Washington, D.C., 2006
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Foreign Service Spouse Series
JUDY MOTLEY
Interviewed by: Jewell Fenz
Initial interview date: July 16, 1992
Q: This is July 16th, 1992, and I'm interviewing Judy Motley at her home in McLean, Virginia. By all means put on there your newspaper job when you graduated from college because then you probably got married.
MOTLEY: I did go to a small newspaper in Montgomery, Alabama foabout three months, but we only lived there for three months, so...
Q: This was when Tony was in the Air Force?
MOTLEY: Yes. Six years.
Q: Okay. And which paper?
MOTLEY: The St. Louis Globe Democrat.
Q: Fine, I will add all of that.
MOTLEY: I have something here to show you.
Q: Oh, yes, from your journal? Judy just found my informal note which was an invitation from me and Rosa Baptista da Silva to a luncheon at the Baptista da Silva's Thursday, November, 12th. Of course, I don't have a year on it, but it must be about '81 or '82. Which is it?
MOTLEY: '81.
Q: '81. Did you come in '81?
MOTLEY: We arrived in late September of '81.
Q: And you came to Recife in November. Great.
MOTLEY: And I also mentioned that you took me shopping and I owed Guido a lot of money. He lent me a lot of money because I bought so many Christmas presents.
Q: (laughing) I don't remember that. I hope you paid him back!
MOTLEY: Yes, I did.
Q: Oh, this is great, Judy, this is a nice little tie-in. I shall always remember that luncheon. Well all of the arrangements that went on beforehand. My meetings with her and the security, and in essence really toning down. I mean they probably would have done more, but...
MOTLEY: Well I wrote here, “The luncheon was almost indescribable. The house of mammoth proportions in perfect condition and over 200 years old. It has been in the family for 150 years. In one room, the French furniture, covered with Aubosson petit pointe was slightly worn. Rosa looked into having it done over again and the artisans at Aubosson said it would take forty years. She didn't mention the price. Of the twenty people there, ten women were in Rosa's family. Her three young married daughters, all gorgeous, all work at the textile business in the mornings and bring their children to visit Grandma in the afternoons. They always visit their mother at least once a day.”
Q: Meaning Rosa's daughters?
MOTLEY: “Rosa's daughters always visited her once a day with the children. Senor Salvi, the honorary Belgian Counselor, has a rose fazenda and sent Rosa about six dozen roses this morning.”
Q: Yes, Emilio Salvi, I think it is.
MOTLEY: “Rosa wired each rose herself - they will wilt in the heat if not wired - and arranged them in magnificent silver containers.” Remember that?
Q: Oh, yes, yes. Well, had you been to Rio and Sao Paulo before yocame up to Recife, or was this your first sort of foray out of Brasilia?
MOTLEY: Well, we stopped in Rio on the way in because Tony's mothelived [in] Rio and had never met the children.
Q: Oh, she'd never been to the U. S.?
MOTLEY: She'd never been up to Alaska. It was very difficult to gethere. So it was very emotional.
Q: Had Tony seen her in all that time?
MOTLEY: Oh, yes, we had seen her. He had taken me to Brazil and I think he might have had - I don't remember. It's been a long time. I don't remember that. But she had been at our wedding, of course. Then Tony took me to Brazil once in those first years of marriage. And so we stopped in Rio on the way in and spent the night there at the consulate's house with the dog and the cat and the children and the mother-in-law.
Q: Oh, she came along with you, too?
MOTLEY: Well, she was there in Rio, she lived in Rio. So we did some things with her. But the next day we flew up to Brasilia. Of course, it was all sort of a haze because we were so tired from the moving. Moving all the way from Alaska with the cat and the dog and the children, that I just sort of floated through it. Now I can remember meeting friends when we got off the plane in Rio, off the plane in Brasilia, but if you'd asked me their names then, I never would have known what to tell you. Everybody was so nice and I was just...
I think that first few months, the first impressions were the wonder and the awe of it all. You have a lot of things done for you, but I realized when reading my journals how busy one is. I'd forgotten how many things we were expected to attend, how many things you're expected to do.
Q: How about naming some of them. Take a day or a week and just gthrough.
MOTLEY: Well in my journal I found one very funny, I think, entry which I'll tell you about in a few minutes because it's so typical of the type of thing you run into in a country like Brazil which runs a little bit slower than we're used to. Let's see, a typical day. Well, I immediately realized that since I didn't speak the language that I really had to begin with my Portuguese lessons, so I would get up and have breakfast with Tony at 6:30 and go with him into the Chancery and have a lesson first thing in the morning, which was probably the smartest thing I did. Make myself have a two-hour lesson every day. And then I would meet with Tony's assistants whom I called the social secretary - you're not supposed to call them the social secretary anymore - who helped me plan all the entertaining and helped me with my schedule. She was Frieda Mauger, a Brazilian...
Q: I remember her.
MOTLEY:...who was married to an American. Ironically, the American was the stepfather of a friend of mine from St. Louis, and also a young man who had gone to school with Tony in Rio in the '50's. It was amazing. Small world. But Frieda became my very closest friend and advisor. She knew everyone in Brasilia and many people in Sao Paulo and Rio. Certainly all the government people.
Q: Do you know how long she'd been there?
MOTLEY: Well her husband was an engineer and they moved from Sao Paulo to Brasilia before Brasilia was built. Or it must have been in the early '60s I assume. And they lived in one of the towns outside of Brasilia because there was no place to live in Brasilia. And after the American embassy was established there, she started out as a Portuguese teacher at the embassy and they realized what they had and she became an assistant to the ambassador.
Q: You said she became your best friend, but really, what a valuable asset. Women like that around the world are just invaluable to someone in your position coming in.
MOTLEY: She was wonderful. As a matter of fact I found in my journals that George High the DCM told me that she was going to have to retire or else lose some sort of Brazilian retirement that they get, I don't know what it was. And I wrote about four pages about how devastated I was because she was wonderful. And there was no one else who could do what she did. As a matter of fact it was not true. There was a way to work it out so that she wouldn't lose her retirement and she's still there.
Q: Oh, really?
MOTLEY: And everyone who has followed up has agreed on how invaluable she is. She doesn't actually work terribly closely with the ambassador's wife as much as help the ambassador with the connections with the Foreign Ministry in Brasilia. So she and I would spend some days, a couple of hours, planning guest lists and dates and the type of party and the menus of course, and where to buy flowers. I found in Brasilia it was really difficult finding fresh vegetables that were tasty and so she helped me work with our ma�tre d' on menus where we could... I'd send him out to this grocery store to see what vegetables were available and start from there which was a little bit of a different attack than you would do in the United States, but when you knew you could get certain things at certain seasons. But I learned to do that. And she helped me with translating recipes and that sort of thing. She also helped with a lot of personnel problems because we had such a large staff. It was a full-time job just juggling their problems.
Q: How many were on the staff at the Residence, do you remember?
MOTLEY: Well inside the house there was a butler, a first waiter, a house boy, two cooks, a maid and laundress who came daily, and I think maybe a second waiter. I can't remember. I remember something about seven. And that doesn't count the gardeners.
Q: And did those seven keep that huge place clean or did somebodelse come in for the cleaning?
