Henry Haggard

Growing up in northern Maine, Henry Haggard couldn't wait to dig into all that Exeter -- and the world -- had to offer. Especially food. After Brown, he roamed from France to Korea and the Dominican Republic until he passed the U.S. Foreign Service exam and embarked on a career that put him at the center of several major world events. Hear about his adventures, and what he's up to now, in this conversation with Kakki Reynolds Lewis.

Any and all feedback to bshactman@gmail.com

Transcript

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Welcome to Project 90. I am Kakki Reynolds Lewis, here today with Henry Haggard. Welcome, Henry!

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Henry Haggard: So great to be here.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): I was really looking forward to talking to you, because in some ways, I feel like I don't know a lot of your story, so this is going to be fresh, and I'm excited to just dig into it. Tell me, first, what was your journey to Exeter like? You came there from Maine, and how did you arrive?

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Henry Haggard: So, my brother went to Exeter, and he was… so he was class of 88, and I kind of tagged along on his application journey.

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Henry Haggard: And if his enthusiasm level was 6 out of 10,

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Henry Haggard: during the whole application process, mine was about 11 or 12 out of 10. I was like, this is for me. We were both at a…

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Henry Haggard: public middle school in northern Maine, a lot, like, a lot of the stories where it's not feeling, you know, particularly like that was the best fit academically. And just, I was so excited the more I learned about it. My brother.

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Henry Haggard: you know, obviously he ended up going, he… he enjoyed it, but, you know, I think the enthusiasm I had probably was helpful, you know, just, I was just so dying to, you know, dig into everything that Exeter had, and I wanted the 4-year experience, he went for 3 years. I actually repeated 9th grade.

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Henry Haggard: I had skipped a grade earlier, and I wanted… I was like, I want to be the right age, and I wanna, you know, I was gonna be a big hockey player, and you know, all this… I was just really… I wanted to do a classical diploma. I had all sorts of ambitions, from, like, pouring over the…

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Henry Haggard: all of Andrew, my brother's materials, and it was just…

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Henry Haggard: it just made sense, from the moment I learned about it, the moment I visited it.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Oh, that's great. Yeah, my brother also got to be a four-year, because I was there for three, and he, probably had a similarly enthusiastic dive in, two years after me. So, where did you live? What were you into? What was your experience like at Exeter?

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Henry Haggard: So, I was in Wentworth, and it was… it was great. I mean, the 60-person dorm, you know, I think has huge advantages of just always something

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Henry Haggard: crazy, and I mean, good crazy, bad crazy. There's always something going on. There's just so much energy, and I just remember just going, you know, room to room all the time, just finding there was always someone who was…

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Henry Haggard: could help you with your homework, or could, you know, help you procrastinate, or teach you about something new, or introduce you to a new music group, or… everything was new to me, and I just… I just ate it up. I loved it. I was…

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Henry Haggard: a little too ambitious in my approach. I… I tried… my lower year, I took all sorts of classes that… that I… they were just beyond what I was ready for, but I was, you know, I was determined, and…

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Henry Haggard: that's when I, you know, I took the accelerated Latin and accelerated physics, chemistry, and all this stuff that was all incredible, but I just was… it was just too much. I couldn't do it, and that's when I stopped with the classical, because it was just…

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Henry Haggard: was just too hard, and I mean, that was…

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Henry Haggard: And then I really felt like upper year, I found the right balance.

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Henry Haggard: found… I started getting A's for the first time, and it was just so refreshing. After doing that all growing up, I just expected that from the get-go, and it didn't happen. There was just a lot of… a lot of not A's.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: And with not… through… I was working hard, I was… it wasn't like I…

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Henry Haggard: was screwing around or doing anything. I was really into it, but it just… it just… it was really, really hard. And to me, looking back, that really was, like, a good thing, but those first two years were just really hard. And then I found out I wasn't so great at hockey,

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Henry Haggard: And, you know, that's also… Exeter's an incredible program. Then I… I fell into rowing. I mean, I also grew a foot. At Exeter. I started at, 5'5", 125, and ended up at 6'4", 200.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Oh my gosh.

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Henry Haggard: So…

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: I remember the cafeteria ladies turning me away when I was coming back for my, like, sixth fish sandwich or whatever, but leave something for the others!

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Henry Haggard: Most of my memories, though, I mean, there was the academic journey that I think about upper year, feeling like I found my footing with sports, with school, in the dorm, elected proctor, just all these things, they just really started to feel right. But if I think of specific memories.

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Henry Haggard: They're all about eating.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): That is hysterical.

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Henry Haggard: Yeah, I mean, it's just, we went to Cumberland Farms, we, you know, to the grill, downtown to wherever, on the loaf and Ladle and all those places, just… and this wasn't, incredible. Michelle said she never ate at the door…

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): I know!

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Henry Haggard: believe that. I ate all the dining hall, plus…

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Henry Haggard: all these other, you know, Dunkin' Donuts on the bike, you know, I mean, all of the, you know, these were, these are the specific memories, because I think they were so, like.

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Henry Haggard: burned in me, both physically and mentally, and, you know, it was… it was a project, and how do I find money for this or that, or… Right. I had a… my maybe biggest rule-breaking, other than…

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Henry Haggard: the hose in the snow was probably having a refriger in my room so I could have, you know, food in there.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): That is adorable, Henry. And actually, there's research about how when we eat communally, those memories are stronger because of the connection, so at least the meals that were with other people, you have a good reason to have a stronger memory and emotional connection. So, hose in the snow?

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Henry Haggard: So every first snow, the guys and most of the guys, or a lot of the guys in Wentworth would wear tennis shoes.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yes.

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Henry Haggard: a Santa hat, and nothing else, and, run around, usually aiming. As we, progressed, we got a little more ambitious with Dunbar. There was one, biking during the daytime event,

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Henry Haggard: You know, this is whatever, 17, 18-year-old guys who just have…

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): No.

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Henry Haggard: Nothing but, energy.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yes.

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Henry Haggard: You know.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): It's a little too much testosterone.

