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Douglas
Dillon Award In 1995, the Academy began to award an annual prize for a book of distinction on the practice of American diplomacy. The Academy hopes that this prize will stimulate further academic research on the way American diplomacy is exercised and will also deepen public understanding of the critical need for excellence in our diplomacy.
In
2004, this prize was presented to Richard B. Parker for his book
Uncle Sam in Barbary: A Diplomatic History published by
the University Press of Florida, Gainesville, 2004. The award recipient
is selected by a committee of Academy members, Chaired by Samuel
W. Lewis, former Ambassador to Israel. purchase
the book from the University Press of Florida The remarks
made by Ambassador Parker and Samuel W. Lewis, at the Academy's
15th Annual Awards Luncheon are below.
AMERICAN
ACADEMY OF DIPLOMACY ARTHUR HARTMAN: You know, as I looked around -- I’m one of the older members of this crowd and I remember moving here from the 23rd Street building that George Marshall had designed for the Department of the Army into this magnificent building. And actually I was in this room when Douglas Dillon was escorted here -- and people like the people who raise money and get people to contribute things are wonderful at making connections. So Douglas Dillon is standing here and our friend who was amassing all of these wonderful things to put on the wall and decorate the building said to him, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had these glorious chandeliers in this room? Dillon said, how much? (Laugher.) And that was it. And these are the Douglas Dillon chandeliers. (Laughter.) I would now like to introduce Sam Lewis, who will introduce our prizewinner for the book on diplomacy, which I recommend to all of you. I think it’s a fantastic book. SAM LEWIS: This next presentation is the Douglas Dillon Award for a Book of Distinction on the Practice of American Diplomacy, and rightly honors a great diplomat and a great statesman, a man who made great contributions, beside the chandeliers, to this building. This is an award which has been given now – this is the 10th year, and I have the honor, I guess, of chairing the committee of the academy that selects the winner on this and some other awards. This particular award has elicited more and more book submissions every year we’ve offered it. It now carries a $5,000 prize with it, which I’m sure has nothing to do with that because the honor certainly is great in any case. But this year we had an unprecedented number of not only a lot of books to consider but an extraordinarily large number of really good books to consider – books that were very competitive. This award concentrates on books about the practice of diplomacy, not about theories about diplomacy, not about how Washington makes policy, but how people like the people in this room carry out policy in the field largely. So all three books that were selected for some kind of recognition this year – and we do have three, not just one – focus on the practice of diplomacy, something which this academy was founded to try to promote. Our winner this year of the first prize, the prize, the check – (laughter) – incidentally, is the Honorable Richard Parker, one of our old colleagues in the Middle East, a veteran diplomat who served a lot of places in the Arab world particularly, and speaks brilliant Arabic. And he’s also quite an author. He has already written some seven books, one of which I think is probably less known to other than it might be. That’s “The Practical Guide to the Islamic Monuments in Morocco,” but I’m sure you’ll want to get it when you go to Morocco. He has a similar book, however, on the Islamic monuments in Cairo, which has gone through five editions, so it’s clearly very successful, and he’s written five books now about the practice of diplomacy in North Africa, in the Middle East; two fascinating retrospective books about the Six Day War and the October War, one about “The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East” and one about “North Africa: Regional Tensions and Strategic Concerns.” It’s quite a record of scholarship after he’s retired from the Foreign Service, having served as ambassador in Lebanon, in Morocco and in Algeria, all three very tough and demanding assignments. Dick is one of those guys who tells it like it is, whether you like it or not. When I went to Israel as ambassador in 1977, he was the ambassador in Lebanon and he told it like it was, and it wasn’t always very good reading. (Laughter.) And I’ve always appreciated not only his candor but his brilliance. I’d like to suggest that now, without saying more about Dick, he come and join me here at the rostrum and let me make this presentation to him. You have his biography in the program, so I’ll say no more about it. Front and center, Honorable Parker. I do want to read this citation while Dick is coming up. “’Uncle Sam in Barbary: A Diplomatic History’ – a unique, exhaustively researched diplomatic history of events at the turn of the 18th century, which saw the first diplomatic and naval encounters between the new United States of America and the Muslim world.” This is an extraordinary book, not the kind of book you expect to get this award. Our committee was unanimous, ultimately, despite the competition. It’s a great read. It’s written engagingly. It’s based on the most extraordinary research in archives no one ever heard of – (laughter) – and it does deal with the unique piece of our early diplomatic history. And, Dick, I don’t think any award we’ve given has been more richly deserved. RICHARD PARKER: I’m sure. (Laughter.) MR. LEWIS: And just by chance, there goes with it the check that I mentioned. MR. PARKER: Has Nick signed it? MR. LEWIS: Yeah, Nick has signed it. Well, anyway, somebody signed it. (Applause.) MR. PARKER: Well, thank you, Sam. I too have memories of this room. Right over there my wife and I met Jack and Jackie Kennedy in 1961. He came here for a program about Africa one day. Well, (finally ?) we got another president who’s come here for something like that. Those were the days when the Department of State was the place to be. This is before Clem Conger (charted ?) the place up and covered all the columns and so forth and put in the chandeliers. (Laughter.) And as I was sitting here at this table for the first time, I saw over here this portrait of the Bay of Tunis from the early 19th century. That portrait has been stolen from the office of the director of North African Affairs. (Laughter.) And if he’s in this room I wish he’d get to work and get it back. (Laughter.) It doesn’t belong up here. My book is about our first challenge from the Muslim world, a challenge we had difficultly meeting. It started with the capture of two of our ships by corsairs from Algiers in 1785. Now, these were privateers, they were not terrorists. They were private – they were licensed by the government. The Barbary States had the policy of being at war with everybody with whom they were not at peace. And if you were not at peace you could buy peace – but you had to buy it; you had to pay for it. It was in effect a protection racket, and all of the European powers acquiesced in this and participated, and so did we eventually. They seized two ships with 21 men on them. The men were enslaved, put to work in the quarries in Algiers. They were not released until 1796, 11 years later. The negotiations were carried out by Joel Barlow, who subsequently came to Washington and bought a house up on the hill, not far from the Cosmos Club and called it Calorama. His is the second name on the list of people on the plaque down it the lobby who died in the service. He died much later in Poland. But it’s the story of – we got this piece by paying almost a million dollars to the Algerians – almost a million dollars at a time when our national income of the federal government was on the order of $6 (million) or $7 million a year. To put this in modern terms, multiply by 15. But if you can imagine our paying that portion of our annual revenues for something like this today, you’ll see how it must have seemed to the early Americans. The point is that the phrase, “millions for defense,” not once said for tribute, was not uttered originally with reference to Algiers. (Laugher.) It was a reference to a French attempt to extract a bribe from us as a price for a treaty. Now, these corsairs, as I said, were not terrorists; they were licensed – we knew who they were. They were sent out by the government. The consuls of foreign powers, including eventually the Americans in Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, regularly issued passports to these ships to protect them from our own navy. We had no navy. One of the reasons we created a navy was because of our impotence in the face of what the Algerians had done to us. We weren’t going to have a navy. We were a commercial nation, neutral nation; we didn’t need a navy. We had no colonial aspirations. We got the navy because of Algiers. We started building it. By the time it was ready we had solved the problem, but it was used against Tripoli in 1801 – after 1801. We all sing the Marine hymn, “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.” People say, well, this must have been a big battle that we won or the Marines wouldn’t sing about it. Well, in the Navy we have some very heroic episodes but the Navy’s efforts against Tripoli were quite ineffective. We could not subdue Tripoli. We undertook our first effort at regime change. Now, I think it’s sort of important that we seem to have no problem trying regime change against Arab states. But this – it didn’t work; the fellow was still on the throne 22 years later. “The shores of Tripoli” refers to a battle for the capture of Derna in eastern Tripoli that was carried out by a band of mercenaries and a handful of Marines – six Marines – and our consul from Tripoli – from Tunis, a man named William Aiden (ph) -- a wonderful, adventurous march across the desert and the capture of Derna, and that was all because the Navy and the State Department signed a peace treaty with Tripoli once Derna was taken. Again, we paid. We only paid $60,000 this time for 300 men, but still, the idea that we would pay was not considered to be unholy. The lesson of this book to me is that force is nice but it doesn’t solve everything and it’s not very effective if it is not supported by diplomacy. We’ve found diplomatic solutions to our problems in North Africa and it is with diplomacy that supportive force rather than force supporting diplomacy. So bear that in mind. And just remember that George Washington didn’t have any hesitation in paying the Algerians $1 million to get our people out of jail. Thank you. (Applause.) SAM LEWIS: But it was a tough choice, let me tell you. That’s a good book – great book. We had two others that were also – decided ultimately to merit special citations and we’ll give them each a plaque; we won’t give them a check. (Laughter.) One of the authors is here today. The other is on a book tour in California. He had expected to be here – Dennis Ross – but his publisher changed his schedule of speaking so he’s in California instead and very sorry not to be with us. The two books of course that we’re giving special citations for are “The Missing Peace,” by Dennis Ross, which is the inside story of the fight for Middle East peace and that book is published by Farrar Giroux and something or other – AUDIENCE: (Off mike.) SAM LEWIS: Giroux. I can never remember that publisher. Anyway, you’ll see it if you want to buy it. (Laughter.) It’s a big book and an extraordinary book because it does give a kind of inside daily accounts of the diplomacy of the Middle East peace process beginning in the early ’70s and right up to the end of the Clinton administration. It is a remarkable contribution to diplomatic history and will be very useful for historians in the future. It’s not just about Dennis’ role though that was significant to say the least. But we do have with us today our other author, the Honorable Howard B. Schaffer -- come on up Howie– who has written this extraordinary biography – (continuous applause) -- of Ellsworth Bunker. (Applause.) “Ellsworth Bunker: Global Troubleshooter, Vietnam Hawk.” Now, that’s a provocative title and I suppose it helps to sell the books. (Laughter.) He was, I guess, a Vietnam hawk but that’s not the part of his life – one I tend to remember. Howie does get a chance to speak so I just have to say that this is what our citations reads: “An outstanding biography of one of America’s most distinguished diplomats of the 20th century which also brilliantly illuminates for the general public the practice of the diplomatic art.” And in your program you will see that Howie Schaffer has been a consummate practice – Schaffer himself – of the diplomatic art having served as ambassador to Bangladesh, twice deputy assistant secretary and he’s also written a biography of an old boss of mine, Chester Bowles which is an extraordinary piece of biographic writing. Howie has proved himself to be a scholar. He is now director of studies at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown, another organization some of us in this room have long supported. Howie, congratulations. It was a close call and it’s a great book. And I might say that these three books are outside and there are not enough copies of each one for all of you but there are in collectively about 150 copies. So if you take book of one of the three, we’ll get rid of all of them. (Laughter.) Thank you, Howie. HOWARD SCHAFFER: Thank you very much. SAM LEWIS: Congratulations. (Applause.) Now, I want to recognize quickly two other people who are here. The institute – the academy gives – runs two different essay contests, one for students about to enter graduate school and one for students who are in graduate school. Thanks to the generosity of Phil Merrill, now the head of the Ex-Im Bank, there is an endowed fellowship at SAIS – two-year fellowship, one half tuition, which is awarded on the basis of a competition for people writing an essay about a topic on the practice of diplomacy which we select and then we judge the winners. And this year, the winner actually is not in town because she is in Bologna in her second year of study in graduate school at the Bologna Center. But last year’s winner, Alex Tiersky, is here with his wife, Trisha, and we’re delighted to have them and I’d just like them to stand up and commend them for their great work. (Applause.) No wait, check signals! I’m sorry. Trisha, I got you aligned with the wrong man, but that’s – he’s very nice but that’s not your husband. (Laughter.) Alex Tiersky is this guy back here who just stood and he did so brilliantly at SAIS, he’s joined the Arms Control Bureau here in the State Department and is carrying around all of those identification cards that we used to have to carry, and we’re delighted to see he’s following a government career because he did a brilliant job on the essay. The other essay contest, the Leonard Marx Contest. And Leonard is here somewhere. Where are you, man? Here he is. Leonard Marx has endowed another essay contest which is offered for students at the professional graduate schools who belong to APSIA the Association of Schools of Professional Training in International Relations – or something. There are about 25 of those schools, like, SAIS and Georgetown and so forth. And we offer this fellowship – this prize I should say – now it is a $5,000 prize -- which is we hope going to attract lots of additional applicants next year – to all of these schools. They have contests in each school and then they pick out the best essay in that school on a topic we have selected about the future diplomacy of our nation and they send the winner to us and we pick out the winner – the national winner. And the winner comes to Washington -- as Dean Johnson did from Fordham this summer -- and meets with Mark Grossman or somebody like him and defends his paper because the paper we ask them to write is not just an essay; it’s a memo to the secretary dealing with a kind of – a problem which all of us have dealt with and recommending courses of action. It’s an options paper – something colleges don’t like to ask their students to write so we get them to write that as a way of encouraging them to learn how to write something in two pages. Dean Johnson was the winner this year with a brilliant memo to the secretary on Libyan policy in the wake of Qaddafi’s non-renunciation of nuclear weapons. And when he met with MarC Grossman, I gather – I was out of town – but I gather that Mark thought his paper was not too far off the mark – not to make a pun inadvertently. So stand up. Now, it’s Dean Johnson who has the wife, Trisha, and I’m very sorry that I got her aligned with the wrong person. (Continuous applause.) You stand up too, Trisha, please. These are great young people and we hope we attract Dean into the diplomatic service at some point. Finally, I just remind you, pick up your books, but only one per customer. Thanks very much. (Applause.) ### Previous winners of the Dillon Book Awards as well as Recipients of Academy Special Citations include:
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