MOTLEY: No, they did all the cleaning. They didn't do the gardening. Except we had an interior garden which I finally sort of took over myself because they wouldn't let the regular gardeners come in because they didn't have a security clearance. So you had to come into the house to get into this atrium pool type thing and I didn't like the way they took care of it anyway, so I just put on my tennis shoes and climbed the tree and pushed around in the rocks and trimmed the thing back myself.
Q: And probably had a great time doing it.
MOTLEY: Oh yes, because it was the only thing they let me do, really.
Q: How many gardeners were there outside? You had seven peoplinside and maybe that many outside.
MOTLEY: I have no idea. It was so pressured and you'd look out every morning and they would sweep the terrace with a broom that was about six inches wide whereas of course we would have... They'd have six people with tiny brooms and we'd have one person with one huge broom. It took me a while to get used to that way of looking at things. I remember also the rugs in one of the bedrooms was very worn and so I talked to the general services officer - the GSO - to see if there were any pieces of rug in storage that I could use. And he said, well yes, he thought so. So I went to the warehouse with him. And there was an enormous rug that had been taken out of the embassy some years ago which he decided could be cut up because no one was using it and it was just sitting there getting mildewed. So I measured different bedrooms and took in the measurements to the embassy to give to him.
And that afternoon, when I went home, seven men arrived at the front door. And I said, “What are you doing here?” And they said, “Oh we've come to measure for the rug.” And six of them stood around while one did the measuring I had already done! So I found that waste like that was a little frustrating, but I also found for peace in some cases you have to go along with something like that. I noted down that I thought that was excessive and told the GSO that he should maybe - I didn't say it this way - but I was thinking that maybe he should have his finger on the pulse a little bit more as far as that was concerned because, after all, it was U.S. Government money.
Q: You said you had to learn Portuguese. Was it to deal witsituations like that, or socially, or both?
MOTLEY: Well everything. I had no Portuguese. And Tony's kitchen Portuguese wasn't very good. He grew up in Brazil and the women take care of talking to the cooks so he couldn't help me there. I had to learn a lot of that very quickly. We arrived in September and two weeks later Vice President Bush and Mrs. Bush were arriving for a state visit. We had one cook, but she was more or less a family cook. We didn't have a cook who could handle huge crowds and they had already scheduled three parties, I think, at our house. So we couldn't find a cook. It's kind of hard to find cooks in the hinterlands of Brazil, so we found out that the President, President Friaredo was ill at the time. He'd just had a heart attack and his cook was not doing anything. So we asked the President's office if we could borrow him for our Vice President's visit and they said, “Certainly.” So things worked out really well because we had a huge luncheon and two dinners, I believe, or two luncheons and one dinner. I can't remember.
That visit was wonderful because George and Barbara Bush were the best houseguests anyone could have. They're very relaxed. They made sure that they had two hours to themselves in the afternoons to relax. They write their own thank-you notes, of course. Barbara Bush played tennis with my daughters and George Bush took a run. They're smart to always keep time for a little relaxation because I think you work yourself to death otherwise. The trip was very difficult, too. They visited three or four Latin American countries. And the schedule is just horrendous. Anyway, I always said that that was sort of baptism by fire and ignorance is bliss.
I also read in my journal that one of the luncheons we were having... They decided to have a businessmen's luncheon and decided to have it a buffet. And I thought they couldn't hire enough waiters to have a formal luncheon to serve everyone individually, so I made the mistake of saying, “Well why don't we just put all the food on the plates in the kitchen and bring them in?” And everyone was horrified! One of my first mistakes. But one makes mistakes.
Q: So did you do that, or did you just propose it?
MOTLEY: I proposed it. Everybody was so horrified, I realized that I had made a terrible faux pas. So we did have a buffet which worked out fine. And people went through the buffet line and sat down at the tables. The house was an interesting house. It was not built by the American Government. It was bought from a private Brazilian who had been a movie freak and he built this huge room in the basement off the pool with its own kitchen where I could seat eighty people for a meal which was ideal. The draw-backs to it were that there were only three bedrooms, really.
Q: I remember that.
MOTLEY: We had to turn an office into a bedroom because of course we had two children there of the age where they really wanted their own bedrooms. They had to share quite a bit because of guests, but we did arrange it so that at times they could have their own bedrooms. When the Vice President was there, they had to sleep in our room with us because there was no where else to sleep.
Q: So they each had a bedroom?
MOTLEY: They each had a bedroom. The fourth bedroom was an officwhich I turned into a bedroom. Then I had four bedrooms.
Q: I guess what I was asking was, the Bushes took over two bedrooms?
MOTLEY: Well they took over three because they had so many people. He had his military adviser and the man who carries the football and a good doctor and his adviser.
Q: And they were all housed with you?
MOTLEY: Including all the electronic gear which was in my storeroom in the basement. And the men and the Secret Service stood in the hallway outside their bedroom all night.
Q: They must have had eight-hour shifts, didn't they?
MOTLEY: Yes, they took shifts. But that was a wonderful experience for me because it really made us jump into the community in those first two weeks so that we could be good hosts showing the Bushes around.
I had a luncheon for the spouses for the Country Team about the third day I was there and they were wonderful and told me everything they could. Some tips about the area and where we could possibly take Barbara Bush and what would be a good program for here. They also lent all their wonderful doo-dads and knick-knacks to me because the only things we had with us were the things we brought with us in our suitcases and we had enormous bookshelves that were empty and etag�res that had nothing in them and nothing on the tables. It was very cold looking. So everyone called and said, I'm bringing my Russian icon to you. I was nervous. All these beautiful things that people insisted I borrow. So that was a great help. It also helped me figure out what a Country Team was. I had no idea. It was - let's see if I can remember... You had the Economic Counselor, the Political Counselor - these were the senior officers in these particular positions - George High, the DCM, Admin, Military.
Q: Did you have an AID mission there or not?
MOTLEY: That was. And the AID mission was a sort of a twofer, too, because the spouse of the head of the AID was the community liaison officer (CLO) and was a great help, too, and also became a very good friend which I don't think happens often with ambassadors' wives and the CLO because the CLO is such a wonderful invention to have at post. It's great for morale and to have someone who also kept in touch with the latest things coming out of Washington as far as the family is concerned. And the community, what sort of things we had. They also helped out with visits which wasn't really in their job description, but I found that they were the perfect people to do it because they knew everyone in the community and knew who would help and who would like to help. And also helping with children's programs and children's parties that I'd have at the Residence.
Q: So you were doing that through the CLO? That's a good idea.
MOTLEY: Yes, I usually did because her finger was on the phone.
Q: Well, and that distanced you from asking people to do things.
MOTLEY: That's right. I would ask them to ask. Yes, it worked out very well. Also people sort of expected me to help find someone to be president of the American Women's Club and that sort of thing and so I'd meet with the CLO and some other people and...
Q: Do it by committee?
MOTLEY: Yes, have the CLO do the asking. And she also helped with our enormous 4th of July picnics immensely. But I'm getting ahead of myself I think.
Q: Well we were back at the house putting down carpeting, I think,when we sort of took off with the Bushes.
MOTLEY: I also sidetracked from my typical day. Let's get back tthat.
Q: Typical week. Yes.
