ARLINGTON -- Charles T. McDowell, 85, a retired U.S. Army colonel and a professor emeritus and former director of the Center for Post-Soviet and Eastern European Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington, passed away Sunday, July 8, 2007.
Memorial service: 1 p.m. Wednesday at First Christian Church, Arlington. Graveside service: 11:30 a.m. Wednesday in Moore Memorial Gardens. Visitation: 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Arlington Funeral Home.
Charles T. McDowell was the first Eagle Scout in San Saba County, and remained a lifelong leader in the Boy Scouts of America. At 15, he attended the 1935 National Boy Scout Jamboree in Washington, D.C. and met President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Serving in the military, US State Department and as advisor on Sino-Soviet affairs during the Cold War, he would serve nine more Presidents of the United States.
When asked to describe Charles McDowell, Gen. W.C. Westmoreland wrote that he was "one of the few outstanding officers that I know."
This was an apt description for a gallant, warm-hearted and highly accomplished man who touched uncountable lives. During his 85 years, Dr. McDowell would meet ten U.S. presidents, travel to Russia over 55 times and positively influence hundreds of students, colleagues, and friends.
Professor McDowell was born Nov. 23, 1921, to Jesse Calvin McDowell and Alva Lange in Twin Falls, Idaho. After graduating from Texas A&M University with a bachelor of science, he earned a master of arts at Columbia University and a Ph.D. at Texas A&M University. He was also a graduate of the Defense Language Institute, Armor Advanced Officer Course, Command and General Staff College, various intelligence courses and a two-year Soviet-East European advanced foreign area studies program at the doctoral level.
After receiving his commission, Col. McDowell fought in the European theater of World War II, where his early assignments ranged from platoon leader to battalion commander. A master parachutist, he jumped behind enemy lines as part of Operation Market Garden. He served with the 97th Infantry Division in Europe and with the 87th and 11th Airborne Divisions. He was among the American troops who liberated Checkoslovakia. At the conclusion of the war in Europe, serving under General Douglas MacArthur in the occupational forces in Japan, Col. McDowell was Commandant and Director of the Tokyo Army College and Information and Education Officer for the Eighth U.S. Army.
Later, he was a professor of Russian language, history, economics, geography and political science and chief of the research division for a classified joint military/civilian intelligence agency and an instructor at the Command and General Staff College in Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Hawaii. He also served as professor of military science at the University of Texas at Arlington, then Arlington State College. He has served as a Diplomatic Courier, USSR and China Specialist and Foreign Service Officer for the State Department in the former Soviet Union, Asia, Europe and and North Africa.
Prior to his retirement, Col. McDowell served the Joint Chiefs of Staff as intelligence officer of the airborne command post. In that role, which often involved flying with the president of the United States, Col. McDowell was the custodian of the "nuclear football." In addition to the awards typical for World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, he earned the Combat Infantry Badge, Bronze Star Medal with oak leaf cluster and Army Commendation Medal with oak leaf cluster.
After playing a key role in the establishment of the Job Corps program under President Lyndon B. Johnson, McDowell was invited to return to the University of Texas at Arlington, where he served consecutively as assistant to President Jack Woolf and dean of student life. There, he was professor, chairman of the Department of Modern Languages and director of the Center for Post-Soviet and East European Studies, which he founded. At UTA, he was the first chairman of the Faculty Senate (subsequently re-elected six times) and sponsor of Alpha Phi Omega, Alpha Chi Honor Society, the Soviet and East European Club and the Student Congress. On multiple occasions, he was selected as an Outstanding Educator of America, UTA Outstanding Teacher and the recipient of the UTA Chancellor’s Council Award for Outstanding Teaching. In 2000, Dr. McDowell was inducted into the UTA Military Science Hall of Honor.
While teaching Russian and East European Area Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington, he continued to travel extensively in China and Eastern Europe each summer, serving as advisor to numerous U.S. Presidents on Sino-Soviet affairs during the Cold War.