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Henry Haggard: Exactly. But it was all just fun. It was these just… that was… these were our… I really am… I really enjoyed, what we built in the dorm. You know, I think that there was…

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Henry Haggard: You know, I listened to Marx, and I, you know, it's, you know, hard. I think, you know, it was hard to hear what he went through.

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Henry Haggard: And…

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Henry Haggard: you know, and just looking back, you know, we weren't there for him as friends, and I don't think that was… we weren't set up for that kind of success, both as 17-year-old kids, but also just how it all went down, but

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Henry Haggard: I think overall, we created a good… I mean, this is my perspective, but, you know, it feels like it was a good environment. Like, we were… we were, you know, it was a lot of kids who were studying hard, who were having fun. We… I… there was a pretty… I don't think it was severe, but there was certainly a…

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Henry Haggard: I felt like there was more hazing when I came in than when I left, and I certainly felt like that was… I mean, just the group of guys in the senior year, they're just…

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Henry Haggard: I… I just don't… it just wasn't really our thing, and I think that's… that creates a, you know, an environment that I was really, again, overall, very happy to have been a part of and created.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah, yeah. And, are there particular,

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): memories from that senior year that you want to share, or sort of the transition to college? What was that like for you, and how did you decide where to go next?

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Henry Haggard: Yeah, so I think when I look at the time from December 15th, and I can remember the minute when I got the early action letter from Brown, until I got to Brown, you know, in September, or whatever it was.

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Henry Haggard: I think was maybe the most…

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Henry Haggard: carefree time of my adult-ish life. You know, I was.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: Turned 18 in that time.

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Henry Haggard: you know, obviously, you know, young, not… since I like the summers at the beach when I was 6, but from as a quasi-adult, like, that, whatever, 9, 10 months.

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Henry Haggard: Was so incredible, and so free.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yo.

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Henry Haggard: And it didn't, you know, just… it just felt like everything was right, and in that time, you know, I was… had not really been a rower, and now I'm in the first boat, we win New Englands, and…

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Henry Haggard: you know, I'm… it's just… all these things were happening, and I went to France for the first time with the Exeter Group after graduation, which just blew my mind.

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Henry Haggard: It was just an incredible 9 months that, you know, and so as you talk about transition, it's like, all these memories associated with that, you know, where it's just the freedom to be…

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Henry Haggard: you know, I liked how, you know, Brian took advantage to, like, you know, do the acting and something different. I think I took that year to just…

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Henry Haggard: figure out me, and friendships, and just had a lot more… it was just a lot of ease, is what I remember. And that transitioned into then, you're like, then you get to college, and you're like, and then you're back on the hamster wheel a bit, you know?

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, I often tell people I loved half of my experience at Exeter. Lower year, and senior spring. And the other three semesters were just brutal, you know, but but yeah, that senior spring, when you're in and you're like.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): just, the sun finally comes out. It was good. And what was your time at Brown like? And tell us about, your, your gap year as well, yourself.

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Henry Haggard: Yeah, so I got to Brown, and I realized that, you know, I had been focused on getting into Brown.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Right?

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Henry Haggard: Full stop, you know, and I had… and rowing, and so I got on the rowing team, and that was great, and but I… you know, I mistakenly thought that Brown would be easy, academically, so I kind of, was… not kind of, I did… I took…

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Henry Haggard: things a little lightly, or took things lightly. You know, the freedom that I had at Brown, you know, first girlfriend, I mean, I wasn't… I didn't drink, which was a little bit odd, but I just wanted to be, like, you know, I figured I could choose, you know, academics, you know, rowing.

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Henry Haggard: drinking. Of those three, I could choose two, and so I chose that, you know, I still kept that.

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Henry Haggard: Then I just realized I wasn't… I had no idea what was next. You know, I liked a lot of things, I was interested, I was studying, I was still, you know, curious about… but…

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Henry Haggard: science, or politics, or… I just didn't know. And so I thought, you know, rather than wait until I get out of… then do two more years of school.

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Henry Haggard: you know, studying and without a purpose, why not take a year? And the first thing was, I was interested in politics, and I thought, well, let's do a political campaign, figure out what politics are all about, get some of the nitty-gritty of it. So I signed up for the Clinton-Gore campaign.

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Henry Haggard: And I was out at the Seattle office, and I just… it was incredible. Probably, when I was 20, I probably had… the way it works, I don't know if a bunch of volunteering folks have done, but first day I show up, I'm stuffing envelopes. Second day I show up, I'm running a team of 15 people stuffing envelopes. Day 3, you know, because…

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Henry Haggard: you know, I was in Seattle, so it was a blue state, and, you know, there were two paid employees, and one friend of Bill who was kind of there, and and by the end, I mean, I said I was responsible for a 20,000-person event, for Bill Clinton.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Wow.

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Henry Haggard: I mean, the amount of responsibility I had as a volunteer, because I showed up every day, I wasn't drunk or high, I was relatively, you know, that's…

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Henry Haggard: you know, I had more responsibility there than probably, like, at any point, or most any point, in a 25-year government career.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Wow.

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Henry Haggard: They were like, just do stuff, and you just can do stuff. So I loved it, but I realized I didn't want to do politics. I was like, I am not going to be convinced to change my mind about any number of issues.

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Henry Haggard: And that felt like it was fine… it was going down to some local or some specific issue and trying to, you know, change people's mind, and I just… I just didn't like it. You know, it just seemed… even a presidential election seemed too local, and it seemed too…

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Henry Haggard: potentially divisive. You know, this, again, 92 compared to now, you know, but still, there were those elements. So then I went to Australia, where some friends were, on… they were on… doing their junior year abroad, so I met them, backpacked around.

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Henry Haggard: Went to Barbados, where my dad was on Fulbright, hung out there for 6 weeks, and then did a semester in France, which, through Bucknell, where my dad was a professor.