MOTLEY: Many times I'd have a luncheon. In the beginning I was making calls on... Tony didn't make a lot of calls with me because of this Vice Presidential visit. Usually when you get to post you call with your husband on ambassadors and their spouses from all the other countries. Well there were eighty embassies in Brasilia and Tony was very busy organizing this trip. So I started alone and just called on spouses, the wives. That was an eye-opener, too. Sometimes I would do three or four calls in one day and each ambassador's wife would want to showcase her lovely home and her lovely food which could be a disaster weight-wise. (phone rings)
Q: You were making the calls by yourself and all the ladies were bringing out - and oh in Brazil, all those sweet things. Of course they weren't Brazilians, they were...
MOTLEY: They were others, but they were their national goodies with a little bit of a Brazilian slant because a lot of them had Brazilian cooks. So you'd have a salty hors d'oeuvre and juice and sweets that were unbelievable. And then I'd try to make those as short as possible. Frieda, my lovely friend, told me that I really didn't have to stay longer than about a half an hour. That it would be nice if I stayed longer, but if I couldn't, that would be all right. It was very good because you set in your mind the person and got to know them a little bit which was important.
Then I'd come home and spend time with the children who were having a bit of problem adjusting after living in Alaska all their lives, suddenly thrown into a situation, into a school which was a third American, a third Brazilian, and a third other countries. They were a little overwhelmed. I think because we had children there it was good. We were able to keep our priorities straight.
Q: How old were they at the time?
MOTLEY: I call them middle-aged teenagers. They were eleven and thirteen when we arrived, I think. About that age. The awkward years. They settled in and now talk lovingly about their years in Brazil, of course. But Tony and I never planned anything on Saturday or Sunday unless it was with them. That kept a lot of late-night Brazilian parties on weekends down to a dull roar which is what we wanted to do. During the week we went to a lot of things, of course, but they were so late that I was able to spend a lot of time with them from the late afternoon into the evening and then we'd go out at 8:30 or something like that. And then the next morning I'd get up at 6:30 again and start all over with my Portuguese lessons.
Of course, we did a lot of traveling because - you can help me - think there were seven posts of various kinds around Brazil at the time.
Q: Porto Alegre, Rio, Sao Paulo, something in Belo Horizonte.
MOTLEY: Belo Horizonte was a USIS.
Q: Bahia, Recife, Manaus, and Belem.
MOTLEY: Yes. We had counselor agents in Manaus and Belem. It was wonderful. I never could have seen Brazil if I hadn't been with Tony. It was great. But it required a lot of juggling. Oftentimes we'd come back from someplace at noon and be giving a dinner at night which of course you could never do here. But with all the help you can.
Q: Would Frieda take over the...
MOTLEY: Frieda would help and make sure that everything got done. She also helped out with all the health insurance and national - I forget what it's called there - that you had to do for the staff, which was very complicated.
Q: What about seating? Did she take care of that, too?
MOTLEY: She helped me with that, too, tremendously. Even re-arranged the seating during cocktail hours when we realized that people weren't going to come at the last minute. She'd called Alex and said, “Oh right, is Minister so-and-so going to come?” “No, he has to work late.” So she'd juggle everything around at the last minute. One time or two times when she was on vacation I had to do it all by myself and I just ruined the seating arrangements. And I thought, “Well, there's nothing you can do about it. Just smile and have a good time.” Because it was just impossible to pull out of your head all of the protocol, the list of who should be where when and I just couldn't do it and be a hostess at the same time.
Q: And the world [inaudible]?
MOTLEY: The world [inaudible]. Everybody had a good time.
Q: Nobody broke relations.
MOTLEY: No. Of course there are a million women's groups that you're expected to join or be the honorary chairman of or go to. I always felt that you didn't have to be chairman of everything. I just think that's suicidal. I knew some ambassadors' wives in big cities who just did absolutely everything people asked them to do. Well you don't have enough... And they ended up in the hospital. You can't do everything. You have to weigh - choose your priorities and weigh the ones... May I read to you a little?
Q: Oh, yes, please do.
MOTLEY: “I was invited to a tea meeting of the Brazilian Friendship Group, a discussion group with 24 ladies which makes “?
Q: What date?
MOTLEY: This was November 23 in '81, shortly after we arrived. An American asked me to go. She thought it was a worthwhile organization and it was. “Half, really fewer than half are English-speaking women of various nationalities. Each group of four ladies organizes two programs a year. The non-English speaking person is supposed to give a report on any subject. Butterflies, the state of the world, anything, as long as it's in English. So one of the ladies got up and gave a nice little report on something, I don't even remember what it was.
But then they started talking about the Christmas luncheon. One of the Americans suggested that everyone bring a salad. Well that absolutely boggled the Brazilians' minds. One said, “I know, let's have codfish.” Then there was the problem of who would cook it. The same lady offered to cook if everyone would pitch in to pay for the fish and pay for the cook. Then one has to arrange for the salads. Another lady suggested that eight people provide the salads. Four pay for them and four prepare them.
It was at that point that my tea partner, an American married to a British diplomat, almost screamed. She simply took over after exasperation. The group meets on the fourth Tuesday of every month but they decided to have the luncheon on the first Friday. Ruth, pronounced “Ruccie,” wife of the president of the Senate, had the meeting today and will have the Christmas luncheon if she's not on a trip. If she is, Isabel will have it at her house. I'm not sure if I have to join to go to the luncheon or if I go as a guest or if I'm expected to bring something. I have mixed emotions about going.” (laughter)
So this was not typical. It wasn't always like that. There were some very organized organizations, but I have to admit, I never went back. I just felt that these meetings lasted - sometimes they'd go for lunch and sometimes they lasted until seven in the evening and I just didn't have [the time] and you couldn't get up and leave. They were very upset about that. So I didn't go back.
Q: I used to go to tea in Recife and get home at 8 o'clock.
MOTLEY: Oh, yes.
Q: Unbelievable, really.
MOTLEY: So anyway, when I realized that a lot of these things would last more than half the day, I begged off. But we were expected to help out with an international fair and of course the Damas Diplomaticas and had a meeting about every month. It was a group of all the ambassadors' spouses - well it was just the ambassadors' wives. Other countries don't say “spouses,” we're the only ones who say “spouses.”
School. I was very involved in the school because of course my children were there and I felt I had to get involved because there were a lot of problems. As one runs into in many schools.
Q: It was problems with the faculty, wasn't it, if I remember? Iwasn't the children so much, was it?
MOTLEY: It wasn't only the faculty. The problem that you have in a school like that is when almost two-thirds of the student body did not speak English as a first language, so naturally your English instruction is not going to be as high as we have here. Also it was very expensive for the Brazilians and the other citizens of other countries to pay for the tuition, and they blamed the Americans, so there was a lot of... Tony and I spent a lot of time on it.
Which brings me to my other impression of our two years there. There are so many things that you do as a team in a job like this. We found it the first time since we'd been married where we worked together so closely. I worked for him for a short time in the real estate business as a real estate salesman when he was a broker and that didn't last too long. We didn't like that type of teamwork. But being an ambassador and his wife is wonderful teamwork, I think. There are those who probably wouldn't agree with me, but we had a good time. He was very open I think. He felt he wanted everyone to have input. That's why when you were there for the principle officers' meeting...
Q: We came up twice a year.
MOTLEY: At one of them we had meetings to try to make sure that the outlying posts had more input and help from Brasilia. I think we had a private meeting and then we got together with some of the men.
