US Diplomat Jim Patterson Recalls Civil Rights March from Selma to Montgomery AL

President Lyndon Johnson's Executive Order that sent my dad, James G. Patterson, and his fellow Alabama National Guardsmen to protect Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other marchers at Selma, Alabama, March 1965.

Due to my family connection to Selma, Alabama's Film Commission secured me a role in 2015's Golden Globe and Academy Award-winning film "Selma." My scenes with actor Tim Roth were filmed in Atlanta GA on Father's Day weekend 2014.

Jim Patterson is a writer/speaker/former US diplomat who resides in Washington DC. Message JEPDiplomat@com for speaking availability.

Jim Patterson note: Robert McNamara was Secretary of Defense at the time of the above EO was issued. International attention to the march influenced my career in the Foreign Service. Nobel Peace Prize recipient Ralph Johnson Bunche participated in the march.

Jim Patterson Recalling the Fall of Saigon April 21, 1975

On April 21, 1975, with Communist forces closing in, South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu resigned after nearly 10 years in office and fled the country.


Jim Patterson note: Many states, including California, fought against accepting South Vietnamese refugees. Read Dr. Yanek Mieczkowski's book Gerald R Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s. Bringing Vietnam to end was one hell of a challenge during tough political times in the U.S. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown was wrong to fight resettlement of South Vietnamese refugees in California. 

Ronald Reagan: "I think we were right to be involved. The problems in South Vietnam weren't just internal affairs, and we weren't there because we were imperialistic, as the communists claimed, or altruistic, as we tried to appear. The plain truth of the matter is that we were r=there to counter the master plan of the communists for world conquest, and it's a lot easier and safer to counter it 8,000 miles away than to wait until they land in Long Beach." Ronald Reagan's Call to Action 1976 (Thomas Nelson)

President Dwight Eisenhower and The Domino Theory.

Jim Patterson with a portrait of President Dwight Eisenhower, Capitol Hill Club, Washington DC. 


On April 7, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower held a news conference in which he spoke of the importance of containing the spread of communism in Indochina, saying, "You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly." (This became known as the "domino theory," although Eisenhower did not use that term.)

Jim Patterson note: I highly recommend Dr. Yanek Mieczkowski's excellent book: "

Eisenhower's Sputnik Moment: The Race for Space and World Prestige (Cornell University Press).

Dzhim Patterson: Bob Dole: Farm State Statesman

Former U.S. Senator Bob Dole, R-KS, and Diplomat Jim Patterson, Washington DC, 2006. 

Bob Dole: Farm State Statesman

Dzhim (Jim) Patterson

In January, former U.S. Senator Bob Dole, the 1996 GOP presidential candidate and the longest serving GOP Senate leader, was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for service as a “soldier, legislator and statesman.”

"Bob Dole always stood for what was just and what was right," Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said. "Because of you, America is much better." President Donald Trump called Kansan Dole, 94, “a true American hero.”

A decorated World War II veteran, Dole, ran as vice president on the 1976 GOP ticket with President Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006).  As an undergraduate at Auburn University, I worked on the Ford-Dole campaign at the GOP National Convention in Kansas City, in Alabama and other states.

Ford’s selection of Dole as vice president was controversial. Many Republicans at the convention, myself included, felt Vice President Nelson Rockefeller (1908-1979) should have shared the ticket with Ford.

Columnist Carl T. Rowan called Ford’s choice of Dole “moral, but bad politics.” For morality, Rowan felt Dole prevented “Neanderthals in the Ford administration” from dismantling the food stamp program. He noted politically conservative Senator Dole had worked effectively politically liberal Senator George McGovern (1922-2012), Democrat of South Dakota, with the Dole-McGovern food stamp bill administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  

Rowan suggested it would be “bad politics” is Dole assumed more a political role of “slashing attacker,” than someone who could add “heart” to the Ford campaign. It was visioary of Rowan to suggest this as, sadly, many believe Dole was “a slashing attacker” in 1976 and beyond due to his quick temper and sardonic wit. The 1976 presidential election was close, but Jimmy Carter defeated Jerry Ford.    