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Henry Haggard: Because I… I just wanted… and it was an extra semester, and during that time, I'm… actually, during the Clinton-Gore time, I met a retired FS Foreign Service officer, a diplomat, and he asked what I was doing. I said, oh, I'm politics, international, this, that, I'm going here, I'm going there. He's like, you should join the State Department. They'll pay you to do this.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah, yeah.

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Henry Haggard: Are you serious?

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: And and as soon as I heard that, I was… I was… that was… I was like, that's it. Went back to Brown, changed to international relations, was very excited about seminars and… and kind of the whole career, took the test.

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Henry Haggard: There's a… another thing I liked about it is there's a test. Right. It's the only… other than maybe the postal service, it's the only way to get into government through a test. Yeah. I thought that was very egalitarian, I thought it fit me, a good test taker.

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Henry Haggard: And, and also, you know, I wasn't getting A's at Brown, I got some A's, but, you know, I was… it was… it seemed perfect, you know, and so I took the test, I passed the written, but then, after college, I didn't pass the oral exam.

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Henry Haggard: which there's two… two tests, and, you know, in-person tests, I didn't… I didn't pass. And so, I just decided I was still going to join the State Department. The state hadn't decided yet, but I had decided.

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Henry Haggard: And I thought, I should go and live… I had still, at that point, had…

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Henry Haggard: I'd lived, you know, I'd had that gap year, some travel, a little bit of living in France, but I was still pretty, you know, pretty Maine, New England-focused, so I thought, let's get out there and have some experience and learn some languages. So I went to France.

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Henry Haggard: worked at Disney Paris, and then I taught English in Korea, and I taught scuba in Dominican Republic.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Oh, wow.

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Henry Haggard: All with… which all sound…

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Henry Haggard: looking back at… and then I took the test, and I passed, and I joined the stage bar. It all seems quite logical now, but I wonder what my dad was thinking as I was spending, you know, 4 years after Brown, you know.

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Henry Haggard: With, again, for me, seemed very purposeful.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: But, you know, it wasn't very lucrative. I remember I joined, I got $36,000 of my first year's salary, and that was exactly what I had made in the four years previous.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): That's funny. You know, hearing you describe that, I feel like it's… it honestly is such a gift that we graduated at a time before Instagram.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): When, like, you know, you could do that and be in your thing and on your journey, and our kids now don't have that, you know, freedom from observation by their peers, right?

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Henry Haggard: There was still some of that, I mean, you know, you still felt it, but yeah, you could definitely… you could… if you, like, could shut out just the… the… you know, there was… it was easier to shut out.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah, yeah.

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Henry Haggard: But I think one of the things, going back to the gap year and kind of that whole path.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: I… I wanted to do school year abroad in Wren at Exeter, but I wasn't ready, both, you know, kind of emotionally and whatever otherwise. I didn't feel like… and I always thought, you know, so Jay Hammond went, I was like, that's really… that's courage, you know, stepping out.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Aww.

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Henry Haggard: of the path. And he came back and it was fine, you know, we rode together, it was great, you know, like, I was like, and so that's what I thought when I was at Brown, like, I don't have to be, you know, enclosed by…

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Henry Haggard: the norms of what, you know, I should, quote-unquote, should be doing. And that was really… it was really that Exeter… I say it's like, you know, the Exeter snowball that started rolling down the hill that just kept me going.

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Henry Haggard: all the way until it worked out. I mean.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: I'm glad it worked out. I think it would have… would have found…

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Henry Haggard: Some way to, you know, do…

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Henry Haggard: you know, something… I was really interested in the world and being part of the global conversation. Obviously, diplomacy fits that to a T. I think I found… I was applying for grad school, you know, at SEPA and Fletcher and kind of the normal foreign policy grad schools.

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Henry Haggard: as I was taking… I went to take the oral exam, and I was working on the ex… on the… these applications, and as I walked out with having passed, I threw out the applications, because I was… this is what I… this is what I want to do, this is what I've been aiming for.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): And, I don't know anything about a Foreign Service career, so what was that like? What are sort of the highlights that, looking back, you're like, this was formative for me, or I'm proud of this, or, you know…

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Henry Haggard: So I did 25 years, you know, I think that's… what I say to people who are thinking about the Foreign Service is it's a great career, it's not always a great job, and what I mean by that is, you know, you move every 1, 2, 3, or 4 years. Right.

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Henry Haggard: So that's, you know, putting together as a career, you can be like, you know, there's… even if you didn't really like working in Mexico City, or you had a bad boss, or whatever, it, you know, it… you learned about

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Henry Haggard: Mexico, and you perfected your Spanish, and you, you know, your kids went to school there, you know, you have a… there's… it's still a nice piece of the career puzzle. And then…

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Henry Haggard: But so you… but if you are thinking of it as, like, is this a good job right now? You know, not always. The thing about a big bureaucracy with lots of layers… I said this, I found this true, no one really wants your opinion until you've been in about 20 years.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah…

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Henry Haggard: And that sounds kind of harsh, but it's… I mean, it might be even true in other professions. I mean, of course you contribute, you know, but here… the difference being, like.

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Henry Haggard: I write a memo, and then 3 people, even if they don't make any changes, and that memo goes to someone who then… or a speech, they… and then they deliver that speech, you're still… you're contributing, and that's important and impactful, and you're… but, you know, or you're helping on a visit, but it's just a piece of a visit.

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Henry Haggard: You know, you have opportunities where you're closer to the sun, as it were, you know, in State Department parliance. It's the seventh floor where the Secretary's office is, and I intentionally sought those jobs out. I did four years working for various Secretaries of state, again, in, you know, relatively junior roles, but

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Henry Haggard: roles that then, even if I was still tuning for them, I… the whole building was, you know, and the… all these embassies were bringing in information that I had a hand in analyzing or parsing out, or delivering to the principals. So…

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Henry Haggard: I know, that's a… it's hard to describe the career because it's so different. I mean, you think about it, it's 300 different postings between embassies and consulates, plus all these different offices in the State Department, plus opportunities to work at the White House like I did for a year.

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Henry Haggard: or defense, or go to, you know, all different kind of opportunities within Washington.

