University of Iowa ambassador-in-residence talks about 30 years as a foreign diplomat

IOWA CITY - As someone who spent 30 years trying to build bridges between the United States and developing countries that included Sudan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Fiji and the Dominican Republic, Ron McMullen thinks President Donald Trump's plans to ban travel from several Muslim-majority countries and wall off Mexico are shortsighted and dangerous.

'We seem to be forgoing our leadership position for a self-interested set of actions that I think will damage our long-term standing and prosperity,” said McMullen, University of Iowa ambassador-in-residence who served as U.S. ambassador to the African nation of Eritrea from 2007 to 2010.

It's not like McMullen, a Northwood native who earned his Ph.D. from the UI in 1985, thinks everyone should be allowed to enter the United States. In fact, he's been under a 'voodoo curse” since the early 1980s because he wouldn't let a Haitian who had been living illegally in the Dominican Republic to visit Miami.

'As I was reaching in my desk drawer to get my ‘denied' stamp, he said. ‘Oh, first look at this,'” McMullen said, describing the encounter at the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo, McMullen's first posting.

The man, who said he wanted to do consultations in Miami about romance, life, work and money, slid a packet across the desk. When McMullen unfolded the note, a feather, dust and what looked like a rat claw fell out.

'I said ‘What is this?' He said ‘It's a voodoo curse and if you deny me I will put this curse on you,'” McMullen said. 'I said ‘Do your worst' and I denied him.”

This was one of many occasions McMullen saw how desperate people can be to come to the United States.

'I had people try to bribe me with money, with sex, with friendship and obligation. All kinds of pressures,” he said. 'Everybody should be able to visit the United States, but our immigration laws are such that we have to make those choices of who can come and who can't.”

Amazing experiences

As a political officer for the U.S. State Department, McMullen reported to Washington, D.C., the domestic and regional politics in the countries where he served. He also was an advocate for U.S. policy on human rights and democratization, he said.

In Sri Lanka in the mid-1980s, the United States was supporting the government there in a battle against the Tamil Tigers, a rebel group that had pioneered the use of suicide bombings. The rebels funded their efforts by smuggling heroin into the country in shipping containers of machine parts, he said.

Because it was very hard for police or even drug-sniffing dogs to find the heroin, McMullen got a $50,000 grant to hire experts to train mongooses to detect the drug.

The ferret-like creatures - popular in Sri Lanka because they keep cobras out of people's yards - wriggled into the shipping containers to find the heroin.

'The pilot project was deemed a success, but just as I left there was an uprising in Sri Lanka by a radical Maoist group. The mongooses either were killed or escaped,” McMullen said. Still, 'it was a really interesting and culturally-appropriate way to try to solve a problem.”

McMullen's job brought him in contact with world political figures including Nelson Mandela of South Africa and Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar.

McMullen was among foreign officers who, in 1997, escorted Hillary Clinton, then the first lady, and Chelsea Clinton to Robben Island, where Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years before the fall of apartheid in South Africa. Clinton was invited to a $57,000-a-plate dinner to raise money for anti-apartheid freedom fighters. Mandela was the honored guest.

As the elite dined, McMullen sat outside on the hood of a Jeep, scanning the water for great white sharks known to circle the island. Then one of the organizers came out to say there was a no-show and McMullen could eat for free.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a politician and Nobel Peace Prize winner, lunched with McMullen and his family once during his 2002-2005 stint in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

'Her mother had been the Burmese ambassador to India, so she was a diplomatic kid much like our kids,” McMullen said of his two sons, now teachers. 'The entire lunch was comparing notes about what it was like to be a diplomatic kid.”

Finding solutions

McMullen was working in Washington - one of few stateside tours - in the mid-2000s when he was nominated for ambassadorships to seven countries. To his the surprise of colleagues, he picked Eritrea, a northeast Africa country of 4.8 million people.

'We had really bad relations with the government of Eritrea and I thought, ‘I would love to be there to build bridges rather than walls,'” he said.

McMullen was warned the job would be hard. And it was.

'Every time there was a dust storm or a goat died, the government blamed the United States,” he said. 'The people of Eritrea have suffered greatly and deserved much better.”

McMullen and his staff pushed for human rights and democracy, even when they were at risk of being expelled.

He was key in getting United Nations sanctions prohibiting Eritrea from importing weapons and helped Eritreans who worked for the embassy avoid persecution by the government when possible.

Career diplomats like McMullen fill two-thirds of foreign ambassadorships. The other third are political appointments, he said.

'If you give $1 million to the winning presidential candidate, you might ask to be ambassador in Vienna or London or Paris,” McMullen said. 'You don't ask to be ambassador in Eritrea or Nepal or Uruguay; you want to go to a glamorous, cushy place.”

Although former Gov. Terry Branstad was chosen as ambassador to China because his son, Eric, ran Trump's Iowa campaign, McMullen said, Branstad has advantages over most political appointees.

'Because he has executive experience, he will do well in managing policy, things and money in his role,” McMullen said. Plus, 'he knows the president of China and will be able to get access, unlike almost anyone else.”

McMullen was glad to return to the UI in 2012 as ambassador in residence, which allows him to teach courses on regions including the Middle East and Southeast Asia, as well as traditional political science classes. He prides himself on being a tough teacher who opens the world's door to students.

'To have some international experience, particularly in their student years, will help them be better American citizens,” he said. 'Because so much of Iowa's economy is export dependent, the better they can understand foreign cultures and people and societies, the better off Iowa will be.”

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