Roger Ernst now lives in Hunter's Green, but he can tell stories of German occupation, the reconstruction of Austria and the formation of NATO.
By MICHAEL VAN SICKLER
Published May 30, 2003
HUNTER'S GREEN - A world map drapes one side of the office.
Book shelves brim with worn copies of Foreign Affairs and annual reports from international agencies.
Autographed photos of Harry S. Truman, Hubert Humphrey and the former presidents of Ethiopia and South Korea, among others, adorn the walls.
More than 60 years of global intrigue have produced the artifacts that jam Roger Ernst's den at his home in Hunter's Green. And Ernst, who turns 79 on Monday, has a story for every one of them.
"The fun of history," Ernst likes to say after an anecdote.
An Ernst conversation can be a wild ride. During one chat, Ernst touched on, among other things: Deng Xiaoping, Korean farming history, Gen. George Marshall, Henry Kissinger, Northern Ireland and the economic dynamics of 19th century whaling ships.
"I love weaving history together," Ernst says. "I call it the thread of history, and it excites the mind."
For his wife of 51 years, Jeannie, that wide scope of knowledge has been intoxicating ever since she first talked to him during a 1949 layover at the Kitty Hawk Bar in LaGuardia Airport.
"I was fascinated," Jeannie said. "This was somebody who was extraordinary."
With Ernst's pedigree, that was to be expected.
He grew up in a Manhattan brownstone, the son of Morris Ernst, a successful lawyer who represented clients such as John L. Lewis, Langston Hughes, James Joyce and Alfred Knopf. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt invited Morris Ernst to the White House regularly for advice.
After attending his father's alma mater, Williams College, Ernst enlisted in the Army in 1942. Two years later, he helped prepare for the occupation of Germany by researching German public life. It was Ernst's job to write pamphlets, with maps, that helped U.S. officials oversee the occupation.
In 1948, Ernst was asked to help reconstruct another country: Austria. He was there for two years, he says, bolstering the steel industry and the highway system.
From 1950 to 1959, Ernst was a civilian assistant to the secretary of defense, where he saw the formation of the Northeast Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Then, near the end of 1959, the real traveling began. He joined the U.S. Foreign Service. For 20 years Ernst served in India, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand and Ethiopia, assisting with the distribution of millions of dollars in aid.
He retired in 1980 from the foreign service and spent the next 12 years in Honolulu. He lectured on U.S.-Asian Pacific economic and strategic relations. In 1993, he and Jeannie moved to Hunter's Green. "We thought Naples was too old," Jeannie said. "We wanted to be around young people."
And, although over the years he has traded cold-warrior suits for Hawaiian shirts, Ernst hasn't slowed down.
Until recently, he taught international relations at the University of South Florida. He regularly attends Rotary meetings and is a member of the United Nations Association, Foreign Service Retirees and the Women's International Trade Association.
"Learn, contribute, reward," Ernst says, recounting a mantra uttered by a former boss, whose photo hangs from the wall. "If you don't learn, you can't contribute. If you don't contribute, you don't get rewarded."