Throughout the course of his life, Dr. McDowell made numerous TV and radio appearances concerning Russia, Eastern Europe and the People's Republic of China. He was the author or co-author of numerous book reviews, articles, documents and books, including classified government materials concerning the Soviet Union. He was chief translator or editor on many projects conducting technical, industrial and scientific translation from English to Russian and Russian to English.
He was a 41-year member of the Arlington Kiwanis Club.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Mary Francis McDowell, and his daughter, Cynthia Kathleen Stewart.
Survivors: Son, Charles Patrick McDowell; and grandchildren, Charles Cale McDowell and Angela Kathleen McDowell. He will also be missed by his in-laws, nieces, nephews, friends, former students and colleagues.
Memorials: In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in memory of Dr. McDowell to the Center for Post Soviet and East European Studies at UT-Arlington, Office of Development, Box 19198, 701 S. Nedderman Drive, R421B, Arlington, Texas 76019-0198, 817-272-5276, www.uta.edu/giving.
CHARLES T. McDOWELL 1921-2007
UT-Arlington professor had key Cold War roles
By ALEX BRANCH - Star-Telegram Staff Writer
CHARLES T. McDOWELL ARLINGTON -- Charles T. McDowell could have spent his class periods regaling students at the University of Texas at Arlington with tales of his accomplishments.
The retired Army colonel was a master parachutist during World War II, carried nuclear missile launch codes for President Johnson and did intelligence work in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
But boasting was not in Mr. McDowell's nature.
"To us, this man was a living giant," said Jack Franke, a former student of Mr. McDowell who is now assistant dean at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif. "During the Cold War, he made major contributions to the creation of the direct communications line between Washington and Moscow, still manned by an officer 24/7, 365 days a year. We asked him about all that stuff, but he was so humble, he would never brag."
Mr. McDowell, who taught at UT-Arlington for about 40 years, died Sunday. He was 85.
He founded the university's Center for Post-Soviet and East European Studies and was a mentor to countless students who later served in the military or worked for the State or Defense departments, colleagues said.
"He was the best teacher of Russian that I have ever seen," said Dennis Reinhartz, a UT-Arlington professor of history and Russian.
Born in 1921 in Twin Falls, Idaho, Mr. McDowell earned his bachelor's degree at Texas A&M University, then a master's degree at Columbia before returning to College Station for his doctorate.
He and his wife, Mary Francis, had a son, Pat, and a daughter, Cynthia.
After World War II, Mr. McDowell remained in the military. While on an intelligence assignment at a U.S. military base in Germany in the mid-1950s, Pat McDowell said, Mr. McDowell sent his children to a German kindergarten.
"You could live and go to school on the post if you want to," Pat McDowell he said. "But we lived in German neighborhoods, had German friends. He wanted us to learn while we were there."
Mr. McDowell joined UT-Arlington when it was still Arlington State College. During the summers, he organized student trips to the Soviet Union, Reinhartz said.
Reinhartz and Mr. McDowell brought back many memories from those trips, such as the time they voted in a Soviet election, Reinhartz said.
Walking through the city of Yalta one Sunday in 1980, the professors realized that it was election day and stepped inside a voting site to see what it looked like.
Reinhartz, expecting to get kicked out, heard Mr. McDowell telling an election official that they were visiting from Minsk, where they were factory workers. They had forgotten their voting papers, Mr. McDowell explained, but wanted to do their duty.
"Before you knew it, he had sweet-talked them into letting us vote," Reinhartz said. "It all just proved how farcical their elections were: Each race had one candidate from the Communist Party to choose from."
While at UT-Arlington, Mr. McDowell received many teaching awards. He retired last year, when his health began to fail, his son said.
"He loved it there, and he loved teaching," Pat McDowell said. "But I think he knew it was time."
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Global Footprints - He opened doors
By Faith Chatham - The Arlington Texan
- July 10, 2007
It was an honor to know Col. McDowell. I met him when I returned to UTA after being a college drop-out for 18 years. I’d owned a number of businesses and worked for three national newspaper chains after dropping out of Arlington State College in 1967. In that initial interview in 1982, I was petrified because I knew that 8 of 36 remaining credit hours I needed to earn my bachelor's degree were in Russian and I could not remember more than three or four Russian phrases! I wanted to finish the Bachelors and pursue a Masters in Political Science and Urban Affairs. He promised me if I'd audit an introductory course, he’d see that I passed the 8 hours I needed. What he did was to open doors I never expected to enter. He made the classes so fun and alive, that difficult verb conjugations were only a small part of the experience. He hooked me on Soviet and Eastern European Studies. I earned a second Bachelors in Russian Language with a minor in Marketing!