Q: I don't remember a private meeting. I remember all of us meetinwith George and Tony one day.
MOTLEY: As a matter of fact, there's something in my book about isaying that George said he came away bloody but not bowed.
Q: It was none of Tony's doing at all. It had all happened before he came and that was the first opportunity afterwards. But really your predecessor just simply took a much needed position away from Recife without telling Guido. And we were just furious, absolutely furious. And of course they have the position now. They've done now exactly what was proposed at the time which was close Bahia and add to Recife. I don't know how many people are at Recife now. But you know, we had been there at that time - what year was that? About '81. We had been there two years then and we were just exhausted. We really were. And we were just sort of hanging on waiting for that vice consul to come. And then when it was taken away without Guido even being informed. Your predecessor went behind Guido's back to Washington and tried to get the position, I think, in Porto Alegre or some place like that. And the only poetic justice was that they took the position away completely. Your predecessor didn't get it at all. The position was just done away with.
MOTLEY: And of course now I don't know how they manage to get arounthe country with so many of the offices closed completely.
Q: Do we still have Porto Alegre?
MOTLEY: I don't think we have Porto Alegre.
Q: Bahia I know is closed.
MOTLEY: Right. And I don't think the USIA post is in Belo Horizonte anymore. So, you can't be everywhere, and we all know you have to cut back.
Q: I talked to someone in State the other day who said that we're cutting down on our African posts now to pay for opening these new ones in Russia. Well talk about history repeating itself, because in 1960, we rushed to open all those posts in Africa because that was the future. Well look at Africa now. So now we're rushing, pouring money ... (end of tape)
Q: ...Africa, you were about to say.
MOTLEY: I meet a lot of these people who are going out now because Tony helps teach the Ambassadorial Seminar. And I'm invited to a couple of the events which they have. I used to help teach it, but I'm so far beyond knowing what the regulations are, that I'm useless. I see these people who are going to these tiny African posts where they have practically no staff, and when I say staff, I'm not talking about household staff. I'm talking about embassy staff. For instance, now they'll have people opening up embassies in these independent countries in Eastern Europe. It's scary.
Q: They haven't sent any spouses there yet.
MOTLEY: Can you imagine being the first? Oh, how awful.
Q: And operating out of a hotel room and that sort of thing. Well I think the officers probably think it's just great and I suppose there are a lot of people who think that careers are going to made there and then maybe they will be. But it's certainly no situation for a spouse. Tony calls this, “The Charm School.” Did you go to “The Charm School” before you went out?
MOTLEY: Yes, we did.
Q: Together.
MOTLEY: Taught by Shirley Temple Black and Dean Brown, formeAmbassador Dean Brown. It was wonderful.
Q: That's when she was Chief of Protocol?
MOTLEY: No, she had been for a while and she had been ambassador to Ghana. She was back helping out with this and Tony later taught with her for a few years. But it was wonderful and I practically took notes through the whole week. And of course I've read over my notes and in some cases, the notes meant something to me. But I'll tell you when they really meant something to me. I put them away for about a month because I didn't have time to study them. I pulled them out after I'd been there for a month. And then everything fell into place. I could understand, first of all, that it takes you a month to understand all the acronyms. What the GSO is, the CLO, all the different branches of government that are at a post.
Secondly, there were a lot of morale tips that we were given by some of the group leaders. And I thought, “Well, I don't know that that will be very much help.” And then I read them over and used them. So it's a very good course and of course they fine-tune it over the years and it changes and some things get better and some things get worse. I think it's invaluable.
Q: But of course it must have been by and large applicable tBrasilia. But to someone going off to say, Ghana, do you think?
MOTLEY: Well, they try to keep it non-post specific. There are a lot of regulations, of course, that you have to learn, and how to keep the various [accounts] separate and what representational entertaining is exactly. And of course the regulations get stricter and stricter. What you can do is more what you can't do now.
Q: Is that budgetary in nature?
MOTLEY: Yes. It's very boring, but very necessary. And the other thing that's great about it is that through most of the sessions it is both the ambassador and his or her spouse. We've had of course in the last few years an increase in the number of male spouses who do go to posts with the ambassador who is a woman. And it's been great.
Q: And they take the course, too?
MOTLEY: Oh, yes, absolutely. As a matter of fact just yesterday I was at a luncheon with a man whose wife is going to Guatemala and he's a businessman. He doesn't know exactly what he's going to do, but he's looking into it and he has to talk to State Department attorneys and...
Which leads me to another thing that I've done since we've returned. We were only there for two years and Tony was called back to be Assistant Secretary for ARA, Latin America. The group was formed called the Wye Group, called Wye because it met at the Wye Conference Center.
Q: Wye?
MOTLEY: Wye. The purpose of the women's group was to look at improving the life of spouses and families in the Foreign Service. We looked at all angles, problems overseas. A lot of those were keeping members - the families - up-to-date on what was available to them in schooling and medical care and that sort of thing. Regulations and programs for special children, that sort of thing. Out of that we were able to get a grant from the [Una] Chapman [Cox] Foundation to put together - oh, what did they call it - an update...
Q: Was that the one “What Do I Do Now?” or “Direct Communication with Spouses?”
MOTLEY: No, that was a little bit different. No, maybe that was it. It was “Direct Communications with Spouses Update” and in working with the Family Liaison Office and the Overseas Briefing Center and several State organizations, they were able to put together a great big thick book on the regulations and programs, but also sent out updates. But the bureaucracy involved was so complicated because we had to send the books and the updates to “Spouse of” because, according to regulations, the State Department has no record that a member of the Foreign Service has a spouse. So we just blindly went ahead and sent them to “Spouse of.” That was sort of an interesting thing for me. The problems you run into.
We also got into the jobs problem, employment for spouses overseas and the way we thought we had settled it was to... What we attempted to do was to pay - this is in the simplest terms and I hope I'm not getting into trouble by the way I'm putting it. We wanted to pay people in the embassy who would do a job that formally had been a volunteer job if they possibly could. For instance, the wife of the ambassador might be paid something for all the work she does for the ambassador. It was very complicated. Anyway, we finally thought that we had gotten somewhere and we were going to pay. Have some pilot programs and then budget cut-backs with Gramm-Rudman were so enormous that it never went anywhere.
And the very first thing we did is we found there were a lot of people in the Washington area who couldn't get into the State Department without bringing their driver's license, their passport, their birth certificate, and every other paper they had in order to talk to their spouse's office or their father's office or something. And so we decided that all family members would have passes to the State Department in Washington. Shortly thereafter, that young man came in and shot his mother who was a secretary, so they took all of this away. Our first success became a failure.
Q: They actually had gotten to the point where they had issuepasses to spouses and dependents.
MOTLEY: Yes. Anyone was allowed to at that time. Everybody hadn'gotten them, but it was okay to have one.
Q: There has been some money allocated to FLO, $350,000, several months ago, and part of that allocation is to develop that part of the Foreign Service Associate proposal which was that the spouse writes her job description and proposal for a job that she wants to do at post. And there's supposed to be some proposals coming into the FLO office now, and then they'll make the first decision.
MOTLEY: The $350,000 is for what?
Q: Enhancing spouse employment. And they're going to spend a lot of it...
MOTLEY: They will use it as a salary?
