventually asked the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, of which they are a member, for help and the OSCE is still working on the issue.)

A Return Invitation The Soviet Academy invited us back to Moscow in March of 1990. We trained four different groups of very talented people, some one hundred Soviets in all, teaching them conflict resolution and mediation skills. One of the groups was comprised of twenty high school teachers that Gail Sadalla, senior trainer at Community Boards, taught in peer mediation. Ray Shonholtz and I taught fifteen academics the theory and practice of conflict resolution. Bill Lincoln, an outstanding labor management negotiator, and Bill Ury, wellknown for his book Getting to Yes and one of the world’s leading negotiators, worked with thirty-five trade union leaders, including ten workers who had just been involved in the first successful coal miners strike in Soviet history. Art Friedman, who is now a professor at American University in Washington, D.C., worked with thirty personnel managers involved in the post-Chernobyl crisis. Staffs in nuclear power plants all over the Soviet Empire were terrified about the future. Friedman could work well with the personnel managers because he was a nuclear scientist as well as a conflict resolution expert.

Impact of Our Work Our work had major impacts across the Soviet Union. Lincoln still goes back to St. Petersburg, where he helped to establish the Center for International Environmental Cooperation. (Today it is the Russian Center for

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Interdisciplinary Environmental Cooperation.) He took me with him in April 2004. The trade union training stimulated the creation of a federal mediation service modeled on the U.S. government’s Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. The service helped to create sixteen offices all across Russia that were led by a deputy minister of labor. Some years ago, someone who had just come from Moscow told me she was astonished to see that peer mediation was being taught in some Russian high schools. John Marks worked for weeks with Russian television and was able to produce a series of eight programs, in Russian, dealing with conflict resolution problems at the people-to-people level. Shonholtz and a professor from Moscow University drafted an agreement in a Moscow hotel room asking Ray to help create a unit at the university that would focus on conflict resolution. Then, some of us went to Warsaw, Poland, on a trip organized by Shonholtz. There we provided training in conflict resolution in collaboration with the University of Warsaw. They invited us to return for more training. In fact, Shonholtz returned to the United States with two contracts in his pocket, one from Moscow and the other from Warsaw. He created a new NGO called Partners for Democratic Change. Then he went to the Mott Foundation, which fell in love with his work and his idea of bringing conflict resolution to Eastern Europe and provided major funding for him to realize his dream. These were seeds that took root. Shonholtz’s NGO trained thousands of talented people and made an important contribution to peacebuilding in Eastern Europe. I have one last little story about Moscow. I was due to go back to Moscow for another training session right after Thanksgiving in 1990. Christel said to me, “Are you ill? Your eyes look yellow.” I said I was fine, but she pursued the matter and took me to see a doctor at Grinnell Hospital. He took one look at me and said, “You have gall stones. I am admitting you to the hospital immediately so that we can remove your gall bladder.” I said, “Doctor, with all due respect, I don’t have time for this. I have to be in Moscow in three days.” He gave me a steely-eyed look and said, “Do you want to be operated on in Moscow or here?” When he put it that way, I decided on Grinnell, Iowa.

EXPANDING THE CONCEPT OF TRACK TWO TO MULTITRACK DIPLOMACY In 1989, Dr. Lou Kriesberg, a professor at Syracuse University, asked me to write a chapter for the book he was editing entitled Timing The De-Escala-

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tion of International Conflicts. I was honored to do so and actually traveled to Syracuse twice to meet with other authors. I decided to expand the concept of diplomatic “tracks” and identified five tracks instead of two. The chapter would be called, “Further Expansion of Track Two Diplomacy.” The book was published by the U.S. Institute of Peace, which had funded the project. I began to realize, through my work at IPI, that much more was going on in the private, nongovernmental sector than I had realized. This realization led me to add the additional tracks. Tracks One and Two would stay the same: one is government-to-government; Track Two is nongovernment-to-nongovernment, both in the field of foreign affairs. Track Three would describe the role of business in peacebuilding. Track Four would deal with the role of citizen-exchange programs, such as the Fulbright program and the International Visitors Program at the State Department—the power of the individual to bring about change. And Track Five covered the role of the media—both negative and positive aspects—and the importance of communication at all levels of society. Tracks Two to Five were all trying to influence Track One. In 1986, Dr. Louise Diamond knocked on my door at the Foreign Service Institute and asked to see me. She explained that she was a trainer, living in Vermont, and she wanted to learn about international conflict and thought I would be a good teacher. I said that I would be pleased to help her. A professional partnership and a lifelong friendship were born. Dr. Diamond was familiar with my Track Two approach to conflict resolution and peacebuilding. She later learned about my expansion of Tracks One and Two to five tracks. In 1990, she proposed that the five tracks be expanded further to nine tracks. She also suggested that the tracks should be presented, not lined up vertically as I had presented them, but in a circle. My Track Five (media and public opinion) would become Track Nine and would be represented as a smaller inner circle linking the other eight tracks. The new Track Five would be education, training, and research; Track Six would be peace activism; Track Seven, religion; and Track Eight, funding. I thought her concept was brilliant. We wrote a project proposal to the U.S. Institute of Peace and received a grant of $24,000 to present the ideas in a new book. Louise did most of the work and got all the money because I already had a well-paid job. The book, which was completed in 1991, was entitled Multi-Track Diplomacy—A Systems Approach to Peace. No publisher could be found, so we published it under an IPI label.

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Figure 11.1.

IMTD logo

The diagram showing the nine tracks of diplomacy later became the inspiration for the symbol representing the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy. The circle, a traditional symbol in many ancient societies, stands for one of our basic techniques: we sit in a circle in all our meetings and gatherings to allow energy to flow freely among participants and to permit everyone to see each other. The “spokes” in the circle—the lines radiating out—represent the various segments of society that are involved in peacebuilding activities. If all segments, or tracks, work together, governmentconcluded peace agreements will have a much greater chance of being long-lasting.

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WORLD CONFERENCE OF PEACE INSTITUTES We decided to convene and host a World Conference of Peace Institutes— something that had never been done before. After weeks of research, we identified twenty-three little NGO peace institutes from all over the world, plus of course the UN Office of Peace. We went to the Iowa business community—especially David Hurd and his Business for Peace group in Des Moines—and asked for their support. They liked the idea that we would host this diverse group in Des Moines and came through with the necessary funds. We then invited representatives from these organizations, offering to pay all of their expenses. We got 100 percent acceptances. For one week, in June 1990, we exchanged ideas and learned about each other and our frustrations and successes. The UN Office for Peace was so pleased with our conference that they recommended the IPI receive the coveted and rarely given Peace Messenger Award. I was eventually invited to New York and, standing by the Peace Bell on the UN Plaza, was presented with the award by Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar. The mounted certificate was then hung on the wall of IPI.

Figure 11.2. Secretary General Perez de Cuellar presents John W. McDonald and IPI with the UN Peace Messenger Award

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PREPARING TIBETAN LEADERS FOR NEGOTIATING WITH THE CHINESE It all began in 1988 when a graduate student at George Mason University, Pete Swanson, asked for my advice on his proposed trip to Dharamsala, Northern India, to bring conflict resolution to the Tibetan government in exile. I advised against the trip because I felt that he was too inexperienced. He went anyway and learned a lot. On his return he introduced me to a Dutch lawyer, Dr. Michael van Walt, who was the legal advisor to the Dalai Lama, with offices in Washington, D.C. We became friends and that is how I became involved with the Dalai Lama and the people of his government in exile. In 1989, van Walt, Jim Laue (ICAR) and I attended the National Conference on Peace and Conflict Resolution in Montreal. Together with several other people we discussed over lunch one day what we could do in general for “unrepresented people.” After some discussion, I suggested that we focus on the Tibetan problem and that our efforts be implemented by a partnership between the IPI, ICAR, and a university in the Netherlands. We all agreed and went back to our respective institutions to check things out. I learned a few weeks later that our idea was turned down by George Mason University’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) and the Dutch University because both institutions were afraid of reprisal by China, who hates anyone associated with the Dalai Lama. I said, “I am not worried about China. We’ll do it at IPI.” In 1990, after being carefully checked out by representatives of the Tibetan government in exile, IPI invited van Walt, Laue, Dudley Weeks (wellknown worldwide as a facilitator in conflict resolution and nonviolent social change), and four senior members of the Tibetan government in exile to Grinnell for a week of training in July 1990. Laue came out to help as a private person, not representing the university. All of the participants stayed with our friends in Grinnell, gathered each morning for breakfast on our deck at home, and walked up the street to the golf club where we had rooms for our training. The Tibetans were especially interested to learn how they might negotiate with the Chinese. We spent a lot of time on that issue because their cultures and styles of negotiation are totally different. We were successful because we were able to empower them and embolden them with the skill training we provided. As a result of this training and my contacts with these key officials I was able to have my first private audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama while he was in New York in September 1990. He truly is a great and enlightened human being.

Figure 11.3.

John W. McDonald listening carefully to His Holiness the Dalai Lama during a meeting in New York

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Obviously, Michael van Walt, a most talented and charismatic person, also did not fear Chinese opinion because he proceeded in 1991 to establish an NGO in The Hague called UNPO (Unrepresented Nations and People’s Organizations). It was a fantastic idea and an outstanding organization as long as he was its secretary general. He brought together groups that had no voice, neither in the United Nations nor anywhere else, like the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan government in exile, the Taiwanese, and the Basques, to explain their cause and cry for recognition. I attended several of his meetings and spoke about the work regarding Tibet at the Iowa Peace Institute. It was at the first meeting of UNPO that I met His Serene Highness, Prince Hans Adam II of Liechtenstein, who became later our principal funder for Tibet training at the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, which I cofounded in 1992. Later, when Dr. Diamond and I decided to create the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, I learned that she had contacts with the Dalai Lama’s government as well. We decided to continue our association with this wonderful community of people dedicated to peace. Over the years we

Figure 11.4. During a visit in Dharamsala, Northern India, His Holiness the Dalai Lama kindly received John W. McDonald (second from left) and Dr. Eileen Borris, IMTD chief of training, as well as Steve Krubiner, IMTD intern

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have held ten training workshops for the Tibetan government in exile, including some specifically for women and youth groups. We have worked with them in Switzerland, New Delhi, and Dharamsala. I have been fortunate to have had three more private audiences with His Holiness. During our first training in Dharamsala in 1993, there were thirty people in the room—all members of the government, men and women, midlevel officials who had been selected and convened by the deputy foreign minister of the Tibetan government in exile. Louise and I began talking about the philosophy and concept of multitrack diplomacy. As these new concepts began to sink in, both Louise and I could see the collective energy begin to rise up. It was almost like a light bulb switching on, as the whole group opened their minds and grasped the power and potential of the multitrack system and what each track could achieve. The collective energy seemed to explode. After our last training in June 2004, I received a letter from the chairman of the Cabinet asking us for help in training young diplomats over a twelve-to-fifteen-month period. Since then, we have tried to raise money to carry out this request but have been unable to do so. However, we are still working with the Dalai Lama and the government of Tibet in exile. Our last meeting was in 2004. The work that I started in 1990 planted seeds of trust that have grown over the decades.

A BILL OF RIGHTS FOR NORTHERN IRELAND An Interesting Clause in the 1985 Treaty on Northern Ireland In 1985, when I was still at the State Department, a treaty was signed between Britain and Ireland, giving the Catholics in Northern Ireland a few more rights than they had had before. This certainly antagonized the Protestants. I was intrigued by that treaty. We organized a full day’s seminar at the State Department to discuss it. I learned that there was a fascinating clause in the treaty that said there should be a bill of rights for Northern Ireland. I knew that neither the United Kingdom nor Ireland had a bill of rights and was very curious as to why that sentence was in the treaty. I decided to follow up on this issue. At the end of 1989 I was in London and I contacted a friend in the foreign office who had been involved in the negotiation of the treaty. I said, “I have been following this issue of a bill of rights for Northern Ireland. Have I missed something? Has anything been done about this great idea?”

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There was a pause, and then he said, “No, nothing’s happened.” I asked him if he had any plans to work on the idea. Another pause, another “No.” “Well, why did you put this sentence in the treaty?” I asked. There was a long silence and finally my friend said, “For public relations purposes.” I was disgusted by his answer.

Preparing and Agreeing Upon a Draft Bill of Rights Back home, I got together with my good friend Joseph Montville, a former Foreign Service officer and the creator of the Track Two concept. I knew that he had some connections in Northern Ireland, and that he too would be angered by this deception. We agreed we had to do something about this. We were able to identify two talented people from Northern Ireland, one was a Protestant, a human rights lawyer; the other a Catholic peace activist. Both were interested in the issue. We brought them to Boston to meet for three days with half a dozen Americans who were experts in human rights issues and our own Bill of Rights. We tried to figure out what we could do to help craft a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. I said that our goal should be to do the staff work for the two governments, if nothing else. We could then give our draft to them and hope for the best. We finally agreed that the two men from Northern Ireland would prepare the draft and check it out with political party leaders to see if they would support the idea. I said, “OK, if you’ll do that, we will raise the money and host a conference in Des Moines, Iowa, on this subject, the goal being to give credibility to your draft.” It took the two men a year to draft the document and clear it. It took us a number of months to raise the $60,000 necessary to make this idea work. Again the Iowa business community came through with the money. In December 1991, as my last major contribution to the IPI, we hosted a most successful weeklong conference. Eight people from Northern Ireland attended, including the two drafters of the document, a professor from the University of Ulster, and five political party leaders from each of the five main parties. The number-one or the number-two man from each party came. Other attendees were a justice from the Supreme Court of Canada, who had drafted the bill of rights for Canada, and a professor from New Zealand, who had drafted the bill of rights for New Zealand, that is, two members of the Commonwealth.

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We also included American experts who had been at the Boston meeting. Counting Joe Montville, an IPI staffer, and myself, we were just eighteen people in all. We went over the draft, word by word, line by line. By the end of the week we had a very solid document that all of the participants supported— including the five political leaders—and that would hold up under any scrutiny. At the same time, other things were happening which were equally important. For most of the participants from Northern Ireland, it was their first trip to the United States. The eight visitors had never sat together before. They were very tense during the first evening when we all had a meal together. Eventually, they were able to relax together at the hospitality suite we had set up. My wife Christel and I saw them on two occasions sitting around, coats off, ties unknotted, talking to each other like normal human beings for the first time in their lives, talking across the religious barriers. As Christmas was only ten days away, they asked if they could have a little time to do some Christmas shopping. I was deeply affected by how much they appreciated the mere absence of violence; they talked about shopping “without fear.” No bomb threats in the department store, no bombs exploding in the streets. They felt safe while doing an ordinary thing. At the farewell dinner, suddenly two of the political leaders on my left got very excited about something. Worried, I leaned over and asked them what was happening, and they said, “We just learned that we’re third cousins.” They had had to come all the way from Northern Ireland to Des Moines, Iowa, to find out that they were third cousins, one a Catholic, the other a Protestant, living just four blocks apart.

The Bill of Rights Becomes a Reality What happened after that was also exciting. In the fall of 1992, there was a big conference on Northern Ireland in London with representatives from England, Ireland, and Northern Ireland in attendance. The conference set up an ad hoc committee on a bill of rights for Northern Ireland. The only piece of paper on the table was the document that we had generated in Iowa. Three of the five political leaders who were in Iowa were members of the committee. By the end of that conference, they had approved a bill of rights for Northern Ireland, and the two governments announced to the world that they strongly supported it. Six years later, in April 1998, the peace accords were announced. The bill of rights for Northern Ireland was mentioned four times. It continues to be

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a critical document in the further negotiations between England, Ireland, and Northern Ireland. A bill of rights was something that the people and their political leaders wanted, but the governments of the United Kingdom and Ireland had to be pushed hard to make it a reality. How this bill became reality is a good example of moving from Track Two to Track One and how the two tracks can reinforce each other. We convened the right people, with the expertise needed, inspired them, and gave their work credibility. We put our egos behind us and made no effort to claim responsibility for achieving the goal.

JOHN GARANG: AN AFRICAN LEADER FROM SUDAN In 1991, a Sudanese political leader, John Garang, came to visit me at IPI on one of his trips back to Grinnell. When we met he was head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and the leader of Southern Sudan. He was a Grinnell College graduate who went on to get a master’s degree and a PhD in agricultural economics at Iowa State University. He spent eight years in Iowa, and that experience never left him. He went back to Sudan, became an army officer, and later returned to the United States to attend the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. During this visit, Garang was staying with Max Smith, our neighbor across the street who was treasurer of IPI and a distinguished banker in Grinnell. The Smiths had looked after him when he was in college. We spent half a day talking about the situation in Sudan. He told me that he had left the Sudanese Army and created his Southern movement over the issue of freedom of religion. The Muslim North refused to allow the Christian South to live in peace. Now that oil had been found in the South, the situation was becoming more volatile. The North wanted a Muslim Sudan, following the Sharia, or Muslim law. He wanted a democratic Sudan in which all religions would be allowed to flourish. That was the root cause of the conflict. He was a very impressive leader. In 2005, Garang became vice president of Sudan. One million people gathered at his swearing-in ceremony in Khartoum. I believe he was the only person in the world at that moment who had the power to stop the genocide in Darfur. Just three weeks after his swearing in, he was tragically killed in a helicopter accident.

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REACHING OUT ACROSS IOWA Creating Understanding about the Middle East In the fall of 1989, I attended a panel session at the annual conference of COPRED (Consortium on Peace, Research, Education and Development—the first peace education consortium in the United States) in Washington, D.C. The panel was composed of Mohammed Abu-Nimer, a Palestinian Muslim, and Simona Sharoni, an Israeli Jew. I was fascinated by these two young persons. They had worked together in peacebuilding, in Israel and Palestine, and they came to George Mason University to get a PhD in conflict resolution to give themselves more credibility. They talked about their own experiences with the ongoing intifada (an uprising of young Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip against Israeli rule), which was going on at that particular time, explained why it had happened, and discussed the prospects for peace in the future. They spoke out courageously, were frank about the issues, and worked together constructively. I invited them to come to Iowa, and, in 1990, they made two threeweek visits, staying with us in our home. IPI arranged for them to make speeches and presentations across the whole of Iowa. In over thirty meetings, they talked to about 3,000 people and educated Iowans about the Middle East and the current conflict. A similar approach was used with Dr. Diamond, who traveled around Iowa to show her movie, “Many Voices, One Song,” which IPI had helped to finance. Her movie carried essentially the same message as Abu-Nimer’s and Sharoni’s presentations: we are all the same, we have inflicted pain on each other, but we can find ways to get on with it and work together.

Speaking Up for Peace During my three years in Iowa I averaged one hundred speeches a year—to Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions Clubs, and many church and women’s groups. I must have spoken at most of the colleges and universities in the state; two colleges awarded me honorary PhDs. My subjects were IPI and peace. Frequently, I was interviewed on the radio, on TV, and in the press. Christel and I loved Iowa, Grinnell, our neighbors, our home; we planned to stay and retire there. That was not meant to be. Many people wondered why we left.

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LEAVING THE IPI I had a three-year renewable contract. About six weeks before it was to expire, I was visited by State Senator Jean Lloyd-Jones, the chairperson of the board and by my neighbor, Max Smith, IPI’s treasurer. Totally out of the blue, as far as I was concerned, they said that the IPI board had decided not to renew my contract. I was shocked. ”Why?” I asked. “I’ve done everything I promised I would do and all that you asked me to do.” They did not give me a single specific reason for their decision. They just said again, “We just decided not to renew your contract.” I said, “If that is your decision then we will return to Washington.” I don’t know what happened, but when the governor of Iowa learned we were leaving he gave us a magnificent farewell dinner for 250 people in the Marriott Hotel in Des Moines. Everybody was lamenting our departure and asking us to stay. It was a wonderful outpouring of support for our work. One of our ardent supporters, Leonard Kurz, placed an eight-foottall wreath of magnificent roses and other colorful flowers near our table with a banner saying, “Farewell—we will miss you.” I never told anyone that we didn’t want to go, that we were fired. We just left gracefully in January 1992 and did not contest what the board had decided. To this day, I do not understand why the board did not renew my contract. I came to realize, once again, that this was another one of those experiences that keep happening to me. I get booted out of one job to do something else. I guess I was supposed to do other things in my life than stay in Iowa.

DEMISE OF THE IPI After my departure, the board changed the mission statement of the Iowa Peace Institute, but not the name, and decided to focus only on Iowa. I was replaced after a few months by another American diplomat. He was removed a year later. Then the board hired a very competent Iowan, Dr. Gregory Buntz, a mediator, who focused on Iowa. Unfortunately, contributions gradually declined over the years, and IPI closed its doors in 2003. In my opinion, support declined when the IPI no longer focused on national or international conflicts. The IPI board decided to merge the IPI with Grinnell College. The building, the library, and the remaining funds were donated to the college and plans were made to develop a peace studies program there.

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n 1992, at age seventy, you could have retired comfortably, but that would have been totally against your nature. You had experienced three intense years in Iowa, and, in many ways, had been able to lay the groundwork for your next important decision, which was to create your own organization, the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy.The world had changed dramatically as far as the perceived Soviet threat was concerned.All too soon, however, the United States and the Western world were confronted with a new kind of global threat: terrorism. It was to be George H.W. Bush’s last year in office, and the William J. Clinton era was to start. How did these developments impact the purpose of your institute and your ongoing engagement in world affairs? And how did you start up and organize your new venture? In today’s world, there has been no shortage of situations in which artificial divisions or real barriers or walls between people are established or reenforced, creating manmade disasters of monumental proportions. I am thinking specifically about the wall dividing East and West Berlin until 1989, or created divisions in Cyprus, Kashmir, Sudan, Rwanda, and the current new wall in Israel. Today, multitrack diplomacy is a well-known and accepted concept in academia and diplomacy, thanks in part to your writing and the activities of IMTD. How did you go about applying the systems approach to diverse conflicts around the world and getting it accepted by governments, NGOs, leaders in civil society—with minimal infrastructure and very little funding?

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CREATING THE INSTITUTE FOR MULTI-TRACK DIPLOMACY What Next? After my contract with the Iowa Peace Institute was not renewed, I started thinking about what I would do next. I began thinking of how to promote the concept of multitrack diplomacy that Louise Diamond and I had written about in our 1991 book. Finally, Christel and I listened to Diamond’s urgings and decided to give up the idea of retiring in Iowa and to go back to Washington and create what became the Institute for MultiTrack Diplomacy. I was helped enormously in these efforts by the generous support of Professor Chris Mitchell, then the director of the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. I had joined ICAR’s Advisory Board when it was created in the mid-1980s and had not given up my position while we were in Grinnell. In fact, I am still a member of the board. In January 1992, Mitchell arranged for me to have an office at ICAR for the spring semester and even made me the first ever Bryant Wedge Fellow, named after the founder of ICAR who had since passed away.

Getting Started Louise Diamond and I developed a mission statement, and I drafted bylaws and articles of incorporation and established a board of directors. On May 26, 1992, I went to the appropriate office in the District of Columbia, paid $26 and got incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation. I made myself chairman of the board and chief executive officer—I wanted to be sure that I was the boss. Louise was made executive director and my wife Christel, secretary-treasurer of the corporation. We were officially launched. After some euphoria, reality sank in. We had no money, no staff, no space, no computers, and no project proposals. What we did have were two dedicated people, Louise and I, and a revolutionary concept for peacebuilding. To get started, Christel and I contributed $10,000 and Louise $5,000. I persuaded Horace Deets, executive director of AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) to give us three very nice rooms, rent free for a year, and we started to go to work. Our first unpaid intern was James Notter, who was getting his master’s at ICAR. On his first day he had to as-

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semble his desk and chair, which had just arrived from the IKEA furniture store. Our first brochure was designed, free of charge, by a young woman named Denise Dolan, from Hoboken, New Jersey. I sat next to her on a flight from Israel to the United States. As we talked, she became fascinated by our work and volunteered to help. Both she and Horace Deets are our two free lifetime members. We filed our papers with the Internal Revenue Service and six months later received our tax-exempt status, which allows people who give to IMTD to take a tax deduction for their contribution. I learned that it is impossible to start an NGO by working part time. It takes one or two totally dedicated individuals, working more than a fortyhour week, to make any new NGO come alive. In 2007, IMTD celebrated its fifteenth birthday. It is still relatively small, has no paid staff, and still lacks the funds to do the things it is asked to do. But it is debt free and blessed with 1,400 dues-paying members and a database of 7,000 interested persons from 140 countries. Two hundred and fifteen interns from forty-four countries, getting their master’s or PhDs in conflict resolution from universities around the country and abroad have worked ably on our projects.

IMTD’S PRINCIPLES AND NORMS Systems Approach For multitrack diplomacy to succeed, all tracks must be involved. Track One is government-to-government interaction. Track Two is nongovernment-to-nongovernment. The other seven tracks expand on Track Two because they are all nongovernmental in nature: Track Three is the role of business; Four is citizen exchange; Five is educational training and research; Six is peace activism; Seven is religion; Eight is funding; and Nine is the inner circle, which ties all of the tracks together and represents communication (which includes media and public opinion). Communication is what we are all about and without it one cannot solve a problem. (See the IMTD logo in chapter 11.) Central to the idea of multitrack diplomacy is a simple guiding principle: the only way to solve a conflict, at any level of society, is to sit down, face to face, and talk about it. We developed some techniques and approaches to start the process, which we refer to as a “systems approach” to peace. Our mission statement, which we struggled long and hard to develop, reads as follows, “The mission of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy is to promote a systems approach to peacebuilding and to facilitate a

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transformation of deep-rooted social conflict.” This is another way of saying: we focus internationally, and we focus on ethnic conflict. We promote a systems approach because we know that lasting peace cannot be built by the efforts of one track by itself. All nine tracks have to work together to build a peaceful society.

Norms Over time, we have gradually developed norms that we adhere to as we do our work. Together they constitute our organizational culture.

BEING INVITED

We go only where we are invited by the people in the conflict. I stress the word “people.” It’s not governments but people that must invite us. If we are invited, it means that there is a small group of individuals in a particular conflict who realize that they can’t resolve a problem alone; they are frustrated and looking for outside help.

LONG-TERM COMMITMENT

We make a five-year commitment to every project that we take on. We don’t get engaged for a weekend, or a week, or a month, or three months. We may not have the money to make specific five-year plans, but we tell people that we will remain engaged to the best of our ability. If people want us to stay involved longer than five years and if we have the funds to do it, we will. Part of building a trust relationship with people is making a longterm commitment. It takes years to solve the deep-rooted social conflicts that it is our mission to address. We have worked with the government of Tibet in exile since 1990, with Kashmir for ten years, with Cyprus for eight years, and with Bosnia-Herzegovina for six years.

LISTENING

The first thing we do when we are invited into a conflict situation is to listen to the people. Governments don’t know how to listen, and they don’t listen. We listen—sometimes for days or weeks at a time. Dr. Eileen Bor-

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ris, our chief of training since 2001, and I went to Nepal and listened for ten days; Dr. Louise Diamond, then our chief of training, went to Cyprus in 1992 and listened for three weeks.

INVOLVEMENT OF THE PEOPLE

Governments tell people what their needs are and how they will fix them. Conflict resolution does not work that way. We ask the people who invited us what their needs are. We involve them in the process of peacebuilding from the very beginning. We work separately with the groups in conflict until we think it is possible to bring them together and start a dialogue. How long this takes varies from conflict to conflict. We get permission from one side to propose a dialogue. Then we approach the other side to see if they will agree. If they agree, we come together and we continue our training or dialogue. We depend upon the people who invited us to start the slow process of trust building, so that when the groups in conflict come together, they are prepared to learn and to listen, and to become involved with each other. It took us fifteen months in Cyprus to bring the Turkish Muslims in the North together with the Greek Christians in the South.

WORD OF MOUTH

We never advertise what we do in the country that we’re in or in the United States either, for that matter. This may not be the American way, but we want to make the point that this work is not about us; it is about them. We depend on word of mouth. People we have worked with tell their neighbors and friends about us. Thus, more groups come to us and participation in our training workshops increases. It is quite unusual for Americans not to go on TV and radio and beat their chests. We don’t do that.

TRANSPARENCY

We are totally transparent in everything we do. We have no secrets and no hidden agenda. This is extremely important for people to understand. We try hard not to take sides, to be neutral. We are there to help both sides come to-

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gether and start talking to each other. We don’t have a “solution” to the conflict. We are not there to negotiate a peace treaty. That’s up to governments— Track One. We are there primarily to help private citizens, usually community leaders in their respective communities, to acquire new skills so that over time they can apply those skills to work on their conflict. We also hope that they will be able to influence policy makers that they may have access to—within their own time frame, their own language, and their own culture. We never cross the invisible line between Track One and the other tracks by stepping on the toes of Track One diplomats. It is their prerogative to negotiate peace agreements with other governments. I know of several instances where NGOs crossed the line and were not allowed to return to the country in which they had been working.

PARTNERSHIPS

When we started out in 1992, hardly any peacebuilding NGOs existed. Today there are hundreds around the world. That is a wonderful sign of progress. We always try to partner with a local institution. If one does not exist we try to start one up. We are sensitive that as outsiders we may not understand the local customs and local ways of solving conflict. We work with people to find the right path—together.

NO “MODULE”

We have been asked by the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), among others, if we would develop a “module” of our work so they can use it as a training tool. I have always said, “No thank you” in a firm voice. We design our work with people based on their needs and their culture. In this business there is no such thing as “one size fits all.” Peacebuilding is a long-term process, but we have found, over time, that our work can make a major difference.

IMTD’S STRUCTURE

Staff and Associates As I mentioned earlier, when we designed our structure, I made myself the chairman of the board and the chief executive officer; Dr. Louise

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Diamond was the executive director. Six years later, she became the president, because we felt it would be helpful for fundraising purposes. For nine years (1992–2001), she was also our outstanding and totally dedicated chief of training. She had been working in teaching, skill building, and training in the United States for twenty-five years. James Notter, our first intern, later became our first paid staff member; he was followed by Patrick Doherty, and in 1993 we brought in Cynthia Wolfe as a paid manager. That was the core group for several years. When we had funds in the mid- to late-1990s we had as many as six paid staff members. During those years I took a modest $25,000 a year as salary. For all those other years, up until today, I have worked as a fulltime, unpaid volunteer. Over the years we have put together an outstanding, professional group of fifteen associates from around the world who are experts in various disciplines. We call on them, and other individuals, from time to time to help us in our work. As a senior diplomat, I have been part of many of the teams we have put together. My role is normally to talk about relevant experiences from my long career. When we train diplomats or members of parliament, I play a much more active role.

