John Gleb, Author at Not Even Past

Picturing My Family: A World War II Odyssey

From the Editors:

“Picturing My Family” is a new series at Not Even Past. As a Public History magazine, we aim to make History more accessible by publishing research features and other articles. But of course, History doesn’t reach us solely through words. It lives on in images, too. A good photograph transmits as much information as a line of text, and it does so in an extraordinarily evocative way. Dispensing with description, photography brings us face to face with the past. Visual cues can stimulate our sensory imagination and present us with surprising new details, encouraging us to ask questions, to dig deeper, and to think like historians.

Our concept is simple. We invite Not Even Past readers to:

• Send us a photograph of a family member or ancestor. The photograph doesn’t have to be old; it could be from any period. The subject can be one of your grandparents, a cousin, a distant relative – anyone whom you count as part of your family.

• Tell us in less than 250 words what the image shows and why it’s meaningful for you and your family. If you wish, you can set the photo in historical context, too. But that isn’t necessary.

If you are interested in submitting something for this series, please click here.

In this instalment of “Picturing My Family,” current NEP Associate Editor John Gleb presents a photograph of his paternal grandfather. The photograph helps illuminate the sweeping global context of World War II; the accompanying texts tells a moving family story.

My Grandfather’s World War II Odyssey

By John Gleb

Borys Gleb, my paternal grandfather, was born in 1925. He grew up in what was then eastern Poland; today, it’s part of Belarus, thanks in part to a series of geopolitical shocks that changed my grandfather’s life. In 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west, starting World War II in Europe. A prearranged treaty gave the USSR permission to occupy the eastern half of Poland, and as a result, 16 days after the German invasion, Soviet forces crossed the Polish border from the east, seizing control of the town where my grandfather lived. The next year, he and his family was deported to a work camp north of Moscow.

In 1941, my grandfather’s life changed again after Germany launched a surprise invasion of the Soviet Union. The invasion’s consequences were horrific, but it also opened up a lifeline for young men like Borys: a new Polish army, eventually placed under British command, began recruiting on Soviet soil. At age 16, my grandfather enlisted. He then traveled with the army across Central Asia and the Middle East to Italy, where he participated in the Battle of Monte Casino in 1944.

The photograph above was probably taken shortly thereafter, when Borys was 18 or 19. He’s standing (at right) in front of the Vittoriano, a monument to King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, in Rome. My grandfather is wearing his Polish military uniform – see below for a closer look:

After the war, my grandfather emigrated to Canada. But for the rest of his life, he remained immensely proud of his Polish heritage. He felt a profound connection to history, and more than anything else, he loved to share his story with the people he loved.

Borys Gleb died on Christmas Day, 2021. This photograph is dedicated to his memory and to the history he experienced.

John Gleb is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Texas at Austin and a graduate student fellow at the Clements Center for National Security. John’s research traces the emergence of national security as a concept by documenting attempts to mobilize public opinion on behalf of foreign and defense policy during the early twentieth century.

John thanks his aunt, Cindy Rutschmann, for providing him with copies of the two photos enclosed above.

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

This Is Democracy: Brazil

This week, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by Professor Seth Garfield to discuss Brazil’s history and current political climate.

Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled “Brazilia Lament.”

Guest

Seth Garfield is a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of: Indigenous Struggle at the Heart of Brazil: State Policy, Frontier Expansion, and the Xavante Indians, 1937-1988; In Search of the Amazon: Brazil, the United States, and the Nature of a Region; and most recently, Guarana: How Brazil Embraced the World’s Most Caffeine-Rich Plant.

About This Is Democracy

The future of democracy is uncertain, but we are committed to its urgent renewal today. This podcast will draw on historical knowledge to inspire a contemporary democratic renaissance. The past offers hope for the present and the future, if only we can escape the negativity of our current moment — and each show will offer a serious way to do that! This podcast will bring together thoughtful voices from different generations to help make sense of current challenges and propose positive steps forward. Our goal is to advance democratic change, one show at a time. Dr. Jeremi Suri, a renowned scholar of democracy, will host the podcast and moderate discussions.

This Is Democracy: FBI and J. Edgar Hoover

Jeremi and Zachary sit down with Beverly Gage to discuss the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, and their role in American democracy.

Zachary sets the scene with his poem, “The Secret to Believing.”

Guest

Beverly Gage is a professor of history at Yale University. Her book G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, a biography of former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, was named a best book of 2022 by the Washington Post (Ten Best Books), The Atlantic (Ten Best Books), Publishers Weekly (Ten Best Books), The New Yorker (24 Essential Reads), The New York Times (100 Notable Books), Smithsonian (Ten Best History Books), and Barnes & Noble (Ten Best History Books). She is also the author of The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror, which examined the history of terrorism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, focusing on the 1920 Wall Street bombing.

About This Is Democracy

This Is Democracy: Infrastructure and Indigenous Communities

This week, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by Professor Erika Bsumek to discuss how major infrastructure projects tend to damage indigenous communities and contribute to their erasure.

Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled, “Sonnet on the Shores of Lake Powell.”

Guest

Dr. Erika Bsumek is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of: Indian-Made: Navajo Culture in the Marketplace and, most recently, The Foundations of Glen Canyon Dam: Infrastructures of Dispossession on the Colorado Plateau. Prof. Bsumek has received numerous teaching awards, including the UT Regents Outstanding Teaching Award.

About This Is Democracy

From Camp David to Baghdad: Scrambling for and Against Peace in the Middle East, Fall 1978

Commentators and scholars have long represented the United States as the supreme guarantor of a well-tempered international order. Today, however, agents of American international relations find themselves confronting uncertainty both at home and abroad. Nevertheless, as they navigate the uncharted waters of contemporary global politics, representatives of the United States and its international interlocutors can still look to their shared past for insight. There are lessons, some positive, some deeply negative, to be learned in the long, complex, and decidedly messy history of the United States in the world.

Produced in collaboration with the Clements Center for National Security, Not Even Past‘s “Uncharted Waters” series is bringing that history to life in detailed case studies, highlighting moments when Americans have grappled with the uncertainties of power. Our aim is to document unease and confusion, hidden dangers and unexpected opportunities. In so doing, we will provide readers with a fresh and provocative perspective on the history of American foreign relations.

Concluded on September 17th, 1978, the Camp David Accords between Egypt, Israel, and the United States were a landmark achievement in the history of American diplomacy, representing a crucial step toward potentially ending the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict. While not a formal treaty, the Accords included two frameworks: one for bilateral Egyptian-Israeli peace, the other for settling the question of Palestinian sovereignty.

*Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, and U. S. president Jimmy Carter celebrate the signing of the Camp David Accords in September 1978. Source: Wikimedia Commons.*

Less than two months later, the Arab League Summit at Baghdad (November 2nd–5th, 1978) rejected the Camp David Accords and established a set of punitive measures to be implemented if Egypt and Israel agreed to a formal treaty. This stunned and infuriated American President Jimmy Carter, who had counted on the Saudis to block such an action. Soviet leaders, by contrast, were delighted with the result.

