A Great Race Forward

The office has been uncharacteristically busy the past few weeks. Our elderly partner, the friend of my grandfather, and a heroic peacekeeper, died last Monday (I have included his obituary at the end of this post). He worked with my boss for 37 years and rightly, there have been many visitors, and much absent-mindedness. I am cleaning out his office now, and find bottles of vodka, cigar ashtrays, buckshot for birds, and paper upon paper of recommendations written to various presidents. He is “the last of the old guard”, a remnant from an age of unsullied glory and full-hearted pursuits. I am wiping away the dust from years of gallantry and utter particularity that have settled on the surface of old oak desks and globes with hidden bars inside, and almost ironically the series premier of Mad Men airs in a few days.

There is a buzz I feel as I am given task upon task, as I pull out piles of old files and messy boxes of errant notices. The phone rings in the middle of my sweaty cleaning, and I go back to filing only to answer the phone again. This, my friends, is what I envisioned as a child when I first became aware that I would be a great secretary – the bombardment of organizing needs, the reflexes needed to keep everything utterly and perfectly ahead of what is needed. Already hours have passed and I have not touched my blog reader. A wave of fondness for my boss crashes upon me, and I am reminded that indeed I do have potential!

This next week will be spent vacationing – in the breezes of the North Carolina shores. A house full of twelve people, at least, a great dear friend, and several great intentions will converge upon eight or nine full days of escapism. Last year, when I went, I was nervous. The older adults (how strange to have to refer to the parents and aunts and uncles as “older adults”! Writing simply “the adults” is useless, as we are all over 20!) spoke often how all year long they waited for this one week of vacation. At the time I thought, how sad! But now I have spent a year in great anticipation and realize that it is not sad to look forward longingly at this week, but how lucky we are that it is possible!

Today is a day that makes patience sensible. As so many around me are leaping forward deservedly into promotions and raises and great big plans, I sometimes rebuke myself for not making different choices. Not that I am unhappy, as you are all aware, but that I worry I have put to waste opportunities. But today, I can see the small changes in my life that occur before great upheaval. I can relish the pings of coins that I am saving, the strength in my legs I am earning, and the time spent with my family that I can never regret. There are choices to be made for the next few months, but none of them worth agonizing over. For now, I will race to finish my tasks so I can leave in peace and think nothing of this work for a full week.


Jack O'Connell, 88, dies; diplomatic adviser to Jordan's King Hussein
By T. Rees Shapiro
Sunday, July 18, 2010

Jack O'Connell, 88, who as a CIA station chief in Amman, Jordan, became King Hussein's diplomatic adviser and closest American confidant, strengthening U.S. ties with the crucial Middle East ally, died of congestive heart failure July 12 at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington County. He was a Rosslyn resident.

Dr. O'Connell, who was trained as a lawyer, joined the CIA in the late 1940s and served in Beirut before becoming station chief in Jordan from 1963 to 1971. Bordered by Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is considered one of America's most important allies in the Middle East, in part because of its savvy intelligence service.

Dr. O'Connell, whose time in Jordan coincided with the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War in June 1967 and the brutal expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1970, fostered a fraternal bond with the king and was considered an adopted member of the royal family, said Richard Viets, a former U.S. ambassador to Jordan.

A burly, blue-eyed Midwesterner of Irish descent, Dr. O'Connell had a quiet, self-effacing demeanor but was, nonetheless, among the best-known Americans in Jordan.

In 1967, he played a key role in negotiating U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which sought to establish peace in the Middle East after Syria, Egypt and Jordan had combined forces in the six-day conflict with Israel. Although Resolution 242 was never fully adopted, it remains the blueprint for Middle East peace agreements today.

Jordan lost control of the West Bank to Israel in the war, and about 300,000 Palestinians from that region fled to Jordan. Many joined guerrilla groups that aligned themselves with the PLO.

In 1970, Hussein sought to dissolve the growing power of the PLO, leading to the month-long civil war known as "Black September."
ad_icon

Within two years, Dr. O'Connell had left Jordan, retired from the CIA and joined a Washington law firm that became O'Connell and Glock. He remained Hussein's personal lawyer and political adviser in Washington until the monarch's death in 1999.

"Jack O'Connell had a closer relationship with King Hussein than any other American official before or after, one that was based on mutual respect and absolute trust," Avi Shlaim wrote in his 2007 book "Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace."

John William O'Connell was born Aug. 18, 1921, in Flandreau, S.D. He played defensive end at the University of Notre Dame on a football scholarship but transferred to Georgetown University after a car accident left him unable to play.

His education was interrupted by Navy service in World War II aboard a minesweeper patrolling the smoldering remains of Nagasaki's harbor shortly after the Japanese surrender.

In 1946, he graduated from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, where he received a law degree in 1948. He joined the CIA the same year and was sent to the University of the Punjab in Pakistan on a Fulbright scholarship, receiving a master's degree in Islamic law in 1952. He returned to Georgetown and received a doctorate in international law in 1958.

One of the events that catalyzed his friendship with Hussein occurred that same year. For his first foreign CIA assignment, Dr. O'Connell was sent to Jordan to help foil a coup attempt on the 22-year-old king's throne by restive Jordanian military officers. In the course of several months, Dr. O'Connell helped unravel the plot and assist in the arrest of the rogue officers.

During his time in Jordan, Dr. O'Connell was responsible for helping to expand the powers and capabilities of the Jordanian intelligence service with CIA funding and training. In 1977, news reports revealed that Hussein had been a paid informant for the CIA.

In the early 1990s, Dr. O'Connell helped facilitate, through the Jordanian king, negotiations with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the Persian Gulf War. Dr. O'Connell's memoir, currently under CIA review, is scheduled to be published by W.W. Norton in 2011.

His first wife, Katherine MacDonald O'Connell, died in 1972. He later married Syble McKenzie O'Connell, who died in 1990. An infant child from his first marriage, Mary Frances O'Connell, died in 1949.

Survivors include two children from his first marriage, Kelly Ann O'Connell of Annandale and Sean O'Connell of Fairfax County; and a grandson.

One day in the 1990s, Dr. O'Connell and Viets were walking out of the Jordanian Foreign Ministry when the former defensive end tripped and fell down a steep flight of steps and broke his leg.

On the suggestion that he seek medical attention, Dr. O'Connell replied: "Irishmen don't wear casts."

Instead, he used a cane and walked on the broken leg until it healed.