Q: Some of it will be for - I don't know if they call it a salary or a stipend - for a successful spouse who writes the proposal to develop her community public law office at post if they'll let her. And she'll get a certain stipend from this $350,000. Most of it, unfortunately, seems to be scheduled for movies and written material, things like that spouses... I found when I was CLO, I found nobody came in and looked at that. And you go to a lot of work to set it up, to send out your little memos and three spouses would come and USIS had set the thing up. Of course, this was in Trinidad which was a lot smaller than Brasilia. But I found...
MOTLEY: We found that was true, too. In working with the CLO, found it was true.
Q: That kind of material that everybody in Washington thinks is so gung-ho because they're all so media-related here and you get out to a post and nobody's interested, and I'm sure they're going to waste a lot of that $350,000 that should be used for spouse employment pilot projects. Did you feel that you really should be reimbursed for all you did?
MOTLEY: I didn't because I just loved doing what I did. I didn't feel... Goodness, I mean the things that I got to do at that time were enough compensation for me. However, through these years, eleven years now since we've been associated loosely and closely with the Foreign Service, I can understand the career person getting a little exasperated. Of course you're a wonderful example because you have always been able to find something that you can do that's interesting, no matter where you are.
Q: Survival technique.
MOTLEY: Yes exactly. Now Carol Shlaudeman, Mrs. Pickering, people whose husbands have been ambassadors forever in many places. It's got to get old. And it would be nice to sort of branch out on your own and do your own thing. In some cases, people have been able to do that because of their profession or whatever. I think the State Department will help you if you're adamant about what you're going to do. You know Vivian Gillespie worked in Chile where she's a Foreign Service officer herself. So this tandem couple thing of course is a big new thing in the State Department because there are so many women in the Foreign Service themselves.
I should get back to talking about Brasilia, I think.
Q: No, no. I think this is interesting, too, because as you said, your talking about Brasilia was eleven years ago and how exciting it all was. And now that you've been associated with the State Department for eleven years, you very obviously can see the other point of view. I must say in Alice Pickering's case - I have interviewed her twice. Alice is unusual in that Tom - I think they had one post in Geneva with disarmament - went to Zanzibar - I think that was before it was Tanzania. And he was in charge because the principle officer wasn't there. And ever after that he's been in charge of a post.
MOTLEY: And very difficult ones. I just saw her yesterday, too.They're on their way to India. She's so excited.
Q: She's talked a lot about spouse issues and the tightening of restrictions on senior spouses as did Patience Spiers. Patience must have been in the Wye group with you.
MOTLEY: She was in the Wye group, yes.
Q: I interviewed her in Vermont last summer. She came over to our house and she talked quite a bit about the Wye. Do you have the notes from the Wye?
MOTLEY: No.
Q: Or notes from your “Charm School” course?
MOTLEY: I might be able to find some of those.
Q: You see, the training to me is interesting because in 1972, that Directive which made spouses independent individuals says you have no association with the Foreign Service. Yet we spend a great deal of money each year training wives, orienting wives to go out and do what State wants them to do. Now in your case that's great fun for a couple of yearBut it gets to be old hat after a while.
MOTLEY: I know about the Directive but it didn't really scare me.
Q: No, it shouldn't. You handled it beautifully.
MOTLEY: Well, you can tell - although Brasilia was fairly substantial in size - the post was - you can tell pretty quickly who are the volunteers who throw themselves into everything as in any organization. And I just left those who didn't want to. I just didn't bug them. I did have a little trouble with... (laughs)
Q: No, just don't mention the names, because that's the sort othing that should be documented.
MOTLEY: Well, one of the not-State - it was a different organization at post and quite a sizable one with a director, a deputy director, two or three assistant deputy directors, that sort of thing. And a nice mission. It was very varied. They had their boss from Washington there visiting. The spouses of the director and the deputy director weren't very interested in entertaining. The spouse wanted to have one evening party for the boss and the wife and some other people. And then the problem was what to do with the wife the rest of the time.
And I finally went in there and they said, “Will you give two luncheons?” and all this stuff. And I said, “Well I will. I don't mind at all. But the government does help subsidize these beautiful houses you have so you can do some entertaining, and you do have money from your organization to do some representational entertaining in a situation like this.”
Well I didn't tell this to the wives. I told this to the employees. Well they were horrified because they were scared to death of this wife who wasn't very interested in doing this sort of thing. And I just said - I'm not a very forceful person, but I tried to say, “Look, just ask them.” I know one of them was teaching and another one had another sort of part-time job, that sort of thing. I said, “I think they can volunteer to put together a dinner party or a luncheon. No big deal.” They were terrified. (laughter)
Q: What was the outcome?
MOTLEY: Of course you run into this syndrome, I think, all over the world with employees and bosses you're afraid of stepping on the wrong toes of. The outcome was that they did. They worked it out. I pointed out that it doesn't have to be a cast of thousands. Have lunch for four people and introduce this woman to an interesting Brazilian woman. One woman. That's enough. It's better, really better. You remember people more and that's what they did. I said, “You don't even have to invite me. Please don't! I don't want to come!” But they did. (laughter) Everyday we ran into new little problems like that.
Q: But really your relationship with the women was just wonderful.
MOTLEY: It was great.
Q: Still carries through after all this time.
MOTLEY: A wonderful group of women and very interesting.
Q: Well but it was a lot of your doing, too, because you were so refreshing. You didn't come in overflowing with diplomatitus, you and Tony having worked your way up there.
MOTLEY: Well it was fun for us because everyday there was some new eye-opening situation. Not everyday, maybe, but almost everyday. I found in going through my journal that it wasn't dull.
Q: What was the most momentous occasion? The Bush visit?
MOTLEY: Well of course that was very important, but we also had President Reagan visit. He didn't bring Mrs. Reagan so it was a working visit. However, I had waited a year and a half for my curtains which were sitting in some workroom in New York. The draperies for the living room. I was getting a little tired of waiting around. I thought, they're going to come after we leave which very nearly happened. So I called the workroom directly myself and I said, “I understand you have some fabric there that you're going to make into draperies for us.” “Oh yes, we'll get around to it soon.” And I said, “The President is coming next week. I'd like to have them here at my house before he arrives.” They said, “How can we get them to you?” I said, “There's an advance plane, a plane with advance men coming tomorrow, leaving Washington tomorrow night.” They said, “We'll have them there.” So I didn't tell them that I didn't really expect Reagan to come to our house at all. (laughter)
Q: Of course not.
MOTLEY: He was staying at the Presidential Palace because the President didn't live there. But I thought there is that outside chance that he'll drop by!
Q: You learned the ways of foreign diplomacy quickly, I would say.
MOTLEY: I didn't exactly lie, but was able to expedite the draperies.
Q: But if she didn't come along, you weren't terribly involved.
MOTLEY: No I wasn't terribly involved in that visit. I'm trying to remember it. I remember it was pretty successful. Chaotic, of course, with all the... There was a stag working dinner - I don't know if it was stag, but just the working officers and Brazilian diplomats and diplomats from other countries given by the President of Brazil. The group that travels with the President - I'm not even counting the press - is enormous. The White House staff and Secretary of State Shultz was with them, too. A lot of his staff was there, too. So I had a buffet dinner at the house for those people and told them to come when they could. We had a great time. And a lot of them have said, “Nobody's ever done that when there's another dinner somewhere else where we weren't invited. So they really appreciated that. That was Tony's idea. I have to...