In the month and a half between the signing of the Camp David Accords and their rejection at Baghdad, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Arab actors engaged in a flurry of activity ranging from public diplomacy to secret plots to “kidnapping,” as each sought to advance their interests. Archival documents and memoirs from Soviet, American, and Arab participants reveal this hitherto-obscured history, documenting the intricacies of a frenetic and crucial period.

Delegates at the Arab League’s Baghdad Summit in November 1978. In the foreground, from left to right: an unidentified delegate (far left); Syrian president Hafez al-Assad; Iraqi president Hasan al-Bakr; Saddam Hussein, then Vice President of Iraq; and Lebanese prime minister Saleem al-Hoss. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Ultimately, Arab backlash against the Accords gave the Soviets a golden opportunity to push their advantage in an attempt to reassert their importance in the Middle East and show that they, as the United States’ rival superpower, also had to be consulted in matters of international and regional significance. It also underscored the fragility of the peace process and threatened American dominance in the region, while highlighting a major area of Soviet-American tension, one that would significantly contribute to renewed superpower competition with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan just over a year later. Finally, the moderate Arabs’ decision not to cooperate with the United States—despite its singular focus on gaining such cooperation, at the cost of any real U. S. policy toward the enemies of the peace process—makes this a story of how relatively weak states can create significant problems for powerful countries, a lesson the United States has failed to learn time and again.

Three Camps

The Arab-Israeli conflict dates back to 1948, when Jewish settlers displaced Palestinians to create the modern Israeli state. On the day of Israel’s founding, the surrounding Arab states attacked it, but were beaten back. In the decades since, the Arab-Israeli conflict saw several significant flareups, including the Suez Crisis of 1956, the Six-Day War of 1967, and the October War of 1973. In the wake of the October War, American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger negotiated ceasefire deals between Israel and Syria and initiated a bilateral peace process between Egypt and Israel which ultimately went nowhere.

*The lodge and swimming pool of the presidential retreat at Camp David as they appeared during the early 1970s. Source: Wikimedia Commons.*

By the time the Egyptian-Israeli peace talks resumed in the late 1970s, largely due to an initiative launched by Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat, the Middle East was split into three broad camps as far as the Arab-Israel peace process was concerned: the negotiating parties, the “rejectionists,” and the “moderates.” The negotiating parties were those states engaged directly in the peace talks; in this case, Egypt and Israel. They were pro-Western and generally cooperated with the United States, which sought to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, counter Arab “radicalism,” and prevent Soviet re-entry to the region.

The rejectionist Arabs, on the other hand, rebuffed negotiation with Israel and refused to even recognize it as a state. Rejectionists were politically “radical” states dominated by leftist regimes that were typically pro-Soviet. Indeed, in the Arab context, “radical” and “rejectionist” referred to the same states; as British officials noted in 1979, “many of the radicals would not exist but for the Arab/Israel dispute.”[1] American and even some Soviet policymakers referred to them as “radical/s.”[2] Rejectionism also drew on pan-Arabism, emphasizing the need for Arab unity across national borders.[3]

Most rejectionists were members of the Steadfastness and Confrontation Front, a multinational group that included Algeria, Libya, Syria, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY, or South Yemen); only one rejectionist state, Iraq, was not part of the Front. All of the rejectionists enjoyed Soviet backing, not because the USSR did not want peace in the Middle East, but because it wanted to be a full participant in the peace talks and reassert its importance in the region.[4] This was a natural response to its ouster from the Middle East, which had been orchestrated by the Nixon and Ford administrations.[5] The Soviets therefore saw the Camp David Accords as an opportunity to undermine American influence in the Middle East. Their rejection of the Accords, while unsurprising, stemmed not so much from any opposition to the contents themselves, but more from a desire to capitalize on Arab rejectionism, their frustration at having been excluded from the peace process, and their hostility to Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat, whose consistent antipathy toward the USSR was making him look like a pawn of the West.[6]

*President Carter meets with Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko in 1977. Source: Wikimedia Commons.*

American policymakers, by contrast, saw Arab moderates, particularly Saudi Arabia and Jordan, as crucial to obtaining a comprehensive peace in the Middle East.The moderates were more open to the peace process, but had clear (albeit relatively limited) reservations stemming from their national interests and the ideological imperatives of pan-Arabism. Moderates were usually pro-Western in orientation or strove to maintain their non-aligned status, and feared Soviet influence and the Arab radicals who promoted it, not least because many moderate regimes were also monarchies, and therefore fundamentally opposed to the progressive and populist agendas of the radicals.

After the Camp David Accords were signed, the United States sought moderate acquiescence, if not approval of the agreement. President Carter tried to bring other Arabs into the peace process, via both direct negotiation and indirect approaches through influential European states like France and the United Kingdom.[7] By contrast, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat stuck to a unilateralist line, dismissing the other Arabs as unimportant. Sadat seemed far less concerned about what other Arab leaders thought—he regularly called them “dwarfs and pygmies”—and told Carter not to worry about their reactions, going so far as to publicly ridicule the Front and the Soviets.[8] Based on his earlier statements and the clear need for moderate support, however, it seems Sadat was exaggerating his confidence. Indeed, some Egyptian officials thought he was intentionally inflaming relations with other Arabs to keep them out of the negotiations. He would soon get his wish.[9]

“A Pilgrimage of Arabs to Moscow”: The Soviets Take Action

American diplomats initially assumed that the “radical” Arabs’ rejection of the Camp David Accords was a foregone conclusion.[10] As if to confirm their suspicions, the Soviets and their radical friends soon issued explicit public and private condemnations of the Accords.[11] At its Damascus Conference (September 20th–23rd, 1978), the Steadfastness and Confrontation Front condemned the Camp David Accords and declared that it would sever relations with Egypt, encourage subversive elements inside Egypt, and seek better relations with the Soviet Union, authorizing Syrian president Hafez al-Assad to represent the Front during his upcoming trip to Moscow.[12]

Despite the Front’s decision to strengthen its ties to the Soviets, it became apparent both before and during the conference that it was not a cohesive unit. Assad implied that Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi had reneged on his duties under the Front’s founding document by failing to financially support to Palestinian groups.[13] The delegates also clashed over economic ties with Egypt, eventually deciding to implement sanctions. Some rejectionists pushed for anti-American measures, but Assad and Algerian president Houari Boumediene objected, hoping to maintain their nonaligned status. The Front also toned down its rhetoric toward the moderates in order to win them to its side.[14] Shortly after the Damascus Conference, the Front also met in Algiers, where a temporary Syrian-Libyan rapprochement encouraged Gaddafi to attempt an unusual diplomatic maneuver: the Libyan dictator “kidnapped” his nominal ally, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and forcibly transported him to Jordan in an attempt to improve the PLO’s relations with King Hussein, which had been sour for almost a decade. Gaddafi later explained that he took this dramatic step with the Front’s interests at heart.[15] Indeed, the Jordanian rapprochement with the PLO drastically improved the chances of a collective Arab stance against the Camp David Accords, as it helped heal—at least temporarily—a major rift within the Arab world.

Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya (in the foreground at left, wearing a cape), Algerian president Houari Boumediene (center), and Hafez al-Assad (right) at an earlier Steadfastness and Confrontation Front conference in Tripoli, Libya. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The ebb and flow of Middle Eastern politics ultimately favored the Soviets—and weighed against the Camp David Accords. This was certainly true in the case of Syria. As President Assad attempted to balance the Front between the superpowers and maintain a moderate approach toward the peace process, he tilted in response to his anxieties about his country’s global and regional standing. At the time, Assad faced not only internal unrest but also the external challenges of navigating the Cold War, an unresolved conflict in neighboring Lebanon, and tensions with another neighbor, Iraq, as well as the peace process itself, which upset the local balance of power. Egypt had been crucial in helping Syria deal with the potential threat of war with against Israel. Egyptian-Israeli peace meant Israel could shift its military power to the Syrian border. Assad therefore chose to pursue closer relations with the Soviets, hoping improved ties would enable him to more effectively oppose the peace process.[16]

The Soviets were happy to oblige. “We need to do everything so that the heat of rejection of a separate deal between Egypt and Israel does not fade in the Arab world,” said Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to his aids. “Other Arab countries should not be allowed to yield to the pressure of the Americans and join a separate deal.” He identified Jordan as “the weakest link,” and worried it was “playing a double game.” He concluded that “we must help friendly Arab countries to inflame the situation around this deal so that King Hussein would not dare to touch it,” and believed that Syria and the PLO were best suited to the purpose. He then proposed “a pilgrimage of Arabs to Moscow,” in which the Arab leaders would fly to the USSR in succession, with Assad going first; thereafter, the leaders would attend a Pan-Arab summit to condemn “Sadat’s apostasy.”[19] Against this backdrop, Egyptian and American efforts to convince the Soviets to support the Camp David peace process stalled.[18]

Assad visited Moscow on October 5th and 6th, representing the Steadfastness and Confrontation Front. The Soviets encouraged the Syrian-Iraqi rapprochement that had begun earlier that month. In doing so, they endorsed Iraqi calls to host the Pan-Arab summit in Baghdad, to which Assad responded positively three days after leaving Moscow.[19] This was a critical development for any hope of a united Arab front—not least because Syrian agreement to attend the summit meant the Steadfastness Front would join—especially considering the history of intense Syrian-Iraqi feuding, which had consistently frustrated the Soviets.[20] While Assad’s visit did not produce anything new in terms of Soviet-Syrian relations, it indicated the seriousness of both countries’ desire for closer ties.[21] In the weeks after Assad’s visit, Syria and Iraq concluded an alliance, guaranteeing that all the rejectionists would be present at Baghdad.[22]

PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s visit to Moscow in late October gave the clearest indication that an intensified anti-Camp David policy had taken root in the USSR. During their meeting with Arafat, the Soviets affirmed that “By taking this path, Egyptian President Sadat has thrown a noose on his neck and keeps tightening it at every step.” They also extolled the recent conference decisions of the Steadfastness Front, and emphasized the need to bring other countries into the fold, while warning of Saudi and Jordanian schemes to prevent Egyptian isolation at Baghdad. Arafat agreed and expressed his concern over the possibility of “imperialist forces” starting a conflict (or exacerbating an extant one) in Lebanon, southern Arabia, or on the Egyptian-Libyan border.[23] Most importantly, however, the USSR formally recognized the PLO as the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.” This was a major shift in Soviet policy, as the USSR had previously refrained from such an acknowledgement, presumably to maintain some leverage over Arafat and his colleagues. Now, however, that recognition came without any significant concessions by the Palestinians, signaling the growing closeness between the USSR and the PLO, and indicating the Soviets’ clear commitment to align with the enemies of a separate peace.[24]

Playing for the Moderates

While the rejectionists consolidated their position, President Carter tried to engage the moderates. Carter warned his Arab interlocutors that a “lack of support from other responsible and moderate leaders of the Arab nations would certainly lead to the strengthening of irresponsible and radical elements and a further opportunity for intrusion of Soviet and other Communist influences throughout the Middle East.”[25] The State Department likewise focused on courting the moderate Arabs, although Secretary of State Cyrus Vance also met with President Assad on his way back from encouraging Jordanian and Saudi officials to support the Accords.[26]

Reactions were mixed. The Saudis responded relatively positively to American overtures. However, King Hussein of Jordan reacted negatively, requesting that the Carter administration formally answer fourteen questions about the Accords. Assad, whose meeting with Vance was delayed by the Steadfastness and Confrontation Front conference in Damascus, likewise demanded answers, peppering the Secretary of State with questions for four and a half hours before finally explaining that Syria could not accept the Accords as the basis for a comprehensive peace.[27]

*President Carter speaks with King Hussein of Jordan in 1977. Source: Wikimedia Commons.*

With Saudi and especially Jordanian attitudes in flux, Jordan came to be seen by the Americans, Soviets, rejectionists, and moderates as the wildcard in the runup to the Baghdad Summit. King Hussein of Jordan was due to visit Moscow in mid-October, which the Kremlin saw as a critically important visit—one in which even General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, who had little appetite for Middle Eastern affairs, took a personal interest—but after meeting with Secretary of State Vance, the king decided at the last minute to send his brother Crown Prince Hassan to Moscow in his stead, which “upset” Brezhnev and “alarmed” Gromyko and KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov, as they worried it could signal a Jordanian shift in favor of the Accords. In response, the Soviets lowered the level of the meeting, giving negotiating duties to Premier Alexey Kosygin instead of Brezhnev.[28]

Upon receiving the official U. S. response to his fourteen questions on October 17—the night before the Soviet-Jordanian meeting—King Hussein informed American officials that he would make his decision closer to the Baghdad Summit. The king also expressed some openness to encouraging the West Bank Palestinians to participate in the peace talks, but lamented growing PLO influence in Palestinian politics, for which he blamed Saudi financial support to the group.[29] Meanwhile, Soviet discussions with Hussein’s brother, Prince Hassan, went fairly well, and while the Jordanian crown prince condemned the Accords less stridently than Assad had, he claimed that Jordan wanted a comprehensive peace, not a bilateral one. Kosygin therefore announced Soviet support for Jordanian opposition to the Accords.[30]

While the Soviets shored up their support for the rejectionist camp, which now seemingly included Jordan, Saudi Arabia’s stance was still somewhat unclear. The Saudis were under tremendous pressure from the rejectionists, as a steady stream of radical Arab leaders visited the Kingdom in hopes of consolidating a fully rejectionist front against the Accords and Egypt at Baghdad.[31] But to the Americans’ delight, the Saudis pledged themselves to encouraging moderate solidarity, assuring Sadat of support and warning the Iraqis against taking a radical position. They also developed a clever scheme to counter rejectionist pressure.[32] In mid-October, a South Yemen-led coup against ‘Abd Allah Salih, President of the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR, or North Yemen), had nearly succeeded with support from Libya and Iraq. If the radicals moved against Egypt at Baghdad, Saudi Crown Prince Fahd suggested, the YAR would formally complain about Iraqi-Libyan involvement in the failed coup. This Saudi “‘time bomb’ understanding with the YAR” was, in US Ambassador John West’s opinion, “a near genius political stroke,” as it could block official anti-Egyptian measures. The Saudis also planned to pressure the PLO into joining the peace process.[33] American officials hoped that if the Saudis played their Yemen card, it could prevent the Arab League from censuring Sadat.