His classes were fun. They were relevant. Instead of reading about world events in a textbook, he brought Soviet cosmonauts, diplomats from the Soviet Embassy, ballerinas with the Bolshoi and card-carrying Communist professors to lecture and meet us. We had to write a skit in Russian and "produce it" for our final exam. Bringing food earned us extra points! While we were cramming for finals in other classes we were having fun in Russian!
I traveled with him to Eastern Europe twice.
What I learned from him was much more than Soviet area studies. He crammed everything possible into the least amount of time and delivered it for a fraction of what any travel agency or other academic travel/study program charged. He formed a travel agency so that he could eliminate as many middle-men fees as possible and passed all the savings along to the students. He was determined to chisel at the propaganda of the cold war by getting as many Americans and as many Communists together so that we'd be able to assess the real differences while understanding that Russians and American citizens really want many of the same things. Participants could earn credit in History, Russian Language or Political Science.
He lived every minute fully.
If you traveled with him, he’d provide you with a long list of lightweight things to pack but the most important thing was to be flexible, be willing to laugh and to embrace the adventure. He’d tell us: "You can sleep at home!"
He prepared us with: "Once we cross the border, nothing will go the way we plan." He always had a Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, Plan D on down the alphabet. Be prepared to switch seamlessly to the next plan when we encounter a roadblock or unavoidable obstacle. He demonstrated how to leave our expectations behind and move forward to the next Plan, embracing the obstacle as a doorway to the next adventure!
I suspect, as he’s having his "reunion" with loved ones "on the other side", he’s noting things he wants to introduce the rest of us to when we finally catch up with him. Mary Francis is probably smiling, and waiting patiently, watching to see when he’ll adjust to the realization that he has all of eternity to enjoy these adventures and it is no longer necessary to cram everything into only a few hours! Harriet Irby says he’s probably assessing the passport situation tying to figure out ways to smooth the way past red tape for the rest of us!
Andropov Era
My first trip to Eastern Europe with him was during the Andropov’s era and the second was during Gobrachev’s. He told us that he'd chatted in English with Andropov while they were both stationed at Embassies in Budapest. They were there in ‘56 when the Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary.
He fought to establish a Russian Language program at UTA and to keep it alive during the Cold War. He told us about Andropov being fluent in English in ’56 but relying on translators once he ascended to power because he thought that we needed to understand that the egos of American frequently hindered us in negotiations. Soviet leaders studied foreign languages for 6-10 years, became proficient, but relied on translators in negotiations. American leaders usually study foreign languages for shorter periods of time (2-4 years), are less proficient, and fail to utilize the translators in the negotiations to give them time to weigh their responses.
Banned from the USSR then Readmitted
He’d led tours to Eastern Europe and China every summer for over 20 years. In 1986, for a decade or so he’d been declared a "person non gratis" by the Soviets and refused entrance. Another professor would assume leadership of the group once it crossed the border to the USSR and Dr. McDowell would travel in Poland, Romania or Hungry and rejoin the group in Helsinki on the way home. They probably realized that after a month in the USSR with a tour group he could provide the US Government reliable data on the Soviet economy. In 1986, he was readmitted to the USSR. He returned at least annually for the next 18 years! During Perestroika he established one of the first UTA Semesters in Kiev programs. In 1990 the UTA study tour was booked through the University of Kiev for the first time. (Previously it was booked through Sputnik a, the USSR national youth tourist agency). Within a couple of years Dr. McDowell had arranged for UTA students to actually live in the Ukraine for a semester instead of merely touring for a month to 6-weeks in the summer.