Q: You mean there was a dinner for President Reagan and you weren'invited?
MOTLEY: No, because it was a working visit. It was a stag dinner. Q: But Tony went?
MOTLEY: Tony went. But I just had a sort of open house for the other people. That was Tony's idea because he knew they would all be just waiting around. But the minute that dinner broke up, everybody left my house in seconds because they never know when they'll be called upon.
I should mention the Congressional Delegation visit which was always a big part of what you do overseas. Tony always felt that it was very important to show them what the embassy was doing overseas and I think he teaches that now. He may moan and groan because they're a lot of work, setting up appointments and that sort of thing, but after all, some of them are very serious. They're not there just to play, and are getting more and more serious. The Oversight?
Of course they loved to come south of the Equator in January. And there is no one in town in Brazil between Christmas and Carnival. It's their summer, it's their vacation. It's like August in Washington. As a matter of fact, we had two of our vacations with our children interrupted. Tony had to leave and then come back because of CODELs visits. He didn't mind, but I kind of minded. But I understood what the situation was. They were congressmen who were on committees that were important to Brazil and to our Mission so he left and helped take them on appointments for Brazilians and other diplomats.
Q: Did they bring their wives as a rule?
MOTLEY: In some cases they did. I really enjoyed it. As a matter of fact, some of the wives are friends of mine since then. I see them here.
Q: What did you do with them in Brasilia? Take them on tours of thbuildings?
MOTLEY: Well, it's a little difficult because a two-day visit is about the maximum that you want. It's a wonderful place to live, but it's not Paris as far as sight-seeing and shopping is concerned. We took them out to Christa Lena to buy semi-precious stones and if they were there on Sunday, we had a very nice [bazaar] there. Brazilians are wonderfully creative, as you know. People who in their crafts and their handwork... Sightseeing within Brasilia was really just half a day. I could do it with them because everything's so central.
Q: Yes, it was really nothing but the buildings.
MOTLEY: The buildings. That was really about it. But then of course the DCM's wife always liked to give a luncheon to introduce them and a Brazilian luncheon as you know takes longer than a luncheon of two hours. So we managed pretty well. I enjoyed that part of the job - setting up programs for them. Oftentimes they were very helpful and the staff would tell us ahead of time and give us an idea of what they would like to do. Unusually, Barbara Bush told us that she definitely did not want to visit hospitals. Schools were fine. And [inaudible] not for publication, but I wonder if that had anything to do with it?
Q: I don't know. Could be.
MOTLEY: She does things with AIDS children. You know she ...?
Q: That could be.
MOTLEY: But that worked out well and it's very helpful to have aidea of what you want to do and visit.
Q: When Beth was working, although she was working as a volunteer,you wouldn't have known it. You would have thought that she...
MOTLEY: She finally got paid.
Q: She finally got paid. But would she break away from her job tdo luncheons and things?
MOTLEY: Yes, she was very flexible.
Q: Well, that's one of the nice things about being a volunteer.
MOTLEY: But she handled it very well and was very helpful to me. I'd call her with all kinds of questions. They'd been there long enough, they knew all the people and also just a lot of questions. I can't remember the questions I had at that point.
Q: They just came up at the time.
MOTLEY: Yes, right. I'd just call her and say, “Oh, help! What do I do about this?” There were a couple of things I did that I had no way of knowing ahead of time that things were done that way. We had a social services group with the American Women's Club and we supported a couple of orphanages. Not completely, but we helped them out. And the chairman of the Social Services Group asked me to go meet the sisters who ran a home. So I said, “Fine. I'd love to see it.”
We went out there and took with us chicken feed because the way we helped this particular orphanage was by buying them chickens, laying chickens, and helping them with the feed. And then the older children sold the eggs which we felt was better than just being on the dole. It was teaching them something about learning to make your own money. But we went out to see the orphanage and I didn't bring a dish of cookies or, you know, something. I found everyone else on the Committee arrived with their little offerings and I realized that you don't go any place like that without bringing something.
Q: You don't go empty-handed. That's something you can almost only learn from experience because that would vary from country to country, too. That's the kind of thing that would be hard to get in the orientation.
MOTLEY: It has to be post-specific. That's the other thing I tell people who are going to Brazil - well, many places - and I'm sure you found this, too. The Brazilian ladies have their own birthday parties for themselves. I thought, “Oh, gosh, I'm going to go broke! I'm going to a birthday party everyday.” And you have to take a nice present. Well I found some cards from the Smithsonian or one of the museum catalogues and just took them. They loved the cards with the reproductions on the cover, that sort of thing, so I gave a lot of those.
Q: You'd have to write down whom you gave what to so you wouldn'give them the same thing next year!
MOTLEY: Right.
Q: So you were there two years. And then when you were in Washington, I suppose the Wye Conference was probably the major thing you were involved in?
MOTLEY: Yes. Well, again, as Assistant Secretary, you're not entertaining yourself that much, but expected to go to a lot of things. The only entertaining we did ourselves was we were expected to help out the Secretary of State when he has his annual dinner for the Diplomatic Corps which was two nights in a row, the same menu. (laughter) Well, the guest list is so enormous here that you can't have them all at one time.
Q: So you could almost wear the same dress, right?
MOTLEY: Yes, no one would ever know! And then of course when the Secretary of State would be entertaining someone from one of the countries that Tony worked on, I was expected to help with that. But I did work with the Wye group and the men. Of course, that grew into the Foreign Services Associates Program.
Q: Which bit by bit is being put into place, but not a lot. For instance, after the security scandal in Moscow, when the Department came up with a plan for hiring spouses and wives because they lost all their Russian employees, essentially what they did was some of the things that had been proposed in the Associates' proposal but they called it something else. They gave it their own name. It was just hiring a woman with qualifications who was in the embassy which you would think would be a very obvious thing to do.
MOTLEY: I realize how complicated it is and you have great ideas, but someday, as you say, bit by bit, it will work out. But it'll take a long time.
Q: There's a proposal now that Christine Shurtleff is putting forward. She hopes to get contracts for - she calls us ORE spouses - anyone who ran a Residence. And she wants a contract for a salary for ORE spouses because she feels that she really put in a lot of her time and that a lot of other women put in a lot of their time running residences.
MOTLEY: You're everything. You're the interior decorator, you're the personnel decorator, savings and loan, mostly loan. And sometimes the chief cook and bottle washer. A lot of people have never been able to find good help in certain countries and do all the work themselves.
Q: And I think coming from the United States, which we'd only been here six months, but it's amazing how quickly you can settle down into your routine when you move back into your house. Suddenly to go down to Recife and find that there were actually eight or nine people who had access to my kitchen everyday. I just fled.
MOTLEY: I know. You can't find a pot which is always in difference place.
Q: Right. And there's no logic to where they keep things. It'exasperating.
MOTLEY: One of the things we learned in the ambassadorial seminar was that it's a good idea to have two different refrigerators and you keep your food in one and keep other food for the help in another. That way you can keep track of things. Well I tried one day and the next day it was all back the way it was before. To them it was stupid to put some milk in one refrigerator and some milk in another refrigerator. It all goes in the same refrigerator. So I gave up on that.