*Carter confers with King Khalid of Saudi Arabia in late October 1978. Source: Wikimedia Commons.*

Saudi plans aside, things looked bleak for supporters of the Camp David Accords. Not only had the Accords drawn opposition from the Front and Iraq, but they had also alienated Jordan and produced a Syrian-Iraqi rapprochement. Worse still, just three days before the Baghdad Summit, Brzezinski informed President Carter of CIA concerns that the moderates lacked a coherent strategy for protecting Egypt at the meeting.[34] All of this presented a serious obstacle to the peace process: if the moderates fell into the radical camp, they could not only make a comprehensive peace less feasible, but could possibly disrupt the separate Egyptian-Israeli peace.

Nevertheless, the Soviets were worried, too. They were unsure whether their efforts would be enough to overcome the “motley” interests of the Arab states and convince them to stand against the Camp David Accords. Indeed, shortly before the summit, it appeared that the Jordanians and Saudis might not condemn Sadat.[35]

Ultimately, however, the moderates had little to gain and much to lose by defending the Accords at Baghdad. Officials from both Jordan and Saudi Arabia knew the dangers of opposing the rejectionists, especially given the strength of the nascent Syrian-Iraqi alliance, the threat of ostracization from the rest of the Arab world, and concerns about regime stability, which could be threatened if they did not bolster their pan-Arab credentials. Furthermore, the recent expansion of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories and the Accords’ inadequacy on the Palestinian question—it did not contain an explicit provision for Palestinian statehood, and did not recognize the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of Palestinian interests—combined to make them resent the agreement.[36] Additionally, the radicals drew an already-dissatisfied Jordan closer with financial inducements, including $1.25 billion per year for ten years.[37] This combination of sticks and carrots ultimately compelled the Saudis and Jordanians to oppose the Camp David Accords at Baghdad.[38]

Conclusion

The moderates tried to temper the outcome of the Baghdad Summit, but met with mixed success. The Steadfastness Front and Iraq pushed for disciplinary action against Egypt, but Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the Gulf States opposed them.[39] In a compromise, the two sides drew up—but did not immediately publish—potential punitive measures in case of an official Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. A joint Jordanian-PLO commission was established, further healing the divide between them. The Saudis never put their Yemeni “time bomb” plan into action. Justifying their condemnation of the Camp David Accords to the Americans, they argued “the conference action would have been much more drastic without their moderating influence.”[40]

President Assad of Syria (center) enjoys a convivial conversation with Saddam Hussein (left), Algerian foreign minister Abd al-Aziz Bouteflika (right), and Syrian Vice-President Abd al-Halim Khaddam (far right, half-covered) during the Baghdad Summit in October 1978. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

True as this might have been, the Camp David Accords and the moderates’ drift toward the rejectionists, Joseph Twinam writes, “offered the Soviet Union a new chance to get back in the game as a responsible great power,” leading to increased superpower competition in the region.[41] Just as seriously, the solidification of Arab opinion against the Camp David Accords threatened to block the path to peace in the Middle East, as it seemed to both foreclose the option of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli deal and endanger the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations themselves. This case of relatively weak states flexing their political muscle would ultimately force President Carter to further involve himself in a peace process that had already taken up so much of his time and domestic political capital. It also augured a new era of instability in the Middle East, just as the Iranian Revolution began to simmer and Soviet officials were poised to capitalize on America’s Middle East woes.

Benjamin V. Allison is a Ph.D student in History at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a Graduate Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security. His dissertation examines relations between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Arab “rejectionists” from 1977 to 1984. He also studies terrorism and has been published in Perspectives on Terrorism and by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism.

[1] UK Embassy Damascus to FCO, “Arab/Israel,” March 15, 1979, FCO 93/2205, AMAD

[2] This article uses “rejectionist/s” and “radical/s” interchangeably. While there is debate over who the “true” rejectionists were and are—Israel or the Palestinians and Arabs—in the context of the Egyptian-Israeli peace process, the “rejectionists” were simply those that opposed that process. Seth Anziska, “Autonomy as State Prevention: The Palestinian Question after Camp David, 1979–1982,” Humanity 8, no. 2 (Summer 2017): 287-310; Noam Chomsky, The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians, updated ed. (London, 1999); Colter Louwerse, “‘Tyranny of the Veto’: PLO Diplomacy and the January 1976 United Nations Security Council Resolution,” Diplomacy & Statecraft 33, no. 2 (2022): 303-329; Adel Safty, From Camp David to the Gulf: Negotiations, Language & Propaganda, and War (Montreal, 1992).

[3] Adeed I. Dawisha, The Arab Radicals (New York, 1986); William B. Quandt, Saudi Arabia in the 1980s: Foreign Policy, Security, and Oil (Washington, DC, 1981), 18-22.

[4] George W. Breslauer, ed., Soviet Strategy in the Middle East (London, [1990] 2016); Roland Dannreuther, The Soviet Union and the PLO (New York, 1998); Robert O. Freedman, Soviet Policy toward the Middle East since 1970, 3rd ed. (New York, 1982); Galia Golan, Soviet policies in the Middle East from World War Two to Gorbachev (Cambridge, 1990); Efraim Karsh, Soviet Policy towards Syria since 1970 (New York, 1991); Hafeez Malik, ed., Domestic Determinants of Soviet Foreign Policy towards South Asia and the Middle East (New York, 1990); Oles M. Smolansky with Bettie M. Smolansky, The USSR and Iraq: The Soviet Quest for Influence (Durham, 1991); Alexey Vasiliev, Russia’s Middle East Policy: From Lenin to Putin (London, 2018).

[5] See, for example, Martin Indyk, Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy (New York, 2021).

[6] Aleksandr Belonogov, Na diplomaticheskoĭ sluzhbe v MID i za rubezhom [In the diplomatic service of MID and abroad] (Moscow, 2016), 327; Karen Brutents, Tridt͡satʹ let na staroĭ ploshchadi [Thirty years on the old square] (Moscow, 1998), 383.

[7] Memcon, “Meeting with President Giscard,” Monday, October 2, 1978, 1700-1805, and Memcon, “Meeting with Prime Minister Callaghan,” Wednesday, October 4, 1978, 10:05-11:20 a.m., Plains Files, Box 29, Folder 2, Jimmy Carter Library.

