In 1974 I was on loan from my employer, the Department of State, to the U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C. At Commerce I promoted American exports to eastern Arab nations. The Arab oil embargo was afoot and all OPEC nations were soon awash in new petroleum wealth. American small businessmen clamored to sell to eastern Arab markets and the Commerce Department sped up trade promotion events and supportive market research.

I proposed a new form of research dubbed “a market reconnaissance.” Commerce then sent me for nine weeks to Egypt, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and other lands. My task was to identify promising markets for future on-the-spot trade promotions of American 

(1) railroad equipment and technology, 
(2) building materials 
and (3) computers. 
 

Our Government had not had diplomatic relations with Iraq since the 1967 Israel-Arab war. Only two American diplomats were present in Iraq. They made up the United State Interests Section (“USINT”) of  the Embassy of Belgium. Belgium was our protecting power. Its flag flew over our small building. Portraits of the King and Queen of the Belgians greeted visitors.  I then wrote a successful report arguing that an economic-commercial officer position should be added to the tiny American mission in Baghdad. No other candidate being forthcoming, I volunteered to fill that position myself. In early 1975, accompanied by my wife and our two young sons, off I flew for two years in Iraq.

Saddam Hussain was only Vice President, but had at least 75% as much power as he now does, steadily eclipsing the President, General Ahmed Hassan al Bakr. There were a few attractive aspects to Iraq. The Arab Ba’ath Socialist party (which also ruled Syria) was secular and regarded Islam as essentially a non-political cultural force binding together two score  separate states into one great Arab nation. The party’s founder, Lebanese Michel Aflaq, was Christian. The Iraqi government, unlike, for example, Saudi Arabia, tolerated non-political religious freedom. There was even an ancient Jewish community in Baghdad. The Vatican was represented by  a delightful Frenchman who had been archbishop of Monaco. In our little Catholic parish church in Baghdad, the young Belgian priest sometimes prudently altered Scriptural texts by substituting euphemisms for ancient Zion and Israel. For Iraq was technically at war with  modern Israel.

The overall atmosphere was, however, as oppressive as Iraq’s desert climate. It was not prudent for Iraqis to make friends with American diplomats. Paradoxically, most economic ministers in the Iraqi cabinet had studied in the USA and some had American wives. But we American diplomats had no social contact even with those local families. 

One thing in particular stays with me. That was my  modest role in promoting the largest single export order in our nation’s history up until then of American frozen chicken : 44,000 metric tons to Iraq.

During our first Thanksgiving Day in Iraq there was no turkey in the local  markets. So my boss and his wife served chicken to two visiting Congressmen and my family.  We were all aghast at its taste. Later we learned that the chicken had come from Communist China and was not spoiled. It simply tasted like fish. I found out that if a chicken’s diet remains below 14% fish meal, it will not taste like fish. Obviously, the Chinese chicken farmers had overdosed their fryers. The Iraqis liked the taste no better than we and complained loudly to their government.

The centrally planned government procurement structure of Iraq then solicited bids from fresh suppliers. The French won. Their fowls were a vast  improvement on the fishy Chinese products. But surely American hens would taste even better. I therefore resolved to do my part to bring American chickens to Mesopotamia.  American poultry marketing cooperatives proved ready to pounce. But they wanted to know what the Iraqis had paid for the French fowls. I enquired at the relevant ministries in every way I knew how. Always I was told that such price information was secret. 

One evening, however, listening to the evening news on television (not much fun since I knew little Arabic), I heard the Minister of Agriculture drop the Arabic word for chicken into a rather agitated report. Next day at the office I asked my Armenian assistant if he had seen the same news program and knew what the Minister had been talking about. The Minister was responding to consumer complaints, Krikor said, about the high price of imported chicken. The minister told the nation that the government had just bought so many thousand tons of frozen chicken from France for so many Iraqi dinars. Additionally, the government had subsidized much of that cost to the Iraqi consumer. So the consumer was getting great tasting chicken at the lowest possible prices, said the Minister. Since the dinar/dollar rate was fixed, Krikor and I easily calculated the dollar cost per kilogram. We reported this to Washington. The U.S. Department of Agriculture then informed American  poultry co-ops. They in turn said, “we can beat that.” They bid on the next massive Iraqi government procurement contract and won. 

For many  months, and during repeated deliveries, diplomats and Iraqis alike dined on succulent, affordable American frozen hens. We found them overflowing Baghdad supermarkets. Moreover, they were wrapped in see-through plastic and displayed both company and state logos and often the American flag as well. Those delicious birds came from Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and other southern States. 

Even then, in 1975-76, long before the 1991 Gulf War, the Iraqi government and media regularly portrayed the USA as the “great enemy of the Arab Nation.” This was because we were friendly toward Israel and did not support independence for Palestine. The Iraqi government might not like our foreign policy. It soon learned, however, that the Iraqi people could not get enough American frozen chicken. Those 44,000 metric tons proved only the beginning.

-OOO-

for Asheville TRIBUNE