Date: July 26, 2006 9:18:27 AM PDT
Subject: "So I don't want to talk about it. I was a member way back when I was in college and so was the President. That's all I want to say."
New US diplomat eager to start role
Michael Gawenda Herald Correspondent in Washington
July 27, 2006
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ROBERT McCALLUM, fielding questions for the first time about the US-Australia relationship is wary, formal and a little nervous.
He sits in a small, nondescript room in the State Department, his hands clasped together in front of him, and a small pin of crossed flags - those of Australia and the US - in the lapel of his blue-striped suit.
Having been finally confirmed by the US Senate, Mr McCallum, the new ambassador to Australia, will arrive in Canberra on August 18 to start work.
"I recognise that there has not been an ambassador in Australia since January 2005, so I'm very eager indeed," he says. "I want to get there as soon as possible."
The process of replacing Tom Schieffer, now the US ambassador to Japan, had been rocky.
The President, George Bush, had approached two other friends to take the post, but initial checks by the State Department, uncovered issues that would have made the confirmation process difficult.
When Mr McCallum was approached by Mr Bush to take the ambassador's job in March, he was at the centre of a controversy involving a landmark damages case, brought by the Justice Department against American tobacco companies.
He was accused of reducing claims against tobacco companies for political reasons, but an investigation concluded that he had acted ethically.
Mr McCallum, 60, is happier talking about his relationship with Mr Bush, whom he met when they were both first-year students at Yale.
"We were close friends at college," he says.
"And when he finished college and he was driving back to Texas, he stayed with my family at my parents' house in Memphis."
More often than not in the past three or four decades, American presidents have appointed old friends or major donors to the ambassador's post in Australia, so Mr McCallum's appointment, even though he has had no foreign affairs experience, is not all that surprising.
"I think I still have a lot to learn, but I think the two top priorities for me will be, firstly, continuing and enhancing the very important military and intelligence relationship between the two countries," he said.
"The second priority is the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement.
This represents an enormous opportunity for both our countries, but also great opportunities for Australia and the US to spread economic prosperity throughout the region."
And the only time Mr McCallum really clams up is when he is asked about the very secretive Skull and Bones Society, of which both he and Mr Bush were members while at Yale.
Many people have suggested the society is a sort of secret old boys network, through which Yale graduates from well-heeled and influential families help each other in business and politics.
"It's termed a secret society, but I'd term it a private society," he says.
"So I don't want to talk about it. I was a member way back when I was in college and so was the President. That's all I want to say."
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