[8] Sadat, quoted in Quandt, Camp David, 273; UK Embassy Cairo to FCO, “President Sadat’s Speech,” October 3, 1978, FCO 93/1435, United Nations National Archives, Adam Matthew Archives Direct, archivesdirect.amdigitalco.uk (hereafter AMAD).

[9] September 22, 1978, Jimmy Carter, White House Diary (New York, 2010); Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem: A Diplomat’s Story of the Struggle for Peace in the Middle East (New York, 1997), 155.

[10] Secretary of State to Multiple Posts, “U.S. Support for Camp David,” September 26, 1978 (State 244085), US National Archives, Access to Archival Databases, aad.archives.gov (hereafter AAD). The embassies’ responses arrived on September 26–27. See Algiers 2739, Baghdad 1987, Damascus 5739, Tripoli 1354, Jidda 6908, Amman 7575, Sana 4822, Tunis 6867, and Cairo 21705, AAD. Situation Room to Brzezinski, “Additional Information Items,” September 30, 1978, NSA 1, Box 7, Folder 9, JCL.

[11] For private Soviet reactions, see Foreign Relations of the United States 1977–1980 (hereafter FRUS 1977–80) VI, docs. 145-146 and 150.

[12] “Final Communiqué of the Third Summit Conference of the Arab Front for Steadfastness and Confrontation States, Issued in Damascus, September 23, 1978 [Excerpts],” Journal of Palestine Studies 8, no. 2 (Winter 1979): 184-187. See also Department of State to US Mission to the Sinai, “Intsum 653—September 19, 1978,” FRUS 1977–80 IX, doc. 63; and US Embassy Damascus to Secretary of State, “Steadfastness Front Summit,” September 27, 1978 (Damascus 05738), AAD.

[13] Bassam Abu Sharif, Arafat and the Dream of Palestine: An Insider’s Account (New York, 2009), 57.

[14] Damascus 5738. See also Dishon and Ben-Zvi, “Inter-Arab Relations,” Middle East Contemporary Survey (hereafter MECS) II, 220.

[15] Sharif, Arafat and the Dream of Palestine, 58-59.

[16] Damascus 5738. See also Sonoko Sunayama, Syria and Saudi Arabia: Collaboration and Conflicts in the Oil Era (London, 2007), 50-51; and Karsh, Soviet Policy towards Syria, 118.

[17] Grinevsky, Taĭny sovetskoĭ diplomatii, 132-133, 143.

[18] “Zapisʹ besedy direktora Instituta Afriki AN SSSR An. A. Gromyko s vremennym poverennym v delakh ARE v SSSR g-nom ShELBAI,” October 5, 1978, R406, Box 23 (1978–July 1979), READD-RADD Database [hereafter READD], National Security Archive.

[19] “Meeting of the Political Consultative Committee of the Warsaw Treaty Member Countries,” November 22, 1978, and “Notes on Yasser Arafat’s Visit to Moscow in October 1978,” November 14, 1978, Cold War International History Project (hereafter CWIHP), digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org. On Syrian agreement to attend the Baghdad Summit, see US Embassy Damascus to Secretary of State, “Preparing for an Arab Summit: Iraq-Syria Rivalry,” October 12, 1978 (Damascus 6145), AAD.

[20] Brutents, Tridt͡satʹ let, 407; Brutents, in Lysebu I, 72; Grinevsky, Taĭny sovetskoĭ diplomatii, 134.

[21] “Iz sovmestnogo sovetsko-siriĭskogo kommi͡unik,” SSSR i Blizhnevostochnoe Uregulirovanie, 1967-1988: Dokumenty i materialy (Moscow,1989), doc. 151.

[22] Karsh, Soviet Policy towards Syria, 119; Embassy Damascus to Secretary of State, “Assad’s Moscow Visit,” October 5, 1978 (Damascus 05993), AAD; US Mission to NATO to Secretary of State, “Report on the Situation in the Mediterranean (Med Report) April–November 1978,” November 8, 1978 (US NATO 10219), AAD.

[23] “Notes on Yasser Arafat’s Visit to Moscow in October 1978,” November 14, 1978, CWIHP.

[24] Dannreuther, The Soviet Union and the PLO, 105-106.

[25] Carter to Hussein, Washington, September 19, 1978, and Carter to Assad, Washington, September 19, 1978, FRUS 1977–80 IX, docs. 61 and 62; “Camp David Frameworks for Peace (September 17, 1978),” in The Israel-Arab Reader, 609-615. For blow-by-blow accounts of the Camp David discussions, see especially Quandt, Camp David; Carter, Keeping Faith; and Wright, Thirteen Days in September.

[26] US Embassy Damascus to Secretary of State, “Delivery of President’s Letter to President Hafez al-Assad,” September 19, 1978 (Damascus 5475), US Embassy Beirut to Secretary of State, “Camp David: Guidance for Discussion,” September 21, 1978 (Beirut 5508), Secretary of State to US Embassy Khartoum, “Guidance for Post-Camp David Discussions,” September 23, 1978 (State 241998), and Secretary of State to US Mission to the UN, September 29, 1978 (State 248576), AAD.

[27] Secretary’s Aircraft to Secretary of State (Christopher), “Meeting with Assad September 24, 1978,” September 24, 1978 (SECTO 10071), AAD. See also US Embassy Damascus to Secretary of State, “SARG Request to Postpone Secretary Vance’s Visit to Damascus,” September 22, 1978 (Damascus 5584), NLC-16-45-4-36-2, CREST/RAC, JCL.

[28] Grinevsky, Taĭny sovetskoĭ diplomatii, 149-151.

[29] US Embassy Jidda to Department of State, “Talk With King Hussein,” October 18, 1978, 0950Z, and Embassy Jidda to Department of State, “Talk With King Hussein,” October 18, 1978, 1537Z, FRUS 1977–80 IX, docs. 91 and 92; See also Ashton, “Taking Friends for Granted,” 641.

[30] Grinevsky, Taĭny sovetskoĭ diplomatii, 151-152; “Soobshchenie o prieme chlenom Politbi͡uro T͡sK KPSS, Predsedatelem Soveta Ministrov SSSR A. N. Kosyginym naslednogo print͡sa Iordanii Khasana,” SSSR i Blizhnevostochnoe Uregulirovanie, doc. 152.

[31] Sunayama, Syria and Saudi Arabia, 52-53.

[32] Situation Room to Brzezinski, “Evening Notes,” October 8, 1978, NSA 1, Box 8, Folder 2, JCL.

[33] Memcon, Fahd and West, Jidda, undated [c. October 24, 1978], and Editorial Note, FRUS 1977–80 IX, docs. 106 and 124. See also Halliday, Revolution and Foreign Policy, 124.

[34] Brzezinski to Carter, “Information Items,” October 30, 1978, NSA 1, Box 8, Folder 3, JCL; NIDC 78/256, CIA FOIA. See also US Interests Section Baghdad to Secretary of State, “Iraqi-Syrian Rapprochement,” October 27, 1978 (Baghdad 2230), AAD.

[35] Grinevsky, Taĭny sovetskoĭ diplomatii, 156-157.