  

In 1996, I worked on Dole’s presidential campaign as an aide for vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp, former U.S. Congressman and Reagan cabinet official, in the campaign’s Washington headquarters.  Dole, who resigned from the Senate in 1996, lost the presidential election to incumbent Bill Clinton, who, soon after the election award Dole the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “A man of the heartland, he brought common sense, uncommon skill, and a prairie wit to the United States Senate,” read Dole’s Medal of Freedom citation.

In 1998, Dole, 74, participated in Viagra studies and found it “a great drug.” He immediately became the doleful face of erectile dysfunction (ED) and, soon after, the happy face of spokesman for Pfizer, Viagra’s manufacturer. Dole’s Viagra endorsement did not please some GOP constituents.

As Acting Director of Constituent Services at the Republican National Committee during the Clinton impeachment, I once got a phone call from a Tennessee fellow who initially objected to Dole’s Viagra support. I defended Dole for publicly addressing ED and, by call’s end, I convinced the man to talk with his doctor about Viagra. I shared the story in a letter to Dole and he demonstrated his famous prairie wit in his reply and thanked me for “sticking up” for him.

Dole and McGovern joined to address hunger in their 2005 book, “Ending Hunger Now: A Challenge to Persons of Faith.” In his foreword, former President Clinton wrote Dole “has repeatedly demonstrated that combating malnourishment and hunger is more important than partisan politics.”

Discussing the book in the January 2007 issue of The Living Pulpit magazine, Dole acknowledged hunger a huge global issue, but one he felt solvable due to technological advances in agricultural production, better distribution systems and dedicated support from people of faith.

    

Dole the American Statesman was a great teacher who has a world of experience. In “A Better America,” his 1996 acceptance speech for the GOP presidential nomination, Dole spoke of the foreign policy successes of Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He said Nixon displayed “diplomatic genius” in engaging China and Russia. “were it not for Reagan, Dole said, “the Soviet Union would still be standing today.” President George H. W. Bush, Dole said, used “a mastery that words fail to convey” in liberating Kuwait from Saddam Hussein.

Dole and the GOP leadership helped farmers realize the potential of global markets. His support of domestic and international food aid helped support farm prices, incomes and grow rural economies across the country.

Bob Dole was, at times, a tough leader with whom to work. He does, however, have a long view of leadership and always has his eye on a secure, successful and prosperous future for America.

I am proud to have worked for Dole’s campaigns and I see a future for him and his wife and former North Carolina U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole.  As I often tell him in emails and letters, I am a Dole Man and the sound of a double Dole ticket of Bob and Elizabeth Dole, or Dole/Dole, in 2020 has an appeal to it.

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Auburn graduate Jim Patterson is a life Member of the American Foreign Service Association and a member of the Alabama State Society. JEPDiplomat@gmail.com 

De-Weaponizing Twitter by Dzhim Patterson and Jim Patterson

Diplomat Jim Patterson with "Weaponizing Facebook" issue of Bloomberg Businessweek at Embassy of the Russian Federation Washington DC 2017.

Email from Twitter (TWTR) January 31, 2018

Dear Jim Patterson,

As part of our recent work to understand Russian-linked activities on Twitter during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, we identified and suspended a number of accounts that were potentially connected to a propaganda effort by a Russian government-linked organization known as the Internet Research Agency.

Consistent with our commitment to transparency, we are emailing you because we have reason to believe that you:

• Were following one or more of these accounts at the time the accounts were suspended;   • Replied to or mentioned one or more of these accounts during the election period; or   • Retweeted, quote tweeted, or liked content from one or more of these accounts during the election period.

