My father became fascinated by the Kurds after reading an article by Archie Roosevelt, the only American to visit Qazi Muhammad and the short-lived Republic of Mahabad.

My father was a young diplomat when he began his direct involvement with Kurdistan. After his first posting to Damascus in 1950, he was sent to Beirut to study Kurdish dialects in preparation for an assignment Kirkuk (1954-1955), where he ran a U.S. interests’ section and its library. He spent much of his time exploring the Kurdistan Region, with its wealth of ancient culture and tribes.

In those days, the life of a young diplomatic officer mostly involved visiting local peoples, learning about their ways of life, and gaining as much knowledge as possible about the land they were sent to.

Richard Eagleton’s family includes Hobart Bosworth, who made the first movie in Los Angeles

As my father said to me several times, when I accompanied him on yearly visits to Kurdistan as well as Baghdad between 2002 and 2006: “Our ability to study a country through direct contact with the locals was an essential part of our training and is now sadly lacking. In situations where security considerations prevent officers from learning directly, they are kept as virtual prisoners behind high walls and locked gates.”

This advice was fundamental to my own explorations, which have allowed me such a richness of contact that I can count many friends and brothers in Kurdistan. The Kurds’ special qualities of warmth, humor, and depth of humanity have so easily integrated with my own experiences of the world.

Encountering Mahabad

When our family lived in Tabriz, Iran, from 1959 to 1961, my father traveled frequently among the Kurds, particularly to Mahabad, the town where the Kurds had declared their republic in 1946. I was fortunate to accompany him several times at the ages of six and seven, and that experience remains vividly memorable.

My father became in direct contact with General Mustafa Barzani in 1961. It was a pivotal time for the Kurds, as Barzani was seeking U.S. support for Kurdish rights after the many hardships that had begun in the wake of World War I. These struggles had forced the Kurdish people into resistance out of necessity. They had no other choice but to fight for survival.

My father respected Barzani and his careful planning against impossible odds. When he spoke of him to me, it was clear he saw him as an extraordinarily courageous leader, one with charisma and a righteous cause, but also one who lived simply among his people, noticing and caring for even the most humble around him. This is the image of the mythical hero who puts the fate of his companions before his own.

Richard Eagleton’s maternal great-grandfather Daniel Perkins Bosworth and family (1860s)

My father researched the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad and gathered whatever photographs and evidence he could find, often hiding them from authorities who would have destroyed both the images and their carrier. During our visits to Mahabad, we slept on iron beds in the garden of the Habibi home, where General Barzani’s peshmerga had also stayed in 1946. I gazed up at the immense sky of diamonds, filled with natural, wild wonder.

My father’s first contact with General Barzani came in the early summer of 1961 when he was preparing to leave Tabriz. “A Kurd in Mahabad with whom I had discussed the Kurdish Republic of 1946 informed me that he had a message from General Mustafa for the U.S. Government. He wanted us to know that he would be taking military action against the Qasim regime in Baghdad. This would not affect U.S. interests,” he said.

The years that followed inevitably brought enormous challenges and divisions, even between friends, but Barzani was always ready to face them.

Richard Eaglton, his father and Nephews (2005)

A special visit in America

When Barzani traveled to the United States in 1976 – where he remained until his death in 1979 – he visited my father with his sons Idris and Masoud. I asked him about that meeting, the photos from which are familiar to so many in Kurdistan.

These were difficult times for the Kurdish cause, and my father was sad that he could not alter the policies that were in place. The visit included an evening at my father’s home where he and my stepmother Kay hosted these friends and shared memorable moments. Barzani gifted a beautiful precious stone ring to Kay, which now proudly adorns my sister Mary Louise’s hand.

My father never recorded more about this visit and what Barzani and his sons discussed, although he later told me that he did not like the attitude of then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger toward the Kurds. After having supported their cause for some years, even providing weapons for their struggle, he later betrayed them, when U.S. interests shifted with the wind!

I spent the last week of my father’s life sharing his bedroom in his home in Taos, New Mexico. I had prepared to return to Erbil that very day in January 2011, knowing my father was close to leaving the Earth. When I reached Albuquerque airport, my stepmother called to say he had just passed. I had said my farewell and knew that he would have wanted me to keep going without any further delay.

I know that, after 22 years of visits and integrating into Kurdish society and culture, my father was happy that my life was so closely intertwined with those of the Kurds.

For his part, General Barzani left the Earth at his appointed hour in 1979. He left behind a great legacy, one of lifelong struggle and sacrifice. He was faithful to the Kurdish cause right to the end, maintaining his sense of purpose and continuing to encourage all others with his vision of dignity and freedom from oppression.

General Mustafa Barzani remains a great inspiration to those who he left behind in whatever challenges they face. His closest family carries much of this noble responsibility and care for their Kurdish identity, which has been shared with so many of their talented and ingenious brothers and sisters, all moving forward into a new world environment. He reminds us also to respect our forefathers, so as to build a more vitally meaningful world, one that Barzani and all who have died for it would be proud of!

Richard Eagleton is the son of the esteemed late US ambassador, William Eagleton. William was renowned for his fervent leadership and staunch advocacy for Kurdish Rights.