Interns, Academics on Sabbatical, and Volunteers The backbone of IMTD over the years has been our outstanding volunteer interns. They make up a veritable United Nations in the office, for example, in the fall of 2007, coming from Burundi, Russia, Liberia, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Taiwan, and the United States. Since 1992 we have had 215 unpaid interns from forty-four countries, all but three have been working on advanced degrees in conflict resolution. It is a brilliant group of young people, dedicated to peacebuilding and who are disseminating our concept of a systems approach. They will be the future leaders of their countries. We call them program managers because they are individually responsible for their projects and do the work that makes the projects come alive. Whenever we have funds to go overseas and carry out training, we take the responsible intern program manager with us. This gives them an opportunity to participate directly in the training program, and they also write the reports and take responsibility for logistics. IMTD has seven intern positions open three times a year: winter semester, spring semester, and the summer. In the summer of 2006, we received sixty-one applications, the highest number ever, from all over the world. We have a careful selection process and personally interview the final group. It is helpful, but not essential, to have had some overseas living

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experience. What is critically important is whether these young people have the heart to go with their academic skills. Successful candidates must have had their heart touched by people in need. Ours is not a position or a summer job; it is a commitment. My door is always open to the interns. I tell each one that there is no such thing as a stupid question. We try to arrange for them to receive three hours of credit for their work at their respective universities, and we honor them with a wall plaque made in Jerusalem, that carries their name. These plaques are nicely mounted and hang on the office walls for all to see. In December 2007, we sent out our eighth alumni newsletter, which goes only to former interns and keeps them up to date on what is happening at IMTD, and they share their stories with us and other interns. We try to keep in touch. In 2005, I received an e-mail from Professor David Ard, from Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, asking if he could do a sabbatical with us in 2006: full time, for eight months, at no cost to us, to do whatever needed to be done! I was excited and curious. How did he know about us? When we got together, I found out that he had been present at the Mount Mercy College graduation ceremony in 1989, when I gave the commencement speech and then received an honorary PhD. He told me he was a professor of religion with Buddhism as his specialty. He also had taken a one-day training that Louise Diamond and I had conducted in 1999, in Chicago, at a World Peace Conference there. The two of us clicked. I made him executive director. He was with us from June 2006 to January 2007 and made a great contribution to IMTD. A few months after Dr. Ard left us, I had the foresight to invite Erica Sewell, an intern since June 2006, to become acting executive director. At the time, she was working on a master’s degree at ICAR. She has now graduated but is still in that volunteer position and doing a wonderful job. When she got her master’s, I took the “acting” off her title. In 2004, Dr. Beverly Lindsay, a distinguished African American who had been dean of the Graduate School of International Affairs at Penn State University, contacted me. She and I had met at various conferences. She too took a six-month sabbatical with IMTD. I was able to help her with a shortterm Fulbright leadership grant to South Korea for three weeks as a distinguished visiting professor and later with a Fulbright to Africa University in Zimbabwe. IMTD has been able to attract experienced, distinguished senior volunteers dedicated to peacebuilding. Three persons immediately come to mind. Stanford Siver applied for an internship in 2002. A week after his arrival I asked him to be executive director at no salary. He remained with us

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for a year in that position as he worked on his PhD. A wonderful, sensitive human being, Siver is now heading up his own NGO in Portland, Oregon, and doing great work in Palestine. Paul Sevier joined us in 2004 for seven months as executive director. He applied his background of working with USAID and the for-profit and not-for-profit world and set us on a more businesslike path, which was sorely needed. Ed Modell and I met first at a conference of holistic lawyers years ago and then, in 2005, he volunteered to help us with legal issues, such as the registration formalities for NGOs with the State of Virginia after our move from Washington, D.C., into our offices in Arlington, Virginia. He also handled the paperwork involved in getting IMTD listed in the Combined Federal Campaign, which helps with fundraising.

Board of Directors The law requires that an NGO has bylaws and a board of directors. Louise Diamond and I gave a lot of thought to the makeup of the board. We knew that an impressive board of leaders in the growing field of conflict resolution would give our new organization credibility. Our first board consisted of the following persons, in addition to Louise Diamond and me: Tom Colosi, vice president of the American Arbitration Association; Dr. J. T. Garrett, a senior official in the Indian Health Service; G. David Hurd, chairman and CEO of the Principal Financial Group; Dr. Jim Laue, professor of conflict resolution at ICAR; Corinne McLaughlin, cofounder of the Sirus Community; Major General Indar Jit Rikhye, a former UN peacekeeper from India; Richard Ruffin, U.S. executive director of Initiatives of Change (formally the Moral Re-Armament); and Barbara Sloan, a senior staff member and trainer with the National Training Laboratory, also known as the Institute for Applied Behavioral Sciences. Over time some board members have passed away or moved and have been replaced by equally supportive friends of IMTD. Other board members have moved to our international advisory board, which does not meet but to whom I turn from time to time for advice and consultation. Our board has provided invaluable support over the years.

Outreach Outreach is a slow process but with patience and perseverance it can be done. As mentioned, we depend on word of mouth and do not advertise. However, as soon as the Internet became popular, we created our own

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website (www.imtd.org) and have kept up to date ever since. This technology has helped tremendously. Every year since 1992, I have given over a hundred speeches and TV and radio interviews a year. Of course, throughout trainings over the years in many different settings and countries we reach out to unknown numbers of people. If I give a speech to fifty people about IMTD, five or six members of the audience will come up to me afterwards to ask questions or ask for my business card. When they give me their card, their names and addresses go into our database of friends and contacts in all parts of the world. The State Department has an outstanding people-to-people program called the International Visitors’ Service. It allows thousands of people a year to come to the United States for a three-week program that takes them across the country. Whenever an IVS group is interested in conflict resolution, I am asked to speak to the participants. We always exchange cards and many stay in touch thereafter. That is another way that we reach out and grow. We also send out, three times a year, by e-mail, our Peacebuilder Newsletter to all those we have addresses for. That comes to about 7,000 addresses. Our many international interns take the concept back home and introduce it in their own settings. The other day I asked our new intern from Taiwan how she had heard about us. Her professor in Taiwan had lectured to her class about the concept of multitrack diplomacy and talked about our Institute. The University of Maryland offers twice a year a master’s course called multitrack diplomacy, where I lecture regularly. Several big international conferences on the theme of multitrack diplomacy also have been of help. The phrase itself has become part of the language of international conflict resolution. The idea and concept of our systems approach and multitrack are spreading.

Publications IMTD’s publication program aims to help people understand issues— like peaceful conflict resolution—that are generally ignored by the media. Louise Diamond and I always wanted to put our thinking and our practice into the written word so that we could pass on our ideas to others. IMTD was established before the Internet and e-mail were widely used. Shortly after IMTD started up, we reprinted my book on Track Two and the book that Louise and I had written on the nine tracks of diplomacy, Multi-Track Diplomacy:A Systems Approach to Peace. In 1994, we started a series called Engaging Track One Diplomacy and reissued a book I had written

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while at the State Department called How to be a Delegate: International Conference Diplomacy. In 1997, my wife Christel wrote the second book in that series called Protocol and Etiquette: A Guide for Citizen Diplomats in MultiTrack Diplomacy. However, IMTD’s big breakthrough came in 1996 at the end of a training workshop Louise and I were giving. One of the participants came up to me and said, “I am the chief of publications at Kumarian Press, and I would like to publish your book on multitrack diplomacy.” I couldn’t believe my ears, but she was serious and in fact moved swiftly. The book was published in 1996 as the “third edition” and remains in print. In 2006, Peking University signed an agreement with Kumarian Press to translate and publish the book in Chinese. It has also been translated into Japanese and next year will be translated into Spanish. Thus, our work is spreading to Asia and the concepts of peacebuilding are becoming known across the world. In October 1993 we launched our very popular Occasional Paper Series with Louise Diamond’s Peacemakers in a War Zone. I followed in November 1993 with the second in the series, Guidelines for Newcomers to Track Two Diplomacy. I am very proud of the twenty occasional papers we have published. They contribute to a growing body of work on multitrack diplomacy. All these papers are available online at www.imtd.org and can be downloaded free of charge. Several of our occasional papers have been on the topic of people power, which is a part of Track Six: peace activism. (See Demos Kratos: New Expressions of People Power Across the Globe [Occasional Paper 14, August 2004], written by Cheryl Duckworth and John W. McDonald, and People Power: Country Studies and Lessons Learned from National Non-violent Movements 2003–2006 [Occasional Paper 18, August 2007], written by Vladislav Michalcik and Ceara Riggs.) The growing importance of people power is discussed in chapter 15.

Funding From our very beginnings Louise and I decided to make IMTD a membership organization. We designed a pledge card offering nine categories of membership, depending on the level of contribution, and then started asking friends and colleagues to join. All we promise our members is to keep them informed through a quarterly newsletter and an annual report. Raising funds to do what we are asked to do by people in distress overseas is IMTD’s greatest challenge. We send out two fundraising letters

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a year, and our members continue to come through. Aside from that, we apply to foundations for grants. Our successes in attracting funds have buoyed us up, but we are often at the mercy of changing circumstances. For example, in May 1993, two hours before celebrating completion of our first year, during which time we had raised $16,034, I received a telephone call from the Hewlett Foundation in California informing me that their board had just agreed to give IMTD $250,000 over the next three years in nonproject, overhead cost money! Suddenly, thanks to the foundation’s understanding of what we were trying to do, we were launched as an NGO that could begin to be truly effective globally. The Hewlitt Foundation became a global “peace angel” for us over the next ten years. Then its board changed and it stopped funding NGOs doing international work overseas. Other examples: The McKnight Foundation in Minneapolis was fascinated by our efforts to work with business leaders in India and Pakistan, with a focus on the disputed Kashmir region, and it was generous in its funding. The Sasakawa Peace Foundation supported this project as well. However, when we went back for more money to McKnight, its board had changed and decided only to fund projects in Minnesota. IMTD has never received money directly from the U.S. government, in spite of many attempts. However, we have received a couple of small grants from the U.S. Institute for Peace, the Canadian government, and from a German foundation funded by the German government. Often the stumbling block for funding is that we might receive an offer of a grant from an entity associated with one side of the conflict. We cannot accept such a grant because we would never be able to overcome the mistrust that it would engender on the other side. We would not be seen as impartial if we took money from one side only. For example, at one point we were invited by the Israeli Ministry of Education to train Israeli teachers in conflict resolution skills. Louise and I had many discussions about this, and we tried, unsuccessfully, to expand the work to include Palestinian teachers. We finally decided to say no, even though the money was excellent. If we trained only Israeli teachers, the Palestinians would lose trust in us. We would no longer be considered neutral. Our most successful fundraising efforts, however, have been with a few private individuals who have helped us over the years. People like Dan Whalen, David Hurd, Nancy Schmidt, David Douglas, and His Serene Highness Prince Hans Adam of Liechtenstein have kept us alive. I cannot thank them enough for their trust in me and their belief that we are making a difference.

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IMTD’S TRAININGS: TOUCHING PEOPLE’S HEARTS IMTD activities are called “trainings in conflict resolution.” The term is fairly broad. Its meaning varies depending on the situation and the kind of issues and cultures we are dealing with. A training must take place in what each side considers a safe haven, because in every conflict we have been involved with fear is prevalent. We accept the fear as a fact and try to reduce it. Sometimes we have to leave the country of the dispute to find a safe haven. (I’ve also been involved, because of my background as a diplomat, in a number of trainings in diplomacy and negotiation skills. That is a slightly different agenda than working with people to resolve their own conflicts.) As I mentioned in chapter 11 when discussing IMTD’s symbol, all of IMTD’s trainings are conducted in a circle. All places around the circle are equal—status is not indicated as it is at a rectangular table, for example, with the head seated at one end. We don’t have to worry, as Track One diplomats do, about the size or shape of the table or how people should be seated. The circle is practical. Everybody can see and hear everybody else. A circle allows the energy in the room to flow across the circle without the barriers of desks and tables and chairs. I believe this is a very important element in building connections and building trust between people. The circle is also the oldest sign of peacebuilding in history. In every culture we have worked in, the elders sit in a circle when they confer. In ancient times, perhaps there would be a fire in the center of the circle. For example, in Native American culture, the chiefs sat around the fire and passed the peace pipe or a “talking stick” as they sought to resolve community problems. Normally we have a meal together as a group before the training starts and we continue through the training to have meals and coffee breaks together. We all stay in the same hotel or lodge. Space is provided for individuals to meet privately. We require confidentiality: a participant may never quote another person by name outside the training room. At the end of the training, there is a closing ceremony and a meal before departure. Many trainers follow a strict time schedule. Our trainers don’t work that way—we don’t try to force the American preoccupation with time. Rather, we are guided by the practices of the cultures that we are working with. We learn about how their history and their past experiences relate to what we are dealing with and talking about. This takes time and calls for patience. Time is an element that cannot be controlled. Trainers always meet at the end of the day and amend and update their plans for the next day; it is important to remain flexible and to take advantage of unforeseen openings.

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Dr. Lisa Schirch, a former IMTD intern and now a professor at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, uses the term “rituals” when discussing practices such as those IMTD follows in its trainings. She has written a book by that name. When I lecture at the Foreign Service Institute, I tell U.S. diplomats— and they don’t like to hear it—that they are viewed by the rest of the world as the most arrogant and impatient people in the world and as the world’s poorest listeners. But I also say to them, “You can change all three of these characteristics yourself. You can learn how to be less arrogant, you can learn how to listen, and you can learn patience.” I urge them to take this on as a personal challenge. If they can do that they will become better diplomats. Many politicians and diplomats want to achieve something in the peacemaking field on their watch so they can take the credit. They look for the quick fix, the magic wand, so they can brag about it and say, “Look what I did.” We at IMTD believe that we are in the peacebuilding business, not for our own benefit, but to help other people. To be successful, people dedicated to peacebuilding have to learn how to touch the hearts of the people they are working with. There is a moment in the training process when the participants on one side of the dispute realize that the “enemy” participants are also human beings with hopes and aspirations—and fears—just like theirs. We call this “transformative social change.” It is the moment of truth, a breakthrough, a touching of the heart, which allows participants to move forward as a group.

IMTD’S WORK IN ITS EARLY YEARS Our first project was in divided Cyprus; we were engaged in Cyprus for eight years, beginning in 1992. We worked in Israel and Palestine for five years. We have also worked for over a decade with the Dalai Lama and the government of Tibet in exile in Dharamsala, Northeast India; with India and Pakistan on both sides of the Kashmir Line of Control; with Nepal; with Sri Lanka; with the country of Georgia in the Caucasus; and with Taiwan. In early 1996, we began working in Bosnia-Herzegovina, after the Dayton Accords of November 1995. Over the years we have worked in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Nigeria, and Equatorial Guinea. In Latin America we have worked in Cuba and Bolivia. In every one of those countries we were invited by the people and we followed the basic principles that I have described. Unfortunately, we have been invited to other con-

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flicted areas but were unable to raise the funds necessary for the training. The remainder of this chapter and chapters 13 and 14 describe some of these activities in more detail.

CYPRUS: IMTD’S FIRST PROJECT An Island Divided The beautiful island of Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean was a part of the British Empire until 1960. As that empire was collapsing, the British suddenly decided Cyprus should become an independent nation. Cyprus joined the United Nations and had a peaceful existence for about four years. Suddenly Greece got a little greedy and wanted to take over the island. There was an attempted coup, which was not successful, but a lot of ethnic cleansing took place. To me “ethnic cleansing” is just another way of saying “killing people,” or, in other words, genocide. The UN Security Council met in early 1964, and immediately set up a peacekeeping force, primarily made up of Canadians. They drew a “Green Line” down the middle of the island and through the capital city, Nicosia, and divided the island into two different parts. The UN Peacekeepers were mostly stationed along the Green Line. It was an uneasy peace, but people were still able to move, with difficulty, back and forth across the Green Line. In 1974, there was another attempted coup and again a lot of killing took place. Turkey, only forty miles away across the Mediterranean, sent in 35,000 Turkish troops. They are still there today. What happened then was that all of the Muslims moved to the northern part of the island, to be protected by the Turkish troops and all the Christians moved to the south. The island was now divided on the basis of religion. Strict rules forbade citizens from crossing the Green Line. It was closed to travel, mail, and telephone. Each side was dramatically sealed off from the other side. The peacekeepers were on the Green Line, and the Turkish troops were in the north. Turkey later recognized North Cyprus as a state, and so did Pakistan not long after that, but no other country has followed suit. There has been a total stalemate since 1974.

Developing Relationships and Building Trust Maine University Professor Emily Markides met Louise Diamond at the World Conference of Peace Institutes in Des Moines. Professor Markides was of Greek Cypriot origin. She invited Louise to Cyprus to

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advise on several peace projects she was hoping to start. Louise made her first visit in July 1991 and later suggested that IMTD should carry out its first project on divided Cyprus. We formed our first partnership with Dr. Joseph Lennox, president of the National Training Laboratory (also known as the Institute for Applied Behavioral Sciences). With financial support from the NTL, over the next two years, Louise made eight trips to Cyprus developing relationships and building trust. During her second visit Louise spent three weeks on the island listening and asking what the needs of the people were. She received permission from the United Nations to cross the Green Line and met with people on the Turkish side. All parties were frustrated by the stalemate, which had lasted for decades, and wanted help. They understood that we had no money but wanted to help and possessed conflict resolution and peacebuilding skills. It was then, after discussions with Dr. Lennox, that Louise and I decided that IMTD would take this on as our first project, even though we were not yet formally created. Dr. Lennox, Louise, and I made our first combined visit to Cyprus in April 1992 and began to explore the issues on the ground. It was a fascinating trip. In the years that followed, I participated in training on the island, in Oxford, England, and in West Virginia, but Louise was always the key player. It was truly her project.

Informing Track One of Our Activities After several trips, we decided it was time to call on the relevant Track One entities and tell them what we were all about. We contacted Rauf Denktash, the president of the Turkish Muslim side; Glafcos Klerides, the president of the Greek Christian side; the State Department in Washington, D.C.; the U.S. ambassador on the island; and the United Nations in New York and on the island. We called a meeting with the first four of the entities and told them that we had been invited to the island of Cyprus by all the tracks in our multitrack system. The people wanted us to help them make an impact, peacefully, on this stalemate, with training in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. We said we wanted to respond to their request. The groups didn’t quite understand what this little American NGO was talking about. Finally I said, “I believe that there’s no such thing as an intractable conflict. I believe that this conflict can and will be resolved. And I believe that at some point in time—and I don’t know when that will be—you, as Track One representatives, will negotiate and sign a peace treaty. The Turkish soldiers will go home to

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Turkey and the peacekeepers will go home to their respective countries. There will be peace on this beautiful island for three weeks. Then there will be an act of violence by someone who doesn’t want peace. Someone will be killed or some other act of violence will take place. It is our hope that, by that time, there will be a critical mass in Cyprus of skilled people, from all of tracks, trained in conflict resolution skills. Some will have connections in the village or community where the act of violence took place. They will be able to go into that village or community and contain the violence so that it doesn’t spread like a virus across the island.” I concluded, “Our goal is to break the cycle of violence on the island of Cyprus. If we can do that, then your peace process will continue and will grow. We believe this can be done.” We didn’t ask for a letter of approval. We just told them that we would be coming to the island, again and again, for at least five years, and we invited them to participate in any of our trainings. We said, “We want Track One to learn about what we’re doing. We have no secrets. We are a neutral party with no hidden agenda. We just want to help your people.” Nobody from Track One ever took our training.

Bringing the Two Sides Together It took fifteen months working separately with the Muslims in the north, and the Christians in the south, to build skills and to build trust. Finally, Louise was able to bring six people from each side together at the Ledra Palace Hotel on the Green Line, with the support of the Canadian peacekeepers who were staying there. They were political leaders, businessmen, a university president, a journalist, a lawyer, a peace activist. There was even a poetess in the group. They were all respected in their communities, which understood that they were coming together for the first time to start a peace process. Those from the north were Muslims; those from the south, Christians. Within one hour, these people bonded. They had learned new skills, and they trusted Louise. They knew that we were there to help them consider their common problems. We made this group a steering committee to guide us over the years. The first major training took place in Oxford, England, in May 1993. We chose Oxford because it was a safe space off the island and less expensive than going to the United States. There were twenty participants, ten from each side: the full steering committee, plus four additional leaders from each side. We were together for ten days.

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Three events during this workshop stick in my memory to this day. After the skill-building sessions, we spent the last day and a half of the training on the “reentry” process. How would the participants handle their return to their families, their friends, their business partners, after having spent ten days with the enemy? Near the end of the last session, a Turkish Cypriot politician said, “I am still afraid. When I get home I will be visiting coffee bars filled with my male constituents, and I am unsure about what I should say to them.” We immediately reconvened as a Turkish coffee bar, put him in the center of the circle, and fired questions at him for an hour and a half. I could see that as a result of this role-playing he got more and more secure. Finally he said, “Thanks, I am OK now.” The second thing I remember was the final farewell dinner. At the end of the dinner two guitars suddenly appeared, skillfully played by two of the Turkish Cypriot participants. They played folk tunes and sang in the Turkish language. In a few minutes the Greek Cypriot participants started singing the same songs, in Greek. As children they had all learned the same songs. This went on for half an hour; then the guitars were passed to two talented Greek Cypriot participants, who started playing and singing Greek folk dances. Almost immediately everyone in the room got up and started dancing, arm in arm, around the room. What a sight! The singing and dancing was a manifestation of what had happened internally. It was a demonstration of their bonding, their transformation. A young Greek Cypriot living in London, whose mother was a part of our group, had been invited to our farewell dinner. Later he said to me, “I would not have believed this if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. This is not possible.” Finally, I recall the short press releases that the steering committee issued before they left for Oxford, announcing that they would be given training by some Americans, and at the end of the Oxford experience, saying the training had taken place. These don’t sound like courageous acts, but they were. The steering committee wanted it known that the training was not a secret meeting. They got little press coverage but achieved their goal. A wise move: Track One was informed. People often ask me how we know we are making an impact. It is stories like these that convince me. I can’t prove peace by the numbers, but I can tell stories about how IMTD activities have changed people’s lives for the better.

Figure 12.1. Project leaders at one of the workshops in Cyprus—with several Greek and Turkish Cypriots who also had participated at the meeting in Oxford, England

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Partnership with the Conflict Management Group at Harvard In 1994 I learned that USAID money was being given, via the U.S. Embassy in Cyprus, to the Fulbright Commission in Cyprus, which was soliciting bids for bicommunal training. That was a breakthrough for us. Bicommunal training was exactly what we were doing. However we were a tiny and unknown NGO. I learned that the Conflict Management Group at Harvard University planned to submit a bid, in spite of the fact that they had never been on the island. I called CMG, explained the situation and suggested we partner and present a joint bid. They agreed, and our bid met with success. For the next five years we worked together as a team with ample funding from the Fulbright Commission, which was enormously pleased by the success of our efforts. Diane Chigas, a brilliant lawyer and trainer from CMG, and Louise Diamond successfully ran the project together. With the help of many people, including several Fulbright professors who came to Cyprus, some 2,500 Cypriots were trained in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Most trainings took place on the island in a building constructed on the Green Line by the United Nations, although some took place in the United States or Canada. At one time, we took forty sixteen-year-olds, twenty from each side of the conflict, to a Boy Scout camp in southern Pennsylvania. After some initial hesitation, they had a great time together. I also learned something. There are apparently no spiders on Cyprus; the campers had never seen a spider before. There are plenty of spiders in the Pennsylvania woods. After a lot of screaming at the first sight of spiders, the kids named the camp Spider Camp. When they left to go home, each participant received a green baseball cap emblazoned with Spider Camp in large letters.

The Barriers Are Lifted After eight great years, the money ran out and we shut down the project. But that was not the end of the story. On April 23, 2003, forty years after the division of the island, the deputy prime minister of the north suddenly opened the gates on the Green Line. He announced on TV and radio and in the press that he had done this because he wanted the people on both sides of the Green Line to move back and forth, to get to know each other again in a peacebuilding process. Within the first twenty-four hours, 5,000 people crossed the Green Line. Nobody was shot; nobody was killed. It was a historic moment. In the next three months some 700,000 people

Figure 12.2. Greek and Turkish Cypriots practice a cooperative problem solving exercise at a West Virginia Camp: to drop an egg from a twenty-foot tower without breaking it

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crossed the Green Line. There are only one million people on the island. They are moving back and forth without problems. I’ve heard of high school students that lived on one side of the Green Line and attended school on the other side. The entire dynamics of the island have shifted. The people have spoken with their feet. There are still political issues, but the people have changed the island’s history peacefully. Who raised the gate? Who was that deputy prime minister? His name is Serdar Denktash. He was one of the six Muslims whom we worked with during our eight-year involvement in Cyprus. He had been a member of our steering committee. He was the one in the center of the circle at Oxford who wanted help in explaining to his constituents at home what he had been doing at meetings with the “enemy.” He had the courage and the power—ten years later—to apply the principles he had learned, to open the gates and make the impossible happen. Why did it take ten years? Serdar Denktash’s father was the prime minister. It was not until Serdar later became deputy prime minister that he was able to go against his father’s wishes and take dramatic action. He finally did it because he believed the time had come, and the people on both sides of the Green Line supported him. The irony is that, in 2004, when the island held a referendum to decide whether the two parts of Cyprus should come together before joining the European Union, the north approved the referendum because of Denktash’s leadership, while the south, with a new prime minister, rejected it. Unfortunately, it was South Cyprus that was admitted to the EU. I blame the failure of South Cyprus to approve the referendum solely on the EU. For decades, it failed to get involved in Track One peacebuilding efforts in Cyprus. It left the negotiation efforts to individual nation-states and then to the Secretary General of the United Nations. The EU could have said—in one sentence: “We will not admit Cyprus until it becomes one united island.” Track One is still playing games, while the people have spoken with their feet. I blame the EU for this lack of leadership. I’m being very blunt. The EU had a great opportunity to be a peacebuilder, which it totally ignored. It is important not to forget that, despite the missteps of Track One, the barriers have been lifted and people are now moving back and forth at will. They are going back to see their old homes and to meet with former friends and colleagues. Of course, there are still many issues to be worked out on both sides, but the island of Cyprus is peaceful for the first time since 1964.

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Another Story about Cyprus:Women as Peacebuilders and Touching the Heart I mentioned earlier that IMTD depends on word-of-mouth communication about its activities. In early 1994, we decided to do training in the Muslim North. Thirty-five people attended—a pretty big group. Forty percent were women, which was great. I strongly believe it is women who are the natural peacebuilders. They understand what we are trying to do before the men do. The more women we can get involved, the better. We were seated in a large circle. All tracks were represented, except Track Eight, funding, and, of course, Track One. We always start by going around the circle and asking people to briefly introduce themselves. Halfway across the circle, opposite me sat a medical doctor. He spoke up, introduced himself, and said, “All my life I have hated the Greek Cypriots, because in 1964 they killed both of my parents. I’ve hated them all this time.” He continued, “I came to this session because of something that happened three nights ago in my home. I was putting my ten-year-old boy to bed. I kissed him good night. I suddenly saw, lying next to him in bed, a long, wooden toy rifle. I said to my son, ‘Why do you have that rifle in bed with you?’ The boy said, ‘To kill the Greek Cypriots when they come after me.’” The doctor told our group, “A light went on in my head. I had, unknowingly, instilled this fear and hatred in my son, who had never even met a Greek Cypriot in his whole life. I decided I had to change that. I’m here to learn new skills, so that I can help my son grow up differently than I grew up.” Then he added, “I herewith forgive the Greek Cypriots for killing my parents.” When you are able to touch the heart, you know you are making a difference.

The Futility of Building Walls Green lines or walls are not the answer. The Line of Control dividing the Province of Jammu and Kashmir, the line separating North and South Korea, the walls we are building along the U.S.-Mexican border won’t work. The same goes for the wall Israel is building. It will cost about $2 billion, and the U.S. taxpayer is paying for it. The United States gives Israel about $7 billion a year in military and economic assistance. A far higher percentage of assistance per capita than to any other government in the world. Yet, we have sat by and allowed that wall to be built with our money. The wall will not work, and it will take a lot longer to tear it down than it

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will to build it. As the wall is built, so too a wall is being built in the minds of the people. It is a very sad situation for me, as a peacebuilder. No wall will protect people from terrorism, as they think it will, because there are other ways to get around the wall. One can go by sea to get to the other side of the wall. One can dig under it or go over it. One can go through Jordan to get to the other side. It’s ridiculous to think that the wall is going to protect Israel. What will protect Israel is a peace process that will last. That’s my goal and my dream. I visited the Berlin Wall during and after its construction. It divided a people and made one side prisoners of their own state. It did not work. I also remember the history of the French Maginot Line. After World War I, building the Maginot Line dominated French military thinking in the interwar years. They spent billions of dollars building this bulwark of fortifications between Germany and France, even down to Italy. Do you know that not a shot was fired over that line? Hitler just went through Belgium to invade France, that is, he went around the massive system of defenses, which turned out to be totally useless.

ISRAEL AND PALESTINE IMTD’s Multifaceted Involvement IMTD worked in Israel and Palestine off and on from 1993 to 1998. Louise Diamond scripted, directed, and produced a documentary film in 1990 entitled Many Voices—One Song:What Promise in the Promised Land? She filmed two different families—one Israeli and one Palestinian—in their home settings, over a period of a month. She had them talk about their lives, their visions of the conflict, and their hopes for the future. Their stories were powerful and moving. She included commentaries by other people in the region as well. By the end of the film it was clear that everyone wanted peace. It showed me, again, the importance of our basic theme: When you talk to the people and not to the politicians, you get a totally different story. These two families had differences, but they all wanted peace. They were tired of conflict. I saw the film for the first time at the World Conference of Peace Institutes in 1990 when I was with the Iowa Peace Institute. Louise had met a number of people when she was filming. Later some of them invited IMTD to provide assistance. First, two groups of psychologists—all Israelis, all highly educated, all with PhDs—contacted us. One

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group called themselves “the psychologists of the left,” and the other group, “the psychologists of the right.” They didn’t know how to talk to each other, but they wanted to learn. We taught them how to listen to each other, which was a difficult task. We went to Israel three times. They actually learned how to talk and to listen to each other. This was a rather unusual beginning. During these visits, we began to build connections on the Palestinian side. Finally, we conducted a training with three groups of women: Israeli Jews, Israeli Muslims (of whom there are a million living in Israel, although few people in the United States are aware of that), and Palestinians, both Muslims and Christians. We worked with them separately and together whenever possible as time and money permitted. We lectured at Neva Shalom, a historic village where Israeli and Palestinian families are living together. We worked with local NGOs and individuals in Israel and Palestine doing conflict resolution training. Louise Diamond was able to work together with a local NGO, the Israeli/Palestinian Center for Research and Information, which is a think tank founded in 1988. They brought Israeli teachers from Israel and from the Israeli Arab community together with teachers from the Palestinian community and took them to Antalya, Turkey, a leading center of education, a safe place where they met for two weeks. Their goal was to see if they could start talking about a common history of the region, to see if there was any possibility, over time, to develop jointly a textbook that could be used by both sides. That was a courageous beginning. They didn’t get very far the first time they met, but it was a worthy effort. It is that kind of “thinking outside of the box” that we were trying to do. Then money became a factor and we could not pursue our work. But, over the years, others did.

