Lucius Battle

Lucius Durham Battle is the last man standing, a survivor of the heady days after World War II when the victorious powers put the world back together, creating institutions that continue to shape international politics.

Now 82 years old and just retired as president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, Battle joined the State Department in 1946 after wartime stints first as a civilian War Department analyst and later as a Navy officer. He was a special assistant to one of the legends of U.S. diplomacy, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, from 1949 until Acheson left office at the end of the Harry S. Truman administration in early 1953.

Later, he held a variety of State Department posts, including special assistant to John F. Kennedy’s secretary of State, Dean Rusk. He was ambassador to Egypt during the days that preceded the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and he was assistant secretary of State for Near East policy during that conflict.

Interviewed in the living room of his home near Washington’s embassy district, Battle reminisced about his half-century career, talking by turns about his days with Acheson, encounters with Egyptian strongman Gamal Abdul Nasser and about the prospects for Middle East peace in the weeks and months ahead.

Unlike Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and most of today’s top government officials, Acheson did not keep a workaholic schedule. But with a keen intellect and a style that neither wasted time nor suffered fools, Acheson was able to play such a strong role in the establishment of the postwar institutions that he could immodestly title his memoirs “Present at the Creation.”

Born in Georgia, Battle graduated from the University of Florida in 1939 and earned a law degree in 1946 between his discharge from the Navy and his arrival at the State Department. His speech retains the remnants of a Southern accent even after decades of diplomacy.

Among the souvenirs of a lifetime in his home are photographs of Battle with 50 years worth of international leaders--Queen Elizabeth of Britain as a young woman, U.S. presidents from Truman to George Bush, Nasser talking to Sen. Edward Kennedy. That’s pretty common for Washington’s famous and powerful, but Battle keeps things in perspective by displaying the framed pictures on a wall of his bathroom.

*

Question: How would you compare today’s Middle East with the one you saw before and during the war in 1967?

Answer: The balance of military power is rather different than it was in 1967. In ‘67, there were Arab armies from Egypt, Jordan and Syria. The initial strike was by Israel against Egypt, with substantial provocation I might say, and it knocked out the Egyptian air force. Today, the bigger powers have not been drawn into [the renewed fighting between Palestinians and Israelis] and I hope will not be.

The current situation has a longer root, and it is growing. This has gone on for several years and has increasingly become a holy war. At Camp David [last July], there was a very deep look at the issue of Jerusalem, which has been always put off. I really don’t see any ready answer to the problem. There has to be a new element put into this. It will have to be the United Nations or the religious sector or something to assume sovereignty over Jerusalem. There has to be a new element of acceptance of a higher authority than they have had in the past.

*

Q: How likely is it that Arab governments will become involved in the current crisis?

A: [Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat is lining up Arab [government] support for his position. But I don’t think the Arab states are likely to want to get into this conflict. There is no telling what Saddam Hussein will do, but Egypt, Jordan, Syria and other states want to avoid conflict.

. . . But there is a danger the fighting will spread to Lebanon and possibly to Syria. The government of Lebanon is unable to control its situation any more than Arafat can control his. There are too many elements in Lebanon that don’t report to anybody. Syria is different, but its role in Lebanon could pull it into this.

*

Q: How did the Johnson administration react to the war in 1967?

A: We worked very hard to find a way to avoid it. One of the nightmares I have is whether there was something more we could have done.

*

Q: How different was the Nixon administration’s response to the 1973 Arab-Israeli war?

A: Before the war in 1967, we had not been a military supplier to Israel. The French provided the Mirage planes [to Israel]. After the war in 1967, we began to supply Israel’s military needs. We waited to see what the Russians would do to resupply the Egyptians who lost all their air force. When the Russians began to supply the Egyptians, we supplied the Israelis. By 1973, we were the primary military supplier to Israel.

*

Q: Is there any chance that the deal announced at Sharm el Sheik will restore calm to Israel and the Palestinian territories?

A: I think there is a chance that it will slow down the conflict. But I expect there will continue to be isolated incidents. The very deep unrest that has been exhibited by the Arab citizens of Israel may create an atmosphere that will lead to civil difficulties in Israel that have not been present before.

*

Q: What was it like being in Cairo in ‘67?

A: It was very difficult, but it was marvelous. I found Nasser very stimulating. He was bright. He wasn’t terribly well-educated. He had been educated in the military system of Egypt. The first time I called on him, he looked at me and said, “You’re very young to be an American ambassador.” I said, “You’re very young to be a president.” I said, “We’re the same age [early 40s]. You’ve done much better than I have.” He laughed at that, and that seemed to set off a different attitude: He was much less pompous than most people reported.