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Henry Haggard: and, you know, all these regions, and you… and then there's specialties. You can be a political officer, which is kind of the more traditional

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Henry Haggard: as we think of it, diplomacy, negotiations, and kind of managing the bilateral relationship. There's economic officers, there's management and consular and public diplomacy officers who all have their own specialty.

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Henry Haggard: And so, you put those specialties, plus 300 offices, plus the offices in Washington, and you talk to a… I always tell people, I say, talk to… if you're interested, talk to 100 Foreign Service officers, and you'll get 100 different

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Henry Haggard: Definitions of the career.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Wow, wow.

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Henry Haggard: what I thought the through line is, you're serving your country.

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Henry Haggard: You have that opportunity to move from job to job.

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Henry Haggard: To build, a global, as you want to, global career, And…

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Henry Haggard: it's a lot of fun. I mean, you know, there's a lot of… and there is the tenure… there was, there's less now, there was a trade-off, you're tenured, like a professor, after 3 or 4 years.

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Henry Haggard: And then it's almost impossible to fire you. So you have the feeling of, okay, I'm not making a lot of money, I mean, relative to, you know, our peers, or Wall Street, or whatever, but I have job security. And when you're living overseas, your housing is paid for, you know, it's a very…

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Henry Haggard: secure your lifestyle, you have access as a representative of the U.S. government to you know, elite…

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Henry Haggard: If not necessarily… it could be economic, you know, corporations, corporate elite, but also, you know, certainly think tanks and academia and government, which is just… it's just an incredible opportunity.

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Henry Haggard: as a representative, to be able to have these conversations and be part of

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Henry Haggard: you know, advancing U.S. interests, that was ultimately what we're all trying to do. And just a couple snippets of, like, what that means. Like, the first year, I was called up, I was in South Korea, and they said, are you free the next week?

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Henry Haggard: can you go to North Korea? And I said, let me check my schedule.

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Henry Haggard: Yeah, I'm good. And so the next day, we drove up to North Korea, and, you know, crossed the demilitarized zone, and, to support Madeline Albright, who was then Secretary of State, her visit to North Korea.

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Henry Haggard: And so we were the first people who'd gone across the border since 1953.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Wow.

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Henry Haggard: we had this incre… I mean, just this mind-blowing experience that I can just remember 26 years ago, like it was yesterday.

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Henry Haggard: where, you know, there's a lot of places where, as a person in an embassy, you know, you could be there, you could not, you know, the people are, you know, there's… in Paris, you know, or London, everyone knows, you know, they can call up Washington, even if a visitor comes, you know.

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Henry Haggard: they'll get taken care of. You know, there's… there's a lot of infrastructure there. I mean, you're still part of it, but in North Korea, we were it.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: And so just, we did… it was just, you really find out what goes into… normally you, at most… at all of our embassies, you work with local staff. Local staff do much of the work, especially, you know, the administrative work and kind of nuts and bolts of, example, preparing a Secretary of State visit.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: So we were there, and we were negotiating with the North Koreans on content for the meetings.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Great.

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Henry Haggard: as well as the height of the shower for Madeline Albright. You know, we were… and I was trying to, like, be… I was one of the 3 or 4 people who spoke Korean, so I'm trying to tell them, like, the height of this shower spout should be this or that. I'm like, I have no idea how to even say this in English.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: And so being able to put that whole visit together, and, you know, meeting Kim Jong-il, the dad of the guy who's there now, just all these incredible experiences, that was year one. I'm like, this is gonna be like this all the time! It wasn't. There's a lot of, you know, a lot of emails, and a lot of meetings, and a lot of, you know, big, you know, bureaucratic stuff.

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Henry Haggard: But I had incredible opportunities like that, you know, throughout… I went back to North Korea a few more times. Having the language really put me in a position to have other opportunities like that. Similarly with French, you know, allowed me to, you know, I got to do some different

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Henry Haggard: summitry with the French when I was serving in Paris. Got me to Paris to serve in Paris. My daughter was born there.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Aww.

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Henry Haggard: And it was just great to, you know, I mean, it's a dream, anyone's dream. I mean, certainly as someone who lived, you know, after college with one duffel bag in a, you know, a room the size of, you know, this laptop, to then being in a 2,300 square foot apartment where you could, you know, a few feet from the Champs-Elysees.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: it was just incredible to just live there, but also to work there, you know, working with the French when they were… they, you know, during the war in Mali, during the war in Libya, coordinating our joint efforts, being… when I was in Erbil, in northern Iraq.

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Henry Haggard: during the time when we, our military, was working with the Kurds and the Iraqis to get ISIS out of Mosul. And we could see Mosul, not, you know, certainly from our rooftops.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: This was… it was ISIS, the war against ISIS was happening just down the road, and we were facilitating it diplomatically. You know, there's things… so there's both from, like, the excitement of going to Darfur or North Korea, as well as, like, actually affecting how things

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Henry Haggard: Happened or didn't happen with…

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Henry Haggard: you know, internally displaced people, and working with the UN, and working to explain to press, and working to make sure the Kurds and the Iraqis didn't fight each other, and they fought instead against ISIS. Just… and over and over, every year, you know, I had opportunities. You know, working in the White House was incredible. You know, just going into that office was a privilege, and I worked 6 months for the Trump White House, 6 months for Biden.

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Henry Haggard: Again, just… I don't know, that's a hard way… hard way to put a 25-year career in a few minutes, but…

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: I think the main thing is, it's incredibly varied. It wa… I think… I don't think… now it's really hard with what's going on, but it's still an opportunity to serve

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Henry Haggard: this country, which I always found very attractive, but I… I didn't, both a little more passivist than maybe, you know, the military didn't suit, where I had friends, but also, I like a… a nice meal, and, you know, I didn't… it just seemed a little… diplomas just seemed to fit, you know.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): No.

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Henry Haggard: It was hard, but not that hard, was offered service, opportunity, and just an incredible, door, you know, opening to the world.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah, no, it's sort of the opposite side of being a journalist, you know, where you have this front row, you know, seat at history happening.