Working with Women The Oslo Accords started as a Track Two initiative between professors from Israel and Palestine and then was taken over by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry as a Track One effort that finally succeeded in producing an agreement between Israel and Palestine that was signed in Washington, D.C., on September 13, 1993. After this historic event, IMTD received funding to continue work in Israel. It was such a delight to see the Palestinian flag flying in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and in Gaza for the first time in history, truly a symbol of the progress made. We were able, through the help of several friends and the University of Tel Aviv, to bring thirty

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women together in a very nice, safe space for a three-day training. Fifteen were Israeli Jews, six were Israeli Muslims, and nine were Palestinians. These women, all of whom were honored leaders in their respective communities, were meeting together for the first time in their lives. None of the Israeli women had ever met a Muslim woman. It was a remarkable gathering of women leaders. I was the only man allowed in the room. Louise was leading the training; we were all sitting in a circle. Everybody introduced themselves and had a chance to talk about who they were and why they had agreed to come together. It seemed that the Oslo Agreement was the driving force behind the meeting. They wanted to build on that momentum for peace. As we moved into the afternoon, Louise said, “Why don’t we break up into smaller circles? Say five or six people each. Let’s get acquainted and talk more about our past within our circles, and then we can meet in the larger group again.” I sat on the outside of one of the smaller circles comprising three Israeli Jews, one Israeli Muslim, and two Palestinians. When it was one Palestinian woman’s turn to talk a bit more about her background and experience, she said, “About seven months ago, at three o’clock in the morning, my home was broken into. The door was knocked down, and I was yanked out of bed by Israeli soldiers and taken to prison. I remained in prison for six months. I was never told why I was in prison. I was never charged, and I was never allowed to speak to my family or to tell anyone where I was. I had just disappeared. Then, suddenly, I was released and sent home with no explanation whatsoever.” She added, “This terrible experience has traumatized me and made my life very difficult.” The second Palestinian woman then spoke and said, “The same thing happened to me, exactly, but I was in prison for eight months, without being charged or being told what I was accused of. My door was battered down at night while I was sleeping and I was yanked out of bed at three o’clock in the morning by Israeli soldiers and terrorized and brought to jail, and finally released with no explanation.” They weren’t blaming anyone. They did not speak loudly or in anger. They were just explaining what had happened to them. By this time, the Israeli Jews had come to trust the Palestinian women and knew they were telling the truth. They responded, in tears, “We have never heard these stories before. We can’t imagine that our soldiers could do this to you, but we believe you. We are not doubting you for a moment. We are just totally shocked at our government and our military and what they have done to you. We apologize for their actions and ask for forgiveness.” Lots of people in this world are shocked but don’t apologize. They did. There was an immediate touching of the hearts of everybody in that

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small circle. Those women began, right on the spot, to build the kind of trust relationships that would last. You saw a transformation taking place in front of your very eyes. At the end of the training, they had really started a peacebuilding process. For the first time in their lives, these Israeli and Palestinian women began to build a relationship with one another. Louise went back two more times for meetings with the same group. They carried the process further by taking the stories back to their own communities. The impact was enormous over time. Then we ran out of funding and were not able to continue the process.

The Desire for Peacebuilding Skills While Louise was still engaged in Israel, she was conducting a training for Israelis and Palestinians right next to an Israeli checkpoint. About two o’clock in the afternoon, there was a sudden burst of gunfire, and everybody rushed to the window. An Israeli soldier had killed a Palestinian at the checkpoint. Every participant in the training was shocked. Louise said, “I guess we should stop for the day and continue tomorrow.” None of the participants wanted to stop. “No,” they said. “We want to continue right now. That’s what this is all about. We want to learn how to cope with this kind of tragedy. We recognize that this is a reality in our lives, but we want to go beyond it.” As a result of our efforts and the efforts of many other peacebuilders over the years, a large and very powerful group of Israelis and Palestinians has been created. They have peacebuilding skills and want to build a peace process that works, but the governments have not allowed this process to take root. Our efforts in Cyprus and in Israel illustrate what I call “people power.” IMTD has identified a dozen examples over the past seventeen years where large groups of people have peacefully changed governments and Track One systems. People want peace. They are fed up with war.

Flashback:Training Israeli Diplomats in 1988 and 1998 In June 1988, I was invited by Major General Indar Rikhye, a wellconnected UN peacekeeper from India, to join a small team to go to Jerusalem, on the invitation of the Israeli foreign minister, to train twentyeight mid-career Israeli diplomats in the art of negotiation. I accepted with alacrity. The General, who later joined the board of IMTD, was a remarkable man. In 1970, after retiring from the Indian military and the UN

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Peacekeeping Office, he founded and became president of an NGO in New York called the International Peace Academy. For almost twenty-five years his academy was the only place in the world where officers from any country could receive three weeks of training on how to be a UN peacekeeper. Before he left the Peacekeeping Office, Rikhye served as military advisor to UN secretaries general Dag Hammarskjöld and U Thant and was commander of the UN Emergency Force in Gaza. As military advisor, he was responsible for operations in the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, West Iran, Yemen, and Cyprus. It was a fascinating week in Jerusalem. I learned early on that these young Israeli diplomats didn’t know how to listen. They all were talking at each other at the same time. They were debating and arguing, not listening. By the morning of the third day I had seen no improvement in listening skills. I said to this brilliant group, the elite of the elite, “You are the worst diplomats I’ve ever met in my forty years in the U.S. Foreign Service, because you don’t know how to listen. If you don’t know how to listen, you can’t do your job for your own government. Your job as a diplomat overseas is to listen to what’s going on in that country and report back to your headquarters. You don’t know how to listen. Unless you learn how to listen, this training is coming to an end and we are leaving.” They were stunned. Nobody had ever talked to them like that before. They knew I meant every single word. I talked right from the heart. Their attitude changed quickly. They began to learn how to listen and ended the course with high marks. I was invited back ten years later, by a different member of the Israeli Foreign Ministry—a deputy foreign minister—and asked to teach a weeklong course on multilateral diplomacy. My teaching partner and friend was Professor Raymond Cohen, a distinguished member of the faculty of Hebrew University. I asked the deputy foreign minister, “Why do you want a course on multilateral diplomacy?” He said, “It’s your expertise.”‘ I answered, “That’s not my point. Why are we training ambassadors and minister counselors in these skills now?” He said, “Because for fifty years, Israel has ignored the multilateral arena. We have ignored the United Nations and all other multilateral agencies. We finally realized that most of the problems in today’s world can only be solved through multilateral interaction and diplomacy. All bilateral problems become multilateral problems in the longer run. That’s why.” Cohen and I had a terrific week. During the time I was there, I met with several key members of the Palestinian Authority and offered to train

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Palestinians in the art of diplomacy. They agreed. Unfortunately, I could never raise any money from anybody to train Palestinians in diplomacy.

PEACEBUILDING IN LIBERIA A Country Falls Apart The West African country of Liberia was created by freed American slaves about 160 years ago. They were transported to Liberia and created a new national government, which they totally dominated until 1980. The indigenous people became second-class citizens. An Army Sergeant named Samuel Doe, one of the indigenous people, decided in 1980 to change the system. He organized a coup, murdered the entire cabinet and the president, and set up his own government. The United States supported his regime. He ruled for ten years. He was anti-communist, and that’s all that counted in those days. At the end of 1989, President Doe was then overthrown and killed. By 1990 the whole country was in chaos. It was tribe against tribe, one warlord against another warlord. The mayhem was brutal, and an unknown number of people, especially women and children, were killed. The country fell apart.

The Carter Center Gets Involved In the middle of that chaos, in late 1993, the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, invited IMTD to assist them with a conflict resolution training program in Liberia. The Carter Library and Center was established by former President Jimmy Carter in 1982 to strengthen peacemaking efforts across the world. The center had funds from USAID to carry out planning for a national election in Liberia but wisely decided that the conflict had to be dramatically reduced before elections could be held. Two years before, a small office had been established by the Carter Center in Monrovia, the capital. The office had developed excellent connections with the various tribes in conflict. However, the staff of the office had no conflict resolution training skills, so they asked us if we would help. This was a difficult decision because the fighting was still taking place. There is a school of thought in our field of conflict resolution, expounded by Professor Ira William Zartman, the Jacob Blaustein professor of international organizations and conflict resolution and director of the Conflict Management Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at

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Johns Hopkins University. Zartman has written about the question of when a conflict is “ripe” for intervention. Basically, he believes that there must be a peaceful environment before interventions can be effective.

Training in a Safe Haven in Ghana Despite our uncertainty, we accepted the challenge and put together a training team. We were pleased to learn that the Carter Center had enough money to pay for us to conduct training in a third country if we found there was no safe space in Liberia. In December 1993, Louise Diamond and Professor Chris Mitchell, a distinguished scholar-practitioner at George Mason University’s ICAR, went to Monrovia to carry out a needs assessment and begin the process of confidence building. Over the next few months, with the Carter Center’s considerable help, they identified nine people who wanted to learn how to start a peace process. They were not the warlords or deputy warlords. They were middle-level people with access to their warlords from all of the tribes who had been killing each other for the past four years: seven men and two women; seven Christians and two Muslims. One of the men was a colonel in the army, but there were no other government representatives and no politicians. It was essentially a group of private citizens, leaders in their respective communities, who were courageous enough to come together, at considerable risk, to try out the “crazy” idea of meeting in spite of the ongoing open conflict. We found that there was no safe space to bring them together in Liberia. So, in April 1994, we took these nine people to Ghana. We went upcountry to Akosombo, by the Upper Volta River Dam, and met in a beautiful hotel on the edge of a lovely, quite isolated village. We were together for seven days. The training team consisted of four persons: Chris Mitchell from Great Britain, now at ICAR; Wallace Warfield, an African American professor from ICAR; Dr. Hizkias Assefa, an Ethiopian living in Kenya; and myself. As we started our first training session, all sitting in a circle, before we could ask everyone to say a few words about themselves, the colonel politely said, “Do you mind if I say a prayer?” I was quite surprised but delighted, and, of course, I agreed. He softly spoke a lovely prayer in English. The next morning, one of the two Muslims said, “May I say a prayer?” Again I agreed. He gave a short prayer in Arabic. That was a wonderful coming together. We found, as we went around the circle, each of the nine participants was convinced that he or she was the most traumatized person, not only in

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that circle, but in the country. Each talked at length about personal losses of family and loved ones, of friends and homes. They were terrible stories about the impact of the war on their lives. Those stories became a bond. All had been equally traumatized. At first, every one was clearly afraid of everyone else. In these kinds of trainings fear is pervasive. They came from different tribes that had been killing each other for years. They finally realized that everybody was afraid of everybody else. So, strangely, fear too became a bond.

An Apology for the United States Over the next few days, they went back over their 160-year history with a number of conflicts which had to be aired before the group would be ready to consider the present and the future. The participants always ended up blaming the United States. They blamed the United States for doing things or not doing things. For example, in 1990–1991 there were four U.S. Navy ships offshore, and the marines made no effort to come ashore and stop the fighting. They were always blaming us, never themselves. They took no responsibility as Liberians. I guess the feeling was, “The United States created us, why aren’t they helping us?” Some Liberians today think of themselves as our fifty-first state. Finally, mindful of the fact that the role of forgiveness in foreign affairs was still uncharted territory, I did something I had never done before in conflict resolution. I made a very brief speech and I apologized to the Liberians and asked for forgiveness on behalf of the people of the United States, and on behalf of the government of the United States, for the things that we had done or had not done, to and for the people of Liberia. There was total silence in the room. They couldn’t believe a white American, a former ambassador, was apologizing to them. Of course, I had no official instructions to do so, but I felt it was the right thing to do at that moment. I learned later that my statement was a turning point. My public act of asking for forgiveness shifted the dynamics of the whole training into a positive direction.

After the Training: Next Steps The training site was conducive to helping us achieve our goals. We had all of our meals together and had a drink together in the evenings. Relationships began to develop and trust began to grow. The next-to-the-last day, I said to the participants, “I want you to project your vision of Liberia

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twenty-five years into the future. This is going to be tough to do, because you’re all involved in a fight for survival right now, but I would like each of you to talk about your hopes and your dreams. You talk and I will listen. I will take some notes, summarize what I hear, and give the summary back to you tomorrow.” We spent the whole day with this exercise. It took a while for people to begin to speak out. That night I wrote a half-page summary. They read it and approved it without a change. They were astounded to realize that, despite their ethnic differences, they had a common vision, a common dream of peace, democracy, human rights, freedom of the press and religion, jobs, economic security, justice, education, health care, freedom from fear—all the good things that a democracy could bring. I said, “This is fantastic. Now let’s come back to today’s world. Can you take one step toward that goal? Just one step that you can all agree on?” After a whole day of effort, they reached agreement on two steps. The first step was that they agreed to go back home and create their own NGO. It would be called the Liberian Initiative for Peace and Conflict Resolution. They kept their word on this. In 1994 LIPCORE was established under the auspices of the U.S.-based Consortium for Peacebuilding in Liberia. The consortium had been founded in 1993 by the Conflict Resolution Program of the Carter Center and comprised IMTD, ICAR, and the Friends of Liberia. LIPCORE is still active. The trainees’ second step was to make a commitment to meet during the next six weeks with twenty-one persons that they had identified as key players in the conflict. These were warlords, ambassadors from Russia, Britain, and the United States, the heads of the Economic Community Monitoring Group and the Economic Community of West African States, and the United Nations. The meetings would prove to these key people that the nine were committed to building peace together, even though they represented all of the tribes in the war.

Training in a Safe Haven in the Ivory Coast In early 1995, a second training was held. There was still no safe space in war-torn Liberia, so we met for ten days in Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast. The group had grown from nine to fifteen. Participants were much more comfortable coming together this second time because they knew each other and had themselves recommended the newcomers. The training team was the same except that Barry Hart, professor of conflict resolution at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, substituted for Dr. Assefa. Hart has a PhD from ICAR.

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One of the reasons that the conflict continued was that the various international parties that were trying to end it did not know how to prepare for and conduct an effective peace conference. It was their practice to convene the warlords for a week at a five-star hotel in Cairo, or Tripoli, or Addis Ababa, or Nairobi. The warlords would be wined and dined and then asked to sign an agreement to end the fighting. The warlords would sign, thank their hosts for a great week, and go back home and start shooting again. It was a totally pointless process. The international parties didn’t even set an agenda for these meetings, and nobody on the Liberian side knew how to prepare for them. The thrust of the second training was to teach the participants how to plan for a peace conference. They discussed such practical topics as how to put together an agenda, get agreement on it, decide who should be involved, and identify the real issues. Participants had not considered these topics before. They all had connections with the various warlords, so they could put their newly acquired skills into action fairly quickly. We urged them to become the support staff of their own warlords, who later negotiated the necessary documents that led to the peace treaty.

Restarting the Peace Process On August 29, 1995, a peace treaty was signed by all parties, in Abuja, Nigeria. In April 1996, one of the worst warlords, Charles Taylor, entered the city of Monrovia and basically tried to destroy it. I call it the “rape of Monrovia.” He then pulled back into the bushes. A few weeks later, Jerry Rawling, president of Ghana and then chairman of the Economic Community of West African States, called President Carter and asked him if he could restart the peace process in Liberia. I joined a two-person team from the Carter Center that flew to Ghana and met for five days for talks with Ghanaians and with Liberians living in Ghana. We reviewed our experiences, ideas, and contacts. Following that, a Ghanaian peace team, the former director of the Carter Center in Liberia, and I flew by Ghanaian military aircraft to a small airport on the outskirts of Monrovia. We stayed in the USAID mission director’s apartment, because he was out of the country. I was able to reconnect with all fifteen of the former training participants. Fortunately, they had all survived the Taylor raid. I told them they were not forgotten and we wanted to help them keep up hope for the future. I urged them to try to work through this crisis. I also visited what had been the lovely home of the director of the Carter Center. The flowers in the beautiful garden were

Figure 12.3. A group of participants and trainers at the Abidjan workshops, Ivory Coast, Professors Barry Hart (second from right) and Wallace Warfield (right)

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in full bloom, the sturdy wall surrounding the property of the building was intact, but the house had been stripped clean: looters had taken out the toilets, the sinks, even the window frames. Slowly the peace process started up again, and peaceful elections took place in 1998. Charles Taylor was elected president by a 70 percent majority. All of our training participants were part of the process. They brought people together to talk and to work, applying what they had learned about peacemaking. As happy as I was about the peacefulness of the election, I could not understand why Charles Taylor won it. I was told again and again that people voted for him because they thought if he lost the election he would go back into the bush and start to terrorize the country again. Unfortunately, Taylor failed miserably to seize a great opportunity to lead his country and is now in The Hague awaiting trial for war crimes.

Keeping in Touch IMTD still keeps in touch with Liberians, and we keep trying to raise money to go back to Liberia to be of help. In January 2005, I was visited by the Liberian minister of justice, one of our former training participants. As a trainee, he had been a private citizen. Now he was serving in the cabinet in the post-Taylor interim government. During the Taylor period, he had been the spokesperson for the opposition. I had kept in touch with him by cell phone, much to his surprise. He had been seized by Taylor’s thugs while he was living in Sierra Leone and put in jail there for six months until he was released without charges or a trial. Of the fifteen Liberians we worked with—all of whom were private citizens at the time—six became cabinet ministers (two were foreign ministers) in one administration or another, and one became vice president of the University of Liberia. That is an impressive record. They were all bright, able, and dedicated people who tried to apply what they learned in our trainings. Over the years, I have kept in touch with Judge Luvenia AshThompson, who was a participant in the two trainings, because she visits her daughter in Maryland from time to time. She received her law degree from Drake University Law School, in Des Moines, Iowa, many years ago. She became a judge in Liberia and then dean of the law school, at the University of Liberia, and is now a vice president at the university. In the summer of 2005, she was in D.C. with the new president of the University of Liberia. They had come to the United States to raise money for the university and asked for my help. I brought them together with Creative

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Associates, a for-profit corporation that does business with USAID. They had a USAID grant to do work in Liberia and were interested in getting together. The Liberians were able, through these connections, to get some much needed help. Ten thousand students are enrolled at the university, but 40,000 could attend if funds were available. For example, there are no books. Over the years the university has been trashed. A fully functioning university would take young people off the streets and put them back on an educational track. In January 2007, Erica Sewell, one of our interns and then acting executive director for IMTD, who was writing her master’s thesis on the role of women in Liberia, visited Monrovia. Through the help of Judge AshThompson, Erica was able to have a meeting with President Ellen JohnsonSirleaf, the first elected female president in modern African history. Two IMTD project proposals for conflict resolution training are being considered by the Liberian government, one to train senior military and police and the other to train members of Parliament. In these ways we stay involved and maintain connections over time. It’s part of IMTD’s five-year commitment norm.

CUBA Obtaining Approval from Both Sides In mid-1995, Bill Lincoln, president of the Conflict Resolution Institute, an NGO like IMTD, asked me to join him for training in Cuba. We had worked together in Moscow in 1990. He had met several times with the vice president of the University of Havana, who had expressed interest in learning more about conflict resolution. I immediately accepted his invitation, even though I realized it would be difficult to make it happen, given U.S. policy toward Cuba and the blockade that was in effect. The problem of course was to move this great idea from Track Two to Track One: The University of Havana wanted us, and two U.S. NGOs thought it was a great opportunity. But how about the two governments? Would they agree? In Washington, D.C., both the State Department and the U.S. Treasury would be involved, but especially the Treasury. The U.S. had an “Interests Section” in Havana and the Cubans had a similar office in Washington. I decided not to go near the State Department but to try to get approval from the Treasury and the Cuban office in D.C.

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There was a clause in Treasury’s restrictions which permitted Americans to visit for educational purposes. That was the window we had to go through. We filed the necessary papers and waited. I thought getting Cuba’s agreement would be even more difficult than getting agreement from my own country, but I was wrong. After several meetings with the first secretary of the Cuban office, I was ushered into a palatial room in an enormous old building on Sixteenth Street, which had formerly been the Cuban Embassy. The ambassador was most cordial and listened carefully. We had offered to train, at no cost, about twenty-five people from ministries interested in international negotiations in space provided by the university in Havana. He liked the idea but said he would have to check with the Foreign Ministry and get their approval. We waited. Months went by. A second visit took place. Finally, I was informed that the project had been approved by Cuba and some of their diplomats would take the training. Great, but still there was no word from Treasury. Bill and I decided to go to Havana without official Treasury approval. As it turned out, while we were en route to Havana, my office called me to say that Treasury had authorized the visit! We were legal after all.

Reciprocal Training We trained twenty-eight people from six different ministries in international negotiations skills, and they thoroughly enjoyed the experience. In a unique arrangement, we gave one hour every day to the Cubans so that they could educate us about the Cuban system and the Cuban approach to the world. We learned from them and they learned from us. The trainees were all smart, articulate, with excellent English, and very focused on what they learned. They were excellent listeners. They treated us as honored guests and showed us the city. At the end of the course, the Foreign Minister himself thanked us for our contribution. At the very end of our training, I posed this question: “What is your favorite country in the world?” Every single one of those twenty-eight people, men and women, all government officials, all working for Fidel Castro, said that their favorite country was the United States. I was very impressed by this remarkable example of people-to-people interest—in spite of the thirty-five-year-long U.S. sanctions and blockade against Cuba.

Figure 12.4.

A group picture of the Cuban diplomats and the U.S. training team in Havana, 1996

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BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA A Change of Plans:Training Bosnians instead of Diplomats In December 1995, a few weeks after Dayton, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe asked IMTD to help it cope with the situation it was moving into in Bosnia. The OSCE is not an official international organization because it was not created by an international treaty like the International Labour Organization, for example. It grew out of the Helsinki Accords of 1972. In those Cold War days its meetings were one of the few places the East and the West met. The OSCE was created by a UN resolution agreed to by member states, but no dues were required. It had to depend on donations. As might be expected, the OSCE always has financial problems. In the case of Bosnia, member states would assign diplomats to Bosnia for six months at a time and they would pay all expenses. This was an interesting concept but very impractical. Just as diplomats began to understand the situation they would be sent home. Specifically the OSCE wanted IMTD to train the assigned diplomats in conflict resolution skills. I was delighted at the offer. We put together a small project—$25,000—to start the process. We were about to go to Sarajevo in February 1996 when we were told that the project was to be postponed to April. After another postponement, finally we were to go in June. Just before we left, my OSCE contact asked if we minded training Bosnians instead of OSCE staff. I was startled by the question but responded quickly by saying, “Of course not. In fact we prefer to work with the local population.” I couldn’t figure out what had happened. Later he told me that a committee of OSCE ambassadors, based in Vienna, Austria, had to approve all of the projects of the rebuilding process. When our little project for $25,000 was presented to this group, they all laughed and said, “That’s ridiculous. Our diplomats already have all these skills. They don’t need any training, so we’ll save money that way.” In those days, OSCE support for our work with the Bosnians was essential. There was no public transportation and no safe place to stay or secure sites where our trainings could be held. The OSCE provided these things and selected the Bosnian community leaders that we trained. We worked in Sarajevo, Mostar, Banja Luka, and Tusla, mainly with adults who were trying to overcome the trauma of the war and to create their own community centers and NGOs to cope with the serious problems that they faced. One of the ironies of this assignment was that whenever we held a

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training organized by the OSCE, every one of the local OSCE staff in the area came and took the training too. As Track One diplomats, “on the spot” or “in the field,” they realized that they did not know anything about conflict resolution. IMTD made five trips to Bosnia over the next two years and trained over two hundred Bosnians, in mixed groups of people from all three religious and ethnic communities. We worked with a talented young American woman named Jamie Spector and with a newly created local NGO called Neˇsto Viˇse. We hired a small local staff, based in Sarajevo, to help us with our work.

Clarification:Three Levels of Peacebuilding In my experience there are three levels of peacebuilding that potential contributors to IMTD should be aware of. The first is what I call political peacebuilding. In the case of Bosnia, for example, that was the Dayton Peace Treaty, of the Dayton Accords, signed by all parties in November 1995. It ended five years of violent civil war. The Allied military forces that went into Bosnia shortly thereafter allowed political parties to be formed, elections to take place, and a government to be created. Governments understand that process. In fact they like it, and they move ahead with that process fairly rapidly. The second level is economic peacebuilding. That is what the World Bank, bilateral donors, and the United Nations can do when they help rebuild destroyed infrastructures, such as roads or telecommunications. Governments understand that too. The third level is social peacebuilding. That’s what we do at IMTD. Neither governments nor the World Bank understand this type of peacebuilding. Social peacebuilding tries to touch people’s hearts, to get them to realize that the enemy is also a human being, and to learn eventually how they and the opposing group can live and work together. When I described the three levels to the World Bank’s country director for Bosnia, he said, after some thought, “The World Bank built three hundred houses in Bosnia, for returning refugees. They’re all empty. Nobody has moved into them.” I replied, “Of course they’re empty.” He asked, “Why do you say ‘of course’ they’re empty?” “They’re empty because of fear.” The country director, a PhD economist at the World Bank, had never thought about fear. Quite seriously. Fear was not on the World Bank’s agenda. I said, “People fear these houses because they were built right next

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to a community where the returning refugees had been fighting with their neighbors for years. You can’t expect people to move into those new houses when they’re afraid they might be murdered in their sleep by their neighbors.” Social peacebuilding could have taken place if the World Bank had called upon IMTD or some similar organization to carry out training and skill building with the two groups. Through dialogue they might have built a new community together. They might have been willing to move in as next-door neighbors. However, as it is, the houses will be empty for a long time. I think, he finally understood, but after three years of trying we still never got a penny from the World Bank for Bosnia or for any other country for that matter.

The Power of a Private Initiative In early 1999, our work in Bosnia increased dramatically, thanks to a complicated string of events and associations. Richard Moon, an Akido Master, whose skills we had used on several occasions in our Cypriot training, had a good American friend named Dan Whalen. Dan got interested in what he had heard about IMTD. Louise Diamond and Jonathan Reitman, a multiskilled and very effective lawyer who had been a part of our Bosnian team, visited Dan in Minneapolis. Dan became so intrigued that he went to Bosnia in early 1999 with Jonathan and was taken around the country. He became the founder and father of a new program for Bosnia that tried to improve the situation for young people. Dan had absolutely no ties of any kind to Bosnia, but he was deeply touched by how the five-year war had ravaged the country and how it had so terribly impacted on the lives of young people. He went there, he saw the problems, and he thought he could help—through IMTD. With Dan’s major financial and intellectual input, we designed a unique development project, and, over the next four years, Dan put all he had into making it happen.

The Lake Trails Project Dan was born into a poor family in North Dakota and later moved to Minnesota. As a young boy and later as a teenager, he had attended a summer canoe camp on the Canada-Minnesota border, called Lake Trails Base Camp. The camp was on a beautiful small island in the Lake of the Woods area. Dan had loved those summers. It was his suggestion that we take about

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thirty-five young Bosnians—Serbs, Croats, and Bosniacks—to the camp for two weeks. The cost and scope of this effort was beyond our imagination, but we got to work right away. Our small local staff began to advertise the project and soon had several hundred applicants, men and women from ages eighteen to twentyfive, from towns and villages all across the country, and representing all ethnic groups. Thirty-seven bright, able, and excited young people were selected. The young Bosnians arrived at Lake Trails in August 1999. We learned early on that when Dan had made up his mind about something he wanted to move. The group had a fascinating two weeks together in a program directed by Louise Diamond. During the first week, trainees worked on conflict resolution skills and learned how to handle a canoe and live in a camp environment together. At Dan’s suggestion, a skilled teacher taught them the art of fire walking. This feat consists of walking barefoot over a bed of hot coals, ten feet wide and five-feet long. Two-thirds of the participants dared to try this; a few repeated it. To everyone’s amazement, nobody was hurt or even had any blisters. They began to develop self-confidence and realized that they could accomplish the impossible with the required skill, focus, and dedication. During the second week, they divided into five ethnically mixed groups and went on a five-day wilderness experience. There wasn’t a human being within a hundred miles. They had to carry their canoes across dams, carry their food, tent, bedding roll, and clothes—everything they needed. This experience left them with a powerful lesson about survival. To survive they had to learn how to work together and to support one another. At the end of the five days, each canoe group had bonded for life. As they struggled to survive together, they forgot about their differences.

Phase Two:Technical Assistance Projects The project had a second phase, also funded by Dan. We agreed that each of the participants should design and carry out a small-scale multiethnic technical assistance project in their own communities or villages. Dan would provide the funds. The group was a bit overwhelmed by the audacity of this plan because they knew they did not have the necessary expertise. We helped them by providing them with three skilled counselors, Jonathan Reitman; Carol Yamasaki, the wife of Richard Moon; and Kathy McConogle, a friend of Dan’s, who would go to Bosnia every month for a week or ten days at a time to advise and coach them. Every month they met as a group either in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, or Mostar—the centers of the

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three ethnic and religious communities making up the country. This way each participant had the opportunity to become familiar with and to interact with persons from the other two communities and thus to understand that they were also human beings with similar goals. Each person had to develop a project idea and, in many cases, had to clear it with the village or community leaders, and then had to write it up. It had to include a timeline and a budget. The proposed project was then presented to the whole group for discussion and approval. This process took a lot of time because no one in the group had ever done anything like this before. Dan and I attended each of these monthly sessions in Bosnia to help and encourage the group to achieve their individual and collective goals. During the monthly meeting each participant had to stand up before the group and outline the progress made that month and goals for the next month. It was quite a rigorous process. A Bosnian treasurer was hired to check expenses and disburse payments. Management and operational skills were developed as each participant began to carry out his or her project. The projects were exceedingly diverse. There were projects for the disabled, for the home-bound elderly, a dog walking service, a youth magazine, a kindergarten, classes of all kinds—English, computer, soccer, Akido, and art—the list went on and on. And everywhere that Dan and I went, the villagers and the community leaders were delighted with the program. A story illustrates how one person’s dedication inspires others. The participant who wanted to start a kindergarten in her village ran into a few problems. After the group had approved her idea she began buying equipment and soliciting donations of toys. She found an old house in the village for rent. Unfortunately it was more damaged by the war than she had expected and the cost of repairs used up all her money. Instead of asking Dan for more money, she visited a nearby village where a German military base had been established as a part of the military presence in Bosnia called IFOR (NATO-led Implementation Force). She told her story to a sympathetic captain and asked if he would send a road scraper over to her village to level off a very bumpy playground area for her children. The captain sent over the scraper, and the German soldiers began to get involved with the project. They built a beautiful metal fence around the playground, which was next to a road, to protect the children. They constructed playground equipment in a very imaginative way from discarded parts from their motor pool. I remember, for example, seeing a pillow on top of a big tank spring on which the kids could bounce. The Germans did a great job of reaching out to the community.