[36] Sharif, Arafat and the Dream of Palestine, 58-59; Michael N. Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional Order (New York, 1998), 194-195; William B. Quandt, Saudi Arabia in the 1980s: Foreign Policy, Security, and Oil (Washington, DC, 1981), 115; Joseph Kostiner, “Saudi Arabia and the Arab–Israeli Peace Process: The Fluctuation of Regional Coordination,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 36, no. 3 (December 2009): 417-429.

[37] Patrick Seale with Maureen McConville, Assad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley, 1988), 313.

[38] Nigel Ashton, “Taking Friends for Granted: The Carter Administration, Jordan, and the Camp David Accords, 1977–1980,” Diplomatic History 41, no. 3 (2017): 620-645; Mahida Rashid al Madfai, Jordan, the United States and the Middle East Peace Process, 1974–1991 (Cambridge, 1993), 48-54; Secretary of State to US Embassy Amman, “Meeting with Sharaf in Algiers,” January 1, 1979 (State 14), AAD.

[39] Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics, 195.

[40] Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (New York, 1982), 410.

[41] Joseph Wright Twinam, “Soviet Policy for the Gulf Arab States,” in Domestic Determinants of Soviet Foreign Policy, 249. See also Dishon, “Inter-Arab Relations,” 216.

“We Didn’t Have to Ask Permission”: UT’s 1960s Hidden Gay Oasis

From the editors: This article first appeared in QT Voices, which is the online magazine of the LGBTQ Studies Program at The University of Texas at Austin. For the original article see here.

“If at all possible and, if my voice is loud enough, your house will be spared by the bulldozer.” This was the encouraging message received in the summer of 1965 by Arthur Pope Watson, Jr. Watson, a well-connected Austin designer, shared the home located on the edge of the UT campus with his partner, Robert Wayne Garrett. Watson and Garrett worked together and owned an interior design firm, Watson Associates, for over three decades. The note came from Coke H. Dilworth, an architect at the local Brooks, Barr, Graeber, and White firm. Dilworth had just toured Watson’s historic home at 500 East Eighteenth Street and was impressed by its grandeur. Adorned with a French-style mansard roof, lush gardens and grounds overlooking Waller Creek, and opulent interior design hand-curated by Watson and Garrett, the home—nicknamed “the Chateau”—was a breathtaking structure with a fascinating history. The Chateau famously hosted formal dinner parties, cocktail soirees, and holiday fêtes—gatherings that Garrett laughingly described as “very elegant, but . . . rowdy.” It has been reported that celebrities even visited the Chateau for parties or after performances at the Erwin Events Center, and rumored visitors include actor Rock Hudson and tenor Luciano Pavarotti.

The bulldozer in question was to be sent by the University of Texas at Austin, which was in the middle of seismic changes in the 1960s: student enrollment was growing exponentially, and the University was struggling to keep up with demand. The Board of Regents’ solution was to undertake a massive campus expansion to the east, northeast, and southeast existing edges of campus, and the Chateau was directly in the path of this expansion.

This plan for the University East Urban Renewal Project was released in 1968. The lot that holds the Chateau is highlighted in yellow, marked as a “new acquisition” according to the map legend. Courtesy of the Briscoe Center for American History, the Frank C. Erwin Papers, Box 2009/221-4.

The University’s expansion plan was authorized by House Bill 492, which was initially introduced in March of 1965 and quickly gained Senate approval, passing in April. The bill gave the University the legal right to acquire over twenty blocks of property surrounding the campus under the power of eminent domain. When the bill was first introduced to the Senate, only four citizens appeared to express their disapproval; Watson was one of them, alongside other landowners in the path of expansion. These dissenters argued that the University had not specified a clear or immediate purpose for the acquired land and that it would likely remain undeveloped for years. U.T. Regent W. W. Heath, on the other hand, argued in favor of the bill, reporting that one of the University’s predominant concerns was that a “delay in acquiring the land would mean the land would have to be bought later at a higher price.” Meanwhile, the bill’s framer, Senator Charles Herring, said that “the University ha[d] a moral obligation to buy the land as soon as possible from those who wanted to sell.”

Senator Herring’s rhetoric suggested a choice—that the University would buy property “from those who wanted to sell”—but eminent domain is ultimately disinterested in the desires of landowners. More commonly, eminent domain is used to override those desires explicitly and, in June of 1965, the University did just that. Watson received a letter from James Colvin, Business Manager of the University, informing him that U.T. formally intended to acquire his land at 500 East 18th Street. Like Herring, Colvin closed his letter alluding to a semblance of choice, telling Watson, “if you wish to retain your property for as long a period of time as is consistent with the needs of the University, or for some fixed period of time, please advise me of that fact and we shall accommodate you insofar as it is possible for us to do so.”

Watson indeed wished to retain the Chateau. Built in 1853, it was one of the oldest buildings in Austin, and was constructed with historic materials: the original structure was fashioned from hand-cut stone that came from the same Austin quarry as the original Capitol building, which burnt down in 1881. Caroline Roget, the Chateau’s previous owner and Watson’s and Garrett’s personal friend, had added numerous features to the home after purchasing it in 1945. According to a 1997 interview with Garrett after Watson’s death, Roget, who was Governor Beauford Jester’s assistant, installed lights and sconces at the Chateau that she had taken from storage buildings at the Capitol, including an outdoor light salvaged from the 1881 Capitol fire. She also hired local artisans Weigl Iron Works to do ironwork on the interior and exterior of the home. When Watson and Garrett purchased the home from Roget in 1959, they enclosed the home’s balconies in glass, built two new garages, constructed the English-style greenhouse, and installed a pool blasted out of solid limestone.

*The Chateau was host to countless parties over the years, including pool parties surrounded by the lush flora on the grounds. Courtesy of* Introduction: To Liberate.

Watson was not ready to part with the Chateau and all that it meant to Austin society—particularly, Austin gay society, which often gathered there during these parties. He responded to Colvin’s letter saying that he wished to “retain the property for as long as possible,” citing its historic significance to early Texas architecture. As he notes, the Heritage Society of Austin had recently included the Chateau on a Pilgrimage of Historic Homes tour.

Though the University’s official notice did not arrive until 1965, mentions of the University potentially acquiring the property can be found in records before then. In Board of Regents meeting minutes from October 1964, campus architects propose numerous parcels of land the University should attempt to acquire, and the Chateau is included within their recommendations. The plan speaks of the Chateau in quite impersonal terms, describing simply that the lot had one house, whose “price may be prohibitive.” In place of this rich historical site, the architects had grand plans: an overflow storage facility, or perhaps a parking lot.

One of Arthur Watson’s and Robert Garrett’s Christmas cards during their years living at the Chateau—”an old house that really lives!” Some of the interiors of the Chateau can be seen in the photo of Garrett (L) and Watson (R) sitting together on a couch. Courtesy of Austin History Center, the House Building Files, 500 East 18th Street.