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Henry Haggard: Yeah, I liken our job to… it's a lot of times to, you know, the correspondents that I would talk to all over the world, and with the difference being, like, you see, you know, what's in the Financial Times or Washington Post, and our cables look a lot like that.

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Henry Haggard: Except for the difference always should be that then the last paragraph of our, you know, article is, why does this matter to the United States?

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Henry Haggard: what… and, you know, of course, there's other… and what are we going to do about it? Maybe there's some secret conversations, but basically, even the secret conversations, you know, most good correspondents are having those

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Henry Haggard: you know, they're talking to the folks at the Blue House, you know, the White House of Korea, or at the Elysee, just like we are. They're probably talking to the same… so it's the secret part, not so much, but the…

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Henry Haggard: what does this mean for American interests? That's what you didn't find in the press, and so…

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Henry Haggard: As press became more and more, you know, Here, there, and everywhere.

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Henry Haggard: Certainly, my cables became shorter. Less news, more analysis, less…

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Henry Haggard: news and more prescription and ideas, and trying to… what was… I found, I thought was my value-add was the entrepreneurial approach to diplomacy. Yeah. So, instead of just saying, this happened, they already knew that. Even in, you know, even in places like

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Henry Haggard: Korea, which is relatively uncovered, you know, compared to, you know, London or others.

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Henry Haggard: But even, you know, something happened, that's fine. They're already going to find that in the news, you know, because there'll be an English translation, or whatever, but what should we do about it? And what is an idea that I have, or we have, that could make this

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Henry Haggard: happening an opportunity. And, you know, being ahead of the curve with ideas, always is…

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Henry Haggard: I mean, I think it's always a good idea. I mean, it always puts you… it starts… lets you start leading the conversation. And it doesn't mean everyone will take that idea, and run with it, but even just saying… it just changes the conversation from, this happened, now I'm gonna wait for you to tell me what I should do or think about the problem. You say, this happened.

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Henry Haggard: This is what it means, and this is what I suggest we do.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: You know, this was a…

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Henry Haggard: and I… I mean, I don't know if I was taught it exactly, but I… I worked for an ambassador, Jim Jeffery, and, you know, he was, like, the…

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Henry Haggard: I don't know if he told me or I just took it, the art of the email. An email is information, analysis, prescription. It can be very short, but, you know, information should be, you know, ahead of, you know, quick, you know, that part is quick, but analysis and prescription, that's what sets it apart, sets you apart.

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Henry Haggard: And then you drive the conversation. You know, that's an interagency conversation with your, kind of, other, kind of, diplomatic peers, other countries.

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Henry Haggard: But that's how you should always be thinking about your approach, and how you… what your role is. Because if…

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Henry Haggard: I think it's easy to just be cautious and just be, you know, the marsh comes in, deliver the DeMarsh, you know, and kind of… there is a role for just, you know, maintaining the relationship. There's a lot of stuff that needs to just kind of happen to keep the trains running, but those kind of just work anyway.

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Henry Haggard: So, what makes things work better? What makes us, both our interests advanced and our, you know, that counterpart, you know, make that country… help them advance their interests, help us all be safer, more prosperous? That's the… those are the problems that I found really exciting to… to dig into.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): And at the same time, you're building a family, got married, had kids. When… was it challenging, I would think, to sort of move, and how did you navigate that?

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Henry Haggard: So, yes and no on the challenging part. For me, not so much, because… and this is, I think, something that you might find from talking to other Foreign Service officers, we're… we go place to place, but it's very, you know, there's a through line, it's very continuous.

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Henry Haggard: you know, you work with the same people, you have the same… you're advancing in your job, you're having new opportunities, it's all great, great, great. I mean, it can be, you know, there are bumps and everything, but it kind of makes sense.

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Henry Haggard: For families, it's harder. You know, it's harder for them. I mean, my now ex-wife, she had a… she was more qualified than me, PhD in, from Cornell, and undergrad, you know, much smarter. I… I want to be with smarter people, always, that's great.

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Henry Haggard: she stopped… she was teaching at Williams College, and then she gave that up to go, overseas, and we had two kids in Korea, and she taught a bit, and that was fine, and then we went to Paris, and we had our third kid, and just…

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Henry Haggard: it was just too hard, and she stopped her career, and I think…

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Henry Haggard: that's… whether that… I mean, in my specific case, I think that's one of the main things that, you know, were really hard for us to manage. We didn't manage that.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: L. I think that's pretty…

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Henry Haggard: not everyone goes through that, but I think that's… that's a big challenge for people. How do you manage… again, even putting aside a second career, how do you manage

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Henry Haggard: you know, the household, and the language, and the kids. The way we did… I think we were successful to a point, in the sense that what we did do is we said, okay, the kids are never gonna be anywhere that's, like, you know, we want McLean, we… they live in their house in McLean, or our house in McLean.

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Henry Haggard: We want McLean-level schools and kind of opportunities.

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Henry Haggard: Kind of full stop.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: And so the only way to do that, and traveling all around the world, is to… you have to do things that are harder, so I went to Iraq on my own two years, which also is, again, great for my job.

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Henry Haggard: But very hard for her to, you know, then taking care of the kids, so I think that also left a mark. But,

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Henry Haggard: But because of that, they lived in 3 years in Paris, 3 years in Brussels, you know, they were born in Korea, they were little, but, you know, their school years were in Paris, and in Brussels, and then back here in Northern Virginia.

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Henry Haggard: And so that was the calculus, that was our math to manage that.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: But it's really hard, it's really…

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Henry Haggard: again, you can be in a bad job, but for a Foreign Service office, you can be like, hey, let's even say, oh, let's leave early, you know, because I have this new… I can… I can find… you can always find another opportunity, especially, you know, and… but, you know, then your spouse or partner or kids are like, well, I just got into this school.

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Henry Haggard: It's much harder.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: for them to manage. I hope that they'll look back and see that, you know.