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The participant arranged a big event to inaugurate the kindergarten. Over a hundred people attended, including me. The mayor, the village council, and all of the families with kids who would attend the kindergarten were there. She served food and drinks and provided music. Right on schedule, the dozen German military men who had helped with the project, led by the captain, arrived in full dress uniform to receive from the mayor a beautiful certificate expressing appreciation for their contribution to the kindergarten and to the village. During one of my lectures at the National War College here in Washington, D.C., I recounted that kindergarten story and pointed out that the playground project was typical of the kind of thing the German military was doing—practical hands-on improvements that the community needed. They were responding to community needs, they were filling gaps in the social fabric of a war-torn country. I asked the group, “Why can’t the U.S. military in Bosnia reach out to the people like the Germans did?” Three colonels who had served in Bosnia shot up their hands. The first colonel said it was against Pentagon rules—which was true. The second agreed it was against the rules but said that he had reached out from time to time to help the community. The third colonel said, “I know it’s against the rules, but I did it every day when I was in Bosnia.” I said to the third colonel, “You are my kind of man. Why don’t you go to the Pentagon and change the rules?” I then added, “As military leaders you always are looking for an exit strategy from a conflict. The only exit strategy that will ever work is to depart when you can leave behind a peaceful community.” The same program was repeated four times over four years with Dan’s participation and funding. A total of 139 young Bosnians from sixty-five towns and villages across Bosnia-Herzegovina went through the program. It was unique in the history of development. Its success is owing to the involvement and generosity of a dedicated American, Dan Whalen. No government has ever done anything like this. I went to Bosnia over twenty times during that four-year period. In fact, I am writing a book about the program.

Developing Bosnia’s Future Leadership After four years Dan Whalen decided to end that phase of his commitment to Bosnia. However, he was not finished. After much discussion, Dan took another great step forward. We convened all 139 project grad-

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uates in Bosnia. Dan spoke to the entire group at length and then said, “I would like those of you who do not have a college degree or have not finished your undergraduate degree to consider going to any university in Bosnia, at my expense. I will pay you a monthly stipend for living expenses and all tuition and school-related expenses. You decide what you want to do. I believe in you, your talent and your dedication, and I hope you will accept this offer of a better education.” The group was thunderstruck at the magnitude of this most generous offer and broke out into cheers. Over one hundred participants took advantage of this wonderful life-changing offer. They are now in school in Bosnia. In fact, a few have already graduated. Dan later also offered to pay for a master’s degree for those who wanted to do graduate work. At the same time, with the help of his team in Bosnia and Carol Yamasaki, who has been with the program since 1999, Dan offered twenty-six participants the opportunity to attend his alma mater, St. John’s University, in Minnesota. They could also go on for a master’s degree there at his expense, but ultimately, Dan’s wish was that the students should at some point return to their country to build its future. There is now a Bosnian student community at St. John’s, and they have helped to expand horizons at this prestigious Catholic university. Jasna, from the first Lake Trails class, was the first to attend the university. She graduated and then received a master’s from the Hubert Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota and is currently working in Minneapolis. When Dan made his original offer of a college education, about twenty participants decided instead to work together to see if they could make an impact on their local communities in the areas of social and economic development. They divided into four teams of five persons each and tried to work together to resolve conflicts within their communities. With help from Dan and Carol, since 2004, they have advised seven local agricultural cooperatives across the country on how to manage their coops more effectively and how to sell their products internationally. This group has been most effective. However, they realized that they could be more effective if they were better prepared. Now some are taking advantage of Dan’s educational offer too. Over the years IMTD helped to strengthen Neˇsto Viˇse, the local NGO that we worked with. A core staff of six or seven people, all graduates of the Lake Trails program, were key to its success.

Figure 12.5. Bosnian students of St. John’s University in Minnesota and their families celebrating graduation at the home of Dan Whalen’s sister, May 2007

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One Man’s Impact The third phase of Dan’s program, the education phase, is now reaching maturity, and young people are graduating with a fine education. In October 2007, Dan and Carol held another meeting of participants in Bosnia to get ideas from them about what the next phase should be. I have suggested the establishment of a career training center where graduates of our program advise not-so-privileged Bosnians on job opportunities and provide training in English and computer skills, for example. On November 1, 2007, a new office made up of college graduates from the program was established in Sarajevo, and assumes the role of a training center. This program demonstrates what an impact one man can have on a conflict at the people-to-people level. Unfortunately people like Dan Whalen are extremely rare. For me, Dan has changed the history of BosniaHerzegovina. I am convinced that these 139 young Bosnians are the future leaders of their country. He has also provided financial support to two IMTD projects in Kashmir. And when I am desperate to find money to pay the rent, he comes through. He is IMTD’s biggest “peace angel”—which is the highest level of giving on the IMTD donation list—and a good friend as well.

13 MORE ABOUT IMTD PROJECTS— PATIENCE, PERSEVERANCE, AND OPTIMISM Arlington (Rosslyn), Virg inia, 2000–2007

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e’ve started a new millennium.The expression alone sounds so promising. The UN millennium development goals pledge a new surge to eradicate poverty, achieve universal primary education, ensure environmental sustainability, and so on.All this is basic for peace.Yet, conflict and wars abound.They are created as we speak.What can an Institute like yours, what can one person like you, contribute to peacebuilding in the world? Is it not in vain to keep moving in that direction in the midst of destruction, insanity, and circumstances that seemingly never change? And how do you personally manage to keep going, apparently unperturbed? Bureaucracies may drag their heels, but you have been able to keep an eye on pending projects while at the same time charging off to the next venture, always looking for opportunities to move important issues from Track Two to Track One. The projects you describe raise vexing issues. In Nepal, what fine line must be drawn between upholding democratic principles and tolerating and respecting religious beliefs—in this instance including a belief in the caste system? In disasters caused by war, everybody has a horrific story to tell. Children, women, men, the civilians—as well as relief workers—that observe and experience the tragedies around them, even though they may not be affected directly, are traumatized.There is a build-up of trauma, day after day after day in Iraq, in Palestine, in Sudan, and in many other places. Is there anything that an organization like IMTD can do to bring about emotional healing?

KASHMIR Genesis of IMTD Involvement In November 1995, I was visited in IMTD’s office in Washington, D.C., by two retired lieutenant generals, one from Pakistan and the other 253

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from India. They had heard about IMTD from a former intern. Within two minutes they asked me to resolve the Kashmir conflict. “I can’t do that,” I said, but they were serious. They told me they had fought two wars against each other over Kashmir and they did not want to fight a third one. I learned that both governments had refused Track One help from the United Nations, the European Union, and the United States, saying they were working on the problem and everything was under control. I also learned that India had 700,000 troops in Indian Kashmir to “protect” people on the Indian side while Pakistan had a much smaller number on its side. The root cause of this conflict is fairly easy to understand. In 1947, as the British Empire was shrinking, the nation of Pakistan came into existence. All Muslims were to move to Pakistan and all Hindus were to move from Pakistan to India. At the last moment, the leader of the Indian province of Jammu and Kashmir decided to opt for India, even though 85 percent of the population of his province was Muslim. In 1964, a Line of Control officially divided the province. Six million people were in Indian Kashmir and three million were in Pakistani Kashmir. No one could cross the Line of Control. The province, which had been Kashmir for 2,500 years, was now divided. I told the two generals that I was intrigued that they thought a little nongovernmental organization might make a difference in this long-standing dispute and that I would think about it. Since neither they nor I had funds for this endeavor we would all have to wait. Nine months went by. One day I was visited by Sundeep Weskalar, an Indian from Bombay who had his own NGO working with Indian Kashmiris. I outlined my vision of bringing business leaders together, our Track Three, to focus on Kashmir. We would work separately in the two countries first, and then bring some people from each country together in a safe place where they could focus on the positive aspects of business in Kashmir. After all, 800,000 tourists had visited Kashmir in 1988. Six months later the figure was zero, because of fear and conflict. If business would get involved, with proper training, they could start to invest, or reinvest and in five years make a real difference. We could do the same thing with Kashmiris from both sides of the Line of Control. Eventually all four groups could be brought together to start a true peacebuilding process. He loved the idea and invited me to Bombay to meet business leaders there. The very next day, the State Department’s International Visitors Program brought to me Humayun Akhtar Khan, a Pakistani parliamentary leader who was also a businessman. We had the same conversation and he invited me to Lahore and Karachi to meet business leaders there.

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Four days later I received a letter from Poonam Barua, an Indian businesswoman who had worked with the U.S. Embassy in India. She had heard about Track Two and suggested that on our next visit to New Delhi we visit the PHD Chamber of Commerce, an organization established in 1905 and now operating under the name of PHDCCI (covering the states of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Chhattisgarh and the Union Territory of Chandigarh.) She thought that this would be a great place to talk about the role of peacebuilding. When Louise Diamond heard about these contacts she said, “In my belief system, when you get three requests, you respond.” So we did.

Grants from McKnight and Sasakawa Peace Foundations In the meantime, I had interested the McKnight Foundation in Minneapolis in the idea of business and peace and they came through with a generous grant. We also asked the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in Tokyo for funds, and, when they learned we had a grant from McKnight, they also came through. Suddenly we had money. We made our first visit to Bombay, Lahore, and New Delhi in October 1996 to begin meeting with people. I returned to the subcontinent five more times over the next several years and began building trust relationships in both countries and on both sides of the Line of Control. When I started making these trips, I contacted Shah Ghulam Qadir, the head of the Kashmir Institute for International Relations—KIIR (an NGO based in Islamabad, Pakistan). We had first met at a U.S. Institute of Peace conference in 1992. His contacts were invaluable, and IMTD has partnered with KIIR to this day. He took me to Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad (Free) Kashmir in July 1997. In June 1999 I led a team to the Indian side, Jammu and Kashmir, and visited Jammu, the winter capital, and Srinigar, the summer capital.

The First Training Before organizing training sessions with business people in Pakistan and India we sent several persons from the IMTD staff to South Africa, Cyprus, Northern Ireland, and Israel and Palestine to study how the business community in those four conflicted areas had helped reduce the violence. We developed four case studies showing that in each instance some members of the business community, those with vision, had had a positive impact on Track One. They had worked quietly, behind the scenes, informally, talking to

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their friends in the government and the military, putting forth new ideas in the area of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The first training was for twenty-eight Indian business leaders at the PHD Chamber of Commerce in New Delhi in March 2000; the second was for fifty business leaders at Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan several months later. I was delighted that the Pakistani lieutenant general who had started me down this path in 1995 agreed to open the training session in Lahore. Two distinguished American businessmen were part of our team in both trainings: David Hurd, the CEO of the Principal Insurance Corporation in Des Moines, Iowa, and Bill Elliot, who had an information technology company in Southern Virginia. I had gotten to know David Hurd when I was with the Iowa Peace Institute. He had founded Business for Peace, a local NGO in Des Moines, and he was by now an IMTD board member. They explained to their counterparts in India and Pakistan what they were doing to build peace. Also, every participant received the four case studies so that they would realize they were not the first to try out this “crazy” idea.

The “People’s Bus” After the funding from McKnight and the Japanese Peace Foundation dried up, largely due to changes in the organizations’ focus, Shah Ghulam Qadir of KIIR came to our rescue. About that time he asked if we could train parliamentary leaders from Azad Kashmir, at their expense, in Washington, D.C. Between 2000 and 2003 IMTD held four, week-long trainings for sixty members of the Azad Kashmir Parliament, several professors, and KIIR staff. We invited the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, a small U.S. government agency in Washington, D.C., to work with us and were delighted to be able to partner with them to help build conflict resolution and peacebuilding skills among the Pakistani Kashmir community. During my second visit to Muzaffarabad in April 2000, I was asked to speak in a refugee camp where over 1,000 people who had fled from the Indian side of the Line of Control in fear of their lives were living. Among other things, I talked about my idea of starting up a “people’s bus,” which would allow citizens of Kashmir to cross the Line of Control, either way, in order to visit friends and families they had not seen in decades. The refugees embraced the idea with enthusiasm, and I returned to Washington determined to turn the idea into reality. I tried to interest the Indian and Pakistani embassies in the idea, but I never went near the State Department. I got the press interested during my trips to the subcontinent and spoke re-

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peatedly about the people’s bus proposal. The key was to move the idea from Track Two to Track One because only the governments had the power to lift the barriers along the Line of Control. In November 2003, the Indian government suddenly made five Track Two proposals—and they used the words “track two” in their press release—to the Pakistani government to reduce tensions over Kashmir. One of the five was the “people’s bus.” They had picked up my idea and even my exact language! I was excited. We had made the leap. Pakistan publicly accepted four days later. Unfortunately, it took another year for things actually to begin to move. Track One diplomats argued for a year about what kind of documents were needed for people to cross the Line of Control. Finally, in December 2004, the foreign ministers were ordered by their respective prime minister and president to approve the bus. The governments announced that the bus service would start on April 7, 2005, exactly five years to the day after I had proposed the idea. Patience is required in this field. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India and Sonja Gandhi, head of the Congress Party, the two most powerful figures in India, flew to Srinagar to wave goodbye to the bus. The Indian bus was met on the other side by the Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir. On April 8, a photo of thirty-one people from Azad Kashmir crossing the Line of Control into Indian Kashmir was carried on the front pages of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. We recognized three of the people in the photo—we had trained them. And a few hours later, nineteen passengers from the Indian side of Kashmir crossed into Azad Kashmir. This bus exchange over the Line of Control was the most powerful symbol of peacebuilding between India and Pakistan since 1947. It changed the mood of the subcontinent and gave hope to the people of Kashmir. The bus was halted for a while by the terrible earthquake of October 2005 but is up and running again. Some 30,000 people have signed up to take the bus. Three of our participants told me what a life-changing experience taking the bus was for them. The high point for me was when the mayor of Muzaffarabad, who had taken one of our trainings, telephoned me and thanked me for the “people’s bus.”

The Second Training After two years of trying we received a $40,000 grant from the U.S. Institute of Peace to carry out another “first”: to bring ten Kashmiris from Pakistan together with ten Kashmiris from India for a week of dialogue and

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training. We needed a safe space and chose a mountain lodge an hour outside of Kathmandu, Nepal. Unfortunately, USIP does not provide overhead money in its grants, but our good friend Dan Whalen came through with the $20,000 needed to implement our plans. It took considerable effort to identify the Indian Kashmiri participants, since no NGOs were allowed on the Indian side of Kashmir. With the help of KIIR, the Azad Kashmir organization, we finally met in June 2004 in Kathmandu. The participants were all private citizens, all leaders in their respective communities, all Kashmiris, who had never met before. Eight of the twenty were women. This was important for me because I believe it is principally women who are the peacebuilders. Dr. Eileen Borris and I made up the IMTD team. Dr. Borris, a psychologist from Columbia University, has been IMTD chief of training since 2000 when Louise Diamond moved back to Vermont. An anecdote illustrates the unexpected effects of trainings. One evening, after dinner, one of the Pakistani participants said, “I am very unhappy about this current stalemate between India and Pakistan regarding Kashmir. My sister lives in Jammu and because of this stupid Line of Control I have not seen her in forty years.” A moment later one of the Indian women spoke up and said, “I am from Jammu. Where does your sister live?” He told her, and she said, “Oh. That is only five minutes from my house. You write your sister a letter. We will take pictures together and when I get home I will visit your sister, tell her what a great guy you are, and give her the letter and the pictures.” You could see his heart melt on the spot. He was already a changed man. Kashmir has a 2,500-year history; yet in today’s world, its inhabitants, who speak the same language, have been divided. Each side’s government demonizes the other side, and one side knows very little about the other. Many barriers were broken down that week, and the group wanted to meet again. We got a second USIP grant and more money from Dan Whalen and were able to hold our second Kashmir training in March 2006 in the Maldive Islands, in the Indian Ocean (neither Kathmandu, nor Colombo, Sri Lanka, was safe). The second training was attended by fourteen Pakistanis and thirteen Indians. Many were returning participants, making it feel like a family reunion. Again Eileen and I were a team. This time the mood was much more hopeful. The people’s bus had opened minds, and the Indian Kashmiris were no longer afraid to say they had met with the other side. In fact the group wanted to issue a press release about the event. Two members of the group, journalists by training, drafted the release, cleared

Figure 13.1.

Kashmiri participants in the 2002 training outside Kathmandu

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it with the group, and it was published all over the subcontinent. Another first. The press release contained two ideas. One was to have Kashmiris from both sides work together to write a joint history of Kashmir. This had never been done before. The other was to do a study to see if a united Kashmir could survive economically. The group asked us if they could meet for a third time. They wanted to have a three-day training for everyone in Srinagar, take the people’s bus to the other side, and then have a three-day training in Muzaffarabad.

Good Ideas, No Money We put in a third request to USIP, and I wrote to the prime minister of India and the president of Pakistan to inform them about our history and our plan. I did not want any surprises at the Line of Control bus crossing. In December 2006, the Indian ambassador to the United States told me his government had no problem as long as the event did not cost them anything. In March 2007, the Pakistani ambassador informed me that his president had no problems with the idea. At that point we had still not heard from USIP. In November 2006 our friend Shah Qadir invited Eileen and me to attend a thirty-five-person meeting in Islamabad, Pakistan, in late March of 2007, to talk about the future of Kashmir. He would pay all expenses. The day after our arrival, we were taken to an enormous conference center and walked in to see 1,500 people in the audience, instead of the thirty-five we had expected. We learned that the prime minister of Pakistan would open the conference. Later we came to understand that Track One had decided to use this opportunity to highlight its position on Kashmir. I was asked to chair a twenty-person panel on the future of Kashmir. There were two other panels: one on human rights and the other on conflict resolution. After meeting for two days we were to reconvene the 1,500 people and each chair was to report to the large conference. Eileen and I worked together with the panel and reached agreement on a plan: IMTD would convene and facilitate a meeting of Kashmiris from both sides of the Line of Control to develop, for the first time in history, a joint Kashmir position on their future. I pointed out that for decades no government had ever asked the people of Kashmir what they wanted. The goal was to have three delegations at the peace conference table: one delegation from India, one from Pakistan, and one from Kashmir. There was a burst of applause. IMTD is still looking for the money to carry out this idea.

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While we were in Islamabad, Eileen and I spent a day at a madrasa (Islamic religious school) in Rawalpindi. Doug Johnston, IMTD board member and the founder and president of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, has been working on expanding the curriculum at these religious schools to include the scientific and social disciplines with an emphasis on religious tolerance and human rights. In addition and thanks to Shah Qadir, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and Development Alternatives Incorporated, we carried out a one-day training in conflict resolution and leadership for fifty members of the National Parliament of Pakistan in Islamabad. When I returned to Washington, I found a letter from USIP rejecting our proposal for a third gathering for “lack of funds.” Surprised and unhappy, I phoned a woman I had met at the conference on Kashmir and told her my story. She was the policy officer on Kashmir for USIP. She had no input on the grant-making side of USIP even though she had a copy of our grant proposal. I then called the vice president of USIP and perhaps vented a bit. I said that we were the only NGO in the world to have worked for ten years on Kashmir. Why couldn’t he spare $35,000 for us to continue our work? I wondered if the left hand did not know what the right hand was doing in this case. This account of IMTD’s efforts on Kashmir is meant to illustrate how a little, constantly broke NGO can nevertheless effect change, over time. No government in the world has spent ten years consistently, without interruption, to contribute to resolving a problem like Kashmir.

TAIWAN Trying to Interest the Business Community In 1995, Louise Diamond and I made three trips to Taiwan and Hong Kong with the goal of interesting Track Three, the business community, in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. With David Hurd’s help, we also established a new group of business leaders in Des Moines interested in international peacebuilding. We created an audio tape entitled “The Role of Business and Peace” and sent it, with a questionnaire to 152 business leaders in Asia, most of whom we had met with personally. We received many positive responses, but, when we got serious and asked them for money, they began to back away. We finally realized they were all afraid of China’s reaction to their

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business interests when China learned they were supporting a group that was working closely with the Dalai Lama and Taiwan. That idea did not succeed, but it did strengthen our relations with Taiwan, another interest of mine. China maintains that Taiwan, the tenth largest trading entity in the world, is a part of China. The Chinese therefore will veto any effort in the UN Security Council to make Taiwan an independent nation.

The Story of Annette Lu While attending the first UNPO conference in The Hague in 1991, I met an extraordinary woman named Annette Lu, a recently elected senator from Taiwan. At some point during the meeting, she told me her story. She was a peace activist. In 1979, she had delivered a twenty-minute speech about democracy, criticizing the Kuomingtang (KMT) government, at a peaceful rally to commemorate International Human Rights Day. The rally was broken up by government forces, and the KMT imprisoned virtually every single leader of Taiwan’s budding democracy movement, including Lu. She was found guilty of violent sedition by a military court, and for her twenty-minute speech, she was charged with treason and sentenced to death. The rally later became known as the Kaohsiung Incident. The imprisonments were the reaction of Chiang Ching-kuo, a tough dictator, the son of Chiang Kai-shek, who like his father was an ally of the United States because he was also an anti-communist. Annette Lu went to prison. However, she was not executed. When Chiang Kai-shek’s son, who knew her, heard about her imprisonment, he released her after she had already served almost six years in prison. She became a heroine in the eyes of the people of Taiwan and was elected to the Senate in the first parliamentary election in 1991. Her party was the DPP (Democratic People’s Party), which was founded in 1986. I have followed her career over the years. She has served with distinction, becoming cochair of the Committee on Foreign Relations. She was then elected to be the governor of the second largest province after Taipei. In 2001, the DPP won the national election for the first time, and Lu was elected vice president of the county. She was reelected and was serving her second term.

Knowing Your Own History Thanks to Annette Lu, I was able to offer diplomatic training on three separate occasions to Taiwanese who came together in Washington, D.C.

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The last class that I remember teaching was held in 1999. It was made up of twenty-five people, all with master’s degrees or PhDs, all dedicated, bright and able young professionals, fluent in English. At one point during the course of our discussion, I talked about what I considered a famous treaty, which was signed in 1895, between China and Japan. In that international treaty (the Treaty of Shimonoseki), China deeded Formosa (Taiwan) to Japan in perpetuity. In legal terms that means forever. I also mentioned that the Chinese newspapers at the time said, “We don’t want any part of you Formosans; you’re a bunch of monkeys over there. We want to get rid of you and give you to Japan.” Japan ruled Taiwan for fifty years, until the end of World War Two. Taiwan then thought it was going to be independent. Suddenly, in 1949, Chiang Kai-shek, who was losing his war against the communists on the mainland, moved his nationalist government to Taiwan. He claimed to be ruling China from Taiwan, then named the Republic of China. Only one of the twenty-five students in this class had ever heard of that treaty of 1895. The students did not know that China had given up Taiwan “in perpetuity” and had no legal claim to the island of Taiwan, under international law. I was shocked by this ignorance until I learned from the students that none of their schoolbooks on the history of Taiwan was written by Taiwanese. All history was written by the Chinese. The high school history books included mainland China and even Mongolia as part of the Republic of China’s history. Taiwan’s history was only briefly covered in these textbooks. A few months later that year, Annette Lu invited me to speak at a conference she was organizing in Taiwan, while she was still governor. I told this “history” story to the conferees. I said, “I understand you want to become an independent nation, but you can never achieve that goal if you don’t know your own history. There’s not a textbook about the history of Taiwan on the island; there’s not a course that’s taught about Taiwanese history; it’s all Chinese history. You’ve got to change your educational system and teach your students Taiwanese history if you want to become an independent nation.” That part of my speech got wide TV and radio coverage. I understand that after the DPP came to power in 2000, things began to change. The rewriting of the history books was debated for several years, and, in 2005, the Ministry of Education allowed civilian publishing houses to compile high school textbooks, which were reviewed by a ninemember committee. Long chapters introducing Taiwanese history and geography are now included, and courses on Taiwanese history are now taught. In November 2007, I talked with two young Taiwanese women

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who confirmed that the way history is taught on the island has now changed dramatically. This is an example of how the press can help to spread new ideas and how sometimes an outsider can say things that citizens are hesitant to say. It is possible to effect changes in systems if one has a good idea and finds an opportunity to carry it out.

NEPAL The Maoist “Problem” in Nepal In 2001, two Nepali human rights NGOs asked IMTD to see if we could do something about the Maoist “problem” in Nepal. We received funding from the Misereor Foundation, based in Aachen, Germany. Misereor was financed by the German government and normally focused on education issues. To fully understand the problem, it is necessary to know a little about the history of Nepal. The country is the world’s only Hindu kingdom and was an absolute monarchy for centuries. The present Shah dynasty dates back to 1769. After years of unrest, the people finally had enough and, beginning in February 1990, began holding peaceful demonstrations across the country but particularly in front of the royal palace in Kathmandu. Several hundred peaceful demonstrators were killed by the military, but the demonstrations continued. Finally, on April 8, 1990, after fifty days and nights of demonstrations, the king gave in and agreed to become a constitutional monarch, based on the British model. A new constitution was drafted, political parties were allowed, elections were held, and a new parliament took office. It was a great day for the people of Nepal and is a great example of what I call “people power.” The new democratically elected government made a lot of promises to the people of this very poor country. Unfortunately, the government was totally inexperienced and was unable to fulfill its promises. Disillusionment set in. In 1996, a left-wing group from the Communist Party of Nepal broke off from the main party, called themselves Maoists, after the famous Chinese leader Mao Zedong, and went out into villages in the most remote areas of the country and began to work with the people. At first, the Maoists were very constructive. They improved education and helped people deal with their local problems; they even helped to rebuild homes, sheds, roads, and so on. In so doing, they gained the trust of the poor. Then the Maoists began to demonstrate peacefully against the central govern-

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ment. The local police got nervous and started shooting demonstrators. Eventually a Maoist shot back. That’s how the ongoing conflict began.

IMTD Gets Involved By 2001, when we were invited to try to do something about the conflict, 1,700 people—police, Maoists, and innocent villagers—had been killed, the countryside was terrorized, and people were living in fear. Dr. Eileen Borris and I spent ten days in Kathmandu to listen and learn and understand what the needs of the people were. We met with seventy people from all levels of society and all tracks, from the Untouchables, called Dalits, to two former prime ministers. We talked to journalists, lawyers, peace activists, businessmen, the head of the Communist Party and of course to our NGO hosts and other NGOs. We met with representatives of the Swedish, British, and American embassies and the head of the UN Development Program. People said they would like conflict resolution skill building to prepare themselves to cope with the Maoist insurgency. We returned to Washington to plan our training program. Then tragedy struck the country. On June 1, 2001, the entire royal family was murdered in the palace, allegedly by the beloved crown prince, who then committed suicide by shooting himself in the back of the neck. No one in the country, including me, believes that official version of the massacre. The dead king’s brother, Gyanendra, took over the throne. We thought our training would be canceled, but we were wrong. The local NGOs that had invited us said that Nepal needed help now more than ever. We returned to Nepal a few months later and carried out a training for twenty-eight people drawn from the groups that we had met with earlier from all levels of society, including the Dalits. We even had a Maoist as a participant in the group, although he didn’t officially announce that fact. We all stayed at beautiful Dhulikhel Lodge, an hour outside of Kathmandu, just off the road to Tibet. It was a safe space offering excellent food and lodging. It is important in our work to have informal time together, after the formal training sessions, during meals, breaks, and in the evening, so that relationships can develop.

The Collective Campaign for Peace Aside from the skills we passed on, we opened our participants’ eyes to the fact that they possessed rights and privileges that they had never dreamed they had. They were not familiar with their 1990 constitution, an

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excellent document. They had lived in an absolute monarchy for most of their lives and didn’t realize they had new rights on which to construct their lives. We took their blinders off. These were all very bright, talented people from civil society who really wanted to be empowered to act. Encouraged by these new realizations and their new skills, the participants decided to create their own NGO. We helped them to start it up. The Collective Campaign for Peace (COCAP), as they named it, was joined by all twenty-eight participants. It started as a loose, informal forum in June 2001 and is now a national network of peace and human rights organizations in Nepal (www.cocap.org.np). By mid-2006, COCAP consisted of forty-two registered member organizations from various districts of Nepal. For example, among the members is an organization set up by lawyers that is engaged in advocating freedom from torture, extrajudicial executions, and disappearance. Another organization, set up by Dalit journalists who took our first training, mobilizes the media to fight caste-based discrimination and social exclusion.

Training of Trainers While we were still in Kathmandu, we designed four new project proposals: (1) to hold a second training for twenty-eight to thirty people; (2) to take ten from each of the two trainings for an advanced train-the-trainers course so they could spread the word out in the countryside; (3) to train twenty-five of the top business leaders in the country in conflict resolution skills (at the request of the president of the Chamber of Commerce in Kathmandu); and (4) to take a group made up of two representatives from each of the three main political parties and two Maoists to The Hague for a ten-day dialogue—the eight had never sat down together to talk and knew nothing about one another’s point of view. This was a historic moment in the history of Nepal. However, we couldn’t raise a penny for any of those four follow-on projects. At the time, we had a window of opportunity with the two Maoists (the chairman of the Communist Party had offered to arrange for their participation) to open their minds and open the minds of the political leadership of the three political parties. Then the window clanged shut, for lack of a few dollars, and the conflict with the Maoists raged on. Eventually we were able to conduct training-of-trainers, thanks to another grant from the Misereor Foundation. In September 2002, we trained another thirty people. An excellent briefing and training book put together by Dr. Borris was translated into Nepali. The participants have actually

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gone out into the villages and carried out training sessions in conflict resolution.

The Root Cause of the Conflict Identifying the root cause of the conflict was not easy. Everyone said the Maoists were the problem, but that is not the case. The problem in Nepal, I finally realized, was the Hindu-based caste system. The system is power-based and designed to control the population. There are twenty-four levels or castes in Nepal today. A person is born into the caste of his or her parents. There is no movement up to another level, one stays in the same caste for life. The system has been around for 3,000 years and is still alive today, although it has been unconstitutional since 1964. Twenty percent of the population, five million people in Nepal, are Dalits. They live out in the mountain villages and are illiterate farmers. They’re just considered to be dirt. The Maoists were brilliant strategists. They were all Brahmins, the highest caste, of course. They went out into the villages and started treating the Dalits as human beings, especially the women. Sixty percent of the support for the Maoists today comes from women. Such a level of female support for violence is unheard of in any other conflict in the world. The Maoists treated all women as women should be treated. That was the Maoists’ greatest strength, and they attracted many thousands of supporters from the Dalits. The Nepali conflict is not primarily religiously based; rather it’s power-based. It’s about total control. When a village elder tells a friend of mine, “I don’t want the Dalits educated. I want them to stay in their place,” I believe him. The Dalits that I know are wonderful people. It’s estimated that there are only 1,000 college graduates out of five million Dalits. No Dalit has ever been elected to a political position in the history of the country. We were fortunate to have among the people that we trained, a fantastic young woman lawyer who had broken out of the system, and got a law degree, as a Dalit. Whenever we did our training we had four or five Dalits that were involved in the process, and they were all wonderful people. During our first visit to Nepal, I had lunch with the president of one of the two NGOs that had invited us. He was a PhD, a brilliant, dedicated man. He showed me a beautiful ten-page brochure of the work that his NGO had done, mainly regarding economic development. On the third page was a chart that identified by caste the 1,700 people who had been killed since 1996, when the violence started. I looked at that chart and said to my host, “This page is unconstitutional.”

