Ambassador Ortiz: Lessons from a Life of Service

8: A Time of Transition in Spain—Department of State

The Cuban Missile crisis gave me some of the most dramatic moments in my career, but of more enduring substance for me was the Chamizal Treaty, which was my crowning accomplishment in Mexico. In , after my work on that treaty, I received a new posting in Washington. I was assigned to the Spanish Desk at the State Department, in part because I was bilingual and as a young man had studied in Spain and had dated girls in the Spanish embassy whose fathers now held important positions in the Spanish government. This was a critical juncture for U.S.-Spanish relations, as the U.S. was re-negotiating critically important treaties concerning its military base rights in Spain. We needed to secure the use of bases at Rota, Torrejón, Morón, and Zaragoza, and there was some potentially serious opposition in Spain. Our efforts to exercise a military presence in Spain formed a critical part of the U.S. policy of maintaining a massive deterrent to Soviet aggression. Along with nuclear-armed submarines and surface vessels, we sought to maintain nuclear-armed air patrols completely around the periphery of the Soviet Union in order to menace and contain the Soviets. Spain was critical to the success of this policy because it provided direct access to the southern regions of the Soviet Union, known as the “soft underbelly.” For years, submarines  8 A Time of Transition in Spain— Department of State out of Rota and airplanes loaded with nuclear bombs, patrolled back and forth constantly. Negotiating the treaties with Spain was very important business. I organized the signing ceremonies that capped our successful negotiations. Franco—one of many dictators that I was to deal with in my career—was still in power when I began work on the Spanish Desk. One of my first initiatives in  was to draft a message of condolence from the president to Señora Franco because everyone assumed that Franco could die at any time. Little did we know that he had another twelve years to go. My new assignment gave me a whole new palette from which to paint. In my family life, we made some important changes also. As we were about to leave for Washington, my eldest son remarked, “Dad, how come we don’t have a home like everybody else?” Knowing that it had been hard on my family to move every two or three years, that comment was like a dagger through my heart. While in Washington, we had always rented houses, but my son’s comment fueled my resolve. I became determined that we would have our own home. We’d saved $, in Mexico, and had recently inherited $, from Dolores’ grandfather. That gave us $, for a down payment on a wonderful house in Chevy Chase that we purchased for $,. My kids finally had a home they could call their own when we moved back to Washington. As new kids on the block, they had some adjustments to make. As we were unpacking, they went out to play with the neighborhood kids. In ten minutes, they came back crying, saying that the other kids didn’t like them. “They won’t play with us,” they reported. “They say we’re Italians.” I said, “Well, tell them we’re Spanish, not Italian.” They went out and in a few minutes were back again, crying. “That’s even worse!” The house was cluttered with our half-unpacked belongings, but I took time to buy a gallon of black walnut ice cream and unpack bowls and spoons. When I called out to the children playing in the street that I had ice cream. They all came running. As we sat around the disheveled house, I explained to them that, even though my children spoke Spanish, we were Americans, just like them. That seemed to  A TIME OF TRANSITION IN SPAIN—DEPARTMENT OF STATE break the ice and pretty soon everyone was getting along. I advised my children not to speak Spanish around those kids, and that solved the problem, but soon they were speaking English all the time anyway. There were problems of adjustment like that, as my children became familiar with American ways. They knew all about soccer, for example, but didn’t have a clue about football. They’d watch a football game and say, “What are they doing?” Soon after I began my job on the Spanish Desk...