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Henry Haggard: it wasn't normal for them to go to Beirutz for vacation in the summer, which was really easy from Brussels, you know, it wasn't even that expensive. But it's kind of cool, and I hope they'll look back and see the time they spent. They certainly have… they're fluent in French now, we made an effort to have them

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Henry Haggard: do French in school in Paris and in Brussels. I hope that will, you know, they'll certainly have that, and I'm really proud of that opportunity I gave them. I think it'll take time for them to realize, maybe this is similar with kids generally, to realize that

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Henry Haggard: what the opportunities they got were… were special, you know, being able to travel all around the world. I mean, a lot of… again, putting aside, they were young when they did a lot of it, but even when they were, you know, late elementary school, middle school.

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Henry Haggard: that's some, you know, they remember these trips. We went all over Europe, and just living in Brussels, they had opportunities to, you know, live and study and swim and play soccer with kids from all over the world, and I think that was pretty extraordinary, and I think they're…

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Henry Haggard: I hope that eventually they'll see the value of it all.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Well, one of the common threads, I think, of all these Project 90 conversations is that we

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): at 17 or 20, like, looking back, we're like, ugh, we really didn't understand the scope of the opportunity of Exeter, all the people we were with, so…

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): you know, I think as parents, also, we have to remember and keep that in context, but I'd be curious, Henry, if there's something that you hope for your kids in the future, like, thinking about all the… all of the things that we've had in these conversations of, like, what we wished we knew at

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): 17 or 20.

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Henry Haggard: Yeah, I mean, I think to your point about, you know, the… not really understanding what we talked a little before, but not really understanding who we were

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Henry Haggard: around, you know, and kind of really not really taking advantage of everything they had to offer. So just that on a kind of personal level, hope they are, you know, taking advantage of all these connections they've made over the years. I hope that they, you know, don't turn their back… well, not turn their back, you know, fine if they get, you know, end up

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Henry Haggard: living, you know, a US-US-focused life, that's great, but they have this…

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Henry Haggard: you know, language and experience and ethnicity, their mom is, you know, ethnically Korean, you know. I hope they can look to the world where they are from, and where they grew up, and kind of have

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Henry Haggard: Some of those, you know.

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Henry Haggard: experiences, you know, revisit some of them from the past. Yeah. Again, this is really ideal, you know, allow me to show them

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Henry Haggard: you know, the Korea… I go back to Korea now every couple months for work. I've still kept up with, you know, contacts and friends there, be able to show them Korea and show them the Europe that they saw bits and pieces of as… as kids. I think that'd be… that'd be just great for them to, you know, to have… kind of build on that… that… that…

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Henry Haggard: Childhood that they had.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah, and it seems to me like it's more to you than just sort of, like, adventure or, like, you know, smorgasbord. It has more meaning to have a global view. How would you articulate that?

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Henry Haggard: Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, I think about…

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Henry Haggard: you know, there's a lot of talk about what is… is it travel? Is it for your experience? Is it for joy? Is it for, you know, is… and then there's the worst, you know, is it, you know, kind of…

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Henry Haggard: anthropological tourism, you know, kind of all this. I've…

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Henry Haggard: I feel like it's all… for me, the most enriching travel is getting to know countries deeply, like, especially Korea and France, where I've lived years in both, almost 10 years in Korea, you know, almost 5 years in France, plus 3 years in Belgium, which, you know, is…

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Henry Haggard: It's a different country, but, you know, Francophone Europe, where just… it's… I'm…

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Henry Haggard: I mean, certainly there's a job part of it, but also just there's a whole different experience you have living in a different country, and discovering a different country, and learning a different language, and you're… you're different. And it's… that, to me, is… that's what's rewarding. I like travel for… just to travel, but I… I really enjoy, like, building out a greater understanding of

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Henry Haggard: Of kind of a couple, in my case, a couple countries that are really important to me.

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Henry Haggard: And…

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Henry Haggard: Because I think that just… it helps me continue to… I've heard a lot of our classmates, you know, doing more degrees in this and writing. To me, it's like languages and history and kind of learning in the country, and then… and then here's the fun part, then using that to

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Henry Haggard: keep monetizing all this knowledge and connection, which has been a fun new chapter where I've been able to, surprisingly, monetize a lot of the diplomacy into commercial diplomacy, you know, and, you know, taking these, so…

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Henry Haggard: Some part of it is keep doing that, because it's been… it's been so rewarding, both personally, and kind of…

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Henry Haggard: keep the mind going and the curiosity going, but also because it's leading to all sorts of great opportunities, whether it's speaking at conferences or finding new clients, and it's a lot of solving, problem solving, like I did as a diplomat. You know, I'm doing the same thing now for… for companies.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah, yeah. And looking ahead, what do you hope for the next, you know… 10, 20, 30 years.

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Henry Haggard: So,

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Henry Haggard: you know, I consciously and, you know, stepped away from my hometowns, you know, of Maine, of Exeter, even of Brown, you know, the, you know, kind of the communities, the hometown communities that came with these places.

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Henry Haggard: you know, and did, you know, lived overseas, and really focused on my kids, and on the job, and on the world, and one thing I've thought about a lot, you know, especially, I, you know, I consciously chose to be… I applied for and got the class correspondent, because I wanted to reconnect with the Exeter home, the Exeter community, staying with Brown, and

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Henry Haggard: And I'm making, you know, during COVID, we did a lot of Zooms with folks from high school and college, and that's been great. Looking forward, I feel like I have…

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Henry Haggard: it's an obligation in the best sense of, you know, reminding people, like, hey, you know, I was kind of not here the last 30 years, but I was thinking of you guys all the time.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: And how can we, you know, re… Shape, revitalize, re-energize.

