A NEW FSO DURING PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S FINAL YEAR: A DIPLOMAT'S PERSPECTIVE.

• Author: Riggio, Louis V.
• Position: Foreign service officers

Prelude

Having passed the Foreign Service Written Examination in December 1961 and the Oral, in June 1962, shortly after the latter I found myself at Parris Island for Marine Corps Recruit Training; I was in the Reserve component. Shortly prior to that, Senator Kenneth Keating (R-NY) had begun showing evidence that the Soviets were installing missiles in Cuba. The White House had remained silent on the question until October when the Missile Crisis, as we know it today, received the merited front-page attention.

Back at Parris Island, the senior enlisted ranks were enthusiastic for action, an opportunity for The White House to make right the 1961 Bay of Pigs disaster. So far as that effort was concerned, I remembered being stunned as our very distinguished UN Ambassador, Adlai Stevenson, conveyed misleading information to the world body. I had felt he had been "sandbagged", if you will, something that would occur similarly in 2003 when Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke to the Security Council on the supposed Iraqi WMD's. Something similar may have happened to UN Ambassador Susan Rice given her explanation on the Sunday talk shows of the tragic events in Benghazi.

Returning to The Island, the senior enlisted men had "volunteered" me to go to the Naval Hospital in neighboring Beaufort, SC to give blood. Because of the brewing crisis and the fact that I'd have access to a telephone at the Hospital, they asked me to find out what I could. Believe me, they were raring to go! I spoke with my brother Philip, a Navy veteran then at Harvard Law School. He had been following matters closely and, in a few words, his analysis was that (a) Both Kennedy and Khrushchev would claim "victory"; (b) Castro wasn't going anywhere and (c) neither were we.

Once again at The Island, the senior people weren't very pleased with Phil's summation. They were vociferous, to say the least (for Marines!), that he was wrong; they were sure that, this time, Kennedy would take care of Castro. Well, the latter may not be too well these days, but he's probably waving an habano at us, surely in the vertical position. Over the next 35 years I'd learn a lot more of what we'd hope to do and how we were organized but Phil's assessment was correct. We did send a few Corpsmen to Guantanamo but that was about it.

At State

My FSO appointment became effective in very early January, 1963, just about fifty years ago. I was in the 54(th) A-100 Class, fourteen strong, and one that produced three exceptionally distinguished ambassadors, Bob Lamb, Grant Smith (both at Parris Island while I was but we didn't know one another then) and Jim Bullington. After Junior Officer Training and a detail to the House of Representative, by April, I was in Caribbean and Mexican Affairs, the junior officer on the Haiti, Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago/Jamaica desks. Respectively, they were headed by very talented officers, Forrest Abbuhl, Bill Sowash and Mel Sinn.

Plenty was happening in...