Watson seemed to also have an intuition before receiving the University’s official word. In a letter he sent Roget in May of 1963 about potentially adding another structure on the plot, he mentions that “the area has come into recognition at City Hall… it isn’t possible to have a vacant lot in the center of town [anymore].” Later in their correspondence, as he describes a number of structural issues afflicting the Chateau and laments the expense of their repair, he asks rhetorically, “who can find cash these days when the government wants everything?”

Two years later, the government did want everything, and intended to take it by brute legislative force. Land appraisers and real estate brokers moved in on all sides of the Chateau. Individual landowners of nearby tracts sold their homes to the University, while entire communities were displaced eastward. By 1968, the plan for the land acquired by eminent domain would be shaped into the University East Urban Renewal Project. According to environmental historian Katherine Leah Pace, “the [Project] displaced an interracial neighborhood located just east of the UT campus” and “‘removed the remaining Black families from along the west side of IH-35.’” The University was aggressively invested in making progress on its campus expansion projects; as a March 1965 article in the Daily Texan gravely predicted, “progress, however, demands the past be destroyed.”

Despite Watson’s written protestations, in September 1965, Colvin sent him another letter reiterating the University’s intent to acquire his land and informing him that independent real estate appraisers would soon be visiting the property to determine its “fair market value.” Colvin attempted to assuage Watson, saying “we have noted your request that we delay the acquisition of your property as long as possible.” Just two months later, though, Colvin again wrote to Watson, informing him that realtors would soon visit him to “negotiate the purchase” of his property. Dilworth’s reassurance that the Chateau may “be spared by the bulldozer” seemed less and less likely with each passing day.

Watson had one last lifeline to try, and it was one that would ultimately prove successful in sparing the Chateau the bulldozer—though not without contractual stipulations. When Watson was an undergraduate at U.T. in the 1940s, he crossed paths with then-Law School student Frank Erwin at their fraternity house, Kappa Sigma Tau, and they struck up a friendship. Little did they know that nearly two decades later—and in the middle of the University’s vigorous expansion—Watson’s old friend and now powerful local attorney Erwin would be sitting on the U.T.’s Board of Regents, wielding partial control over the future of the geography of campus and its surrounding areas.

Garrett described that Erwin and Watson were “great buddies” who “got along extremely well together, under any circumstances.” Garrett called Erwin a “wonderful guy,… almost like family,” who would come over to the Chateau to visit Watson and Garrett “all the time, late at night—after he’d been down to the Quorum Club. [A local bar known to host politicians and other powerful local figures.] If he happened to have a problem… he’d just—eleven o’clock—he’d bang on the front door.” He pointed to Erwin’s great friendship as he and Watson “went through a seven-year battle to save” the Chateau, saying,

I didn’t have much control over it. I was living here, but I didn’t know what Arthur and Frank were up to most of the time. Then finally Frank came to the rescue, and they drew up this agreement, and so it went to the University and that was fine—and so that was how it saved the house-—by Arthur giving it to the University-—with a lifetime [agreement]-—he could live here as long as he was alive. [Erwin] told Arthur—he says—’Well, I’m going to go take this and bury it in the files. […] So we never heard from them again—the University—during all those years. We didn’t have to ask permission to do anything.

As Marta Stefaniuk, primary researcher of the To Liberate: Watson Chateau project, points out: “the paper trail tells the public facts on which everyone can agree. There were also backroom deals, never made public, but still clear in the memories of the few remaining Austin residents connected to the arrangements.” What the public record does show is that Watson was first made aware of the University’s intent to acquire the Chateau in 1965 and, in September of 1973, he officially gifted the property to the University in exchange for “a life estate in the premises.”

The details in the intervening years are few and far between. There is an intriguing moment on public record in February 1966, when Erwin sounded the alarm at a U.T. Regents meeting. The Regents were discussing the City of Austin’s plan to expand Red River Street, which Erwin called potentially “disastrous” to the structures on the east and west sides of the street (one of which was the Chateau, though Erwin did not name it specifically). While he expressed these concerns, all other Regents, including Chairman W. W. Heath, approved the expansion. Of course, there is no way to know whether or not Erwin was campaigning on behalf of his friend Watson’s property, but it is interesting to consider he was the only Regent to raise an issue about this plan, particularly when Erwin was quite supportive of—even aggressive about—expansion otherwise.

In 1969, Erwin was directly involved in a series of protests against University expansion that have collectively become known as “the Battle of Waller Creek.” As the University continued its eastward growth, it planned to re-route a section of Waller Creek to allow for renovations on Memorial Stadium and the construction of Belmont Hall. In order to do that, the construction team was directed to remove thirty-nine live oak trees, many of which were over 100 years old. A committed cadre of students, horrified by the news of the planned tree removal and brimming with activist energy amid anti-Vietnam War protests, climbed the trees of Waller Creek and promised to stay there until the plan to remove the trees was scrapped.

Regent Erwin—a polarizing figure, especially during his tenure as Chairman of the Board from 1966 until 1971—took matters into his own hands. Erwin directed campus and city police to get up on ladders and remove the protestors forcibly. According to witness accounts, some branches were cut with students still in them, and twenty-seven students had been arrested by day’s end. “‘Arrest all the people you have to,’ the chairman told one officer. ‘Once these trees are down they won’t have anything to protest.’”

This was not the only time Erwin came to metaphoric blows with student protestors in his tenure as a Regent. In 1970 and in the wake of the watershed Stonewall riots in New York City, gay students at U.T. got together to form the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and applied for official campus group status—which they were denied. In a statement about his decision, Ad Interim President Bryce Jordan wrote that the University was unwilling to “give tacit approval to an activity which is of probable detriment to the normal development of some of its students, and is certain to bring discredit to the institution in the eyes of most of those interested in the University, including the taxpaying public.”

One day after the Committee on Student Organization granted Gay Liberation Front official campus organization status, President Bryce Jordan released a statement that he had reversed their decision (December 9, 1970). Courtesy of the Briscoe Center for American History, from the UT Dean of Students Records, Box CDL2/E4, “III. St. 6. a. Gay Liberation.”

Dissatisfied with the administration’s decision and invigorated by lesbian and gay activism sweeping the country, the student group sued the University and was represented by Students’ Attorney Jim Boyle in their suit. Shortly after the case was announced, Chairman Erwin introduced an emergency item to the Board to change the rules determining who the Students’ Attorney (technically, a University employee) could or could not represent. This new legislation, passed quickly by the Regents, disallowed the Students’ Attorney from advocating on behalf of students when filing a case against the University. Erwin admitted the “rule was passed specifically because of Boyle’s representation of Gay Liberation.” Regent Joe Kilgore expressed the Regents’ sentiments even more plainly: “Well, Boyle put himself in a precarious position by defending homosexuals.”