This is purely for your own information purposes, and is not related to a security concern for your account. We are sharing this information so that you can learn more about these accounts and the nature of the Russian propaganda effort. You can see examples of content from these suspended accounts on our blog if you're interested.

People look to Twitter for useful, timely, and appropriate information. We are taking active steps to stop malicious accounts and Tweets from spreading, and we are determined to keep ahead of the tactics of bad actors. For example, in recent months we have developed new techniques to identify accounts manipulating our platform, have improved our process for challenging suspicious accounts, and have introduced new measures designed to identify and take action on coordinated malicious activity. In 2018, we are building on these improvements. Our blog also contains more information about these efforts.

People come to Twitter to see what's happening in the world. We are committed to making it the best place to do that and to being transparent with the people who use and trust our platform.

Twitter

Dr. Ralph Bunche: A Life of Successful Diplomacy by Jim Patterson

Dr. Ralph Bunche

Dr. Ralph Johnson Bunche contributed an essay, “Nana Lit the Beacon,” for Edward R. Murrow’s “This I Believe” (Simon and Schuster, 1954). The book is a collection of essays by prominent Americans on their fundamental beliefs about our nation and the world.  In Bunche’s nearly 600-word essay, he wrote of being raised by his grandmother and the importance of self-empowerment.

Murrow’s brief biography on Bunche, whom he called an “educator, humanitarian,” included Bunche's appointment as principal director, Department of Trusteeship and Information from Non-Self-Governing Territories of the United Nations. Born in Detroit, in 1904, Bunche was educated at the University of California and Harvard, where he majored in government and international relations.

Bunche received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 for his mediation work in Israel. He was the first African American to receive the honor.

“In my youth, I had what many would consider a poor and hard life. But as I recall it, I was never unhappy; rather I enjoyed my youth immensely. For I had been taught how to appreciate and get the most out of very little, and that happiness in any circumstances is primarily a matter of control over one’s state of mind,” Bunche wrote.

Bunche wrote he never surrendered his “dignity and self-respect” as a youth in the mean streets of Detroit or in segregated Washington. “I have faith in people, in, collectively, their essential goodness and good sense; granted that there will be individual mavericks on every human range," he wrote.

Bunche believed in the work of the United Nations in an era when the world and Washington looked to it for approaches to “harmony and peace,” as he put it.

Nearly 65 years have not diminished the strength of the personal beliefs of Dr. Ralph Bunche expressed in Murrow’s book. He retired as Under Secretary General of the United Nations in October 1971 and died two months later at age 67.

President Richard Nixon, in a statement, called Dr. Bunche “one of the greatest architects of peace in our time” for his work in the Congo and the Middle East. “America is deeply proud of this distinguished son and profoundly saddened by his death. But we are also strengthened by the inexhaustible measure of dedication and creative action that spans his splendid career.”

The “creative action,” President Nixon mentioned may have been from lessons Bunche learned from his grandmother on how to “get the most out of very little” by control over his state of mind, as he wrote in seventeen years earlier for Murrow’s book in “Nana Lit the Beacon.”  

Jim Patterson note: Bunche's 1954 essay appears in full below. 

"Nana Lit the Beacons" by Dr. Ralph J. Bunche from This I Believe edited by Edward R, Murrow (Simon and Schuster, 1954) 

"I feel, more than a little self-conscious about trying to elucidate my personal, private creed. For, after all, when a person strips down all the way to his innermost beliefs-an in public-he stands awfully exposed. Nevertheless, it strikes me as a very useful experience to sit down with oneself and seriously think through one’s beliefs and convictions.

"The trail of my beliefs and their development leads back to my childhood. I was reared in a deeply religious family. It was a sort of matriarchal clan, ruled over by my maternal grandmother, “Nana”-a name, incidentally, which I had given her as a tot in trying clumsily to say “Grandma.” Nana, a strong and devout personality, beloved and respected by all who knew her, guided the family by simple but firm beliefs.