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Henry Haggard: these great relationships that we had, you know, from way back when. And I… so I'm… I'm really committed to doing that, over the next 20 years, because I know that these, you know, friendships are so important to managing life, and managing… life is hard… this is a hard time for…

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Henry Haggard: Our parents are getting old, our kids are moving on, our lives are… we're getting older. You know, it's…

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Henry Haggard: A lot easier with good friends.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: You know, and it's a lot easier with…

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Henry Haggard: to have friends who've known you when you were 14 and 24 and 34 than just kind of trying to make it all up at 54. So I'm really excited about doing that. I'm excited that I… again, part of the reason I'm excited to be class president, to try and find ways to re… to keep up. And it's not to say, all those years, I… I went to the Exeter Club in Seoul, and in Paris, and in, you know, and in…

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Henry Haggard: And everywhere I tried, everywhere I was, to engage, but that's different. You know, that's, and so it's now, looking the next years, how do I recreate some of that community, some of that home feeling, and find… the nice thing is, I don't think it necessarily will be just the dorm guys. I mean, I've had a chance to spend a good amount of time with

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Henry Haggard: with Tom Spooner, who lives not too far away, and, you know, Creighton has moved back to DC and seen… you know, that's great, and Karen, and others, but also, like, Francois at the reunion, I don't know if I ever talked to him at Exeter, and we just had a great, great time at reunion, and I'm certain that there are all sorts of…

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Henry Haggard: you know, Adrian Darnell, I didn't talk to at Exeter, but we connected in Paris when I lived there, and we've kept in touch. I just saw him again recently. So I… I just know there are all sorts of, you know, re… re-energized relationships that are going to be fulfilling and useful and helpful, and also new ones. Because I just… I'm struck by these… Project 90, I'm struck by every time I meet folks and talk to folks, that there's

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Henry Haggard: there's just so much value that we give to each other, and there's so much benefit of the doubt we give to each other, and that's really nice to have, as we're, you know, in life. I mean, it doesn't mean we have to be, you know.

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Henry Haggard: Seeing each other every day, but knowing that you have this reservoir of…

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Henry Haggard: Friendship and shared experience and brother and sisterhood, and to know that, you know, there's a commitment to… to make it valuable, not just for me, but also for, you know, for my, you know, all these old friends, new friends.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: So, looking forward, I don't really want to work, I feel like.

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Henry Haggard: I feel like there's so much to do in life without working. I keep asking myself this, but, you know, I want to spend as much time with my parents while they're still kicking. They're doing fine with, you know, I want to spend time with friends. I just… I feel like the list is so long.

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Henry Haggard: without having… and it's great if I can make money along the way, but if I can…

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Henry Haggard: you know, that just doesn't seem like a high priority, you know? Yeah. Just being healthy and enjoying… I mean, I feel like I've worked… not like I've worked enough, I'm done, but I feel like that I've… I've done what I…

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Henry Haggard: Kind of set out to do?

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah, that's great. And since we're talking about friends, I'm gonna go into the rapid-fire questions.

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Henry Haggard: Yes.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Ask, do you remember who was your first friend at Exeter?

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Henry Haggard: So, you know, I don't really. I remember there were the 8 of us who were four-year seniors, four-year preps at Wentworth. It was, Miles, Creighton.

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Henry Haggard: Dave Jung, Paul Thomas, Avinash Rao, Ethan Shagan, Mark Elbrock, and myself. I'm pretty sure that's… that's all of us. And I just… when I was thinking about this, because I've, you know, heard the questions, and…

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Henry Haggard: I don't really remember who was first. I remember lots of, you know, walking into the triple, where the guys were, and walking, you know, all these early memories, but I don't… like, a lot of the things describe, like, there are orientations, I don't remember any of them. It's pretty vague, so…

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Henry Haggard: certainly the first friend that I got really close with was Miles, from… but…

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Henry Haggard: you know, that was… it was different times where, you know, we had, you know, a lot of friendships with those guys, and then the lowers that came in, you know, it was still 3 years, you know, Matt Carty and Rishi Varma, and even some of the, you know, Alec Thibodeau and Charlotte Swan Jen, so there were… the dorm was really, really…

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Henry Haggard: important, and the guys there were really… I mean, it had other friendships, but they just… the dorm… when I think about my time there, it's these… these… these friends of mine that… that, you know, from the dorm.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah. And, when you left Exeter, who was your best friend, or was there someone that you would say, over the years, has been your closest friend?

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Henry Haggard: Actually, that's probably… not probably, it's Eric Dimitrov.

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Henry Haggard: So he and I, we rode together at Exeter, but weren't… you know, he was, you know, the elite rower, and, you know, he had been junior national team, and I was just kind of new to it, and we ended up in the same boat, and, you know, I'm not sure how happy he was about that, but…

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Henry Haggard: We won, and so that was fine, but then we ended up at Brown together, and, like, from day one, we were inseparable.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Aww.

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Henry Haggard: And it was just… we had the experience with Exeter, we had the rowing, we had the sense of humor, it just… we just were… it was just incredible, and

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Henry Haggard: you know, so I've… and I've kept in touch with him, I just saw him… I don't see him as much as I'd like, but I… I saw him last summer out in… he lives in Ohio, teaches high school, for all things, where all the people have all these ideas about Eric, and memories of Eric as, you know, he had an interesting approach to Exeter, and now he's a high school teacher, and I think he's probably the best

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Henry Haggard: High school teacher anyone could have.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Great.

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Henry Haggard: So I've stayed in touch, you know, with folks here and there, but the dorm folks, I'm… you know, I see now, I saw Rishi, he's in Houston, I work at Rice University part-time, and so I have seen him. Again, I've… I'm working to kind of reconnect, but as far as those, there was… wasn't a lot, during those

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Henry Haggard: you know, the last 30 years, really, where I kept… I mean, I always… again, I always were… you know, I always keep in touch, but…

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Henry Haggard: didn't really have the… the… the time. I was always here, there, and everywhere.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah. Who is your favorite teacher, or least favorite teacher, if you want to share?

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Henry Haggard: No, so I think, I mean, certainly the most memorable was Mr. Mangan. I just remember when he… he wrote one sentence on the board, and then left, and said, write an essay. You know, that's your first sentence for every.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah, yeah.