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He said, “What are you talking about?” I replied, “The caste system has been abolished, and under your constitution you are not even supposed to refer to it. And here it is in print.” He said, “Oh my God, you’re right! I never even thought about it.” In the next issue of his brochure those 1,700 deaths were identified by the province in which they had been killed. That’s a little example of how deeply the idea of the caste system is ingrained. I’ve raised the issue of caste with dozens of Nepalese—business people, journalists, lawyers, doctors, politicians, and the people who took our trainings. Most don’t want to talk about the subject. Those that do recognize the validity of the problem say they can’t do anything about it. I once asked a journalist from Nepal if he would have a cup of tea with a Dalit in Kathmandu. He thought for several minutes and then he said, “Yes, I could do that.” I said, “Would you have that same cup of tea in your home with this person?” He replied very quickly, “Absolutely not! I couldn’t do that. My family wouldn’t allow it.” He didn’t take responsibility for himself; he pointed instead to his family. India, also a Hindu nation, has an enormous caste problem that Indians don’t want to talk about either. The caste system is also unconstitutional in India, but experts estimate that 300 million people in rural villages are Dalits. Almost half of the women in India are illiterate. Modern India is also ignoring this massive problem. In each of our training programs for Nepal, there were three to five Dalits. I met with the Dalit leadership at every opportunity. I told the leaders, “You’ve got to get the word out, by radio, television and the press, about your rights and privileges under the constitution. You have to say the caste system is unconstitutional. People have to hear from you.” I also urged them to create their own political party because they had the votes. One of the young Dalit men who graduated from our first training got the message. He got some money from a German foundation and started the first Dalit media center in the history of Nepal. We visited that center on our last of four trips to Nepal, in September 2004. He is, of course, a member of COCAP. We are very proud of what he has done.

Lack of Will to Force the King’s Hand Unfortunately for the people of Nepal, on February 1, 2005, the king pulled off a coup—that is what they call it, although I have never heard of

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a king pulling off a coup d’état. He basically reversed every bit of progress since the 1990 demonstrations and became an absolute monarch again. He had already shut down the Parliament. Now he declared an emergency, so he could defeat the Maoists in battle. He shut down the government, fired the prime minister for the second time, shut down the press, closed the borders, and assumed total control. He put many people in jail. Many of the people we know were under house arrest or in prison or fled the country. In April 2005, I talked to several senior people at the State Department about an idea I had concerning Nepal. I asked about the current situation and what State was doing. I said, “From what I see, the West is totally divided on what the policy on Nepal should be. The United States has one position, the Indians have another, the World Bank a third. Why don’t you get your act together?” They agreed that there seemed to be no consensus. I said, “In November of 1991, the entire Western development community got together at the Development Assistance Committee in Paris. They had been pushing President Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya for years to allow the development of political parties and to hold a free election. He stonewalled them and said no, and played one nation off against the other. The DAC agreed to take action together. On such and such a date they would all stop all aid to Kenya. “This had never happened before, or since for that matter. The West had never gotten its act together before and agreed to take collective action against one country. They told Moi about their decision. He just laughed at them, because he didn’t believe that would happen. When the day came, the DAC shut down all aid. Two days later, President Moi gave in. Political parties were allowed, free elections were held, all of the DAC’s demands were met. Why? Because 37 percent of his foreign exchange was directly aid-related and came from DAC countries. He knew he couldn’t survive without aid. “Today, in Nepal, 70 percent of all foreign capital comes from DAC countries. This king cannot survive if you get your act together and speak with one voice and shut off his money supply. I guarantee you in fortyeight hours he’ll give in and reconvene the Parliament and the whole process will be started again. He cannot survive.” One State official said, “I like what you’re saying. I will try it out higher up.” Then he added, “You know we’re waiting until a hundred days after the first of February, because the king made certain promises that were to be carried out by then.” I called him up two weeks after the hundred days had passed and asked him if the King had done anything yet. When he replied that nothing had

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changed, I asked him about my idea. “You know,” he said, “we are in a conundrum.’’ I knew that. “And we’re not risk takers,” he said. I knew that too. I said, “This is the only way to do it. When you’ve only got one way and the country’s falling apart, why don’t you try that one way?” He mentioned humanitarian concerns. I said, “Humanitarian concerns for fortyeight hours? Forget it. That’s ridiculous. Just do it!” Every Nepalese that I’ve tried this idea out on has agreed with me. Nothing happened at the State Department. So I went to Congress. I talked to some staff people I know. I met with the chief of staff of the Subcommittee on Asia of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. We had the same conversation. I said, “Why don’t you convene a hearing? Why don’t you pressure the State Department to do this?” By then it was August 2005. Congress was on vacation. He said he would think about it. Nothing happened.

People Power in Nepal Finally, the people in Nepal spoke, again. During December 2005 and January 2006 people went on strike and demonstrated across the country against the king. The protests grew and grew—always peaceful—to tens of thousands, to a hundred thousand. Finally, on April 5, 2006, over one million people gathered in Kathmandu and demanded the king step aside, and he did. The people of Nepal were successful. The Maoists ended their decade-long civil war. And in November 2006, the government and the Maoists signed a peace accord. The Maoists entered the political system, which was their ultimate goal. In September/ October 2007, they left it again, demanding an immediate declaration of a republic. To my great delight, Nepal’s government agreed on December 24, 2007, to abolish the centuries-old monarchy in a political deal with Maoist former rebels. The decision will go into effect after elections in 2008. The country is on the right path again after conflicts that caused 13,000 deaths. The people want a democracy and more of them now have the knowledge and skill necessary for them to achieve their goal. Our work in Nepal is another example of how we keep involved over time and try to have an impact on a societal conflict situation. IMTD wants to go back to Nepal and resume its work because much still needs to be done. We keep in touch with our many friends. Our main problem is raising the necessary funds.

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THE REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA A New Oil Pipeline In 2001, IMTD was invited to become involved in the Republic of Georgia, formerly a part of the Soviet Union. The Georgian-American Business Association in Washington, D.C., wanted me to attend a two-day conference in Tbilisi, the capital city. The purpose of the conference was to encourage investment in Georgia. About 250 people were in attendance—all business leaders, parliamentary leaders, and other politicians. President Eduard A. Shevardnadze opened the conference. The first day was spent talking about the new oil pipeline. An agreement had been signed a few months before, in Istanbul, Turkey, by the heads of state of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, with President Bill Clinton watching, to build a 2,000-kilometer-long pipeline for oil (and eventually for gas), at a cost of $4 billion, from the Caspian Sea through Baku to Tbilisi and then to exit in Turkey, in the eastern Mediterranean. The treaty had taken six years to negotiate because it was the first time oil from the former Soviet Union would bypass the Black Sea and Russia and go straight to the West. The Turks did not want any more tankers going through the Dardanelles, and the Russians were very unhappy about the agreement because it completely excluded them.

Anticipating Conflict This was 2001. The region was rife with conflict, with NagornoKarabakh, Armenia, Azerbaijan; in Georgia, with South Ossetia and Abkhazia; and in eastern Turkey with the Kurds. On that first day of the conference nobody mentioned people; nobody mentioned conflict. All the speakers talked about was the benefits of the pipeline. I was the first speaker on the second day. I did talk about people and conflict. I said, among other things, “In today’s world, you cannot guard a pipeline by military means. Look at Nigeria, Sudan, Chad, and Colombia. They get blown up from time to time in spite of their military guards. Basically the only way that you are ever going to build your pipeline successfully is by bringing the people along the path of the pipeline into the process and making that pipeline their project. You hire them to help build it and you help them to maintain it. And in their own self-interest they will protect the pipeline for you.” To illustrate my point I told them about the railroad and the microwave system I had been involved in while I was with CENTO in Turkey.

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I pointed out that in all the years since those installations had been constructed, no one had ever touched them. We used locally hired people to build the projects, and they have always considered those projects with pride. I also made a suggestion: “You’re planning to build a 4,000-kilometer-long fence, 2,000 kilometers on each side, to protect that pipeline. What you should do is bury the pipeline six feet under ground. The cost of the burial will be paid for easily if you don’t have to pay for a fence. Four thousand kilometers of wire that anybody can cut through with clippers— that’s not going to protect anything. Bury the pipeline and flatten out the ground so that the cattle can graze there and the people can plant crops there.” Finally, I told them that in order to keep the peace, they ought to hire IMTD to carry out conflict resolution training in the villages in Georgia along the path of the pipeline. There would surely be conflict; why not address it before it happens? British Petroleum (BP), which headed the consortium to build the pipeline, hired 80 percent of the construction workers from local villages, buried the pipeline, but did not hire IMTD for conflict resolution training. When I learned that BP was borrowing $700 million from the International Finance Corporation, one of the World Bank’s family of agencies, I visited a number of IFC officials and asked if they didn’t want to protect their investment and hire IMTD to do conflict resolution training in villages along the path of the pipeline. The IFC eventually passed me over to the World Bank, which then passed me back to the IFC. I spent many hours on this project but the IFC was never interested. In the summer of 2005 oil started to flow through the pipeline. Shortly thereafter I received an e-mail saying the IFC was looking for a consultant to go to Georgia and work for three months on one of its projects to deal with growing conflicts in some villages. I went to visit a new team at the IFC who had never heard of IMTD. I told them the whole story. “My God,” they exclaimed, “we should have hired you two years ago.” We had several more meetings but nothing happened. They finally sent someone to Georgia from the IFC staff who had no conflict resolution experience. The basic lesson here is that large institutions never like to deal with little NGOs.

“Green” NGOs Raise Objections We have been fortunate over the years to have worked closely with a talented young Georgian named Irakli Kakabadze who received a master’s degree in conflict resolution from the Institute for Conflict Analysis and

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Resolution at George Mason University. ICAR has been a great supporter of IMTD, and Irakli has been an essential person in our relations with Georgia. He got me invited to speak in Tbilisi and he was instrumental in arranging each of my three trips to Georgia and helping push our systems approach to peace there. Thanks to him, I was again invited to Georgia in the fall of 2002, this time by the government minister who headed the Georgian International Oil Corporation. I had gotten to know him on my previous visits. He said, “I’m having trouble with the NGO community. They’re a bunch of ‘Greens’ and they don’t like some of the things that are going on with this pipeline. I need your help.” I charged the corporation a consultant fee—which would go into IMTD’s coffers—and went to Georgia for ten days with one of our interns. The two of us and Irakli met with the minister of the oil corporation and his staff, and I told them I wanted to listen to what people in the NGO community had to say. We convened sixty people from various NGOs and spent four hours with them, just listening. What I learned very quickly was that those NGOs, which were all interested in the pipeline, had never met together before or communicated among themselves. They didn’t know what each other’s positions were. They told me that the route for a seventeen-kilometer-long section of the planned pipeline was to be moved from its original position in the south to a new position in the north where it would run through a beautiful national forest reserve. Building a pipeline there would violate all of the environmental laws in Georgia. I got the same message from other groups with whom I met. I learned that the route was changed because the southern route, as planned by BP, was right next to a still-active Russian military base, left over from the Soviet Empire days. President Shevardnadze—the Russians had tried to assassinate him three times—knew, in his heart, that if that pipeline remained there the Russians would blow it up. I happened to agree with him. Unfortunately, he didn’t explain why he decided to reroute the pipeline; he just made the change. Likewise, the minister of environment hadn’t explained the change either. Thus, the NGO community in Tbilisi didn’t know what the reasons were, but even if they had known, they would still have been unhappy about the new route. I decided it was time for me to practice MBWA (management by walking around). I said, “I want to go and see where the illegal route for the pipeline is located.” When Irakli and I arrived, about sixty people were there to greet us. The governor of the province, the mayor of the town, local NGOs, radio, television, the press, women’s groups, youth groups. They all loved the fact the pipeline was going to be built in their area. After a

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two-hour meeting I said, “Now show me where the pipeline will actually be located.” We finally looked at the site. On one side of the forest was a broad river; on the other side of the river was the proposed path of the pipeline. Thus, the pipeline would not even be near the forest. There was nothing illegal about its proposed location. The NGO community in Tbilisi had never taken the two-hour trip to see for themselves where the pipeline was actually to be located. In our final session with the NGO community in Tbilisi, I reported my findings: I wanted them all to know what I was recommending to the minister and what I thought they should do. I told them that the pipeline would be buried and made some recommendations about earthquakes and landslides. Most important, I explained where the pipeline was actually to be located and dispelled their fears on that issue and told them why their president had moved it in the first place. Then I said, “What you should do is redirect your energies now that you’re talking to each other. Why not establish separate task forces to monitor what the BP and the government have promised. See that they actually do what they say they will do.” They agreed with my recommendations, and the issue the minister was concerned about disappeared.

Abkhazia, a Peace Zone Proposal Abkhazia, a breakaway zone of Georgia, lies between the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea. In 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Empire, Abkhazia asserted its desire for independence, and some 250,000 Georgians were forced to flee the zone because of a violent civil war. Abkhazia wants independence while Georgia wants it to be a part of the country. The minister of the Georgian International Oil Corporation described for me the many problems created by this conflict and said that no effort was being made to resolve it. He asked me to listen to what a friend of his wanted to do about Abkhazia. For about an hour I listened to his briefing. The more he talked the more concerned I became. I finally stopped him and said, “Look, everything you’re recommending will build more barriers between Abkhazia and Georgia. If your plans are carried out, there will never be any trust relationship between the two sides. What we ought to do is to create a peace zone for Abkhazia.” I explained that a peace zone is a nonmilitary section where the potential for conflict is gradually reduced until, eventually—maybe in three to five years—business and tourists will return, trust will be rebuilt, and the community will be peaceful again. The process has been tried at the village level

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in the Philippines, in Colombia, and in Ache, Indonesia. It hasn’t worked because governments have never supported it. Nobody has ever tried to establish a peace zone in such a large area, but I told him I thought it was worth exploring. The minister got excited about this idea and wanted more information. Before I knew it, I was meeting with other ministers and then was invited to meet with the head of the Georgian National Security Council, whose office was right next to the president’s office. I had met him before when he was the ambassador to the United States. He had attended a reception for a Georgian artist at IMTD’s office. To make a long story short, President Shevardnadze became the first head of state to buy the idea of a peace zone. In September 2003, at our invitation, the vice chairman of the Parliament of Georgia came to Washington to talk about a peace zone for Abkhazia with U.S. officials. We took him to the State Department, the National Security Council, and the Nixon Foundation and introduced him to several members of Congress. Everybody was fascinated by the prospect of a peace zone for Abkhazia and was delighted that the president of Georgia supported the idea, as did the Parliament. Unfortunately, there is still no peace zone in Abkhazia. A seriously flawed parliamentary election took place in Georgia on November 3, 2003. The so-called Rose Revolution followed—a major example of people power, new elections were held on January 4, 2004, and a new, democratic government took office. However, the problems between Georgia and Abkhazia still remain. IMTD is in touch with various parts of the new government of Georgia and is actively seeking funding to start a dialogue with the citizens of Georgia and Abkhazia.

CARE Staff Training in Conflict Resolution CARE, the global humanitarian assistance organization that was started after World War II with the sending of CARE packages to Europe, has done a remarkable job in the humanitarian assistance field over the decades. Our work with this NGO is one of the few instances in which we were able to change a global system. In 1993, as we were trying to expand our horizons at IMTD, Louise Diamond and I visited five large global humanitarian assistance organizations, all

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NGOs that got most of their money from the U.S. government. We talked to professionals at CARE, the Church World Service, Catholic Relief, Mercy Corps, and World Vision about IMTD’s mission and expertise in the field of conflict resolution. CARE, as an example, has a budget of half a billion dollars, and a staff of 12,000 people, working in eighty countries around the world. I said to each of these groups, “According to my estimates, about 70 percent of your staff, worldwide, is working in areas of intrastate conflict.” They said I was probably right. I continued, “My guess is that your staff has had no training in conflict resolution skills.” They all acknowledged that what I said was true. We offered to rectify this situation by providing training, but nothing ever happened. Perhaps we were not articulate enough, or they did not grasp how serious their situation was. Two years went by. At the end of 1995, I received a telephone call from CARE, whose offices had just been moved from New York to Atlanta, to make a presentation to the senior staff. I said, “I’ve been waiting for this phone call for two years.” He asked, “What are you talking about?’ “Well,” I said, “we made a pitch about the need for conflict resolution skill training in your organization two years ago.” He said he had not heard anything about that. I asked, “Why are you calling me now?” He said, “I’ve just come back from Somalia, and we need all the help we can get.” I went to Atlanta and spoke to the senior staff, from the president on down. We really clicked. A few weeks later a new president, Peter Bell, took over. I learned at some point that at his first staff meeting Bell said, “I really want to do something in the field of conflict resolution. Have any of you done anything about this?” The man who had invited me to Atlanta proudly announced that he had just recently contacted IMTD. In February 1996, Louise Diamond, Peter Woodrow, and I did our first training for CARE in Nairobi, Kenya. Forty-two senior members of CARE from all over East Africa participated. The exciting thing for me was that Peter Bell and two of his vice presidents flew over from Atlanta and took the training too. That was a powerful message to the global staff of CARE that their new president was serious about this matter. His commitment was essential for our future work with CARE. During that first training, I realized that CARE professional staff were traumatized, not because they were direct victims, but because of what they had seen, for example, in Rwanda or Somalia. I called it secondary trauma. Toward the end of the training in Nairobi, we held an optional evening ses-

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sion in which participants could talk about their experiences. Everybody came, and everybody started talking. It was powerful listening for us and for them. Acknowledging trauma obviously was seen as a sign of weakness at the work place, so nobody talked about it. This was the first time that these leaders were able to vent in a confidential, safe space. A few months later the CARE country director for Tanzania, who had participated in the Nairobi training, asked us for help with the enormous refugee camp it was managing on the Tanzanian border with Burundi. There was conflict within the camp, among the camp staff, and with the villagers outside the camp. Louise Diamond led a team that spent several weeks at the camp, working with staff, with people in the villages nearby, and with the refugees themselves to reduce conflict through training and dialogue.

Training CARE Staff Globally Marge Tsitouris invited IMTD to Sierra Leone in 1997 to train CARE staff from all over West Africa, and, over the next several years, she also invited us to Jordan to work with CARE’s Middle East staff and to Sri Lanka to work with its Asian staff. Louise also held a special training in Central America for CARE staff from all over the world. IMTD had a major impact on the top managers of CARE over a period of years. One result was that CARE rewrote its mission statement, incorporating the concept of conflict resolution and broadening its vision about the impact it hoped to have on the people it was working with—beyond delivering food and tents and medical supplies in emergency situations.

Secondary Trauma as a Medical Problem I suggested to Peter Bell several times that CARE should officially recognize secondary trauma and treat it as a medical problem. I don’t know whether that has happened or not. In conversations with him, I said, “You’ve got to be very careful how you handle this. Every time we have met with CARE staff we have had the same optional evening session that we had in Nairobi. Everybody always came, told their stories, and tried to unburden themselves from the impact of what they had seen and heard.” I continued, “Something on this order happened within the State Department many years ago. Supervisors used to have to file an annual report on every Foreign Service officer. We had to state whether or not the officer was a heavy drinker (which I hated to do), just like we had to discuss their

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wives’ hostess abilities. Today, the State Department doesn’t do that anymore. Alcohol consumption was finally treated as a medical problem. Diplomats went to official cocktail parties and receptions every night. It was part of the job. State now puts such reports in a separate medical file and handles them accordingly.”

Drafting a UN Resolution on Trauma and Healing In July 2005, I was invited to speak at the Conference of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) at the United Nations in New York. The conference had an awesome title, “From Reaction to Prevention: Civil Society Forging Partnerships to Prevent Violent Conflict and Build Peace.” The idea for the conference came from Secretary General Kofi Annan’s speech to the General Assembly in 2001, in which he urged the NGO community to organize a world conference on how to reduce deadly conflict in the world. A good friend of mine since 1996, Paul van Tongeren, from the Netherlands, whom I consider the foremost conflict resolution and peacebuilder in Western Europe, picked up Kofi Annan’s challenge. Paul not only writes and speaks about the subject, he does something about it. He is the executive director of the European Centre for Conflict Prevention (ECCP), his own NGO in The Hague. Paul was very successful at fundraising. He raised $3 million for the conference and worked for three years to make it happen. He established fifteen subregional centers around the world staffed by expert volunteers who wanted to make a difference. His secretariat put together a final document summarizing the world situation for the use of all the delegates. One thousand NGO delegates from 118 countries attended. We NGOs met for four exciting days in the Grand Hall of the General Assembly of the United Nations, which I think was probably a first, as that hall is usually reserved for government representatives. I made a panel presentation on IMTD’s work and, along with about thirty others, attended the workshop entitled “Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience.” The facilitator was Barry Hart, with whom I’d worked in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in the context of IMTD’s Liberia project and who is now a professor at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia. Many of the thirty people wanted to tell how they had been traumatized by conflict. This was certainly the forum for that. However we were also supposed to make some recommendations for action and report back to the conference plenary. About halfway through the first three-hour session, I suggested that we might consider drafting a UN resolution on trauma, healing, and reconcil-

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iation for the General Assembly to eventually consider. I pointed out that this subject had never been discussed by the General Assembly because the member states were usually the ones who created the trauma in the first place. This idea was not immediately accepted because the workshop participants had had no UN experience. Finally somebody said, “Well, this sounds like a good idea.” I then volunteered to chair a working group to draft a resolution. I met the working group after the session ended, got some ideas, went back to the hotel, and spent the next five hours drafting a resolution. The next morning I took the draft to the working group for discussion and approval. We gave it to Barry Hart for presentation to the workshop for discussion and approval. It passed muster and was later approved unanimously by the conference plenary. The final report of the conference contained many recommendations for action. However, no one was sure what would happen next to the report. It was passed to the UN Secretariat and eventually disappeared. Suspecting that that might happen, I decided to send a copy of the resolution on trauma to Jan Eliasson, the former Swedish ambassador to the United States, whom I had known when he was in Washington. Eliasson had just been elected to be the president of the sixtieth General Assembly for 2005. He had also been a speaker at the July conference. My goal was to get him to recommend to his government that they introduce the draft resolution to the General Assembly for discussion. The idea of course was to move the resolution from Track Two to Track One. The operative paragraphs of the resolution called for the creation of six trauma and healing centers, one at UN headquarters in New York and the other five associated with the five UN regional economic commissions located in Geneva, Santiago, Addis Ababa, Bangkok, and Beirut. All these centers would be funded by voluntary contributions from the private sector, not from the UN budget. Ambassador Eliasson responded to my suggestion by saying that he had been deeply moved by the resolution and was a strong supporter of the idea. He went on to say, however, that as president of the General Assembly, he could not propose this resolution, but he could pass it on to the Swedish ambassador to the United Nations, with a strong letter of support and ask him to forward it to Stockholm for Foreign Ministry approval. In early November I found out that the Swedish government had decided that the resolution should be considered by the yet-to-be-established Peacebuilding Commission. The Peacebuilding Commission came into being as a new UN Commission in 2006. Its goal is to look after fragile states and help them along

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the road to development. IMTD wrote to and then visited the vice chairman of the commission, who was the Norwegian permanent ambassador to the commission. He liked the idea, but still no action. When the commission decided to focus on two nations at first, Burundi and Sierra Leone, we rewrote the resolution to set up centers in these two countries instead of the six of the original resolution. We sent this draft to the new commission chairman and are still hoping for action. However, it is gratifying at least to see that language about trauma, healing, and reconciliation is beginning to appear more often in conflict resolution work. Yet it is waiting to be institutionalized by the United Nations.

DIALOGUES During IMTD’s first fifteen years of operation, until 2007, the only projects we carried out in the United States were “dialogues,” in which we bring together small groups of concerned private citizens from foreign countries—never government representatives—who are a part of their own diaspora in the greater Washington area. The participants meet regularly to discuss the issues and problems that divide them, but also the many things they have in common. We talk about subjects they never talk about with each other and try to build a greater understanding of one another. Our first dialogue dealt with Ethiopia and went on for eight years, starting in 1992. Our second, on Somalia, began in 1994 and went on for five years. We started a Somalia dialogue again in 2005, and it is still ongoing. In 1997 we brought together six Chinese who had fled China and were living in North America, and six Tibetans who were also in North America, for an intense three-day dialogue in Washington, D.C. They were all highly educated and quite articulate, but had never met before. In the morning of the second day, the Tibetans asked why the Chinese always talked about the “liberation of Tibet” when everybody else in the world called it an invasion. The Chinese could not answer the question. They had been told by the government for forty years that this was an act of liberation. The Tibetans then asked “Who did you liberate us from, as we are all Tibetans?” Again no answer. A few hours later, the Chinese asked the Tibetans why they always talked about “the Chinese.” They said, we hate the Chinese government as much as you do. So why don’t you at least talk about “the Chinese government” as being separate from the Chinese people.” The Tibetans agreed to do that.

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At the end of this most successful training, both groups asked us to repeat this program all over the world. They loved it. Unfortunately, we were unable to raise any money for this delicate mission. Over the years we have had an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, a Cuban dialogue, an Ethiopian-Eritrean dialogue, and in recent years dialogues with Japan-Korea, Japan-China, and China-Taiwan. We have never publicized these meetings or issued press releases about them. The groups grow by word of mouth. They don’t develop resolutions or recommendations. They are not advocacy groups. Our participants learn how to listen to those holding views quite different from theirs and to respect their point of view, even if they disagree with it. A few simple ground rules are in effect. The most important is that only one person should speak at a time. The other is that no participant should quote, by name, the statement of any person in the group outside of the dialogue sessions. In fifteen years no one has ever violated the latter rule. Many thousands of Ethiopians reside in the greater Washington area. Most of them fled after 1974 when the armed forces took over the country. In 1994, we learned there were thirty-two political parties in the local Ethiopian community. IMTD had an Ethiopian intern at the time who wanted to address this situation. Thus our first dialogue was organized. Over the years, members of the Ethiopian dialogue learned how to listen to each other. They also learned how the democratic system in the United States works. If they wanted to be heard in Washington, D.C., they would have to speak with one voice. After eight years the natural leaders of the group organized a conference attended by 1,000 Ethiopians living in the United States. They agreed on a three-page policy statement describing their collective point of view. In 1994, the former minister of justice in Somalia, who had heard about the Ethiopian dialogue, asked if I would start a Somali dialogue with local residents. It went on for five years when suddenly, the poor man had a heart attack and died. Two years ago, we started up again and have now met fourteen times and have had a number of vibrant discussions. As a result of this experience, IMTD has put a project together for the World Bank to consider, in which we offer to train parliamentary leaders from Somalia in Nairobi, Kenya. Our goal was to make a difference in the lives of those who attend our dialogues. Over the last fifteen years, we have achieved this goal.

14 IMTD’S NEW INITIATIVES 2007

I

n 2007, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, though still hampered by many stumbling blocks, has been revived. Domestically and worldwide, dealing with global warming has become mainstream, mainly because of Al Gore’s personal involvement. He is truly an impressive example of what one person can accomplish in raising the awareness of billions of people. It is also the year that brought the United States a new Congress. Most important, the American public has become increasingly skeptical about the Iraq War.The campaigning for a new president is in full swing, with a woman and an African American as the Democratic front-runners— truly an amazing circumstance in American history! And here you are, celebrating your eighty-sixth birthday in 2008 and in full swing as well! What would you like to emphasize most of all in this amazing year regarding your peacebuilding work? Is it the creation of synergy by combining people and events and facilitating networks? Is it the promise of sporting events to take the place of wars and armed hostilities among peoples? Or is it a new model of international aid where developed countries assist developing countries with newfound oil riches to decide how to use their funds wisely? While thinking about the stories you have told to illustrate your work and the list of projects waiting to be realized, an image comes to mind, an image of you as a juggler, with ten, fifteen, twenty balls in the air. Maybe one falls on the floor, but, never mind, you just pick it up and continue. Surely, your job as juggler would be less taxing if funding for small NGOs like yours were more readily available.

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IMTD AND THE U.S. MILITARY National Defense University Course on “Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding” The past and the present sometimes come together to create the future. The developing relationship between IMTD and the U.S. military is an example in which a series of events impact each other and lead to a breakthrough or new undertaking. The fact that IMTD is teaching a course to the military at the National Defense University can be traced to four events.

ONE

I graduated from the National War College in 1967 and much later was invited by Dr. Alan Whittaker, a member of IMTD, to lecture in his course at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

TWO

Chris Honeyman, managing partner of Convenor Conflict Management based in Madison, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C., and Andrea Schneider, of Marquette University Law School, asked me to write a chapter for their book, The Negotiator’s Fieldbook. In the course of work on that project, I happened to read one of the other chapters—a brilliant piece entitled “The Military Learns to Negotiate” by Major Leonard L. Lira. He pointed out that the military learns to negotiate by trial and error and receives no training in this important field. I called the major up, explained who I was, and asked if he would recommend in the last paragraph of his article that the military should receive formal training in negotiation. He agreed and amended his article accordingly and sent me a copy of the revised text.

THREE

About this same time, Andrea Strimling, a commissioner and mediator with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, in Washington, D.C., told me that she and some colleagues were teaching a pilot project course at the

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United States Military Academy at West Point in conflict resolution. She sent me a copy of the syllabus.

FOUR

In November 2005, with the syllabus and the major’s chapter in hand, I asked Dr. Whittaker if IMTD could put together a course to train the colonels and senior civilians at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. He liked the idea and arranged for me to meet the dean at ICAF in February 2006. The dean, a marine colonel, was an imposing figure. He was six foot six, in uniform, with a chest full of medals. He listened to my oral proposal and reviewed my written suggestions and, at the end of half an hour, he agreed to the idea and asked that we put together a comprehensive syllabus for his review. This took a few months and lots of effort from various people. Dr. Eileen Borris, our chief of training at IMTD, and Dr. Brian Polkinghorn, a board member of IMTD and professor at Salisbury University in Maryland, were especially helpful. Finally Lieutenant General Frances C. Wilson, commandant of the National Defense University system, approved the course, which began in January of 2007. The exciting thing about this course is that it’s the first time in history that the U.S. military has been taught about conflict resolution and peacebuilding. As a result of these four events, our course is now offered by the National Defense University: course number 6065—Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding. It is open to all students at Fort McNair. Many of my colleagues and friends joined me to lecture in the course: Dr. Eileen Borris, Professor Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Professor Brian Polkinghorn, retired Major General Bill Nash, a former IMTD board member, Dr. Lynn Sandra Kahn, and Major Shannon Beebee. In the last class, we divided the students into four groups. Each group had to make a fifteenminute Power Point presentation on how to solve the conflict they had selected to discuss. They made outstanding presentations on Kashmir, Kosovo, Sudan, and Georgia, never suggesting the use of a military option in their solutions. After the first course, a marine colonel came up after class and said, “If I had only known what you have taught me this semester, when I was in Iraq, I would have done things totally differently.” The twelve-week course was a great success, and we were asked to give it again in the fall of 2007 and in the spring of 2008.

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In their evaluation of the course, several students said that this elective should be a required core course for every student at the National Defense University. At the end of the second course, a full colonel in the army told us, “This is the finest course I have ever taken in my entire career.” It is comments like this that make our work worthwhile.