He was fascinated by the Kennedys. This was right after the assassination of President [John F.] Kennedy. He was very disturbed about all that. He did not warm up to Lyndon Johnson. Johnson offended him in some ways. When Johnson showed his scar on his stomach after he had his operation, that bothered Nasser enormously. When Johnson picked up a dog by his ears--things of that sort troubled Nasser. I tempered it in my telegrams reporting our meetings. I didn’t want dog ears to come between two nations.

*

Q: Tell me the story behind the photograph of Nasser and Sen. Ted Kennedy talking to each other.

A: Teddy Kennedy and John Tunney, then his colleague in the Senate, came to see us. I knew both of them slightly. We asked them to stay at the embassy residence, because they came on Thanksgiving weekend; they were there with us for four days. They were difficult in the sense that they attracted an incredibly great deal of attention. There was a mob. They wanted to change their schedules every few minutes. They didn’t realize that it was very difficult to do that [because they were] attracting so much attention. So I took them shopping, and Tunney asked, “Luke, can’t we go buy some little dug-up things?” Dug-up things was a new way to talk about archeological treasures, but, at any rate, they wanted some dug-up things. Nasser was very eager to see Teddy Kennedy and enjoyed talking with him.

*

Q: You played a role in the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the postwar security system. At the time, what did you and your colleagues expect to accomplish?

A: What surpassed anything we had in mind was the extent of U.S. financial cooperation in Europe--rebuilding Europe and rearming it when that became necessary. I sat through some of the last negotiating meetings of the treaty, and I was very impressed with the way Acheson grabbed hold of the thing. He had just come in, although he’d been under secretary of state.

The structure became pretty much what we had in mind. It was a little more rigid in some respects than I thought it would be. The alliance moved faster than I had expected in terms of absorbing Turkey and Greece, which was not originally anticipated as part of the North Atlantic.

*

Q: You say Turkey and Greece are not exactly North Atlantic. Belgrade is not either. Yet, the first place the alliance actually fired rockets in anger was in Kosovo. Do you think this was anticipated?

A: No. What has got to be resolved is what we do about internal war, internal conflict. Civil war is not what we had in mind. We had in mind attacks from outside the borders of the signatory states.

*

Q: Why does an alliance established essentially to stop the Soviet Union continue to function?

A: We should have answered that question before we took in additional members and before we got involved in Yugoslavia. We didn’t do that. We took in new members and began to change the context of NATO before we decided what we wanted NATO to be. I don’t think it’s been thought through adequately.

*

Q: How do you think Acheson and the other wise men who put NATO together would react if they were able to see what’s happening to it?

A: It’s hard to anticipate what Acheson would do in this context. He became more hawkish out of office in his last years than he was when in office. He was very cautious in office, although I think he more than any other person deserves credit for our decisions with respect to Korea, for a lot of the decisions made with respect to armament in NATO.

*

Q: How was he to work for?

A: Unbelievably demanding. He did not bear fools lightly. He was a tough one. But he also had an enormous humor about him. He made me laugh at the same time he was beating me on the back. I enjoyed him and always had a very good time with him; I worked with him for four years, and we continued to be friends and to correspond.

*

Q: How did he operate?

A: Acheson’s hours were not as long or his work schedule anything like some of those who came after him. He came in about 9:00, and we worked until about 6:00. Usually, I stayed on to pack up, patch up whatever wounds there were around, things that had to be done to follow up on the day, but his schedule was not so impressive. He rarely came in on Saturday. But he was very businesslike. He was a very brilliant reader and a brilliant speaker. He also wrote things down. His logic required it to be in writing for him to make a decision. He had a better sense of the precision of the decision by having it in writing. But he wasn’t like [Acheson’s immediate predecessor as secretary of state] Gen. [George C.] Marshall. Marshall wanted everything on one page, and Acheson didn’t mind lengthy reading. He was very methodical.

*

Q: Do you think it’s necessary for top officials in the government to put in 19-hour days, seven days a week?

A: I don’t think it’s even healthy. The trouble is, we haven’t figured out how to operate in this new information age. You’re carrying a laptop around with you if you’re going to be working on it, but carrying it out of the office is a security threat. We used to keep information in our minds or on some notes that we had taken during a meeting. We handled it a little bit more efficiently, I think, than they do today. So I think it’s a matter of getting used to the computer world, the information flow, and to the dissemination of information. All these things are part of it.