I grew up in and worked most summers in the farm country of eastern Washington state, later graduating from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington with a BA in Economics.Between my sophomore and junior years of college, I took a year off and worked first as a deckhand on a Columbia River tugboat, later as a timekeeper on a railroad maintenance gang, and finally on an USG oceanographic ship that travelled from Seattle to Tahiti and various ports in Latin America. The experience prompted a lifelong interest in both international affairs and foreign languages. I won a Thomas Watson Fellowship during my senior year in college and spent another year travelling in Latin America and living in Chile during the time leading up to the 1973 coup which overthrew Salvador Allende.