Q: That had been established in Recife before I came so they really did maintain that. But the one thing that had happened there that I really don't want to put on tape (pause). So this is Francisco, your houseboy, and Frieda interceded?
MOTLEY: He had been a security guard before that, I believe, for the DCM. Beth High realized what a bright young man he was and suggested that he become the house boy at the Residence and he was there when we arrived. But here we had another one of these sensitive situations where I had to call Frieda in because I just didn't feel I could handle it myself. He had terrible b.o. And I didn't know him well enough and I had never noticed this problem with Brazilians before so I knew it wasn't a belief thing where they didn't believe in deodorant or something like that. So I said to Frieda, “What am I going to do about this?”
First of all, as you say, having the vocabulary for little problems like this is difficult and then you don't know the people that well. She said, “I'll take care of it immediately.” So she talked to the maid, brought some strong soap and some deodorant and gave it to the maid and told the maid to talk to young man. And it was fine. He just didn't know.
Q: That is just a very good example of the type of thing that even though we can muddle along in Portuguese, when it becomes a sensitive situation, like when I was talking about being in the grocery store with those two men, realizing that these things were going into my basket that weren't on my list and I knew I was buying, but I didn't know what was going to be the end result of them, such as them walking out of the kitchen door. I really didn't want to go into it there because I felt that my language skills might have been so elementary, rudimentary, that I might insult them or something. Whereas in English I could have said under my breath, “Hey, guys, what's going on here?” In a joking way or any number of ways, however you felt you could handle it in your language. But when you got into a situation like that where it was someone else who might lose face or you just didn't know how to...
MOTLEY: I'd be very sensitive about it.
Q: Yes, be sensitive about it. That was one of the problems wfaced, communication problems we faced.
MOTLEY: I'm sure it happens all over the world.
Q: Of course. In one form or another.
MOTLEY: And because of that, wonderful books are written.
Q: Yes, yes. Would you read, since we did have this so far away before, would you read that first part again about Rosa Baptista da Silva? Because I think it's just a little faint and I'll even put this closer now. Because those were such nice things that you said about it. The thing that I remember about that luncheon is that I had some kind of flu and I had a fever.
MOTLEY: Yes. I remember because I went to see the Governor's wifalone.
Q: Yes.
MOTLEY: This is an interesting part, too. I should probably reait, too.
Q: Oh, read it, too. Just give me the date beforehand so we knowhere in your stay that was.
MOTLEY: This is November 21, 1981. It's also just shortly after we arrived. We had just come back from a visit to Salvador to Bahia and that day we had a house guest from the State Department and Tony dashed off for dinner with Kissinger. I discovered the next day that I had indeed been invited to the luncheon for Kissinger at the apartment of the University's Rector who is the President. I returned to the Chancery to meet Tony and go with him to the luncheon. He greeted me with, “We may not be going to lunch.” I looked around at some of the secretaries in the room. They were absolutely white.
The DCM and several officers were being held with Kissinger inside the university auditorium while 500 students protested outside. Whenever anyone tried to leave, he was pelted with eggs, tomatoes, and Heaven knows what. The reason for the protest was still not entirely clear. There were “Yankee Go Home” signs, one carried by a student with a t-shirt reading, “Yay, New York Yankees!” One accused Kissinger for being responsible for Auschwitz. Kissinger, I understand, had thirteen members of his family killed at Auschwitz. Others were chanting, “We are communists.”
After waiting around a half an hour, Tony and I called the Rector's wife. She was at her house. All of the other guests were there waiting for Kissinger's arrival, so we, too, went to the luncheon. We sat around with others for an hour. I looked at my legs at one point and discovered an enormous run which I thought was very important at that moment. The Brazilians started to shout faster and faster and I was beginning to get a bit nervous. Up to this time, no one seemed too excited or worried. The crowd was not vicious, just very noisy. Tony had been able to talk to the DCM on the phone. People in the auditorium were being held there, mainly for their own safety.
As time passed, however, my positive attitude started to fade. Thoughts about the children at school jumped to mind. A group finally arrived at the apartment in a paddy wagon. All the other cars' tires had been flattened. We had a very nice lunch and I sat next to Henry! He told me it was a good thing Nancy wasn't there, that she would have thrown the eggs back at the crowd. He said he'd also told the crowd that he was familiar with student gatherings like this at Harvard, but that the Brazilians had more rhythm when they pounded on the side of the building.
The Finnish ambassador, covered with egg and tomato, was asked by the Brazilian press how he felt about being attacked by Brazilians. He answered that it proved to him that agriculture in Brazil was doing just fine because they were throwing tomatoes and eggs. I thought that was kind of interesting. I truly was kind of scared. At first it didn't seem too bad, but then I started thinking, “Oh, my gosh, what if they start rioting and going over to the American school?”
This is this luncheon that Jewell Fenzi and Rosa Baptista da Silvgave in Recife. (See quotation early on in manuscript).
Q: I remember those flower arrangements. They were beautiful,weren't they? Huge.
MOTLEY: And this is, of course, my favorite Brazilian je'tout. Chechino's story. “The Fenzis have a handyman who is assigned to the consulate as Mr. Fix-it, Mr. Flower Arranger, and he even makes draperies. He came to try to adjust the very hot guest shower at the Residence, fiddled with it for thirty minutes and joyously told the Fenzis that the reason it was so hot was because they were both so tall. The water didn't have time to cool off before it hit them.”
Q: Oh, absolutely! I'm delighted to have that one preserved.(laughter) Did you keep journals like that all the way through?
MOTLEY: Well pretty much. I haven't been able to get through the other two, but it looks as if I pretty much kept it up until we were here for a while and then I got a little busy as we do and I left off it. It was easy, though, because in the evenings while I was sitting around with the girls while they were doing their homework, something like that, I didn't have to clean up the kitchen or cook the dinner, so I wrote in my journal. And I tried to write just a little bit of something everyday. I didn't always do it, but it's fun to remember it.
Q: Were you inspired by your great, great grandmother and he“Reminiscences of a Tour to China” and it was her son.
MOTLEY: No, I guess it's my great...
Q: There was a letter in here at one point.
MOTLEY: Somebody had written. It wasn't a letter, it was synopsis, but it wasn't a very good one.
Q: A synopsis of this?
MOTLEY: I think somebody probably did it as a school project osomething.
Q: Because you know I xeroxed that and sent it back to you. And wondered if she had inspired you to keep your...
MOTLEY: Actually, the Finnish ambassador inspired me. I had already started keeping a small journal. He said, “Do it every day because you're so new at this that everything is fresh and interesting.” He was in his seventies. He said, “After you've been in this business as long as I have, it's not as fresh and new everyday. He said, “Do keep a journal.”
Q: I found my last year in Recife. Mine are just sort of notations,not an awful lot.
MOTLEY: Well, you have more friends, you've been there a while,you're busier.
Q: And there are not all those wonderful new impressions that greeyou every time you step out your door.
MOTLEY: All the getting to know the people as a people, not individually, that sort of thing. It's nice and I'm sure that every time anybody goes to a new country, at first...
Q: That's true, you know. Even our last post, just to go to a new place, it was exciting to learn about it, although you don't have the same enthusiasm about what's happening in the Mission because that's old hat. But our last post wasn't a terribly exciting place to go because Trinidad... Because I loved the northeast of Brazil with all of its primitiveness and its handicrafts and everything. And Trinidad didn't have any of that. Which was good for Trinidad because they had had oil for so long that there was no need to develop handicrafts beyond the steel drums and that was about it.
