1 The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign ...

the difficulties arose was in the normal world of diplomacy. Officials, who should be
working with the diplomats, were often curried by the spooks. They shouldn’t have done
that.
Q: There was pressure to get agents. Every scalp that you got you credit, I think.
MILLER: There is a very interesting case in point that comes to mind now. In Isfahan
there were several leaders of the National Front, which was the democratic descendant of
the Mossadeq National Front. Western educated, highly educated, under any standards,
well-to-do, bourgeois democrats. Two of the leaders in Isfahan were good friends of ours.
The reasons were our first two children were born in Iran. Our Iranian friends had
children at the same time. We’d play tennis together. We liked each other, saw a lot of
each other.
The National Front was a target of the agency. They wanted to know about it. The
National Front avoided any Communist ties. I had a clash on this matter because these
were my friends and the spooks were saying get out of the way. I said, “No, not at all.
That’s not your turf.” That’s one issue I took to Julius Holmes, and he sorted that one out.
These kinds of problems arose on occasion in Tehran too. We had those kinds of
disputes. It is very important, it seems to me, for Foreign Service people, even if you are
junior and have no power or rank, to make it clear what you think the legitimate grounds
are, and to understand what they are, to begin with. Then you can have a good working
relationship with CIA on the basis of what people could do best.
In the interagency arrangements, at the highest levels, it is like many other things. If you
are part of the group that goes to the same dinners and parties, it’s useful in the long run. I
happen to have known Richard Helms because he was a Williams man. I’ve known him
since I was at Williams.
Q: What class was he?
MILLER: 1935.
Q: 15 years before my time.
MILLER: Yes, and because of that, he would invite us to dinners and dancing parties, for
example, at the Chevy Chase Country Club and the Women’s Sulgrave Club. He was part
of the circle of Washington people often invited to the White House. The reason I
mention this is that the social relationships, the friendships you make in the field, if they
are also a part of what you do in Washington, give you greater depth, dimension and
influence. INR, which is seen by many now as a dead end for the career, was certainly not
regarded as that, perhaps because its OSS beginnings were still part of the aura of policy
making in Washington. The first INR Directors had influence because they were part of
the policy making cadres that carried on after World War II the analysts from INR, as a
consequence were very influential, even the long-term civil servants, many of whom
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