The Incidental Oriental Secretary and Other Tales of Foreign Service by Jackson Richard L.;

Author:Jackson, Richard L.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Hamilton Books
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Grand Strategy

King Hassan was convinced that Morocco was strategic real estate, guarding access to the Straits of Gibraltar and exercising moderate leadership in a region threatened by Islamists and, during the Cold War, by an Algeria aligned with Moscow. He further marketed the Kingdom as the essential gateway for Americans and Europeans into Africa. All of these assumptions appeared threadbare, however, as the Soviet Union collapsed and the First Gulf War demonstrated that the Straits of Gibralter were no longer vital to project US power into the Middle East or Africa. In fact, few would still risk a carrier in such tight quarters. Crises in the Balkans and elsewhere also vied for declining US foreign assistance, and Morocco’s share dropped precipitously from $140 million a year in my time there to $34 million the last time I checked.

This tectonic shift became clear when, not long after our wedding in Casablanca, my wife Eia and I escorted Senator Patrick Moynihan and his wife around Morocco for several days. The focus of the Senator’s trip was to investigate the continuing need for the largest radio transmitter in the free world located at a sprawling Voice of America (VOA) site outside Tangier. This was an ongoing major investment, based on obsolete Cold War realities, with transmitters able to beam radio broadcasts across the Soviet Union, Africa and the Middle East. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, it had become a costly white elephant, now long since closed, and there were no good answers to Senator Moynihan’s demands for justification from the VOA and Embassy staffs. As a parenthesis, I took a risk in giving Moynihan a copy of my book on the NAM, since it covered his period as US Ambassador at the United Nations and insistent calls for accountability by UN member states. To my surprise, he read the entire rather dull book overnight, commenting to his wife, as she recounted to me, “This man hates me.” He never mentioned it to me, however, and we continued to get along passably well, so far as I could tell.

A similar unforgettable visit involving US facilities, in this case to Marrakesh, unfolded with Florida Congressman Claude Pepper, the oldest living member of Congress, then in his mid-eighties, who headed the Grey Panther movement for the elderly. He was accompanied by a phalanx of young Congressmen whom he basically confined to quarters at the plush Mamounia Hotel during periods when he was resting so that they would not get ahead of him or freelance on their own with independent business or contacts. The King had just completed a $72 million dollar interior renovation of the legendary Mamounia Hotel undertaken by the French interior designer Andre Paccard, de-Moroccanizing the hotel many felt, but also installing state-of-the-art gadgetry. On the first night there, Congressman Pepper turned over in his sleep, accidentally hitting the bedside control panel and activating the automatic blinds, TV, music, and lights, causing a minor panic among the staff.

The purpose of the Pepper

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