"Foremost, she believed in God. In worldly matters, she believed that every person, without regard to race or religion, has a virtually sacred right to dignity and respect; that all men are brothers and are entitled to be treated as equals and to enjoy equality of opportunity; that principle, integrity, and self-respect are never to be worn as loose garments. For each of us in that family there are belief, almost automatically, came to be part of our very being. For me, this was particularly so, since Nana became both mother and father to me when in my early youth I lost both parents.

"In my youth, I had what many would consider a poor and hard life. But as I recall it, I was never unhappy; rather I enjoyed my youth immensely. For I had been taught how to appreciate and get the most out of very little, and that happiness in any circumstances is primarily a matter of control over one’s state of mind.

"I find that most everything in which I now believe stems from the simple lessons I learned at the knee of Nana. The beliefs I acquired, quite unconsciously and unthinkingly, in those early years, the lessons on how to approach life and its many problems, have been my unfailing guideposts.

"Like Nana, I have an implicit belief in a Supreme Being and a Supreme Will beyond the ken of mortal men.

"I hold that it is right to believe in one’s self, but it is wrong ever to take one’s self too seriously. For a keen sense of personal values and that humility which accompanies a balanced perspective are indispensable to congenial adjustment to life in society. 

"I believe that no man can be happy within himself if he ever surrenders his dignity and self-respect. I have faith in people, in, collectively, their essential goodness and good sense; granted that there will be individual mavericks on every human range.

"I believe that men can learn to live together in harmony and peace, in the international community as in domestic communities, and I am unfalteringly devoted, therefore, to the historic effort of the United Nations toward this end.

"I believe, also, in looking always on the brighter side of things; in the ability of right somehow ultimately to prevail; in never pressing time or fate; in taking life philosophically and in stride—both the good and the bad—and I have had an ample measure of both. 

"These are some, at least, of my beliefs. They are, for me, imperatives beacons without which life would be utterly lacking in direction or meaning."

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Jim Patterson note: I share the beliefs Dr. Bunche had about his career and the institutions he served during and after WWII. I share, also, his experience as a poor youth solidly grounded in family and faith. We share a faith, through time, in our government and its institutions, especially regarding peace, dignity and respect between nations.

Jim Patterson JEPDiplomat@gmail.com

Jim Patterson is: 

Life Member American Foreign Service Association

Member Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations

Associate Member Korean War veterans Association

Life Member Associates of Vietnam Veterans of America

Member Sons of The American Legion

Member US Philippines Society

Friend of the Israeli Defense Forces

Member California State Society

Honorary Member Paralyzed Veterans of America

Townsend Harris Remembered by Diplomat Jim Patterson

“I shall be the first recognized agent from a civilized power to reside in Japan. This forms an epoch in my life and may be the beginning of a new order of things in Japan. I hope I may so conduct myself that I may have honorable memories in the histories which will be written on Japan and its future destiny.” Townsend Harris, Journal, August 19, 1856.

                                                                 Townsend Harris

Writing from U.S. Embassy Tokyo in 1959, Ambassador Douglas MacArthur II (b. 1909- d.1997) wrote in his preface for the revised edition of “The Complete Journal of Townsend Harris: First American Consul and Minister to Japan,” that the history of international relations was inseparable from the history of individuals. The revised edition was published shortly after the centenary of official U.S.-Japan relations and the centenary of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, negotiated by Harris, between the two countries in 1858.   

In 1958 Hollywood also got in on the centenary with release of the John Wayne (b.1907-d.1979)  film “The Barbarian and the Geisha,” a box office underachiever that nonetheless for this student of cinema diplomacy remains a largely fascinating, if flawed, account of Harris’s grueling negotiations with Japan’s Imperial government.

                                                   John Wayne as Townsend Harris

                                                   "The Barbarian and the Geisha" 1958

Though Harris was a dignified, cultured and educated man, Japan considered Americans heathens at the time of his arrival. Thus, the title of the film. Wayne does his best as the cultured and diplomatic Harris.