New Concepts for Majors In October 2007, I was invited to the Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where the army majors go through a ten-month course. I introduced conflict resolution and peacebuilding concepts for three days with sixty majors. They were receptive to these new ideas and began to build them into their postwar peacebuilding strategies. During this visit, Christel and I also had the privilege to hear a speech by Admiral Mike Mullen, who had just been appointed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The number-one military man in the United States addressed the entire college of about 1,000 majors. In his presentation, Admiral Mullen stressed several times the fact that “we cannot do it alone.” He said, “This is a time of transition, and we should not do what we did in the Gulf War. Interagency cooperation is important, especially with the State Department. It requires commitment of all, including other nations. The military cannot do it all.” After the lecture Christel and I had an opportunity to speak briefly with Admiral Mullen. I told him about the courses I was teaching at Fort Leavenworth and the NDU. He congratulated me and said, “We need more of this.” I believe IMTD is beginning to make a small impact on the U.S. military, but, of course, it will take some time for new ideas to filter down to all involved in military planning and execution.

LIBYA AND SOCCER Sports and Diplomacy Another example of the effects of synergy and networking has to do with Libya. Until quite recently, the U.S. government had not talked to the Libyan government for almost thirty years. However, by December 2003 after Colonel Muamaar Gaddafi reversed his policy on weapons of mass destruction and opened his country to U.S. inspectors, the United States began direct talks with Libya.

Figure 14.1. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, with John W. McDonald, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, October 2007

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In 1999, I had learned that a Libyan professor in Belgium had actually managed to convene a meeting there of fifteen Americans and fifteen Libyans for a three-day dialogue. This was impressive. I arranged to meet this professor at the Appeal for Peace Conference that I was attending in The Hague. I told him I wanted to do the same thing that he had done, except that the meeting would be in Washington, D.C. He was skeptical but wished me well. Six months later he held a second meeting in Malta, but, as far as I could judge, nothing seemed to come out of these two sessions. I continued to pursue this idea and gradually formed a Libyan-American Friendship Association comprised of six Libyan Americans living in the United States. We met four or five times a year and were able to set up an NGO in Tripoli by the same name and to bring the head of that NGO to the United States on two occasions. At our September 2003 meeting, John Fuller, a loyal member of the group who had also attended the two sessions in Belgium and Malta, came up with a brilliant idea: Why not try to arrange a soccer match between D.C. United, Washington’s soccer team, and Libya? The Libyans could come to D.C. first, and then a return match could be held in Tripoli. I paid a call on the State Department desk officer for Libya. It turned out he was an avid soccer fan, loved the idea, and agreed to support it. Then I wrote a letter to the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs proposing the soccer exchange. Two weeks later I received a telephone call from his deputy, Gregory L. Berry, who told me the time was not ripe for this idea. Then came Gaddafi’s positive change of heart. I called Berry again and asked if the time was now ripe for soccer. He said things looked much better and told me that the State Department was putting together a list of things to talk about with the Libyan Foreign Ministry. I asked if soccer was on the list of talking points. After a pause, he finally said, “Yes.” That was progress. The desk officer had done his job. I asked Berry if he would mind if I contacted our NGO friends in Tripoli and asked them to put soccer on the foreign minister’s list of talking points. He didn’t mind at all, and three days later I was able to tell him that soccer was on the Libyan Foreign Ministry list. For IMTD it meant that both sides of Track One were now on board. We met with the D.C. United team and together decided that the first match should be in Libya. To celebrate, in June 2004, we hosted a beautiful luncheon at the Cosmos Club with D.C. United, the head of the Libyan NGO, business people, and representatives of the State Department and the Libyan Mission in D.C. I thought the game would happen soon, but I was mistaken. Relations between the two countries cooled for a time. Finally,

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at the end of June 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice removed the “terrorist” label from Libya and announced the formal establishment of diplomatic relations.

Ground Work in Libya Alan Kaplan, then our program manager for the soccer project, and I went to Libya in July 2006 and did a lot of groundwork for the soccer match. For months, we tried to get John Fuller a visa so he could take the D.C. United draft contract to Tripoli and discuss it with the Libyans. No visa. Finally, we invited the president of the Libyan Football Association, Jamal Saleh El Jaafri, to come to the United States. It took three months for him to get a U.S. visa. He arrived in August 2007. The president is a charming, gracious person, and we had a wonderful five days together. He had a chance to see D.C. United play and win here in Washington and met with the owners and senior staff of the team and toured the stadium. Meetings were arranged with State Department and Libyan officials, and a luncheon was held—again at the Cosmos Club— in his honor. At the luncheon he presented IMTD and the Cosmos Club each with a lovely silver tray from the Libyan Football (Soccer) Federation, comprising 142 football clubs. Finally, after many discussions of the financial arrangements, agreement was reached on November 30, 2007. D.C. United is scheduled to play in Tripoli in 2008, and Libya will play a return match here in Washington, D.C. We are pleased about this people-to-people exchange and so is the State Department.

“Score for Peace” in Other Countries Dodge Fielding, an American businessman and soccer aficionado, joined our IMTD team in November 2007. With his help, we have decided to take the soccer for peace idea to other countries. Hess Oil Corporation, represented by Al Marchetti, Vice president of International Relations, has provided IMTD with some funding to focus on the U.S.-Libyan game because of his company’s interest in Libyan oil. We are now exploring other potential soccer games with Third World countries where Hess has investments and where a friendship game can make a difference. D.C. United is also interested in expanding its base internationally. This is all in the early stages. However, thinking ahead, we have reserved two trademarked web page names: “Score for Peace” and “One Per Cent for Peace.”

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THE GLOBAL PEACE INDEX Spreading the Word In November 2006, Steve Killelea, an Australian millionaire businessman, approached me with a fascinating proposition. He wanted to rank the nations of the world based on their peacefulness. I immediately embraced the idea and asked how IMTD could help. He wanted our help in spreading the word about this idea across the United States. We partnered with Chic Dombach, executive director of the Alliance for Peace, an NGO in Washington, D.C., which we had helped to found in 1995, and got to work. Killelea signed a contract with the Intelligence Unit of the Economist in London, and the Unit developed twenty-four criteria and, based primarily on statistical evidence, ranked 121 nations of the world on their peacefulness. In the meantime Chic and I were busy spreading the word. On May 30, 2007, we organized the launch of the Global Peace Index at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Clyde McConaghy, the former head of the Economist’s Intelligence Unit and now Global Peace Index President in Sydney, Australia, was the keynote presenter, and Steve Killelea played that role at a simultaneous launch in London. The peace index took the world by surprise, but it was immediately successful. Some 450,000 press stories covered it in over 100 countries. The web page of the peace index (www.visionofhumanity.com) recorded about eleven million hits during the month after the launch. The purpose of the Global Peace Index is to provide a quantitative measure of peacefulness that can be compared over time. Its aim is to inspire and influence world leaders and governments to engage in action that improves their country’s ranking. It is also an important teaching tool and an interesting conversation piece—people try to guess which countries are ranked the most peaceful. First place went to Norway, followed by New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, and Japan. Switzerland was number fourteen and the United States was number ninety-six, followed by Iran.

Follow-up Activities Six weeks after the official launch, IMTD did a second launch at SAIS (Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.). There I announced three follow-up actions:

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1. I had already written to Clyde McConaghy asking for the addition of a twenty-fifth selection criterion “on the role of women in society” when the index was updated in 2008. I promised to make detailed suggestions about what the new criterion should cover. (Yves-Renée Jennings of IMTD and Dr. Michaela Hertkorn, former IMTD intern and now professor at NYU, assisted in this effort.) 2. IMTD planned to develop a syllabus for a three-hour master’s level course on the analysis and study of the Global Peace Index. 3. IMTD planned to develop a project to rank the fifty states of the United States and the District of Columbia on their peacefulness. The purpose is to motivate state governments and populations to engage in activities that improve their ranking from year to year. Thanks to the outstanding work of Dr. Michaela Hertkorn and assisted by our board member, Dr. Brian Polkinghorn, we now have up on our webpage (www.imtd.org) for all to see and download if interested, two different syllabi on measuring global peace: “The Conflict Resolution Perspective” and “The Global Studies Perspective.” During the summer of 2007, the entire IMTD staff worked on identifying criteria for ranking the states on their peacefulness. On August 24, 2007, we convened five distinguished professors to help in the development of criteria: Sarah Cobb (George Mason University-Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution), Bill Zartman (SAIS), Ron Fisher (American University), Brian Polkinghorn (Salisbury University), and Michaela Hertkorn (New York University). They also reviewed the two syllabi. Our hope is that universities across the world will access the syllabi and use them. Seven universities so far have said they will use the material. We also hope that master’s degree students in various fields will do the research and apply our criteria to one of the fifty states. In that manner all states could be covered. We would then review the material and come out with the final rank order.

THE NIGER DELTA, NIGERIA Peaceful Protests by Women For many years, I have followed events in the great country of Nigeria and have been consistently disappointed by the inability of the different

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governments and their leaders to successfully manage their enormous oil wealth or to effectively address many of the problems that the country has been dealing with since independence. Key problems are strife between the predominantly Muslim North and the predominantly Christian South, corruption, ubiquitous dilapidated infrastructure and environmental degradation, especially in the oil-rich Niger Delta, and poverty. Once again, several events led to IMTD’s current involvement in the Niger Delta. For example, in 2002, about 2,000 women occupied Chevron’s main export facility in Port Harcourt for ten days. They managed to halt the movement of oil. A report from IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks, a UN service) stated, “the protesters first seized a boat at the Escravos export terminal. They later divided into separate groups and occupied the airstrip, the helicopter pad, the oil storage area and the docks. More than seven hundred Nigerian and expatriate employees of the company remained trapped at the facility, officials said. Planes and helicopters have been unable to land while boats cannot dock, making it impossible to bring in fresh supplies to the terminal.” The women ended their peaceful protest after Chevron promised to meet their demands for schools and the building of electrical and water systems in the area. On another occasion in 2003, a few hundred women protested Shell’s decision to fence off a gas flare that had served them to dry their tapioca. As breadwinners for their families, they were dependent on that heat source for their income. One method the women used in both cases was to threaten to remove their clothes, a powerful traditional shaming method; however, in both instances the demonstrations were peaceful and the women waited for days or weeks until they got a positive response. In the 2002 incident, the president of Chevron, which had lost $450 million in revenue because of the women’s protest, showed up during the third week. He sat down with the women leaders, and they negotiated and signed a written memorandum of understanding. The president agreed to spend about $3 million, in response to their requests, for new schools, teachers and books, safe drinking water and sanitation, and several other basic human needs that had been ignored for decades. I was delighted with this story because it was another example of women as peacebuilders. A year later, four people from Port Harcourt came to IMTD to meet and talk. The leader of the group was a clergyman. He was joined by a woman peace activist and two human rights lawyers. During our conversation, I mentioned the 2002 incident and said how proud I was of the actions of those brave women. A long silence followed. The clergyman finally spoke and said, “Did you hear what happened after that?” When I said I

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didn’t, he said that “the American” had gone back to the United States and had torn up the agreement, saying it had been negotiated under duress and was invalid. He did nothing. So, this circumstance led to another incident in the string of incidents contributing to IMTD’s current involvement in the Niger Delta. In November 2006, a good friend, Mike Godfrey, practice manager for crisis mitigation and recovery at Development Alternatives, Incorporated (DAI), a major for-profit development company in nearby Bethesda, Maryland, told me about armed groups of militant youth in Port Harcourt. For quite some time, they had been carrying out a string of violent and criminal activities, mainly kidnapping of expatriate oil workers, to protest the government’s inability to radically change things in the Niger Delta. DAI had signed an agreement with a Nigerian businessman from Port Harcourt, Ken Etete, CEO of Century Energy Services, to help facilitate a meeting between the groups of youths and the military. With his private, nongovernmental initiative, he wanted to do his part to bring peace to the area.

Meetings in Port Harcourt I became quite interested and asked what their plans were. In November 2006, DAI decided to send a British consultant who had spent years in Nigeria to Port Harcourt to assess the situation and see how DAI might be of assistance. With Godfrey’s acquiescence, I called the consultant, told him the story about the protesting women, and urged him just to listen to the young people’s complaints and then report back with DAI. I pointed out that no one had listened to them and they needed to vent. A few days later, I learned that twenty-some persons had shown up for the meeting with the consultant. It was held at an army camp near Port Harcourt. We assumed that attendance was low because many were afraid of being arrested. The meeting was chaired by Lieutenant General Owoye Andrew Azazi, a native of the Niger Delta, and who was recently promoted to a four-star general, chief of defense staff of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The general is a friend of Ken Etete. Both come from the area, they feel a special obligation to try to bring about some change there, and they had decided to work together. They called the initiative the Niger Delta Peace Forum (NDPF) and decided to meet again at the end of January 2007. Mike Godfrey asked for our help in facilitating the second meeting, which actually took place in February 2007, and developing, in the best-case scenario, some positive commitments by all sides. We have been involved

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ever since. Noa Zanolli took over the task for IMTD of facilitating the meeting of militant youth group representatives, the army, represented by General Azazi, and Etete. Although the circumstances were far from ideal, the three parties all pledged to carry out clear and doable action steps by the next meeting, which was scheduled for the summer of 2007. The youth groups pledged to work for peace in the Delta; General Azazi pledged to bring the message of the participants to the president of Nigeria, to be a good role model for the youth, and to have an open ear for their requests; and Etete pledged to set up a small office in Port Harcourt as headquarters for the NDPF. DAI and IMTD offered to continue their involvement to the extent that funding was made available. As a result of this meeting, the twenty-four Filipino oil workers and several other expatriate oil workers kidnapped on January 20 were released. We were then informed that the release was ransom free. In the summer of 2007, Ken Etete visited Washington, D.C. I brought him together with DAI, and IMTD offered to continue to support his efforts. The NDPF office in Port Harcourt is open and operating with an outstanding, experienced Nigerian woman, Data Jaja, as manager. IMTD has sent her project proposals designed to continue conflict resolution and peacebuilding training, and we are both looking for funds. On October 1, 2007, IMTD opened the Washington branch of the NDPF. We plan to bring Nigerians from the Washington area together and get the diaspora involved in the NDPF’s efforts.

EQUATORIAL GUINEA Oil Riches and New Opportunities Equatorial Guinea is a small country, the size of Maryland, on the West Coast of Africa, wedged in between Cameroon and Gabon. Its capital Malabo is located on the Island of Bioko. It has had a difficult history since its independence in 1968 from 190 years of Spanish rule. In September of 1968, Francisco Macías Nguema was elected the first president. In 1972 he took over complete control of the government. In subsequent years, the country’s infrastructure fell into ruin; all schools were ordered closed in 1975; the country’s population fell by a third through death or exile; skilled citizens and foreigners left. In August 1979, Macías’s nephew, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, led a successful coup d’état. He is still in office.

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The country remained impoverished for many years. However, in 1995, oil was discovered, and soon money began to flow into the treasury. Today the economy is growing dramatically, and the government has focused on building up the infrastructure—new airports, paved roads, beautiful government office buildings, and new hotels. U.S. oil companies have invested over $11 billion and the United States currently imports 15 percent of its oil and gas from Equatorial Guinea. Few people in the United States have ever heard of this country, and even fewer realize its current importance to the United States.

The Social Needs Fund: A New Role for USAID On April 6, 2006 an extraordinary event occurred. The president of Equatorial Guinea had decided to establish a fund (now called the Social Needs Fund) for the benefit of his people using his country’s newly acquired oil money. He asked the U.S. Agency for International Development to help the country develop the projects the fund would pay for. According to the agreement, USAID would receive a total of $15 million from Equatorial Guinea, over three years, to help the country get started with projects in health, education, women’s affairs, drinking water and sanitation, and the environment. This was the first time that USAID had ever received money from another country rather than giving U.S. tax dollars to others. DAI had been awarded a USAID contract to carry out the agreement and in September 2006, I was nominated by DAI to be an international advisor to Prime Minister Ricardo Mangué Obama Nfubé, who was establishing an advisory council to help manage the Social Development Fund. In April 2007 I was delighted to accept the prime minister’s invitation. The other international advisor was Brian Atwood, who had been USAID administrator for six years under President Bill Clinton and is now dean of the Hubert Humphrey Institute of the University of Minnesota. On June 19, 2007, Christel and I flew to Equatorial Guinea. After initial briefings in Malabo by the USAID representative, the DAI team, and U.S. ambassador Donald C. Johnson—and a warm welcome from his wife Nelda—we flew to the mainland and economic capital, Bata. Atwood and I attended the official meeting on June 22, 2007 with representatives from the most important ministries involved in the projects to be developed as well the ministries of finance and planning and public investment. A document describing sixty-eight projects was submitted to us in Spanish five minutes before the meeting began. After some discussion,

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with the help of an interpreter, it was agreed to focus on about ten of the projects and to examine them in greater detail at a subsequent meeting. The trip had been quick but fascinating. Equatorial Guinea is a beautiful country, with deep black fertile soil on the Island of Bioko thanks to its volcanic history, an attractive Atlantic coastline and on the mainland the historical town of Bata. My wife Christel especially admired some of the local arts and crafts. The first year of the project was tough for USAID and DAI; progress was very slow. I finally realized that USAID and DAI staff had never worked with another country’s money before; they had only worked with U.S. money. Further, the contractor, DAI, was used to working closely with USAID. However, the government ministries of Equatorial Guinea thought that DAI should be working for them since it was their money. I was able to convince USAID that this was the problem and to shift USAID’s thinking with regard to the continuation of this project. USAID would have to change its whole approach and write a new, specially designed contract for this particular DAI project. This would enable DAI to work in a new way as well. Now that the project has been revamped under new guidelines, a second meeting will be held in Equatorial Guinea in the spring of 2008. This is a totally new experiment in development that could become a guide for future work in other countries—for example, Chad, Angola, and even Ghana, where oil has just been found.

A CHRONIC HEADACHE: SEEKING FUNDING Fifteen Proposals Awaiting Funding IMTD has written proposals for fifteen varied projects for which we are actively seeking funding. They show the depth and breadth of IMTD’s outreach. Several of the proposals have been referred to in previous chapters. 1. Middle East Conflict Management Center, Amman, Jordan. This center would be established under the auspices of Prince El Hassan of Jordan and would be the first regional conflict management center in the Middle East to which all persons in the region would have access. 2. Government of Tibet in Exile Training. A few months after our tenth and last training in Dharamsala, India, in June 2004, the chairman of the TGIE Cabinet, who is in effect the prime minister, asked IMTD to develop a twelve-to-fifteen-month training program for young diplomats. (See chapter 11.)

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3. Diplomatic Training, Montenegro. In November 2005, the foreign minister of Montenegro asked IMTD to establish a twelve-month training program for young diplomats. 4. Water and Peace Conference, United States. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Erik Mortensen, a former Columbia University professor, IMTD has a fine proposal for a two-day meeting to discuss the positive aspects for peace in dealing with potential conflicts over water. 5. A Peace Zone in Georgia. In September 2003, President Shevardnadze approved IMTD’s proposal to establish a peace zone in the breakaway province of Abkhazia. A new government took over in Georgia in January 2004 and Shevardnadze is no longer president; however, IMTD is still promoting this idea because the problems persist. (See chapter 13.) 6. Trauma and Healing Centers. For the past several years, IMTD has been seeking funds to establish these centers in Zimbabwe, Nepal, Sierra Leone, and Burundi. 7. Fifth Azad Kashmir Parliamentary Training. This training was planned for early 2006, in Washington, D.C., but the terrible earthquake in Kashmir in October 2005 has delayed this proposal. 8. Peace Plan for Kashmir. In March 2007, I proposed to 1,500 people attending a conference on the future of Kashmir in Islamabad, Pakistan, that IMTD would convene and facilitate a joint meeting of Kashmiris from both sides of the Line of Control, in order to develop, for the first time in the history of the conflict, a common position on their future. (See chapter 13.) 9. Training of Journalists. IMTD believes that peace efforts can be helped through training journalists to do a better job of explaining conflicts to each side and thus to assume a mediating role while reporting objectively. IMTD has developed a project designed to be carried out by Professor Rich Rubenstein of ICAR, which would bring ten journalists from Burundi to Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, to work with ten journalists from that country for a weeklong training. 10. Sudan. In December 2004, I was a member of Bill Lincoln’s team that went to Khartoum, Sudan, on a grant from the National Endowment for Democracy, in Washington D.C., to train representatives from sixteen Christian churches. It was a successful experience, and IMTD has been invited back to do more work in the area.

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11. Cuba. Bill Lincoln and I have developed a community-based, nonthreatening, social change project to be carried out in five of the numerous cities in Cuba that are still linked with the U.S. Sister Cities Program. 12. U.S. Peace Corps, Mediation Training. Based on the experience of returned Peace Corps volunteers who have interned with IMTD, we learned that U.S. volunteers teaching English as a second language had no training in how to handle conflict in the classroom. IMTD developed an excellent proposal to train volunteer teachers and also permanent local staff in the art of conflict resolution, mediation, and peer mediation for schools. The Peace Corps seems interested. 13. New College, Sarasota, Florida. Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Nat Colletta, an IMTD board member and former World Bank senior official, who now lives in Sarasota, Florida, IMTD has developed connections with New College. Our hope is to open an IMTD branch office there and to attract some financial support for our work from that wealthy community, using New College as a base. The money has not yet been forthcoming, but IMTD is well known to the college because some New College students have served as IMTD interns. They have put together a peer mediation project for one of the local high schools and have the full support of the principal and, of course, the president of New College. They are now trying to raise money to carry out the project. 14. Parliamentary Training, Somalia. IMTD’s Somali dialogue has given its strong support to the development of a project to train parliamentary leaders from Somalia, in Nairobi, Kenya. The World Bank seems to be interested in the idea. 15. The Women of the Don, Russia. Training in peer mediation for teachers from Chechnya and the Rostov area. This last project idea involves a long story: every project develops differently, but they are all about people. On December 12, 2006, my good friend and colleague, Marsha Blakeway, from the National Peace Foundation, a local NGO, introduced me to four Russian women teachers. They belonged to the Women of the Don, a Russian NGO based in the town of Rostov on the Don River in the North Caucasus. The president of that association, Valentina Cherevatenko, was one of the 1,000 “PeaceWomen” nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005 (www.1000peacewomen.org). The NGO of the Women of the Don carries out, among many others, ac-

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tivities on peacekeeping and reconciliation of the Chechen and Russian peoples. Among the materials about their work that my visitors left me was an article from the Herald Tribune, dated November 30, 2006, concerning a World Bank Report on the North Caucasus. The name of one of the authors of this report, Gloria LaCava, rang a bell. I contacted Nat Colletta, a member of the IMTD board, in Florida. Sure enough, I was right. Nat was the coauthor of the report and, yes, Gloria LaCava was still in D.C. with the World Bank. He offered to help the Russian women to meet with LaCava. I prepped Marsha to find out if LaCava would fund the women’s NGO to do peer mediation training. I learned later that the meeting was successful: the seed had been planted. During the months that followed I met with Gloria LaCava again, and we kept in touch by telephone. She was truly interested in the women, and I learned that the Japanese government planned to give the World Bank $10 million for the North Caucasus. She agreed to have the funds transferred to UNICEF to pass to its branch office in Rostov to help finance the projects listed in her report. Then Noa Zanolli entered the picture. IMTD was able to sponsor her trip to Rostov in November 2007 to carry out training in conflict resolution at a teachers’ conference organized by the Women of the Don for over a hundred teachers from Chechnya and the Rostov area. Her report was sent by us to the World Bank and then forwarded to UNICEF. I am convinced that in a few months things will really move along and more training can be done in the field of conflict resolution and peer mediation in the schools in the region.

Reflecting on IMTD’s Work and the Need for Funds If IMTD had an endowment, I could focus more intensely and continuously on our work, rather than on searching for funding. We get invited to help in conflicts all the time; our program is effective. The issue is how we can find the money to help. If we had funds, we could expand our staff, pay them a salary, and do the things we are being asked to do. Many people don’t realize that the U.S. government, the World Bank, and many other donor agencies do not want to deal with small NGOs. They prefer very large NGOs like CARE, Mercy Corps, and so on, and for-profit corporations. Why? Because it takes as much time to process a $50,000 grant as it does a $20 million grant. Donor agencies don’t have time for us. We have had great foundation support over the years, but boards of directors change and priorities change, and we are left empty-handed. Our main supporters

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are several private foundations that believe in me and in our work and help us survive. Our members, of course, are essential to keep us going. My traveling days are getting shorter. I am now eighty-six, and I am not going to be able to sustain a rigorous travel schedule too many more years. I made six trips overseas in 2004 but since then have made only two or three overseas trips a year. Sometimes groups can raise the money to come here and then take ideas back, as happened with the Kashmir training. What this fundraising headache has taught me is patience. It’s hard to raise money for peace in 2007 in the United States. I’ve also had to persevere. Some funders need to be regularly reminded of the importance of our projects and the fact that all peacebuilding projects are major investments in a more prosperous future. A person in my position has to be responsive to new ideas—ideas that other people come up with. It is important to keep an open mind. Our project list shows how diverse our interests are, how diverse the activities for peacebuilding are, and how diverse the needs are. We have the talent to help with our many professional associates. We are ready to engage.

Measuring Peace One of our weaknesses, in the eyes of some potential funders, is that we do not have a powerful enough evaluation process to meet their standards. We have never been able to prove peace in terms of statistics. I don’t think the conflict resolution field can do that. And that has been a criticism of the field and of IMTD. Some funders find our stories of reconciliation and forgiveness anecdotal and therefore insufficient. Our work can easily be dismissed because we can’t always produce statistics. Of course the same funders refuse to allow us to put money into the project budget that would allow for further evaluation. One of our first interns and our very first employee, a very bright young man named Jamie Notter, who received his master’s from ICAR, worked for six years on our Cyprus project. He participated in all aspects of the project and evaluated each training session. At that time, there was enough money for him and Louise Diamond to spend time on evaluation and follow-up every six months. One of my old friends, Professor Dan Druckman, at ICAR, who was teaching a course on evaluation, asked if we had any project we could talk to his class about. I mentioned Cyprus and sent Jamie to talk to the class. I was very proud of Jamie’s work there. Professor Druckman, however, was unimpressed. He said, “I want numbers. I want figures. I want statistics.”

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When I heard this I said, ”Sorry, I can’t give you that kind evaluation.” I cannot go down that path because of the little money we have. And nobody has yet developed a successful method of measuring peace, especially when individuals and small groups are at work to reduce tensions. For better or for worse, at this point, I will have to stick to my so-called anecdotal evidence. The people that we impact know that we have made a difference in their lives. That is sufficient for me. We conduct evaluations, before and after every training, to help guide us for the future, but we don’t do it by the numbers.

FAMILY MATTERS During the years I have spent with IMTD, we experienced the loss of my son Jim. He died in the hospital from a botched operation on his gall bladder in November 2002 at the age of fifty-six. It was such an unnecessary death. It shocked us all, as did Kathleen’s death in 1988. But there have been many joyful occasions as well. We have four wonderful grandchildren: Sean, Kathleen’s son; Elizabeth, Jim and Kitty’s daughter; Ruth Juliet and Benjamin, Lynn and Dan’s children. Ruth got married in May 2006 to Morgan Luker who will soon get his PhD in ethnomusic, and Ben married Beth McCarthy in November 2007. My children have had impressive careers: all went to graduate school on their own dollar (after I found a way to pay for their undergraduate educations). Jim became an architect; Laura a senior manager for the Federal Aviation Administration; Kathleen, after her MBA from Wharton, worked for Exxon; and Lynn got her PhD from UCLA in social work and taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, before creating her own NGO, FAST (Families and Schools Together). She and her husband Mike (they got married in 1990) are for the moment living in London. Laura and her husband Bernie, a pilot, are working in Portland, Oregon. Our grandchildren—and the same goes for my sister Ethel’s grandchildren—are all talented and well educated, and now on the cusp of exciting careers. Christel’s niece Maike and her nephew Jan, the same age as our grandchildren, and living in Hamburg, Germany, are equally talented young professionals. I am sure this new generation will somehow find ways to make up for the things that were not done right in our lifetime. Christel and I have been married over thirty-seven years. We decided early on not to have children of our own. We have made up for

Figure 14.2. John W. and Christel McDonald with their four grandchildren—Ruth and Ben (left) and Elizabeth and Sean (right). Photo credit: Chris Carper.

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this, however, by being an important factor in the lives of our grandchildren. We are so proud of them. I hope that I have passed on to them my compassion for my fellow human beings, regardless of where they come from or their culture, religion, color, or economic background. The strength of good parenting—and good grandparenting—is lifelong interaction, commitment, support, and love.

15 ASSESSING THE STATE OF THE WORLD TODAY 2008

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hroughout this interview I’ve attempted to weave your personal life, your work, and your goals together with U.S. and global events of the times that were most relevant to our subject. As we are coming to an end of this professional and personal memoir, my question is:What are some of the more general conclusions and predictions you would venture and how would you characterize the state of the world today?

THREE THEORIES As I approach the end of this account I would like to discuss three theories about the state of the world today, from a conflict resolution and peacebuilding perspective. I have thought a lot about the subject and have done a great deal of public speaking about it.

“Empire Theory” and the Challenge of Creating Democracies About a century ago, the world was dominated and ruled by ten great empires. Today, they have disappeared. Where did they go, and what impact has their disappearance had? After World War I, the German Empire collapsed, the Austro-Hungarian Empire disappeared, and the Ottoman Empire, which had been around for over five hundred years, was no more. After World War II, the Japanese Empire ended. During the next quarter century, the British, Dutch, French, Belgian, and Portuguese empires collapsed. Finally, the last of the ten, the Soviet Empire, dissolved in 1991.

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Those empires—whether the countries want to acknowledge that today or not—ruled by fear and force. They kept the lid on potential conflicts within their empires by suppressing dissent, emancipation of groups, or attempts at self-rule. Today, no entity has the power or mandate to control or suppress internal conflicts. The UN Charter of 1945 is based on the concept of national sovereignty. That means that any one who wishes to cross the borders of any country must obtain its permission to do so. Every diplomat has to get permission to be posted to a country. That is what visas and accreditation of diplomats are all about. Countries want to know who is within their borders. National sovereignty reigns supreme. In 1945, fifty-one nations signed the UN Charter. The only nation in the world that did not sign the charter then was Switzerland, which did not become a full member until 2002—after a popular vote. In 2006, there were 192 member states in the United Nations. Those new nations came from the collapsed empires. These figures—51 in 1945 and 192 in 2006— show us that two-thirds of the nations of the world are less than forty-five years old. That’s a blink of the eye in world history: forty-five years is just half a lifetime. Many countries do not know how to cope with their new independence. We may think they should automatically become democracies, but a country does not become a democracy automatically. In the former Soviet Empire, most of the new countries became dictatorships because that is what the local power structure wanted and knew and was accustomed to. Other countries, such as Spain after Francisco Franco’s death, experienced a transition to democracy in the 1980. It’s not a natural process to become a democracy. It’s a highly sophisticated process. This is the problem that we have in today’s world. It’s quite a different scene than it was a hundred years ago.