MOTLEY: Trinidad didn't have any of the wonderful primitivpaintings?
Q: No. I don't think I bought anything there. It's probably the only place I've lived that I bought a couple of baskets and that was about it. Everything came in from Dominica or Grenada or other islands. Curacao was the same way. There weren't any handicrafts on Curacao because they've had the refinery since, I think, 1915. And believe me, if those people could go to work and make a fairly decent wage in the refinery with, I think it was Texaco in Trinidad, and Shell.
MOTLEY: And when did they happen?
Q: 1915 in Curacao. I don't know how long the oil boom had been going on in Trinidad. But just no handicrafts. And there are a lot of cars on Trinidad. The island was cluttered with automobiles. It used to take us, on a holiday weekend, if we wanted to go to Tobago, it would take sometimes an hour and a half to go sixteen miles. We lived right next to the embassy. It would take us an hour and a half to go the sixteen miles from our house to the airport for a 12-minute flight to Tobago. So that wasn't much fun. But once you got to Tobago, it was marvelous. Traveling and sightseeing.
So are you doing anything now with State?
MOTLEY: Not really. As I say, I go to those luncheons of the group. Sometimes we entertain some of the people who are going out. Chat with them and that sort of thing. In the last couple of years, since I'm not working, I've been able to travel with Tony a lot and not only because I'm not working but because of those wonderful airline tickets. And because he's done ambassadorial seminars - he figured out last night how many ambassadors he's taught. I think it's like 400 or something unbelievable.
Q: Isn't that amazing!
MOTLEY: I would have to figure out how many it is, but when we go to these places, we visit our friends so I have seen many lovely residences. I visited in New Zealand a couple of months ago. We went to a trip to Portugal and we saw the Briggs in Portugal and their house there. And London, Belgium.
Q: Is that part of Tony's work?
MOTLEY: Well it depends. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's jusbecause he got to know the ambassador in the seminar.
Q: Depends upon which hat he's wearing at the time.
MOTLEY: Right. Actually this trip to New Zealand, he had been asked by USIA to give a speech at a conference in southern New Zealand, so that was sort of State-connected and it was a conference on Latin America at the University. And then we knew the ambassador, so we went up there to visit. And then the country team, being so far away, even though this is the era of CNN and good communications, you still miss the feeling of knowing everything that's going on. So Tony met with them and the ambassador said that they just loved hearing everything that was going on. So that was nice. It was informal.
Q: But they probably loved seeing you, too, because being off in NeZealand, not many people drop by, I would think, for...
MOTLEY: No, that is somewhat like Brasilia! (laughter)
Q: One thing I didn't follow up on you mentioned earlier when you arrived in Rio, it was very emotional. I was too busy working with my machine and what have you. That your mother-in-law hadn't seen the children ever and they were 13 and 11. For a Brazilian woman not to have her family!
MOTLEY: Well, for many years, she still worked. Tony's father, her husband, was killed in a plane accident when Tony was 13. This was very unusual for a Brazilian woman as you know.
Q: Yes, of course.
MOTLEY: She taught English and she had an English library in her flat. She needed to do that and it was a trip to Alaska. (pause) It was very special. She spent time with us in Brasilia. Of course, when the girls had vacations, we tried to spend some of it in Rio so that Mrs. Motley could get to know the girls.
Q: But that was wonderful for her to have you there for two years.Tony's father was American and had gone to Brazil?
MOTLEY: He was an American and had gone to Brazil in, gosh, I don't know when, early '30s, I guess, maybe '20s, with Atlantic Refining Company which was the forerunner of Atlantic Richfield. It was just a marketing company at that time. At that time, instead of moving people around the way the American companies do, they could stay there if they wanted to. So he married his wife there who was half-Brazilian, so they stayed there. She was half-Brazilian and half-English.
Q: Oh, I see.
MOTLEY: Her mother was English, her dad was Brazilian.
Q: Oh, that's why the English language library and teachinEnglish. So she really grew up bilingual?
MOTLEY: She did. And went to a French school. Just those threlanguages.
Q: Just those three languages!
MOTLEY: Don't I wish that I had started when I was born!
Q: What about your life in Alaska? You went there in the Air Forcin State, was that it?
MOTLEY: We went there in 1967, shortly after we were married, in the Air Force, and Tony was a career Air Force officer. We were there three years and decided we liked it so much that he resigned his commission and we stayed. He went into business and also did some government work. He was in the State Cabinet as Commissioner of Commerce and Economic Development. And so we lived in two different cities in Alaska, Anchorage most of the time, and then sometime in Juneau. It's very interesting.
I always thought that living in a town of 15,000, which was what Juneau was at the time, would have been a disaster, but I loved it. It was the capital, right on the water in a fjord-type setting. We lived in a little house on the side of the mountain looking down at the water and since it was the Capital, there was always something going on that was interesting. And in a town that size, you go to everything. I remember two or three times a year the little theater would give plays and everybody would go. In Washington, you see a little theater, and you think, “Well maybe I'll go to that. It sounds pretty good.” Well you wouldn't miss it in Juneau. It was one of the highlights of the month. That was fun. I still have a lot of friends I see from Juneau. We've kept up our Alaskan connections which is nice because it's really our children's home. They were both born there.
Q: Are they both in school now?
MOTLEY: One has graduated and is living back at home and working on the Hill and the other is a senior in Lynchburg College. They're both working on the Hill this summer. One of them as a permanent job, the other as a part-time in a Senate job.
Q: So they have all become Washingtonians?
MOTLEY: Oh, yes. It's a nice place to live.
Q: Of course it is.
MOTLEY: It's always amazing to me to be able to cover two states and the District of Columbia in a half an hour after living in Alaska where it's three hours to the nearest other state.
Q: Where you can't even drive to some cities.
MOTLEY: Right.
***
BIOGRAPHICAL DATA:
Spouse: Langhorne A. Motley
Spouse's position: AEP, Assistant Secretary of State
Spouse entered Service: September 1981Left Service: May 1985
You entered Service: Same
Status: Spouse of former AEP, Assistant Secretary of State
Posts:1981-1983Brasilia, Brazil1983-1985Washington, DC
Place/date of birth: St. Louis, Missouri
Malden name: Judy Jones
Parents:
William T. Jones, Jr., Insurance broker
Elizabeth Hanson Jones, education
Schools:
Mary Institute, St. Louis, Missouri
Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts, BA
Profession:
Reporter/Editor, Globe-Democrat, St. Louis, Missouri, 1961-1967
Former owner, interior design firm, Anchorage, Alaska
Date/place of Marriage: April 8, 1967; St. Louis, Missouri
Children:
Allison Hanson Motley, September 15, 1968
Valerie Langhorne Motley, April 8, 1971
Positions held:At Post:Volunteer - This and That!
In Washington, DC:Many volunteer positions related to childrens' schoolPersonal Shopper and public relations, Lord & TaylorWorked on committee examining the place of the spouse and family in the Foreign Service
Supporting materials:
Trip of R. M. Johnson to China in 1869 (2 pages, unpublished)
Reminiscences of a Tour to China by Elvira F. Johnson
End of interview