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Fulbright Association
1100 G Street, N.W.
Suite 525
Washington, D.C. 20005
Phone: (202) 347-5543
Fax: (202) 347-6540 |
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Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott
Pays Tribute to President Ahtisaari |
| Before offering a few comments about your guest of honor, let me pay homage to
the American statesman in whose name and memory we’re extending that honor — and
that’s the late J. William Fulbright. For many of us who came of age at a time
when America’s role in the world was an issue of difficult, often divisive
debate, at home and abroad, Senator Fulbright was, quite simply, a hero. To
many, including the current president of the United States, he was also a
mentor. |
| I’d like also to add my own acknowledgement of the presence here this morning of
two other superb statesmen — one, Don McHenry, who served this nation in the
executive branch, and the other, Lee Hamilton, who — like Senator Fulbright —
served it in the legislative branch. The former is a good friend whom I’ve come
to call “Don;” the latter is a good friend whom I will always call “Mr.
Chairman.” |
| In his leadership on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, from the chair through
1994 and as the ranking minority member from 1995 until 1998, Congressman
Hamilton set a high standard of good sense, tough-mindedness, far-sightedness
and civility of discourse; he has carried all those qualities over to his new
job at the Wilson Center — and to his latest chairmanship, of the Fulbright
Prize Selection Committee, which has honored itself and, indeed, the United
States in choosing Martti Ahtisaari as this year’s recipient.
President Ahtisaari, too, is a hero. I regard it as one of the great privileges
of my life to have been in harness with him during the spring and early summer
of 1999, when he and Viktor Chernomyrdin joined in one of the most unusual,
arduous, consequential and successful diplomatic ventures of our time or of any
other time. |
| Here’s how I’d summarize it. First, the Ahtisaari-Chernomyrdin team closed the
gap between Russia and the West — or, to put it differently, between Russia and
the rest of Europe — on the issue of what it would take to end the bombing of
Yugoslavia. Once they had done so, they became the ultimate tag team — Mr.
Hammer and Mr. Anvil, as we called them — and as such, they went up against the
Butcher of the Balkans. To make a long story short, they pinned his ears back.
I’m referring, of course, to Slobodan Milosevic. You all remember him, I
assume: he used to be the president of Yugoslavia (and what a pleasure it is to
use that verb tense). The Hammer-and-Anvil duo persuaded Milosevic that there
was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nothing to do but to withdraw all Serb
forces from Kosovo and permit the hundreds of thousands of refugees to return to
their homes under the protection of a UN-authorized, NATO-led, international
force. |
| The latest version of the story is in President Ahtisaari’s new book, Tetava
Belgradeesa, which I very much look forward to reading once it exists in a
language I can understand. But I can already, with confidence, offer the
following indisputable mini-review — a sort-of anti-blurb: President Ahtisaari’s
book is not the last word on the subject. Why? Because it’s too modest; it
doesn’t do justice to the hero of the story; it understates the author’s
fortitude, ingenuity and skill in cracking heads — and that means Russian heads,
Yugoslav heads, German heads and, once or twice, an American head to which I’m
personally quite attached. |
| You know, Mr. President, I suppose we could rely on General Ivashov to do full
justice to the adventure we shared in his own book, which is also just out; but
I may actually have to tell the story myself someday, just to make sure that you
get the credit you deserve for your indispensable role not just in bringing
peace to the Balkans but in doing so in a way that preserved the sometimes
precarious but strategically vital goal of Russia’s integration into the new
Europe. |
| Ladies and gentlemen, I believe President Ahtisaari was able to succeed in this
prodigy of diplomacy for three reasons. First and foremost because of his
personal qualities and convictions. Second, because he drew on his many years
of experience as a creative peacemaker in Bosnia and in Africa, where, I am
reliably told, many young Namibians proudly bear the name Martti. (Perhaps I
should leave it to President Ahtisaari to clarify exactly how that come to be.)
And last but not least, because he was able to draw upon his special moral and
political authority as the head of state of Finland, a nation that has
demonstrated over the years, but especially since the end of the cold war, that
it has an exemplary and salutary role to play in the world. |
| Under his leadership, Finland leveraged its position in the emerging security
and economic structures of Europe to do good while doing well; he personally
enhanced his country’s international standing and effectiveness, improved the
Baltic-Nordic neighborhood and gave the world a whole a model of how
globalization can and should work. It was a double stroke of good fortune not
just for Europe but for the trans-Atlantic community as a whole — for the U.S.
and Canada to the West, for the Russian Federation to the East — that Finland
held the rotating presidency of the European Union in the second half of 1999,
and that Martti Ahtisaari occupied the presidency of Finland during that period. |
| Finland is, as everyone here knows, a non-aligned country. It is without
prejudice to that status, and without any affront to America’s 18 fellow members
of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, that I’ll let you all in on a little
secret: many times over the last several years, we here in Washington, grappling
with the problems of the new Europe, have commented to ourselves that Finland is
one of America’s best allies. I stress that we were using the word in the
Webster’s dictionary sense of a sovereign state united with another in a common
cause. The common cause in question can be simply stated: democracy, along with
respect for individual and communal rights, is the only reliable basis for both
national governance and international peace. |
| Advancing and defending that common cause is not so easy, especially in parts of
the world — including parts of Europe — recovering from decades if not centuries
of tyranny and strife. It’s a common cause that needs leaders of the kind we
have been lucky enough to have in Martti Ahtisaari — who has served as both a
hammer and an anvil in forging a better world. |
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