Ethnic Conflict: Changing the Rules My second theory has to do with ethnic conflict. I tried out this theory in 1989 on my visit to Moscow with John Marks and Ray Shonholtz, at the invitation of the U.S.-Canadian section of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (now the Russian Academy of Sciences). This visit was mentioned in chapter 11. During the course of this memorable visit we met with five members of the Supreme Soviet, who had been elected in the first free election in seventy years, to talk about conflict resolution. One of the topics I discussed with the legislators with whom we met were the ethnic conflicts simmering just below the surface in the Soviet Empire—there were

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probably about seventy of them. These could explode at any time, and they were collectively responsible for them because they had violated three, basic nonnegotiable issues. The first is language. The Soviet government required every person in the Soviet Union to speak Russian. If a Soviet citizen wanted to develop a career that person had to learn Russian. The central government deliberately did not recognize that the many ethnic groups under their control spoke many other languages. People wanted to be able to use their own language. When Japan invaded Korea in 1910 they did not allow the Koreans to speak, read, or write their own language. Many Koreans still have not forgiven the Japanese for this. From 1922 to this day, Turkey has not allowed the Kurds, who make up 30 percent of the population, to speak, read, or write their mother tongue. That is the root cause of the conflict in Turkey today. People will fight and die for that right. I urged the Russians to change the rules and reduce the possibility of internal conflict over this issue. The second nonnegotiable issue is religion. The Soviet state was an atheist state for seventy years. No religion of any kind was legally allowed to exist. People went to prison for practicing their faith. For thousands of years, people have fought and died for the right to practice their own religion. This law was a major cause for tension and unrest and should be changed. The third nonnegotiable issue has to do with culture. The government was trying to destroy the ethnic identity of these seventy groups by denying them their art, music, dance, literature, dress, and culinary preferences. They were trying to eliminate or change birth, marriage, and death ceremonies. They were trying to destroy the very identity of a people, and the people were angry. “When people are forced to give way on these nonnegotiable issues— when they are denied their language, religion, and culture—there will be violence,” I told the Soviet legislators. I added that they could change all of this: the rules were human-made and could be changed by a stroke of the pen. If they had the courage and the political will to change they would have a more peaceful empire. These nonnegotiable issues are the root case of internal conflict in many other parts of the world.

From Interstate to Intrastate Conflict My third theory about the state of the world is that the nature of conflict itself has shifted. The UN Charter is based totally on national sovereignty. It is designed to prevent one nation-state from invading another nation-state

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and going to war with that other nation-state. That is what chapter 7 of the charter is all about. Today all conflicts in the world are within national borders. Our current political structures are not designed or equipped to cope with this type of conflict, and no alternate structure has emerged in spite of the fact that over thirty intrastate ethnic conflicts are taking place around the world today. Actually the prestigious NGO called the International Crisis Watch is following seventy-five intrastate conflicts, according to its December 2007 monthly Crisis Watch Report. Track One does not want to hear this and is not changing. National sovereignty remains the operative concept. What can be done to change this situation? A start could be made by changing the rules concerning genocide. The rules of national sovereignty could be suspended in the case of genocide. Thus, the UN Security Council could send peacekeeping forces into a country at risk without the approval of its leaders. In August 2005, the Security Council took a step in that direction by passing a resolution saying a government should take steps to protect its own people. However, the word “genocide” was never mentioned, so this first step did not lead to anything more specific. When it comes to today’s intrastate conflicts, there is a vacuum for a concerted intervention. How long will it take for the world to change? Fifteen, twenty years? I learned a long time ago that every bureaucracy in the world is afraid of change because people making decisions within the bureaucracy might lose their jobs, they might lose some turf, they might lose power. They resist change of whatever kind. Track Two, or civil society, has to step in and push the system to change. The most dramatic current example of the need for change is the case of Darfur, Sudan, where genocide has been raging for four years. Track One has not been successful in stopping the government of Sudan from killing its own people. At the end of 2003, I was visited by four private individuals from Darfur. After they described the terrible things that were being inflicted on their people by the government of Sudan, I said to them that, in my opinion, what was taking place there was genocide, even though nobody wanted to call it that. I then tried to get the attention of Track One, without success. In September 2004, Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Darfur, used the word “genocide” for the first time to describe the situation. It should have been the magic word to prompt the United States to set the national sovereignty of Sudan aside. But it wasn’t: the United States did not take any action. Only humanitarian assistance was supplied. There was no serious action to pressure President Omar Ahmed al-Bashir of Sudan to stop the killing.

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Finally, in July 2007, the Security Council authorized a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force to be fielded in January 2008. Roadblocks put into place by President Bashir in December 2007 make progress almost impossible. One man has staved off the world, based on the strength of national sovereignty.

CURRENT TRENDS IN CONFLICT RESOLUTION People Power: A New Worldwide Movement I mentioned “people power” briefly in chapter 13. This important concept is generally ignored by the media. People power is a fascinating part of Track Six: peace activism. People power works to effect peaceful revolutions. IMTD has examined fourteen cases where people power was an active force (see IMTD Occasional Papers, numbers 14 and 18.) The countries involved were Nepal (two cases), Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Hong Kong, Georgia, Ukraine, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, Bolivia, Uzbekistan, Togo, Cyprus, and Hungary. What can be concluded about people power from these cases, all of which took place between 1999 and 2006? 1. Thirteen of the fourteen peaceful revolutions were successful in varying degrees. Uzbekistan was the exception. 2. The thirteen changed government systems for the better, from the people’s point of view. 3. The Indonesia case destroyed the myth that a Muslim nation could not become a democracy. 4. The Yugoslavia case proved that a dictatorial leader could be brought before an international tribunal and charged with war crimes. 5. The Georgia case proved that a former member of the Soviet Empire could become a democracy. Georgia paved the way for Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. 6. The Togo and Bolivia cases showed that the people power movement has spread to all geographical regions in the world. 7. With 500,000 people demonstrating peacefully in Hong Kong in 2003 against proposed restrictions on civil liberties, it became evident that China was not totally immune to change. 8. The role of the military is critical. If it follows orders blindly and murders unarmed peaceful citizens, as was the case in Uzbekistan, the government can overcome the demonstrators and win for the time being. However, the discontent will continue.

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9. Our general conclusion is that when people come together by the millions, they can change governments. People power will grow as groups learn from each other. In October 2007 the Buddhist monks of Burma almost succeeded in bringing about a peaceful revolution. They failed this time, but they will succeed eventually. Governments do not want to talk about people power out of fear. But people power is growing and spreading from continent to continent. I was expecting and hoping that Zimbabwe would be among countries that had experienced peaceful, people-driven change. Instead, the situation today is a disaster. The country was the former breadbasket of Southern Africa, exporting food to its neighbors. Now, under the despotic leadership of President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s people are starving. After a badly flawed election in 2005, when he shut down the free press and put all opposition leaders in prison, Mugabe had the gall to order the destruction of all the slums around the major cities in the country. They were bulldozed, and the slum dwellers were trucked back to their villages. Over a million people were moved. I thought that would be the moment the people would rise up in anger. Unfortunately, their leaders were in prison and the opportunity passed. The situation is not hopeless, though it at times seems to be so. The concept of people power is going to build on itself. The best example of that is what happened in the former Soviet Union. Within sixteen months, starting with Georgia in November 2003, Ukraine in November 2004, and Kyrgyzstan in March 2005, people power spread, each peaceful revolution built on the one before. People power is a major factor in the geopolitical situation today. Governments don’t want to recognize this trend; some try to prevent it. But it’s there. And it will inspire others who want freedom and democracy.

The Power of Communications Technology President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia taught me why some of these peaceful revolutions were successful. According to him, his “Revolution of the Roses” was successful in November 2003 because of the cell phone. In Georgia land telephone lines were hopeless. It could take a year or two to get a telephone installed in your house, but everybody in a leadership position in the opposition had a cell phone. He said, “The cell phone enabled us to keep in touch with each other and move our groups from one place to another at a moment’s notice. Fast communication was essential for our suc-

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cess.” The fax machine was, in my view, partly responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. People used it to inform each other about what was going on, and the government couldn’t control it. The cell phone and its ability to take and send pictures around the world, the computer, the Internet, and e-mail keep civil society informed and linked together. Many governments are worried about losing control over their people because of modern high-tech communications techniques. That is why China is putting forth a massive effort to control Internet access of its citizens. Modern communication technology provides people with instant access to global information. What they find out may bring about very rapid changes in the way they think and act. The first thing a dictator or would-be dictator does when challenged, especially before an election, is to shut down all TV, radio stations, and newspapers not controlled by the government. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin exemplified this strategy in the parliamentary elections in December 2007. However, he was not able to control other forms of communication. His party received only 60 percent of the vote in spite of his actions. Apparently the young people were able to stay in touch with each other by cell phone and encourage each other not to vote for Putin’s party. Modern technology is empowering people to do things they never dreamed they could do before. We have left behind the days in the 1950s and 1960s when people had to crank out pamphlets on mimeograph machines. Now speed has been added. People will take advantage of technology. They all want freedom from dictatorial ideologies.

NGOs and the Global System NGOs play a special role in global affairs; they do things that governments don’t want to do, don’t have the skills to do, or are afraid to do. They have grown exponentially in the last thirty years. In 1975, the United Nations held its first World Conference on Women and Development in Mexico City; a few hundred NGO representatives were present. At the second such conference five years later in Copenhagen, hundreds had turned to thousands. At the third, in Nairobi in 1985, 20,000 women representing hundreds of NGOs were present. In Beijing in 1995, at the last World Conference on Women and Development, 35,000 NGO representatives were in attendance. The global women’s movement is now a powerful change agent for women. They learned many lessons over these twenty years and the world has benefited from their leadership. After all it is the women who are the peacebuilders.

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The first time I heard the word NGO was in 1968, at the New Delhi Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD II). The handful of NGOs present were basically ignored by the Track One delegates. The first time NGOs had a major impact was at the 1972 UN World Conference on the Environment in Stockholm, where several thousand people representing hundreds of NGOs held their own parallel conference. This was my first experience. The second came in Bucharest at the first UN Conference on Population in 1974. I learned to work together with NGOs professionally at all of the UN conferences in which I was involved. If I headed a delegation, I would meet daily with interested NGO representatives, talk to them about their concerns, explain our policy and goals, solicit their views, and ask them to spread the word among their community. I would also meet daily with the press, trying to influence them in a positive sense to write positive stories about what we were trying to do. It usually worked. It is amazing what just talking to people can accomplish. In many instances I got in touch with NGOs long before a UN conference took place—to learn from them and to avoid confrontation during the conference itself. The NGOs knew I recognized the importance of their role: they would be the ones who would push the governments to meet the commitments they made during the conference after the conference was over. NGOs reach across the whole spectrum of humanity. They are an enormously positive global force for the common good. However, the United Nations was slow to recognize them and put up many barriers to recognition. But the world organization is doing much better these days. The importance of the NGOs is clear; they will become more and more effective with experience. The Internet will influence how NGOs are organized and operated. For example, an NGO called www.avaaz.org operates only through the Internet. It is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people inform global decision making. Our grandson Benjamin Wikler is its managing director. Avaaz grew from a small NGO in 2006 into one with almost two million members by the end of 2007. At any moment, Avaaz can call on its members around the world to come together, via the Internet, to sign petitions and pressure governments and organizations into hearing “what the people have to say.” The impact of Avaaz was astonishing in the Climate Change Summit in Bali, Indonesia, in December 2007. When Canada was stalling the negotiations, Avaaz “called” on its Canadian members. More than 110,000 citizens demanded that their country stop blocking the talks,

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supported an ad campaign in Canadian newspapers, and called the prime minister’s office and their representatives in Parliament. A Canadian youth delegation in Bali constantly dogged their environment minister with the Avaaz petition. At the very end, the Canadian delegation changed its position, accepted the Bali road map, and publicly gave Avaaz credit. In sum, Avaaz coordinated the largest joint climate petition delivery in history, combining petition efforts from nearly a dozen major environmental and progressive organizations and people from around the world, totaling over 2,600,000 voices for climate action. There are a million NGOs in the United States, representing all levels of society and dedicated to achieving all kinds of purposes. The NGO movement started in the United States, and now many U.S. NGOs are focusing on a systems approach to peacebuilding. I have been instrumental in establishing two NGOs, in addition to IMTD: Global Water and the American Association for International Aging. My wife Christel and I helped to create an NGO called Touchstone Theater in Arlington, Virginia. Led by a brilliant artistic director, Michael Murphy, and many volunteers for lighting, scenery construction, and the like, we put on a number of great plays for small audiences. In fact, one of the plays even received a coveted Helen Hayes Award. Unfortunately, the theater closed its door when Murphy left the area. The United States has the largest number of NGOs, but the concept of NGO activity is spreading from the industrialized world also to the developing countries. Yet, the leadership in some countries unfortunately views NGOs with suspicion and even bans them.

PROJECTION FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Well before the end of this century, we must develop a world government. It can be based on the United Nations and the existing web of global treaties that already have been adopted by the world over the last sixty years, as I mentioned in chapter 9. Few people realize what a magnificent document we have in the UN Charter. I put the drafters of the charter in the same category as the drafters of our own Constitution. Both groups had great foresight. And both documents start with the words “We, the People.” Some may see the idea of world government as a threat to patriotism, national sovereignty, and culture. I do not. Many of the problems we encounter today, such as environment and population, do not have political boundaries. What’s more, the concept of national sovereignty is not working

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very well today. The world cannot sit by and allow the genocide in Sudan to take place and at the same time call itself a civilized world. Things have to change and are changing. World government should be a federated state system so that languages and religions and cultures would continue to exist. After all, our fifty states have worked well together for many decades. We also have a great model in the European Union. It started with six nations in 1951 with the European Coal and Steel Community, followed in 1958 by the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). It grew from six to seven, to nine, to twelve, to fifteen, and then to twenty-five, and today to twenty-seven member states. France and Germany fought each other for over a thousand years, but now they are allies in a federated system. Language, for example, should not be that big an issue in a world government. The United Nations has operated with six languages for many years in spite of the fact it now has 192 member states.

MY RIGHT PATH A long time ago, I made up my mind that I would see anybody who found their way to my door. I believe that people who find me have a need and a reason to see me. I try to be responsive to their questions and their needs in any way that I can. People come from all over the world to see me. I consider my interaction with them an important part of what I do. In the speeches I make, I talk about IMTD and about hope. I especially like to talk at universities and to graduate students who are interested in conflict resolution. They need to hear from a practitioner and need inspiration and hope about their future. I will continue to speak as long as I am able. Whenever I approach any task, it’s with total focus and dedication to carry it out. Too many people in this world love to talk about a problem; others love to write about the problem; very few know how to do something about the problem. It’s easy to think up new ideas; but it’s not that easy to find solutions to problems. I have been optimistic about the future of the world all along, but especially since Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 and got the world to focus on climate change. I will always be an optimist. There are two different sides to every coin; a lot of people only look at the pessimistic side. I will also always be hopeful for the future of the world and humanity. It is that hope that has propelled me to work fifty hours a week, or

Figure 15.1.

John W. and Christel McDonald looking forward to future projects

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more, without pay, supported by my wife Christel, to engage in peacebuilding when I could have retired. All of the skills that I have accumulated over the decades have come together to influence my work since I started IMTD. My getting forced out of one job or another, moving me on to another unexpected challenge was part of a larger plan designed to better equip me to do the things that I’ve been doing since 1992. I have been on my right path since then.

APPENDIX 1 Publications by Amabassador John W. McDonald

BOOKS Diamond, Louise, and John W. McDonald. Multi-Track Diplomacy: A Systems Approach to Peace. Occasional Paper 3. Grinnell, Ia.: Iowa Peace Institute, 1991. Revised edition published by the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy in Washington, D.C., 1993. Third edition published by Kumarian Press, Hartford, Conn., 1996. McDonald, John W., ed. “Defining a U.S. Negotiating Style.” International Negotiation Journal 1, no. 2 (1996). ———. How to Be a Delegate. Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984. Second edition published by the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, Washington, D.C., 1994. Third edition 1998. ———, ed. International Negotiation: Art and Science. Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984. ———, ed. Perspectives of Negotiation: Four Case Studies. Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986. ———. U. S.-Soviet Summitry: Roosevelt through Carter. Arlington, Va.: Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State; Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1987. McDonald, John W., and Diane Bendahmane. Conflict Resolution: Track Two Diplomacy. Washington, D.C.: Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1987. Second edition published by the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, Washington, D.C., 1995. ———, eds. U.S. Bases Overseas: Negotiations With Spain, Greece and the Philippines. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990.

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BOOK CHAPTERS AND SPECIAL REPORTS Duckworth, Cheryl, and John W. McDonald. “Demos Kratos: New Expressions of People Power Across the Globe.” IMTD Occasional Paper 14, 2004. McDonald, John W. “The Art of Multilateral Diplomacy.” In The Royal Tropical Institute Conference Report. Amsterdam, the Netherlands, January 1987. ———. “Background, Purposes and Structure of the UN’s World Assembly on Aging.” In Aging in North America. The National Council on Aging, June 1981. ———. “Citizen Diplomacy.” In Proceedings of Approaches to Creating a Stable World Peace, April 5–7, 1991. Special issue, Modern Science and Vedic Science 5, no. 1–2 (1992). Sponsored by the Institute of World Peace, Maharishi International University, 1992. ———. “Ethnic Conflict in Today’s World.” In Second Track/Citizens’ Diplomacy: Concepts and Techniques for Conflict Transformation, edited by John Davies. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. ———. “Financial Support for the Aging.” In Toward the Well-Being of the Elderly. Washington, D.C.: Pan American Health Organization, 1985. ———. “Further Exploration of Track Two Diplomacy.” In Timing the De-escalation of International Conflicts, edited by Louis Kriesberg. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1991. ———. “Global Environmental Negotiations: The 1972 Stockholm Conference and Lessons for the Future.” The American Academy of Diplomacy and SAIS, Project on Multilateral Diplomacy. Working Paper Series WP-2, 1990. ———. “The Global Impact of Information Technology: The Connected versus the Unconnected.” In Frontiers of the 21st Century. World Future Society, 1999. ———. “Guidelines for New Citizen Diplomats.” In Journey to the Heart: Healing, edited by Mark Macy. Knowledge Systems Inc., 1991. Revised edition published as “Guidelines for Newcomers to Track Two Diplomacy.” Occasional Paper 2, Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, 1993. ———. “The Impact of NGOs on Policy Makers.” IMTD Occasional Paper 11, 2003. ———. “International Conference Diplomacy: Four Principles.” In Conflict Resolution Theory and Practice: Integration and Application, edited by Dennis Sandole and Hugo van der Merwe. New York: Manchester University Press, 1993. ———. “Managing Complexity Through Small Group Dynamics.” In Conflict: Readings in Management and Resolution, edited by John Burton and Frank Dukes. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. ———. “My Eight Years in Europe: 1946–1954.” In The Marshall Plan. George Washington University, 1997. ———. “The Need for Multi-Track Diplomacy.” IMTD Occasional Paper 9, 2000. ———. “A New Future for Kashmir.” In The Negotiator’s Fieldbook, edited by Andrea Kupfer Schneider and Christopher Honeyman. Washington, D.C.: ABA Section of Dispute Resolution, 2006.

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———. “The North-South Dialogue and the United Nations.” Occasional paper, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. Georgetown University, May 1982. ———. “Observations of a Diplomat.” In International Conflict Resolution, edited by Ed Azar and John Burton. Sussex, UK: Wheatsheaf Books, 1986. ———. “One of a Hundred Interviews.” In Elder Wisdom: Crafting your Own Elderhood, by Eugene C. Bianchi. New York: Cross Roads Press, 1994. ———. “Report of the Evaluation of the Water and Sanitation for Health Project.” Panel chairman and coauthor, Agency for International Development, August 1983. ———. “The Role of Ethnic Conflict in Today’s World.” In a book published in 2006 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, based on presentations made at a NATO sponsored conference in that city in April 2004. ———. “The Role of the United Nations and other International Organizations.” In The Time and Place for Humanitarian Assistance, edited by Helen Kerschner. AAIA Press, 1995. ———. “The Track Not Taken: Personal Reflections on the State Department Intransigence and Conflict Resolution.” Harvard International Review (Fall 2000); IMTD Occasional Paper 13, 2004. ———. “Track Two Diplomacy: Non Governmental Strategies for Peace.” U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda 1, no. 19 (December 1996). ———. “The United Nations Drinking Water and Sanitation Decade.” Special Report, Agency for International Development, April 1981. ———, ed. U.S. National Report on Aging for the United Nations World Assembly on Aging. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, 1982. McDonald, John W., and James Notter. “Building Regional Security: NGOs and Governments in Partnership.” U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda 3, no. 3 (July 1998).

ARTICLES AND PAPERS McDonald, John W. “An Ambassador’s View of Track Two Diplomacy.” Arbitration Journal 45, no. 2 (June 1990). ———. “Community Water Supply in Developing Countries: Lessons from Experience.” Agency for International Development, September 1982. ———. “How Peace Can Be Achieved in the Middle East.” Des Moines Register, April 5, 1991. ———. “Implementing the Objectives of the United Nation’s Decade of Disabled Persons.” Statement before the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives, U.S. Congress, Committee Report, April 5, 1983. ———. “International Decade on Drinking Water and Sanitation.” Water Resources Bulletin 16, no. 2 (April 1980). ———. “International Year of Disabled Persons—1981.” Project May Report, August 1981.

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———. “International Year of Disabled Persons—1981.” People-to-People Committee on the Handicapped, newsletter, September 1981. ———. “Patience Can Bring Peace to the Mideast.” Des Moines Register, October 18, 1990. ———. “Peaceful Co-Existence between Taiwan and China.” International Symposium, International Convention Center, Taipei, Taiwan, July 11–12, 1998. Panel: “Diplomatic Containment and Taiwan’s Survival.” ———. “People Power Across the Globe.” Peace in Action Winter 2007–2008 8, no.1. ———. “Plan Now for Future Peace.” Grinnell Herald Register, February 25, 1991. ———. “Present at the Creation.” United Nations Volunteers, Tenth Anniversary Report, June 1981. ———. “The Road to a Sane Middle East Policy.” Global Perspectives. Center for Global Education, Augsburg College, spring 1991. ———. “Situating the UN’s 1978 Conference on Science and Technology for Development in the Context of the North-South Dialogue.” In A Case Study, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. Georgetown University, September 1982. ———. “The United Nations Commission for Social Development.” News Exchange 3, no. 2 (Spring 1983). ———. “The United Nations Convention Against the Taking of Hostages: The Inside Story.” Terrorism—An International Journal 6, no. 4 (1983). ———. “The United Nations World Assembly on Aging.” International Council on Social Welfare, Austrian National Committee, Vienna, Austria, March 1983. ———. “UN’s Decade of Disabled Persons—A Rocky Road to Success.” National Organization on Disability Report, Spring 1983. ———. “The World Assembly on Aging—An American Overview.” International Social Security Review 35, no. 4 (1982).

APPENDIX 2 Ambassador John W. McDonald’s Major Awards and Career Distinctions

1946 1951 1972

1978

1979

1981

1982

1983

Admitted to practice law before the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois Admitted to practice law before the Supreme Court of the United States of America, Washington, D.C. Received the U.S. Department of State’s Superior Honor Award for his work in connection with the 1972 UN Conference on the Environment at Stockholm and the creation of a new UN agency, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). August 28: Appointed ambassador by President Carter to head the U.S. delegation to the UN World Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1978. November 29: Appointed ambassador by President Carter to head the U.S. delegation to the UN’s Third World Conference on Industrial Development (UNIDO III), held in New Delhi, India, in 1980. November 13: Appointed ambassador by President Reagan to attend the four UN Regional Preparatory Conferences leading to the holding of the first UN World Assembly on Aging. July 23: Appointed ambassador by President Reagan to head the U.S. delegation to the UN World Assembly on Aging, held in Vienna, Austria, in 1982. Made an honorary citizen by the mayors of the City of Juarez, Mexico Honored by the National Organization on Disability in Washington, D.C., in recognition of the Special Contribution to Improve the Lives of Disabled Persons.

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1984 1985 1987

1989 1990

1991

1992

1993

1994 1997

2004

2005 2006

Appendix 2

Received the U.S. Presidential Meritorious Service Award from President Reagan. Made an honorary citizen of Daytona Beach, Florida. Received from the U.S. Department of State a plaque honoring his forty years of government service. Received the National Security Agency Award in recognition of distinguished service to the National Cryptologic School. Received the Patriot of the Year Award, Kansas City, Missouri. May: Received an honorary degree of Doctor of Humanities from Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. May: Received the Poverello Award for Distinguished Service to Society from Mount Saint Clare College in Clinton, Iowa. Made an honorary citizen of Louisville, Kentucky. May: Received a degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Teikyo Marycrest University in Davenport, Iowa. Received the U.N. Peace Messenger Award from Dr. Perez de Cuellar, Secretary General of the United Nations, at the United Nations in New York. January: Received the Distinguished Service Award from the State of Iowa, presented by Governor Terry Branstad, for his work as the first president of the Iowa Peace Institute, in Des Moines, Iowa. Received the first Dr. Bryan Wedge Honorary Appointment to the university’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. May: Received a degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Salisbury State University (now Salisbury University) in Salisbury, Maryland. Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by a group of professors from Ottawa, Canada. Received a Lifetime Achievement Award by COPRED (Consortium of Peace, Resolution and Economic Development) at its annual conference, Washington, D.C. May: Received the LAS Alumni Achievement Award from the University of Illinois, College of Liberal Arts and Science, in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Received the Search for Common Ground Award for International Peacebuilding in Washington, D.C. March–August: The Virginia Historical Society organized a sixmonth exhibit at their museum in Richmond, Virginia, honoring “Virginia Diplomats,” beginning with Thomas Jefferson, and dis-

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played ten photographs and other artifacts of John W. McDonald’s forty-year diplomatic career. April: Received the U.S. Association for the Club of Rome Donella Meadows Lifetime Achievement Award in Washington, D.C. May: Received the University of Illinois Alumni Achievement Award at commencement in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.

APPENDIX 3 Ambassador John W. McDonald’s Board of Director s Member ships in Not-for-Profit Organizations and Academic Institutions (2008)

The American Council for the United Nations University (AC/UNU) 1988; executive committee, 1992, (www.acunu.org) Environmental Alliance for Senior Involvement (EASI) 2002 (absorbed American Association for International Aging [AAIA] founded by John W. McDonald in 1983), (www.easi.org) Global Water cofounder and chairman, 1982 (www.globalwater.org) Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy (IMTD) cofounder, chairman, and CEO, 1992, (www.imtd.org) Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) member of advisory board of ICAR at George Mason University, 1985 (www.icar.gmu.edu) National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation 2003 (www.thataway.org) National Organization on Disability (NOD) World Committee for the UN Decade of Disabled Persons, 1987 (www.nod.org) People-to-People International, Board of Trustees 2002 (www.ptpi.org) SHARE (People-to-People Network—Empowerment through Education, Angola) 2001 (www.sharecircle.org) United Nations Association-National Capital Area board, 1992 (www.unanca.org) U.S. Association for the Club of Rome (USACOR) 1995 (www.usacor.org)

325

INDEX

AAIA. See American Association for International Aging AARP. See American Association of Retired Persons Abidjan, 236 Abkhazia, 274–75, 297 Abu-Nimer, Mohammed, 203, 285 Abu Simbel, 70 ACC. See Allied Control Council Adams, Sherman, 54 Adenauer, Konrad, 34 Afghanistan, 88, 151 AFL-CIO. See American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations Africa, 51–53, 57, 98 Africa University, 212 Agenda for Peace, 169, 170 aging conference. See United Nations AHC. See Allied High Commission al-Bashir, Omar Ahmed, 308–9 Alexander the Great, 60 Allen, Ed, 8 Alliance for Peace, 290 Allied Control Council (ACC), 18, 19; law committee, 18, 19 Allied High Commission (AHC), 33, 34 al-Qaeda, 41 Alvarez, Luis, 83, 84

American Association for International Aging (AAIA), 166, 313 American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), 206 American criminal procedure, 27, 42 American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), 25, 118, 137 Americans with Disabilities Act, 155 American University, 177, 191 Amin, Idi, 113 Anderson, Robert T., xiv, 183, 185–86 Ankara. See Turkey Annan, Kofi, 134, 278 Annan, Mrs. Kofi, 162 anti-communism, 55, 87, 223 ANZUS. See Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty Arab-Israeli War, 85 Ard, David, 212 Argentina, 149 Arlington Cemetery, 154–55 Armenia, 191, 271 Army Command and General Staff College. See United States Army Command and General Staff College Ash-Thompson, Luvenia, 239, 240

327

328

Index

Asia, 51–52, 87, 98 Assefa, Hizkias, 234, 236 Aswan High Dam, 70, 76, 77 Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal, 60 Atwood, Brian, 295 Australia, 89 Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS), 49 Avaaz, 312–13 Azazi, Andrew Owoye, 293, 294 Azerbaijan, 191, 271 Bad Godesberg, 33–34 Bad Homburg, 2, 20, 25–26 Baghdad, 41–42, 58 Baghdad Pact, 49, 58 Bangladesh, 117 bar exam, 14 Battle of the Bulge, 11 BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), 106–7 Beebee, Shannon, 285 Begin, Menachem, 139 Bell, Peter, 276, 277 Bendahmane, Diane, xix, xx, 175 Berlin, 17–20, 25, 31, 40, 90; airlift, 31, 32; blockade, 24, 31, 32; document center, 29; East, 205; wall, 185, 295, 228; West, 205 bin Laden, Osama, 41 Binnendijk, Hans, 175 Blakeway, Marsha, 298 Blanchard, Francis, 122, 124, 125, 136 Blumenauer, Earl, 163 “Blumenhauer Bill,” 163, 164 Bolin, Bertil A., 122 Bolivia, 218 Bonn, 22–33, 40, 90 Borris, Eileen, 128, 198, 208, 258, 260–61, 265–66, 285 Bosnia, 43, 208, 218, 243–49 Boswell, Bill, 90 Boulding, Kenneth, 177–78

Bourne, Peter, 160, 161 Boutros-Ghali, Boutros, 156, 170 Bremerhaven, 17 Brewster, Robert, 51, 115 British Empire, 52–53, 219, 254 Brown, Carol, 188 Buffum, Bill, 117 Buntz, Gregory, 204 Bureau of International Organization Affairs (IO), 90–92, 114, 137, 139–40, 170, 174, 182 Bush, George H. W., 128, 185, 205 Bush, George W., xvi, 41–43, 164 Business for Peace, 195, 261 CAC. See Cairo American College Cairo American College (CAC), 80, 82, 83 Cambodia, 48 Camp David, 139; Accords, 148 Carazo, Rodrigo, 158 CARE, 275, 277 Carter, Jimmy, 136–37, 139–40, 145–46, 150–51, 154, 61, 233, 237; Carter Center (Atlanta), 233–34, 236; Carter Center (Liberia), 237 Castro, Fidel, 151, 241 Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs, 174, 176–77, 181 CENTO. See Central Treaty Organization Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 30, 42, 79 Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), 57–60, 63–64, 69–70, 77, 90, 271 Chamberlain, Neville, 34 Charter of the UN. See United Nations Charter Cheney, Dick, 41 Chicago, 10, 12–14 Chigas, Diane, 224 China, 90, 261–63, 309, 311