UTA and the visiting Communist IREX Professors during the Cold War
Dr. McDowell always had two or three Russian professors (IREX) on campus. Only a few Universities in the USA were approved by the State Department to receive Soviet exchange professors. Because of Dr. McDowell's ties with "unmentioned agencies", UTA was on that short approved list. I was elected President of the Soviet East European Club the semester I returned to UTA. I kept that office for years (84-87)! Every time we called a meeting to elect officers, there was a snow day. My last semester on campus there was a bomb threat and classes were cancelled, so I appointed a vice president and resigned! Assisting him with the IREX professors was one of the most enriching experiences of my academic life.
As President of the Soviet East European Club I became the "den mother" of the visiting professors. Most of them were assigned to UTA engineering professors for joint research. We'd plan parties to welcome them, take them shopping, help them learn the basics like comparison shopping, using American Laundromats, sightseeing, etc. Their wives were allowed to come for one month during their year in America. We'd begin planning for that month as soon as the professor's feet touched Texas soil.
Dallas-Fort Worth was a "closed area" for Soviets. When a Soviet entered this region, the Soviets had to allow an American to enter one of their closed areas. Occasionally we'd plan excursions that were outside the 15 mile limit they were allowed to travel without permission from the US State Department and Soviet Embassy. We’d clear all our plans with Dr. McDowell and he’d give us the necessary paperwork and see that it got filed with the proper authorities.
Col. McDowell had an old car that he sold to several different groups of IREX scholars. After they had been here a few months, if they were interested in learning to drive, he'd find someone to teach them to drive. He'd sell them the car for a couple of hundred dollars and then he'd repurchase it for the same price when they left. He'd walk them through the process of getting insurance.
We took lots of walking tours of Dallas and Fort Worth, visited all the museums, and had a lot of "parties" in apartments of students and faculty in and around campus. One of them attended my sister's wedding. Several had Thanksgiving Dinner at my Mother's in Dallas. Three went to East Texas with me over the Christmas break and worshiped at the first Christmas Eve service at Trinity Episcopal Church in Longview after the sanctuary had been rebuilt following a disaster. They stayed with members of the church and were welcomed by the teenagers and children at a special party on our way back to Arlington from visits to Lady Bird Johnson's birthplace, Caddo Lake, Jefferson and Marshall. They hosted us with parties in their "flat" with volka and caviar and dark chocolate they'd brought with them in their luggage. They enjoyed a 4th of July Cook-out and returned the favor by cooking their incredible Russian Shis-k-bobs!
Shattering Stereotypes
The Russian Department was my home away from home during what I term my "UTA Phase II period." One of my part-time jobs was working in Special Collections at the Jenkins Garrett Library on campus. The Jenkins Garrett Collection hosted an international cartographic convention a few days after the arrival of one group of IREX Scholars. Mr. Garrett chartered a bus to take the participants to a bar-b-que dinner at the Pate Museum of Transportation. Mr. Pate and Mr. Garrett served beer out of a cooler on the bus to the guests. Being served beer on a bus by Mr. Pate and Mr. Garrett shattered some of their stereotypes of "very rich American Capitalists!"
Bibles and Perestroika
When the Perestroika exhibit came to Fair Park, Russian Professor Dr. Dorothea Higgins accompanied me when I went to interview the Archpriest Serge Sustenov of the Russian Orthodox Church. I'd read of a man in the Colony who was leading a tour to the USSR and they were taking Russian Bibles with them. This was not the topic of my interview, but I asked him if he thought this plan was a good thing for them to do. We were in a room at Fair Park off from the main exhibit and Communist Soviet officials were walking passing by us frequently. One of them heard him tell us that he thought it was a very good thing to do. He cited the population of the USSR and pointed out that in the past 40 years only a small number of Bibles had been published. He told us that a really good plan would be for Westerners to ship or bring Russian language Bibles and give them as gifts to the Church. He said that the people have Rubles and can buy the Bibles. Then the church can use the Rubles to help restore the churches which are being returned to them after years of Communism.
