Remembering, and paying tribute to Ambassador Eagleburger

Today was the Memorial Service at Fort Myer for Lawrence S. Eagleburger, Ambassador to Yugoslavia and Secretary of State.  He was my ambassador in Belgrade for a couple of years in the 1970's, and something of a mentor during my time in Washington while he was P, D and finally S.

The service was held in the larger of the two chapels at Fort Myer, and the crowd pretty well filled the modernist building.  The start was delayed about 15 minutes, probably because one or another of the dignitaries was stuck in the Fort Myer security gate system.   

It was sort of stunning to look around the room and realize that not only did we have the current Secretaries of Defense and State, but former Secretaries of State Colin Powell, James Baker and Henry Kissinger, but also former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, former CIA director Webster, former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker, and a bevy of former ambassadors and ex State Department officials. 

The group of us who served under Larry in Belgrade was well represented with Mark Palmer, Burt Gerber, Sheldon Krys, Bill Pope, Chris Hill, John O'Keefe, and several others who looked familiar but I never quite put a name to.  Notably missing were some folks like Bill Montgomery (in Croatia), Victor Jackovich, Ron Neitzke, and surely others. 

I was also surprised to learn at this ceremony that the Bureau of Diplomatic Security has a four-man honor guard capable of doing flag duties.  The uniforms look a bit like something borrowed from the Romanian national opera, and I have a little trouble with the idea of the RSO's learning to do close order drill, but "oh well."  I think LSE would have preferred a standard Marine Security Guard detachment.

The remarks were well done, drawing out various aspects of LSE's life and character.  Jim Foley spoke very well on behalf of the Foreign Service, telling several stories about working for and with "the Eagle." I enjoyed his accounts of getting screamed at by Eagleburger.  I guess the story was that they were in the car, on the way to the White House for a meeting to plan a speech that Foley had been told to write in support of the President's re-election campaign.  Foley very carefully began to explain to Secretary Eagleburger that he was not sure he could do this, as he was an FSO and not sure he would be voting for the President.  "Hell," yelled Eagleburger, "I don't even know if I'm going to vote for him, but would you write the !#%&*%#! speech!"  All of us had those experiences, but we also knew they weren't aimed at us. 

Scowcroft talked about how he and Larry kept things under control over a period of about twenty years as they coordinated, often with hourly phone calls, between NSC and State under Presidents like Nixon, Ford and Bush.  

Howard Baker is getting on in years and suffering Parkinson's, but did a credible job of talking about Larry's relations with Congress.  Ken Juster read the poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.  Secretary Baker talked about how he was convinced to chose Eagleburger to be his deputy -- despite considerable "doubts about a guy who smoked and was kind of rumpled, when I'm a buttoned down kind of guy." 

Kissinger was really quite funny, telling a number of stories to illustrate how Larry believed that it was the Secretary's job to run the Department of State, and the Foreign Service's job to run the Secretary.  He admitted that Eagleburger kept his (Kissinger's) ego under control too.  Kissinger recounted how once, during a particularly difficult negotiation in the Middle East, after a very long day of talks, he Kissinger finally went to bed, only to be awakened by the muzzerein's call from a nearby mosque.  It was so loud that it sounded like it was emanating from right outside the Secretary's room, so he donned his robe and stomped over to Eagleburger's room next door to demand that Eagleburger do something about it.  Without missing a beat, he recounted, Eagleburger in his underwear picked up a yellow pad and pen, and asked, "And, to whom would you like me to send that message, Mr. Secretary?"

Gates talked about Larry Eagleburger the person, and told some stories about their travels and travails together in the Reagan and Bush administrations.   He told how the President several times sent the two of them to Europe to deliver some sort of unpleasant messages to the European allies.  They always began with Prime Minister Thatcher in London, thinking that if they got past her, the rest would be comparatively easy.   On at least the second or third of these trips, where the message was not much to her liking, she welcomed them both into Number Ten and said, "Please sit down.  In fact, sit right there where each of you were a month ago."   After the meeting, as she escorted them to the door of Number Ten, Gates said, Thatcher said with a warm smile to them, "You know you are always welcome here at Number Ten." But then, turning icy and stern, "Except, that is, if you ever try to raise that subject with me again."  Later, said Gates, she said something to the President about his having sent "Tweedledum and Tweedledee to see me."   To laughter in the chapel, Gates said he and Larry Eagleburger often debated which of them was which.

Secretary Clinton was also very good, especially recounting a story about her own first encounter with Secretary Eagleburger when his one piece of advice to her as incoming Secretary of State was, "Keep your eye upon the donut...and not upon the hole."  She made particular note of his being the first and only FSO to become Secretary of State, and his particular way of energizing a room of FSO's with his plain speaking and reputation for speaking truth to power.  She told the story of his getting dressed down at the Kennedy White House when, as a junior desk officer for Cuba, he analyzed the Bay of Pigs action on the first day and insisted it would fail.  And she told a nice account of his visit to the Department last month for the fifty year anniversary of the Op Center's creation. 

Many speakers talked about his love of country and service to the Department, but she make a unique point about LSE's love for, and belief in, the Department and the Foreign Service.