While Erwin and other Regents went toe-to-toe with “homosexuals” demanding basic institutional recognition on campus, the friendship between fraternity buddies Erwin and Watson, and Watson’s partner Garrett, remained strong, built on rock-solid racial and class privilege. Erwin was a frequent attendee of the Chateau’s lavish dinner parties and helped facilitate a robust working relationship between the University and Watson Associates interior design firm. During the 1960s and ‘70s, U.T. hired the firm to decorate the renovated Chancellor’s Bauer House, the Littlefield Home, the U.T. Systems building downtown, and the campus Regents’ Room, and Erwin hired them to design his personal home at 2307 Woodlawn Boulevard. It seems likely that Watson Associates’ relationship with the University and Regent Erwin had an impact on U.T.’s ultimate decision to extend Watson and Garrett lifetime tenancy at the Chateau.

Meanwhile, and despite the Regents’ best efforts to quell queer activism, the on-campus movement grew during the ‘70s and beyond. Queer student activists helped coordinate the first GLF conference in the 1970s, organized campus awareness weeks in the 1980s, and fought for a non-discrimination policy that would protect sexual orientation in the 1990s. As queer organizing flourished, Watson and Garrett continued to host their grand parties at the Chateau, eventually moving the offices of Watson Associates to the home’s sunroom and two garages, until Watson passed away in January 1993. As Garrett detailed, the University faxed over a new agreement nearly immediately after Watson’s death, offering him a ten-year lease to remain at the Chateau. The lifetime agreement the University had made in 1973 was apparently with Watson specifically and only, as the official property owner. This was a surprise to Garrett, who said he thought the lifetime lease extended to him, as well. While this new agreement made his future at the home precarious, he was ultimately able to extend the agreement and continued living there until 2009, when he moved into a condo in North Austin. He lived there until his recent death in November 2021.

The Chateau at 500 East 18th Street as it looked in 1975. On the far left, we can see part of the expanding University of Texas campus,, which officially acquired the property in 1973. Currently, the administration states they have no plans to renovate it or tear it down. Courtesy of Portal to Texas History, photos by Michael D. Yancey on behalf of the Texas Historical Commission.

The Chateau is a critical monument to the mixed legacies of Austin’s LGBTQ+ history, and one that is currently at grave risk of being lost forever. The fact that a gay couple weathered University expansion in the 1960s is miraculous. The fact that the house still stands today—though in worsening disrepair, its future unclear—should be celebrated. That said, the history of the University’s acquisition of the Chateau, paired with the history of other campus events that occurred simultaneously, offers some important insights into the advantages of racial and class privilege and what those could afford queer people in this period. As described earlier, University expansion displaced an entire neighborhood of Black homeowners, a move that, along with the 1928 City Plan, forever shifted the racial geography of Austin. Furthermore, the protections that class privilege allowed Watson, who came from a wealthy, high-society Austin family, were clearly not offered equally to all gay and lesbian community members at the time, as the University continually attempted to suppress radical on-campus activism.

*Robert Wayne Garrett circa 2011. Courtesy of “The Chateau,”* L Style G Style, March 1, 2011.

Today, community members continue to agitate for the preservation of the home—it is, after all, a critical nexus of many of Austin’s histories: racial displacement, campus activism, University expansion, and gay society. These community members demand that the University invest in renovating the Chateau to its former glory, or at least more fully document and remember its historic legacy. They hope that ultimately, despite the Daily Texan’s predictions in 1965, progress does not demand the past be destroyed.

Author’s Note: this article owes much to the intensive research undertaken by Marta Stefaniuk, primary investigator for the Oakwood Cemetery Chapel’s To Liberate: Watson Chateau project on the historic home. I encourage readers to explore Stefaniuk’s project for a more in-depth look at the Chateau’s long and rich history. This article intends to offer supplemental contextualization about campus expansion and U.T.’s acquisition of the Chateau, bolstered by timelines constructed by Stefaniuk.

Hartlyn Haynes is a Ph.D. student in the Department of American Studies and a graduate research assistant at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. She serves as a research assistant to Dr. Lauren Gutterman studying UT’s LGBTQ+ history as part of the Campus Contextualization and Commemoration Initiative, which aims to create public history and commemorative projects that shed light on marginalized histories across campus. Her academic research focuses on the intersections of political economy and memory politics in HIV/AIDS memorials in the United States.

This Is Democracy: Chinese Protests

This week, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by Dr. Joshua Eisenman to discuss protests and political upheaval in China.

Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled, “A Blank Sheet of Paper”

Guest

Joshua Eisenman is an associate professor of global affairs at the University of Notre Dame. His research focuses on the political economy of China’s development, and its foreign relations with the United States and the developing world—particularly Africa. His work has been published in top academic journals including World Development, Development and Change, the Journal of Contemporary China, and Cold War History. He has also published widely in Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Policy. Prof. Eisenman is the author of: China and Africa: A Century of Engagement, with David Shinn (2012) and Red China’s Green Revolution (2018).

About This Is Democracy

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

This Is Democracy: Anti-Semitism

This week, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by Peter Beinart to discuss the history of anti-semitism in The United States and around the world.

Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled, “Mezuzah Addendums.”

Guest

Peter Beinart is Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York. He is also Editor-at-Large of Jewish Currents, an MSNBC political commentator, a frequent contributor to The New York Times, and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He writes the Beinart Notebook newsletter on https://substack.com. His first book, The Good Fight, was published by HarperCollins in 2006. His second book, The Icarus Syndrome, was published by HarperCollins in 2010. His third, The Crisis of Zionism, was published by Times Books in 2012.

About This Is Democracy

This Is Democracy: Ukraine War

This week, Jeremi and Zachary talk with Dr. Michael Kimmage about how the Ukraine War has developed over the course of the year, and how they predict things will progress in the future.

Guest

Dr. Michael Kimmage is a professor of history at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC. He is also a fellow at the German Marshall Fund, and chair of the Advisory Council for the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC. From 2014 to 2017, Kimmage served on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio. He publishes widely on international affairs, U.S.-Russian relations and American diplomatic history. Kimmage is the author of: The Conservative Turn: Lionel Trilling, Whittaker Chambers and the Lessons of Anti-Communism (2009); In History’s Grip: Philip Roth’s Newark Trilogy (2012); The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy (2020). He writes frequently on the Ukraine War and related topics for Foreign Affairs.

About This Is Democracy

This Is Democracy: Civil War by Other Means

In this two-part episode, Zachary takes a turn at hosting and interviews Jeremi about his new book, Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy. Tune in next week for part 2 of this discussion.

Zachary sets the scene with his poems “Every Season Goes” (Part I) and “The People Interrogate the Spirit of Democracy” (Part II).

Guest

Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor in the University’s Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Professor Suri is the author and editor of eleven books on politics and foreign policy, most recently: Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy. His other books include: The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office; Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama; Henry Kissinger and the American Century; and Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente. His writings appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, Atlantic, Newsweek, Time, Wired, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other media. Professor Suri is a popular public lecturer and comments frequently on radio and television news. His writing and teaching have received numerous prizes, including the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas and the Pro Bene Meritis Award for Contributions to the Liberal Arts. Professor Suri co-hosts a weekly podcast, “This is Democracy.” His professional website is: http://jeremisuri.net.

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