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Henry Haggard: It's things like this that just stick in your… you know, it just really was, like, a shock, but then off I went, and off we all went. You know, things we were putting, you know, I've… Tremalo has been mentioned by a lot of folks. He was prep year, he was a good, you know, a good… I enjoyed that. Harvard Knowles, I had a couple times. I really enjoyed his classes,

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Henry Haggard: Ms. Eggers, in… in history was… I really had a… it was a big moment. I… I don't… And least favorite, I didn't not like the teacher, but Mr. Marante in Latin was… it was just…

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Henry Haggard: it was my, like, tipping point of being… I just couldn't. It was just too much. I couldn't quite manage everything that he had to offer. I don't… I think he was probably wonderful and quirky and great, but it was hard. I think Mr. McGuinn was… I wasn't quite ready for his style.

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Henry Haggard: I don't think I… I wasn't, like, put off by it, it just didn't… you know, it just didn't quite click.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: But mostly, I mean, I… I feel like my… my memories of, kind of, academics are just of improvement, both myself and my experience. Ms. Farnham was our, dorm advisor. I mean, I enjoyed her class, but it was mostly I enjoyed her.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: you know, she was great, and I was really glad we got to Zoom with her just a few months before she passed. The whole class of us, Lydia, her daughter, put us together. It was really great to be able to say… I mean, essentially say goodbye.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: because she was so important to all of us. She really took care of us, and I think that's… when you talk about Exeter Memories, like, you know, it's…

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Henry Haggard: Hard in that dorm, and with all those kids at that age.

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Henry Haggard: Even most well-meaning teachers, you know, it's hard for them to really care for all of us.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: just a lot of us, you know, and so… but she did, she had a real capacity for that, and it was really important, for, I think, all of us at Wentworth.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah. Favorite place on campus?

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Henry Haggard: the benches outside Wentworth. I mean, I just remember, you know, the dort ball, and hacky sack, and just, you know, hours and hours and hours just spent. You know, again, I have these memories of it being nice weather, but .

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): You know, just spending time.

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Henry Haggard: Out there.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Ironically, many girls' least favorite place on campus.

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Henry Haggard: I don't think we were as bad as the Webster guys, I don't know.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): So true.

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Henry Haggard: It wasn't, like, our purpose… it wasn't, like, our purpose to comment. I think we were too busy with ourselves to have as much… I hope. I mean, that was certainly my…

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Webster was notoriously worse. And what about the next person or people that you'd like to hear on Project 90?

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Henry Haggard: So, there's so many interesting people, and I'm so glad you guys are doing this. You know, I mean, selfishly, I'd like to hear from more Wentworthians. Charlotte Antoine Jensen, I think, you know, has… we haven't heard so much from the one-year seniors.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Hmm.

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Henry Haggard: or some 2-year seniors and 3-year and four. I think that would be an interesting contrast to see how, you know, someone who comes in at 18…

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Henry Haggard: We're a different country, that would be really interesting to hear. Also, he's done incredible, incredible things since he left Exeter, so I think he'd be great. But I have to say, you know, my list is, you know, all sorts… I mean, really any of the guys from Wentworth would be great to hear from. I mean.

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Henry Haggard: there's folks I just haven't been in touch with. It'd just be great to hear from, but also the guys that I am in touch. I mean, it's just… I think there's just… it's just been really fun. Even… again, we've been back in touch with Mark a fair bit, but, which has been great, but hearing his story, that's… that's very different than us getting back in touch.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah.

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Henry Haggard: And so, really, anyone from the dorm that I selfishly would love to hear from. If it wasn't the dorm, Eric Dimitrov, I think everyone would maybe get… he's maybe the larger-than-life kind of person who might be of, you know, broadest

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Henry Haggard: Interest? You know? I don't know.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Well, we'll hope to get through all 300-plus of us before we're done with the.

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Henry Haggard: Well, you're doing pretty well, I mean, this is… this is great, you know, I mean…

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Any…

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Henry Haggard: One a month or so?

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah, that's what we're aiming for, so… But, Henry, anything else that we didn't talk about that you want to share, or thoughts, final thoughts before we say goodbye?

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Henry Haggard: I was just… I was thinking about what struck me from all the different conversations, and one of the things that struck me from Francois' conversation was just him mentioning how everyone thought

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Henry Haggard: Someone else had it kind of better, you know?

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Henry Haggard: the dorm guys thought the house guys had it better, the two years thought the four years had it better, the four years thought the day students had it better, and I was just so… I was like, this is so obvious, but so true, you know, we all… and it's all… then you, like… then the next little click is, like.

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Henry Haggard: that's, like, the comparativeness of life, too, you know, like, and so I just… it was just one little snippet, and it just was, like, really, like, made a lot of sense for Exeter and for, kind of.

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Henry Haggard: life, and just how… how to find, you know, it just sounded so, like, zen, you know, where he, you know, everyone's like, where you're just like, yeah, this is the way it is. Everyone… it's all better here, there, you know, and if you…

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Henry Haggard: not just know that, but live that. That's a pretty great way to have experienced Exeter, and a great way to kind of make your way through life, so… I don't know, I just think Exeter was…

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Henry Haggard: So…

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Henry Haggard: foundational for everything that I've done, even if the memories are hazy, it still was… it set me on my…

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Henry Haggard: career path, life path, and, you know, I'm just… I'm excited to just be able to give back in my way. You know, I've done all the interviews, and now the correspondent was a lot of fun, and I hope the president, I can… I can find ways to, you know, bring people

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Henry Haggard: together, I think we've… a lot of us talked about reunion people. What about people who are not as enthusiastic? You know, how do we reach them?

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Henry Haggard: And how do we bring them into the conversation? Because we still have a lot to offer them, even if

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Henry Haggard: maybe the memory of the academy, or the Academy doesn't necessarily have, which is fine, but we still have something, I think, for each other, and how do we build those connections? It doesn't have to be a reunion, it doesn't have to be measured in donations.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Yeah. I love that. That's a great final note. Thank you so much, Henry Haggard, for talking to.

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Henry Haggard: Thanks so much for doing this, great to talk with you.

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Katherine Lewis (she/her): Okay, talk to you all next time!