His name is John C. Whitehead. He is one of the most eminent men in America. He was head of Goldman Sachs. He headed the boards of both Haverford College and Harvard University. He served as #2 in Dept. of State under George Schultz and Reagan. He is now at age 83 running the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corp. that is charged with rebuilding after 9-11. As he says, he has failed retirement 3 times. He is a lifelong Republican, although he admits that in 1944 he voted for FDR because he didn't think we should change presidents in a war. And today he was quite negative on Bush, particularly on foreign policy.
It was a public forum of sorts. John has a book out, called something like "A Life in Leadership." He was here where I am - at Haverford College in Pennsylvania - for the annula key volunteers weekend. John was a member of the class of 1943 nad was the long-time chair of our Board of Managers (in fact, the first non-Quaker to hold that position). And he had an opportunity to talk about what he sees as the lack of real leadership in both political parties, and most other realms of American life - business and education not excluded. He made his remarks as a speaker at the awards ceremony for key volunteers.
I want to focus on something he said that had troubled him. He noted that when considering for whom to vote in 2004 he for the first time had real regrests about the republican candidate (although he saw little to excite him about the Democrat either). He focused espeically on foreign policy. He said that there were 191 other countries in the world, and that there were none of which he could think that were more friendly towards the US after 4 years of Bush than had been befroe he took office. He said that he had been challenged on this by one alumnus last night (who effectively asked "waht about Poland?" so he was will to say may be Poland was an exception. But he commented how bad it was that no one- not our near neighbors Canada and mexico, nor even our goold alliws the British (Prime Minister Blair thus being very out of touch with the Birtish people,as he noted) had even the same level of confidence and friendlinessn towards us. As one who had been involved with foreign policy, with international economic affairs, he was quite plainly shocked at how much the opinion of the US has been devasted around the world druing the presidency of George Bush.
There are no real surprises -- he can't stand most of Bush's domestic policies either, and in Q&A several of us pushed him on things like those being successful feeling a sense of responsibility to give something back, as he has done so eloquently both with his money and his service. John voted for Bush, with an implication that if both candidates were no good he would be a loyal Republican. He had looked for a reason to vote for the Democratic opponent, but failing to find an example of real leadership, did not cast his forst democratic presidential vote in 60 years.
He noted the high respect he had for the first presdient Bush, whom as #2 in State he had known while Poppy was VP. He acknowledged that he does not have the same respect for the son.
I am in between events as ana ctive volunteer for this my alma mater. I do not expect that too many will read this. And unfortunately I will probably not get a chance to respond to any comments until late tonight, as in about 30 minutes I will have to get ready for our final event, a dinner with the president and the Board of Managers. I was very much struck by Whitehead's words, and thought them worth sharing with a wider audience.
