Phillips Talbot

William Phillips Talbot (born June 7, 1915 in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania , † October 1, 2010 in Manhattan , New York City ) was an American journalist , diplomat and Assistant Secretary of State .

biography

Study and work as a journalist

After attending schools in Wisconsin and Illinois , he studied journalism and political science at the University of Illinois and completed these studies in 1936 with a Bachelor of Arts ( BA Journalism and BA Political Science ). He then became a fellow for journalism at the Institute of Current World Affairs and was sent by this in 1938 for further studies at the renowned School of Oriental Studies at the University of London , before he then traveled to South Asia . As part of this fellowship, he wrote a series of reports on his experiences in South Asia to the director of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Walter Rogers, in the late 1930s .

During the Second World War he served as an employee of the Naval Intelligence Service ( Office of Naval Intelligence ) in the theater of war in China , Burma and India . He was last promoted to Lieutenant Commander in 1946 .

Talbot's interest in foreign affairs began in the late 1930s and mid-1940s while traveling in South Asia as a journalist. He held talks with politicians and spiritual leaders who played a crucial role in the development of India and Pakistan. He also wrote reports for the daily newspaper The Chicago Daily News , which eventually him as foreign correspondents established.

He wandered alongside Mahatma Gandhi across the fields of the Noakhali district in the winter of 1947 shortly after hundreds of Hindus were murdered by angry masses of Muslims . He interviewed Gandhi a few weeks before the pacifist was murdered on January 30, 1948 by the nationalist Hindu Nathuram Godse . He later described his impression of the march of Gandhi, who ran barefoot in winter, in the following words:

“Gandhi's march is an amazing sight. With one staff in his hand and the other on his granddaughter's shoulder, the old man briskly took the lead as soon as the sun broke over the horizon. ”(“ The Gandhi march is an astonishing sight. With a staff in one hand and the other on his granddaughter's shoulder, the old man briskly takes the lead as the sun breaks over the horizon. ")

Talbot also had relationships with Muhammad Ali Jinnah , Pakistan's first Governor General , and Jawaharlal Nehru , India's first Prime Minister . In addition to his language skills in Urdu and Hindustani , this was made easier by his studies of Indian culture at the Aligarh Muslim University .

After returning to the United States, he was a lecturer at the University of Chicago from 1948 to 1950 and then at Columbia University in 1951 . Between 1951 and 1961 he spent an extended period in South Asia as the Executive Director of the American Universities Field Staff , an exchange program for sending scholars to teach foreign states at US universities. In 1954 he earned a doctorate in international relations from the University of Chicago.

In 1958, together with the Indian scholar SL Poplai, he wrote the highly acclaimed book India and America: A Study of Their Relations . In his review in the New York Times , the newspaper's then India correspondent, AH Rosenthal, stated:

“(Talbot) has a broad and deep knowledge of Indian affairs and a patience that will not let him tumble into one of the two trenches that awaits Americans in India - harshness and delusion and that Talbot's work as a thoughtful book, thorough and conscientious became. "(" Dr. Talbot had a wide and deep knowledge of Indian affairs and a patience that keeps him flopping into either of two ditches that await Americans in India - sourness and infatuation. Dr. Talbot's work made for a thoughtful book, thorough and painstaking. ")

Assistant Secretary of State and Ambassador

As one of the leading experts on India and Pakistan , he was in 1961 by US President John F. Kennedy appointed assistant to the Secretary of State of the United States for Near Eastern Affairs and South Asia ( Assistant US Secretary of State appointed).

Former US Ambassador to Bangladesh and Professor of International Relations at Georgetown University , Howard B. Schaffer , stated in an interview that Talbot brought useful academic and practical knowledge about South Asia to the United States Department of State . Schaffer said:

“His voice was that of care and justification. Unlike so many other people concerned with India and Pakistan at the time, Phil Talbot recognized that the US should act impartially. It was important to him to reassure the excitable ambassadors (in this region), who tended to accept the views of the countries in which they were stationed. ”(“ His was a voice of carefulness and reason. Unlike so many people who dealt with India and Pakistan at that time, Phil Talbot recognized that the US had to be evenhanded. It was important for him to try to calm down the excitable ambassadors [in the region] who tended to take the views of the countries where they were stationed. ")

As a recognized scholar and advisor in relations with South Asia and the Middle East , he also served as the personal envoy of US President Lyndon B. Johnson during his private meeting with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in the mid-1960s .

In 1965 he was appointed ambassador to Greece , a position in the State Department coveted at the time because of the lavish marble embassy and the Mediterranean climate . At the end of his term of office, on the morning of April 21, 1967, the so-called "Colonel Putsch" under Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos took place , marking the beginning of the Greek military dictatorship that shaped the country in the following years. Talbot relentlessly insisted that the United States be impartial. He also campaigned for the normalization of relations between the USA and the military junta. In a 1969 interview with the New York Times shortly before he left his position as ambassador, he stated :

"You can be assured that there was no American interference in, or prior knowledge of, the nascent events from those who have lived in this country for the past few years." (You may be assured that there has been no American involvement in or, in fact, prior knowledge of the climactic events that those residing in this country have lived through in the past couple of years ")

Most recently, between 1970 and 1980, he was President of the Asia Society , a major global non-governmental organization founded by John D. Rockefeller III to improve relations between the Asian states and the United States of America. He then spent many years as an advisor to the Kashmir Study Group , a think tank with a focus on maintaining peace between India and Pakistan and accompanying control in the conflict-ridden region of Kashmir .

In 2002 he was awarded the Padma Shri Order by the Indian government for his longstanding efforts to stabilize relations between India and the USA .

In 2007 he published his reports and reports on India and Pakistan in the book An American Witness to India's Partition .

Web links

• Phillips Talbot in the nndb (English)
• THE WASHINGTON POST: Phillips Talbot, witness to history in India and Pakistan, dies at 95 (October 6, 2010)