The next night I returned home after hours buried in the UTA library and found several messages from Dr. Higgins. The translator from the Perestroika exhibit wanted me to bring the man from the Colony to Fair Park to meet with Fr. Sustesov. The Perestroika exhibit (USSR Government) was giving the priest space on the boat when the exhibit returned to the USSR and they would "permit him to ship back anything he wished." The Government of the USSR was telling the Russian Orthodox Church (and Americans) that they would (the USSR GOVERNMENT) pay for the shipping expenses on Russian Language Bibles exported from the USA. I found the newspaper article, phoned information and got the telephone number of the lay minister and asked him to meet me at Fair Park the next day.
We learned that we'd have six weeks to raise money, acquire Russian Language Bibles, and get them to the port before the ship left for the USSR. The exhibit would return to Texas from California and the ship would leave from a Gulf of Mexico port. We made no promises but told the priest that "If God means for you to have the Bibles, we'll do what He enables us to do to help." We began phoning mission boards and commissions of most of the major denominations. The USSR had been a closed area and most Western churches had concentrated their efforts elsewhere. Most plan their mission giving annually and could not respond on short notice. However, Episcopal church vestries have greater autonomy. Most of the money came from the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Dallas. About 3000 Russian Language Bible were printed in Oklahoma and shipped to the port in time for the arrival of the Perestroika Exhibit. The minister brought the shipping invoice to me. I took it with me in May 1990 when I met Col McDowell and the UTA tour in Moscow. One of the former IREX professors who had been at UTA served as my guide the day I met with Arch Priest Sustenov at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. It did not sink in until much later that this was probably the first time since World War II that the Russian Orthodox Church had imported religious materials with the blessing of the government and with the shipping expenses paid by the Government of the USSR.
Col. McDowell revists Karly Varley
During that trip in 1990, we were in Prague and Romania during their first post-communist election. In Karly Varley I snapped a picture of Dr. McDowell leaning over the rail to look at the monument honoring the American soldiers who liberated them in WWII. He was an Information Officer with that contingency of Ameican troops. He didn't see himself as a hero. He merely remembered that "those were difficult times."
Reunion with Dr. McDowell
Three UTA alumni, Wendy Sayers Risinger, Harriet Irby and I were chatting about our days at UTA. Many professors were remembered. We appreciated what many had given us. When our attentions turned to Dr. McDowell we agreed that there is so much more he knows which we wished we’d asked him or he’d told us! He not only fought to make the world safer, he lived to make it better. He’d witnessed much which he could not discuss. He understood east/west relations from having lived history rather than just having read about it. Hearing that he was retiring in December 2006, we decided to take him out to celebrate.
That was one of the best decisions we’ve made in a long time. That dinner led to a pact to become his "Tea and Crumpets Sisters." We’d schedule going out to dinner a couple of times a month and keep in touch with him by telephone in between. One evening we quizzed him about the presidents he's known. He told us about meeting FDR when he was a teenager at a National Boy Scout Jamboree. He never served under FRD, but told us of all the American Presidents he's known, he admired him most because he was "such a visionary." From Truman to George W. Bush, he's served in some capacity under every U.S President.
Our last outing was a Mardi Gras party at the apartment of one of our friends who got transported to Arlington when Katrina devastated New Orleans. Soon after that he was diagnosed with cancer. For the past few months it has been a challenge to keep up with his many moves between hospitals, nursing facilities and rehab hospitals. His son Pat sent us e-mail updates. Colonel McDowell always had a big smile when we showed up. Every visit we leave his room with an even deeper awe and respect for this incredible man.
He approached infirmity with the same good humor he approached international adventures. He appreciated each and every human being who entered his presence, thankful for every possible thing and complaining about nothing. He wasn’t oblivious to his surroundings or circumstance. When we traveled he thought life was too short to be wasted complaining. He didn’t waste energy fretting or complaining as his body deteriorated.
As we began comparing notes, we realized that in all our years of knowing Colonel Charles McDowell, none of us had ever witnessed him making a catty or unkind remark about any one. We’d never seen him be inappropriate with anyone or about anything. He was truly the most humble, most accomplished, most interesting, most decent man we’ve met. What we’ve learned from him goes much deeper than course work or international area studies. We take from him, his example of living, of approaching live and other human beings with respect and enthusiastic reverence.
Crossposted on eplubribus media,Texas Kaos and The Arlington Texan