Harris (b.1804- d.1878), a New York educator, politician and importer of Asian goods, accepted an offer by U.S. President Franklin Pierce to become the first Consul General to Japan.  He opened the first U.S. Consulate at the Gyokusen-ji Temple in Shimoda in 1856.

With his precise and elegant writing, lifelong devotion to education, he founded the City College of New York, Harris was a spiritual “mentor” to me and I endeavored to incorporate his professional style into my own diplomatic journal and State Department reports. I refer to the Harris journal often.  

Harris left Japan in 1861 after negotiating, over a grueling two-year period, the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, which opened trade between the U.S. and Japan. The treaty is popularly known as The Harris Treaty of 1858.

The treaty, Harris stressed to the Japanese, would be of mutual interest for commerce, education and culture. He further convinced Japan they had an obligation to teach the U.S. about Japan and learn from U.S. diplomats, business people and educators.

Several journal entries illustrate what Harris saw as needing change in Japan. His journal entry of January 21, 1857, mentioned he saw Japanese girls as young as 14, nude and in baths with a nude Japanese “fellow of some twenty years of age.” Harris objected to the Vice-Governor that “promiscuous bathing was ... injurious to the chastity of ... females.” He learned the practice was common and he wanted change to protect the “chastity” of young girls.

In several journal entries, we learn what type of diplomat and American Harris was. In December 1857, Harris wrote of the Japanese barbarity of slow, tortuous, crucifixion for crimes of bringing embarrassment to the country.  In another 1857 entry, when offered Saki Harris “pled ill health and only drank tea.” This is an excuse I wish I had used in many foreign countries.  

In another 1857 entry, Harris lost his temper with the Japanese. “The lubricity of these people passes belief,” he wrote. “I was asked a hundred different questions about American females … but I will not soil my paper with the greater part of them, but I clearly perceive that there are particulars that enter into Japanese marriage contracts that are disgusting beyond belief.” This was another area where Harris felt America could help change Japanese culture.

Being the first American Consul and Minister to Japan, Harris was in a unique position to document his discussions, official and unofficial, with Japanese counterparts. Nothing like the official diplomatic journal of Townsend Harris had been published about Japan and it is easy to see why Hollywood sensationalized some of his entries, albeit by 1958 standards in the John Wayne film.

In the film, Wayne represented the conservative American morals expressed by Harris in his journal. For example, in the film, Wayne as Harris, pleads for Japan to end its custom of killing baby girls during crop failures. In a comic scene, a Japanese official asks Wayne if American wives walk behind their husbands. Wayne suggests, to the shock of his inquisitor, some husbands walk behind their wives.

In sum, Townsend Harris worked largely alone in Japan. In a time and male dominant culture when he could have engaged in anything, Harris did the right and professional thing. He kept his mind on his diplomatic objectives and helped Japan realize the need to enter the global economy and change its customs. He also “pled ill health” and abstained when offered Saki and sexual indulgences.

Harris rests in the historic 500-acre Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. In 1986, the government of Japan honored his resting place with the gift of trees and Japanese sculpture for being a Friend of Japan. The Harris resting place is a monument to a great and legendary American diplomat. A museum dedicated to Harris also exists at the site of the first U.S. Consulate in Japan. For more information see:  https://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/spot/shritemp/gyokusenji.html  

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Jim Patterson is an economist, life member of the American Foreign Service Association and life member of the Auburn University Alumni Association. JEPDiplomat@gmail.com



Jim Patterson JEPDiplomat@gmail.com
Life Member American Foreign Service Association
Member Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations
Associate Member Korean War veterans Association
Life Member Associates of Vietnam Veterans of America
Member Sons of The American Legion
Member US Philippines Society
Friend of the Israeli Defense Forces
Member California State Society
Honorary Member Paralyzed Veterans of America