Posted: 01:32 EST
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Edward W. Clark started his career in the State Department as a diplomatic courier in 1941. In 1973, he was the Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In his oral history interview for ADST, he recalled then Ambassador Robert McClintock during the military dictatorship in the country. Excerpt below is from his interview conducted by Charles Stuart Kennedy on April 29, 1992

“They expropriated the oil companies and Averell Harriman was sent down to take care of the situation because he used to play polo with some of the people in the Argentine. We had several meetings there with ministers. I remember one we had in the Embassy. Rob McClintock hosted a dinner and then we all sat around a big table. The Minister of Labor was there for some reason. He was a very talkative individual and made no sense. McClintock was translating back and forth. Finally Harriman said to McClintock, “Tell that man down there to shut up. I don’t want to hear any more of his dribble.” McClintock turns to him and translates, “The Ambassador says he appreciates very much the information you have given him, thank you very much.

Mr. Clark noted in his interview that this was just before the dictatorship took over the oil companies. Ambassador Harriman apparently was sent down there “to see that they didn’t.” According to Mr. Clark, Harriman was en route home when they actually took it over and “all hell broke loose.”

Read more here (pdf).

Note:  One of our readers pointed out that the word “dribble” here must be “drivel” as in silly nonsense.  We imagine this was a result of mistranscription from the oral history interview.