Index CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency Clay, Lucius, 17 Clinton, William J., 205 Cobb, Sarah, 291 COCAP. See Collective Campaign for Peace Cohen, Raymond, 232 Cohn, Roy M., 39–40 Cold War, 77, 79, 85–87, 92, 114, 151, 173, 185 Coletta, Nat, 299 Collective Campaign for Peace (COCAP), 266, 268 colonies: Belgian, 53; Portuguese, 53 Colosi, Tom, 213 communism, 55, 87; communists, 39; communist threat, 75, 114, 118 Community Boards, 188, 190, 191 conflict: anticipating, 271–72; ethnic, 88; facing, 43; interstate, 307; intrastate, 276, 307; resolving, 43, 207; ripe, 234; trust and, 79 Conflict Management Group, Harvard University, 224 conflictology, 190–91 conflict resolution, 173–74, 177, 191, 209; academic field of, 178–79, 182, 191; course in, 90, 284–85, 286, 290; degree in, 178; field of, 191, 233; PhD program in, 182; in the schools, 185, 189; skills, 190; training, 217, 246, 275–77 consensus: approving by, 110, 147; building of, 98–100; reaching of, 147 Consortium on Peace, Research, Education and Development (COPRED), 203 COPRED. See Consortium on Peace, Research, Education and Development Cosmos Club, 181, 288–89 Costa Rica, 158

329

Cottam, Howard, 73 Craver, Charlie, 182 Cuba, 151, 218, 240–41, 298 Culver Military Academy, 2 Cuneo Press, 11 Cyprus, 205, 208–9, 218–21, 223, 224, 226–27, 231, 255, 299; Green Line, 219, 220–21, 224, 226–27; Spider Camp, 224 Dalai Lama, 196, 197, 198, 199, 218, 262 Dalits, 265–68 Darfur, 202, 308 Dayton Peace Treaty (Dayton Accords), 43, 218, 243–44 D.C. United, 288, 289 decolonization, 57 Deets, Horace, 206–7 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), 41 Democratic Republic of the Congo, 218 Denby, Patrick, 131–32 Denktash, Rauf, 220 Denktash, Serdar, 226 DePalma, Samuel, 111, 115 Des Moines, 183, 186–88, 195, 200, 204 Des Moines Register, 186–87 Deutsche Mark, 24 development: aid program, 52–53; assistance, 51, 59 Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), 261, 293–94, 296 Dharamsala, 196, 198, 199, 296 DIA. See Defense Intelligence Agency Diamond, Louise, 179, 193, 198, 203, 206, 209–16, 219–20, 224, 228–31, 234, 245–46, 255, 258, 261, 275–77, 300 diplomacy: fencing and, 20, 22–23; multilateral, 40, 92, 107, 175, 199, 232; multitrack, 88, 206, 214, 220;

330

Index

systems approach to, 205; Track Eight, 193, 194, 207; Track Five, 193, 194, 207; Track Four, 193, 194, 207; Track Nine, 193, 194, 207; Track One, 178, 193, 194, 207, 210, 217, 220–22, 226, 253–55, 257, 260, 279, 288, 308; Track Seven, 193, 194, 207; Track Six, 193, 194, 207, 215, 309; Track Three, 193, 194, 207, 254, 261; Track Two, 88, 155, 162, 173, 177, 178, 186, 193, 194, 200, 207, 214, 229, 231, 253, 257, 279, 308; trust and, 79 disasters: natural, 104–5; relief, 104 Doe, Samuel, 233 Doherty, Patrick, 211 Dolan, Denise, 207 Dombach, Chic, 290 Douglas, David, 216 Drake, George, 187 Drake University Law School, 239 Draper, William, 35–36, 39, 53, 93, 97 Drucker, Dan, 300 Dulles, John Foster, 45, 47, 49, 57–58, 60, 76 Eastern Mennonite University, 218, 236, 278 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), 237 ECOSOC. See United Nations Economic and Social Council ECOWAS. See Economic Community of West African States Egypt, 22, 57, 70–71, 75–80, 83, 85, 88–89, 114, 139, 148; Central Bank, 81; Farouk, king of, 80 Eisenhower, Dwight, 17, 45 49, 54, 57, 76, 93 Eliasson, Jan, 279 El Jaafri, Jamal Saleh, 289 Elliot, Bill, 256

environment, conference on. See United Nations conference on environment Equatorial Guinea, 218, 294–96; and social development fund, 295 Etete, Ken, 293, 294 Ethiopia, 49, 52, 218 Europe: Eastern, 192; Western, 48, 52 European Center for Conflict Prevention (ECCP), 277 European Coal and Steel Community, 34 European Economic Community, 34 European Union, 34, 100, 121, 150, 226, 254, 314 family planning, 54, 94, 98 FAO. See United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services (FMCS), 192, 256, 284 fencing, 5, 6, 10, 20, 22 Fisek, Nusret, 66 Fisher, Ron, 291 Flores, Antonio Carillo, 97 FMCS. See Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services Ford, Gerald, 121 Ford Foundation, 80, 106 foreign policy: American, 48–49, 55 Foreign Service. See United States Foreign Service Foreign Service Institute (FSI), 127, 174, 176, 180, 193, 218 Fort Benning, 9 Fort Bliss, 8 Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 2, 286, 287 Fort McNair, 285 Fort Riley, Kansas, 2 France, 17, 22, 33, 37, 49, 314 Franco, Francisco, 121, 306 Frankfurt, 2, 20, 22, 26–27, 32–33 Friedman, Art, 191

Index Frist, Bill, 163–64 FSI. See Foreign Service Institute Fulbright program, 19, 212, 224 Fuller, John, 288, 289 G-77. See “Group of 77” Gaddafi, Muamar, 286, 288 Gandhi, Indira, 113, 152 Gandhi, Sonja, 257 Garang, John, 185, 202 Garrett, J. T., 213 Garst, Elizabeth, 185; family of, 185 Gaza, 229, 232 Gaza Strip, 203 Geneva Group, 140–41 genocide, 202, 308, 314 George Mason University, 178, 182, 196, 203, 206 George Washington University Law School, 182 Georgia (United States), 9 Georgia. See Republic of Georgia Georgian International Oil Corporation, 273–74 German Democratic Republic, 33 Germany, 1, 14–15, 17–19, 40, 42, 85, 314; East, 75, 77 Ghana, 49, 52, 234; Akosombo, 234 Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC), 278 Global Peace Index, 290, 291 Global Water, 161, 313 Godfrey, Mike, 293 Gogarty, Anne, 132 Gompers, Samuel, 137 Goodpaster, A. J., 54 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 173 Gore, Al, 314 government of Tibet in exile (GTIE), 196, 198, 199, 208, 218, 296 Graham, Pierre, 92 Green Line. See Cyprus Grinnell, Iowa, 22, 183, 185–86

331

Grinnell College, 22, 182, 186–87, 202, 204 “Group of 77,” 98–99, 152, 159 Haig, Alexander, 112 Haile Selassie I, 52 Hall, Judy, xiv, 186 Hammarskjold, Dag, 232 Hans-Adam II, 198, 216 Harriman, Averell W., 37 Hart, Barry, 236, 238, 278–79 Harter, John, 115–16, 119 Hatfield, Mark O., 180 Hawaii, 4, 6, 8, 9, 13 Hebrew University, 232 Helsinki Accords of 1972, 243 Herter, Christian A., Jr., 108, 110, 111 Hertkorn, Michaela, 291 Hess Oil Corporation, 289 Hewlett Foundation, 216 Hitler, Adolf, 34, 40, 42, 228 Hoffman, Paul, 94–95 Hollister, John Baker, 49, 51–53 Honeyman, Chris, 284 Hoover, Herbert, Jr., 47, 52 Hoover Dam, 76 Hurd, G. David, 195, 213, 216, 256, 261 Hussein, Saddam, 41–42, 185 ICA. See International Cooperation Administration ICAF. See Industrial College of the Armed Forces ICAO. See International Civil Aviation Organization ICAR. See Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution IFOR. See Implementation Force Illinois, 47 ILO. See International Labour Organization IMF. See International Monetary Fund

332

Index

IMO. See International Maritime Organization Implementation Force (IFOR), 247 IMTD. See Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy India, 254–55, 257–58, 260, 268–69; government of, 257 Indiana, 2, 5 Indonesia, 88, 309 Indseth, Berger, 58 Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF), 43, 88, 90, 285 Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR), 178–79, 196, 206, 234, 272–73, 297 Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy (IMTD), 88, 174, 176, 179, 194, 198, 205–6, 211, 214, 244, 249, 253–54, 265; board of, 213–31; dialogues, 280–81; funding, 206, 215–16, 245, 251, 264, 296, 299; interns, xiii, 211–12; occasional papers, 215, 309; principles of, 207–10; projects, 296–98; systems approach of, 207–8, 211, 214, 273; trainings, 216–17, 229–31, 234, 243, 255, 258, 270–72, 265–66, 275 institute of peace. See U.S. Institute of Peace INTELSAT. See International Telecommunications Satellite Organization International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, 261 International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), 141, 167–68 International Cooperation Administration (ICA), 49, 50, 51–54, 57–58, 63–64, 71, 91, 93 International Crisis Watch, 308 International Day of Peace, 157–58 International Labour Organization (ILO), 92, 95–96, 117–18, 121–37,

139–40, 158, 167, 243; and Bureau of Women’s Affairs, 123, 125; human rights and, 135 international law, 166–69 International Maritime Organization (IMO), 168 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 80 International Peace Academy, 232 International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (ITSO), 144–45 International Telecommunications Union (ITU), 168 Intifada, 203 IO. See Bureau of International Organization Affairs Iowa: Department of Education, 188–89; governor of, 187, 204; State University, 202 Iowa Peace Institute (IPI), xiv, 183, 185–86, 193, 196, 198, 203–4, 206, 228, 256; board, 186, 188, 204 IPCRI. See Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information IPI. See Iowa Peace Institute Iran, 49, 53, 57, 63–65, 67–69, 139, 177 Iraq, 17, 40–42, 58, 63, 77, 88, 165, 259, 283, 285; king of, 58 Ireland, 199 Israel, 76, 88, 114, 139, 165–66, 205, 227–30, 255; Ministry of Education, 216 Israeli-Palestinian peace process, 283 Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI), 229 ITSO. See International Telecommunications Satellite Organization ITU. See International Telecommunications Union Ivory Coast, 236

Index IYDP. See International Year of Disabled Persons Jain, A. K., 122 Jammu, 254, 258 Japan, 36, 40, 48, 88, 155, 263, 307; disabled people in, 155, 157; disabled veterans from, 154 Jennings, Yves-Renee, 291 Jericho, 72 Jerusalem, 71 Jordan, 296 Johns Hopkins University, 234 Johnson, Dan, 186 Johnson, Donald C., 295 Johnson, Lyndon B., 75, 90 Johnson-Sirleaf, Ellen, 240 Johnston, Doug, 261 Kahn, Lynn Sandra, 285 Kakabadze, Irakli, 271, 273, 275, 297 Kaplan, Alan, 289 Karachi, 53, 63, 254 Kashmir, 205, 208, 216, 218, 251, 253–54, 257–58, 260, 297; Line of Control, 227, 254–58, 260, 297 Kashmir Institute for International Relations (KIIR), 255–56, 258 Keeley, Bob, 51 Kennedy, John F., 54, 69 Kenya, 52, 103, 113, 140–41, 218, 269 Kenyatta, Jomo, 113 Kerrigan, Bill, 166 Kerschner, Helen, 166 KGB, 79, 133, 190 Khan, Humayun Akhtar, 254 Khrushchev, Nikita, 185 KIIR. See Kashmir Institute for International Relations Killelea, Steve, 290 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 91 Kirk, Roger, 51 Kirkland, Lane, 137

333

Kirkpatrick, Jeane, 171 Kissinger, Henry, 118 Kitchen, Bob, 140 Klerides, Glafcos, 220 Koblenz, 1, 2, 25 Koch, Susan, 190 Korean War, 53 Kraft, Mary Jo, 66 Kriesberg, Lou, 192 Krubiner, Steve, 198 Kuepper, Ted, 161 Kurds, 68, 271, 307 Kurz, Leonard, 204 Kyoto, 155, 157 LaCava, Gloria, 299 Lahore, 254, 256; University of Management Sciences, 256 Lake Nasser, 77 Lake Trails Base Camp, 245–46 Lake Van, 60–62, 68 Latin America, 48, 51–52, 98 Laue, Jim, 179, 196, 213 Lebanon, 71 Lennox, Joseph, 220 Lewis, Sam, 181 Liberia, 52–53, 160, 218, 233, 235, 239–40, 278; peace process, 237, 239; peace treaty, 237 Liberian Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (LIPCORE), 236 Libya, 54, 77, 148, 286, 289; Idris, king of, 54; soccer and, 288 Libyan American Friendship Association, 286 Libyan Football Association, 289 Lincoln, Bill, 191, 240, 298–97 Lindsay, Beverly, 212 LIPCORE. See Liberian Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution Lloyd-Jones, Jean, 189, 204 Low, Steve, 174–75, 180

334

Index

Lu, Annette, 262–63 Lyman, Princeton, 182 Machinists’ Union, 11 Maginot Line, 228 Malaysia, 88 management by walking around (MBWA), 128–29, 273 Maoists in Nepal, 264–67, 269–70 Marchetti, Al, 289 Mar del Plata, 158 Markides, Emily, 219 Markos, Ferdinand, 95 Marks, John, 190, 192, 306 Mark II water pump, 160 Marshall, George C., 36 Marshall Plan, 20, 35, 52–53, 64, 104 Maynes, Bill, 182 Mbasogo, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, 294 MBWA. See management by walking around McCarthy, Joseph, 39–40, 45 McCarthy era, 37, 39 McCloy, John J., 33–35, 48 McConaghy, Clyde, 290–91 McConogle, Kathy, 246 McDonald, Barbara, 11, 14, 20, 27, 33, 37, 57, 84, 100 McDonald, Christel, xix, xx, 62, 100, 101, 111, 115, 117–19, 123, 1139, 141, 150, 155, 157, 183, 186–87, 192, 201, 203, 206, 215, 286, 295–96, 301, 313, 315, 316 McDonald, Elizabeth B., 301, 302 McDonald, Ethel “Mac,” 2, 3, 5, 89 McDonald, Ethel Mae Raynor, 1, 2, 4, 10, 26, 89 McDonald, James Stewart, 14, 20, 37, 46, 57, 183, 301 McDonald, John W., Sr., 1, 26, 89 McDonald, Kathleen, 33, 37, 46, 57, 59, 182, 301

McDonald, Kitty, 301 McDonald, Laura, 37, 46, 57, 301 McDonald, Marilyn “Lynn” Ruth, 13, 20, 37, 46, 57, 71, 301 McDonald, Sean, 183, 301, 302 McKnight, Maxwell, 39 McKnight Foundation, 216, 255–56 McLaughlin, Corinne, 213 MDGs. See United Nations millennium development goals Meany, George, 24, 118–19, 137 Meyer, Christel. See McDonald, Christel Mexico, 7, 177 Middle East, 48, 57, 71, 76–77, 85, 121, 203 military. See U.S. military Misereor Foundation, 264, 266 Mitchell, Chris, 206, 234 Modell, Ed, 213 Moi, Daniel Arap, 269 Monrovia, 233, 237, 240 Montenegro, 297 Montville, Joseph, 177, 200–201 Moon, Richard, 245–46 Morgenthau Plan, 20 Mortensen, Erik, 297 Moscow, 190–92 Moscow University, 192 Moser, Leo, 174 Mostar, 243, 246 Moynihan, Daniel, 100 MSA. See Mutual Security Agency Mugabe, Robert, 310 Mullen, Mike, 286, 287 Muskie, Edmund, 107 Mutual Security Agency (MSA), 37, 39 Nagorno-Karabakh, 191, 271 Nash, Bill, 285 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 22, 49, 75–76, 78, 80, 151 National Conference on Peace and Conflict Resolution (NCPCR), 196

Index National Defense University (NDU), 43, 88, 180, 284–86 National Organization on Disability, 155, 156 National Peace Academy, 179 National Peace Foundation, 298 National Public Radio (NPR), 187 National Security Agency (NSA), 175 National War College, 76, 85–86, 88–89, 91–92, 248, 284 NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty Organization Nazi, 11, 22; de-Nazification process, 27, 29; party, 29, 42 NCPCR. See National Conference on Peace and Conflict Resolution NDU. See National Defense University Nehru, Jawaharlal, 151 Nepal, 209, 218, 258, 264, 267, 268–70 New Delhi, 99–100 Newell, Greg, 127, 165, 170 Nfubé, Ricardo Mangué Obama, 295 NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), 93, 162; importance of, 312 Niger Delta, 291–93; Peace Forum, 293 Nigeria, 291, 293 Nixon, Richard, 90, 100, 109, 112, 121 Nkrumah, Kwame, 151 Nobel Peace Prize, 298, 314 Non-Aligned Movement, 151–52 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 35–37 Northern Ireland, 200–201, 255; Bill of Rights, 199, 200–202; peace accord, 201 North Korea, 157, 227 Notter, James, 206, 211, 300 NPR. See National Public Radio NSA. See National Security Agency OEEC. See Organization for European Economic Cooperation

335

Office of the Military Government of the United States (OMGUS), 17–21, 24–25, 27–28 OMGUS. See Office of the Military Government of the United States Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), 36, 37 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), 191, 243–44 Osaka, 155, 157 OSCE. See Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Oslo Accords, 229, 230 Oslo Agreement. See Oslo Accords Pakistan, 57–58, 63, 65, 67–68, 219, 253–55, 257–58, 260–61, 297 Palestine, 228, 229, 253, 255 Palestinian Authority, 232 Palestinians, 229–31, 233 Pancho Villa Expedition, 1 Paraguay, 55 Paris, 35, 37, 40, 45, 53, 90 Passman, Otto, 54 Partners for Democratic Change, 190 peace: measuring, 300–301 Peace Academy, 179 Peace Brigades, 177 peacebuilding: conflict resolution and, 284, 286; economic, 244; political, 244; process, 231; social, 244, 245 peaceful community, 43 Peace Messenger Award, 195 peace zone, 274–75, 297 peer mediation, 188–90, 298, 299 Pentagon, 34, 41, 70, 88, 104–5, 180, 248 people power, 270, 275, 309–10 “people’s bus,” 256, 257, 260 Pepper, Claude, 164–65 Perez de Cuellar, Javier, 195, 195 Perle, Richard, 180

336

Index

The Petersberg, 33–35 PHDCCI Chamber of Commerce, 255, 256 Pinochet, Augusto, 143 Point Four, 48, 53 Poland, 192 Polkinghorn, Brian, 285, 291 Population Crisis Committee, 53, 93 Port Harcourt, 292–94 Potsdam conference, 19–20 Powell, Colin, 40–41, 308 Prebisch, Raoul, 98–99, 151 Public Law 480 (PL-480), 78–79 Putin, Vladimir, 311 Qadir, Shah Ghulam, 255–56, 260–61 Rahman, Ibrahim Helmi Abdal, 151 Rakhmonov, Emomali, 162–63 Rantoul, Illinois, 9 Rao, P. V. Narasimha, 152 Ravenholt, Ray, 94 Rawlings, Jerry, 237 Reagan, Maureen, 127–28 Reagan, Ronald, 98, 112, 127–28, 140, 153, 164–65, 173–74, 179–80 Reich, Alan, 155, 156 Reichsmark, 24, 30 Reitmann, Jonathan, 245–46 Republic of Georgia, 218, 271–75, 297, 309–10; pipeline in, 271–74 Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), 6, 10, 85 Revolution of the Roses. See Rose Revolution Reza Shah of Iran, 60 Rhein-Main Airport, 32 Rice, Condoleeza, 289 Rikhye, Indar Jit, 213, 231–32 Rogers, William P., 116 Rose Revolution, 275, 310 ROTC. See Reserve Officer Training Corps

Rubenstein, Rich, 297 Ruffin, Richard, 213 Russia, 117, 298 Rwanda, 218 Saakashvili, Mikhail, 310 Sadalla, Gail, xiv, 189, 191 Sadat, Anwar, 78, 139 safe space, 217, 221, 230, 234, 265 SAIS (Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies), 233, 290–91 Salazar, Antonio, 121 Sarajevo, 243, 246, 251 Sasakawa Peace Foundation, 216, 255 Schirch, Lisa, 218 Schmidt, Nancy, 216 Schneider, Andrea, 2884 Scott, Ken, 47, 49 Search for Common Ground, 190 SEATO. See South East Asia Treaty Organization Sevier, Paul, 213 Sewell, Erica, 212, 240 Sharoni, Simona, 203 Shevardnadze, Eduard A., 271, 273, 275, 297 Shine, David G., 39–40 Shiraz, 65, 66 Shonholtz, Ray, xiv, 188–92, 306 Sierra Leone, 218 Singh, Manmohan, 257 Sisco, Joseph, 114 Six-Day War, 88 Slater, Joseph E., 33, 35, 39, 53 Sloan, Barbara, 213 Smith, James H., Jr., 53–54 Smith, Max, 202, 204 Somalia, 49, 52, 280–81, 298 South Africa, 255 South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), 58 South Korea, 48, 52–53, 88, 157, 227

Index

337

Soviet: Academy of Sciences, 190–91, 306; Empire, 36, 48, 55, 76, 162, 191, 273–74, 305–7, 309; Union, 63, 98, 114, 151, 191, 271, 307, 310–11; Zone, 31 Soviets, 19, 24–25, 31–32, 40, 48, 57, 63, 75–79, 90, 99, 103, 105, 115, 121, 142, 151–52, 205 special representative for Europe (SRE), 36–37 Spector, Jamie, 244 Spider Camp. See Cyprus SRE. See special representative for Europe Stalin, Josef, 191 Stassen, Harold E., 37 “Stassenated,” 39 State Department. See United States Department of State Stewart, Barbara. See McDonald, Barbara Stibravy, Bill, 92 St. John’s University, 249, 250 Strimling, Andrea, 284 Strong, Maurice, 110 Studebaker Automobile Corporation, 94 Sudan, 52, 202, 205, 218, 297, 308, 314 Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), 185 Suez Canal, 49 Svengalis, Cordell, 188 Swanson, Pete, 196 Syracuse University, 192–93 Syria, 70–71, 76–77, 87–88

Tbilisi, 271, 273–74 TCDC. See United Nations Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries Teamsters Union, 12 technical assistance projects. See development assistance Tehran, 58–59, 63 Tempelhof Airport, 32 terrorism, 141, 205, 228; treaty on, 141, 167 Tet Offensive, 114 Texas, 4, 6–7, 12–13 Thant, U, 94, 232 Thatcher, Peter, 110 Third World, 48–49, 99, 103, 113, 115, 140, 146, 150–51, 159; cooperation, 146 Thomson, John, 130 Tibetan government in exile. See government of Tibet in exile Tokyo, 155, 157 trauma, 277–80; and healing, 278, 297; secondary, 277; UN resolution on, 278 Treaty of Shimonoseki, 263 Treaty of Versailles, 117 Tripoli, 288, 289 Truman, Harry, xvi, 45, 48 trust, 65, 75, 79; building of, 65, 221, 231, 234 Tsitouris, Marge, 277 Turkey, 22, 54, 57–60, 63, 62, 64–65, 67–68, 70–72, 73, 75, 84, 94, 219, 271, 307

Tagliabó, F., 22 Taiwan, 88, 261–63 Tajikistan, 161–62 Tanzania, 218 Taylor, Carl, 66 Taylor, Charles, 237, 239

UN. See United Nations UNCTAD. See United Nations Conference on Trade and Development UNDP. See United Nations Development Program

338

Index

UNDRO. See United Nations Disaster Relief Organization UNEP. See United Nations Environmental Program UNESCO. See United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization UNFPA. See United Nations Fund for Population Activities UNICEF. See International Children’s Emergency Fund UNIDO, UNIDO II, III. See United Nations Industrial Development Organization Union Institute, 182 United Kingdom, 33, 58, 65, 71, 143, 199 United Nations, 88, 90–93, 99–100, 105, 117, 175, 314; Charter of, 99, 159, 169, 306–7, 313; Conference on Aging, 164, 166, 170–71; Conference on Environment, 107–10, 112, 115, 145, 161, 168, 312; Conference on Science and Technology for Development (UNCSTD), 150; Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC), 145, 149, 150; Conference on Trade and Development I (UNCTAD I), 98–99, 151; Conference on Trade and Development II (UNCTAD II), 99–100, 312; Decade of Disabled Persons, 152, 155; Decade on Drinking Water and Sanitation, 158–59, 161–62; Disaster Relief Coordinator (UNDRO), 104–6; Disaster Relief Organization (UNDRO), 105–6; Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), 102, 105–6, 109; Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization

(UNESCO), 92; Environmental Program (UNEP), 107, 109, 112; Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 92, 96, 140; Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), 93, 95–96, 98, 109; funding of, 96; General Assembly, 93, 99–100, 102, 105–7, 112, 141, 143, 152, 279; High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 105; Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO, UNIDO II, UNIDO III), 151, 152; International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), 92–93, 96, 105; International Day of Peace, 157–58; International Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP), 152, 155; millennium development goals (MDGs), 161, 162; Office of Peace, 195; Peacekeeping Commission, 279; Peacekeeping Office, 232; Secretariat, 102, 105–6, 142; Security Council, 92, 169, 179, 219, 262, 308–9; UN Association (UNA), 110; UN Development Program (UNDP), 92–96, 140–41, 145, 160; World Conference on Population, 96, 98, 312; World Health Organization (WHO), 92, 96, 140, 159, 168; Year of Freshwater, 162. See also World Conferences on Women United States: Agency for International Development (USAID), 49, 54, 64, 69–71, 73, 75, 84–86, 94, 140–141, 210, 213, 224, 233, 295–296; Army Command and General Staff College, 286; Atomic Energy Agency, 83; Department of Defense (DoD), 42; Department of Education, 190; Department of State, 11, 26, 33, 39–42, 45, 47, 49,

Index 51, 54–55, 58, 69–71, 77, 83–86, 89–93, 107, 112, 114–16, 128, 142, 151, 162, 164, 173, 177, 214, 254, 269, 270, 275, 288; Foreign Service, 11, 19, 40, 47, 49, 71–72, 90, 92, 139, 170, 173, 178, 232; Government Accounting Office (GAO), 69; Institute of Peace (USIP), 179–83, 193, 216, 255, 257–258, 260–61; military, 1, 2, 10, 14, 17, 43, 86–87, 248, 284, 284, 286; Military Academy, 285; National Security Council (NSC), 275; Occupation Army, 1, 2, 42; Office of American Schools Abroad, 83; Peace Corps, 102–3, 298; Regional Organization (USRO), 35–37. See also National Defense University Universal Postal Union, 167 University of California, 83 University of Havana, 240–41 University of Hawaii, 2 University of Illinois, 2, 6, 10–11, 22 University of Liberia, 239–40 University of Maryland, 214 University of Northern Iowa, 189–90 University of Tel Aviv, 229 UNPO. See Unrepresented Nations and People’s Organization Unrepresented Nations and People’s Organization (UNPO), 198, 262 UNV. See United Nations Volunteers Urbana-Champaign, 6, 13–14 Ury, Bill, 191 USAID. See United States Agency for International Development USIP. See United States Institute of Peace USRO. See United States Regional Organization U.S. Zone, 26–27, 30 Uzbekistan, 309

339

van Tongeren, Paul, 277 Van Walt, Michael, 196, 198 Vietnam, 48, 75, 114; war, 90, 114 Villa, Pancho, 1 Walter Reed Military Hospital, 5 War College. See National War College Warfield, Wallace, 234, 238 Warren, James C., 53 Washington Post, 43, 54, 257 Water for Life, 163 Water for the Poor Act, 164 Wedge, Bryant, 178, 206 Weeks, Dudley, 196 Weinberger, Caspar, 97 Weskalar, Sundeep, 254 West Bank, 203, 229 Whalen, Dan, 216, 245–49, 251, 258 White House, 34, 42, 54, 98, 100, 102, 110, 112, 115, 145, 150, 152, 154, 161, 165, 181 Whittaker, Alan, 88, 90, 284, 285 WHO. See United Nations World Health Organization Wiener, Ernie G., 18 Wiesbaden, 25, 33, 37 Wikler, Benjamin, 301, 302, 312 Wikler-Luker, Ruth Juliet, 301, 302 Wilson, Frances C., 285 win-lose, 32 Wolfe, Cynthia, 211 women: battered, 126–27; as peacebuilders, 227, 311; and water, 160; working with, 229 Women of the Don, 298–99 Wood, C. Tyler, 52, 53 Woodrow, Peter, 276 Woodward, Bob, 41 World Bank, 34, 76, 80, 96, 160, 210, 244–45, 269, 272, 299 World Conference of Peace Institutes, 195, 219, 228

340

Index

World Conference on Women: First (Mexico City), 125, 128, 311; Fourth (Beijing), 128, 167, 311; Second (Copenhagen), 126, 311; Third (Nairobi), 126, 127, 311 world government, 166, 168, 313, 314 world law. See international law World War I, 1, 228, 305 World War II, 11, 34, 40, 60, 96, 104, 154, 305

Yamasaki, Carol, 246, 249, 251 Year of Freshwater. See United Nations Year of Freshwater Yemen, 76 Zagorin, Bernie, 106 Zanolli, Noa, xix, 186, 189, 294, 299 Zartman, Ira William, 233, 291 Zimbabwe, 310

ABOUT NOA ZANOLLI

Dr. Noa Zanolli is an educator, cultural anthropologist, and mediator. The focus of her work has been in international development (project design, monitoring, and evaluation), peacebuilding, and in teaching and training about conflict resolution and mediation in schools, at the workplace, and in communities. She has worked internationally in research and administration, in governmental and nonprofit organizations, and in higher education and business. She held positions in the Swiss government, Agency for Development and Cooperation, as well as in the International Department of the Swiss Red Cross, and was the director of education and research at the Iowa Peace Institute. She was a lecturer at the University of Zurich and University of Bern in Switzerland, an affiliate assistant professor at Iowa State University, and a member of the faculty of William Penn University, College for Working Adults in Iowa. Dr. Zanolli has written extensively. She is affiliated with the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy in Washington, D.C., and with the project 1000 Peace Women Across the Globe (www.1000peacewomen.org). She is a member of the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) and of the European Mediation Network. She grew up and lives in Switzerland, studied and worked for some twenty years in the United States, and has worked and traveled widely in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. She speaks German, English, French, and Italian.

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