Swearing-In Remarks

Thank you all for coming here today: dear friends, colleagues from my government service, and from my years, I dare say, decades of teaching at SAIS. And thank you members of the NGO community whose work is vital to human liberty.

A personal thank you to my son, Benjamin, and my daughter Rebecca who are with me today. Ben with a sense of humor and irony way beyond his years, and Rebecca who provided me with all the training I would ever need for all of my government service, beginning at the age of 7 when she looked up at me literally and asked, "Why won’t you negotiate?"

I would like to take a few minutes to talk about the road that brought me to this day.

I think back to another time and another President. I remember coming home from Maimonides school in Boston and telling my parents that I had helped secure the votes of the entire 4th grade class, all 31 of them, for the junior senator from our home state, John F. Kennedy.

My parents, both immigrants, had each faced hardship and tragedy in their lives but still had not lost hope or faith. I had seen the pride they felt at President Kennedy’s inaugural address and his words, "We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty."

I remember being in Washington as a graduate student at the School of Advanced International Studies, or SAIS as we call it, in the mid-1970s when article after article indicted President Kennedy’s vision and that of so many others as contributing to the horrors of the Vietnam War. Condemning three decades of foreign policy troubled me deeply. But I remember the counsel of Dean Robert Osgood who taught us to look beyond Vietnam, and back to our country’s history, and to embrace the concept that ideals and self interests not only co-exist in our foreign policy, but strengthen our nation.

I remember in that maelstrom of self-doubt brought on by Vietnam, the Congress pushed to create the bureau I am now leading to ensure that we keep faith with our principles.

I remember a spring day in 1982 at the US Information Agency when I was handed a copy of a speech and told it would be the basis of our public diplomacy. The words were simple and direct: "We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings." With those words before the British Parliament Ronald Reagan restored our faith--and the hope of so many worldwide.

I remember the early days of 1989, when I met NSC Director Rice, and later when I served in the Pentagon under Chairman Colin Powell. And I remember the many ways we all learned, as the Secretary has said, that "What seemed impossible one day, looked inevitable the next."

I remember President Bush commemorating the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the National Endowment for Democracy with these words: "From the Fourteen Points to the Four Freedoms, to the Speech at Westminster, America has put our power at the service of principle."

I remember much. What have I learned?

First, that dreaming of freedom and working for it against all odds is never hopeless. When Soviet physicist Yuri Orlov and a small group of his fellow dissidents met in Andrei Sakharov’s apartment in 1976 and formed the first Helsinki monitoring organization, they raised a toast: "To the success of our hopeless cause!"

Second, I learned that democracy, flaws and all, is the best guarantee of securing and protecting liberty. I never forget the words of Reinhold Neibuhr, to many, myself included, America’s greatest theologian. It was Niebuhr who, anticipating America’s global responsibilities, wrote in 1944, "Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."

Madame Secretary as I lead this bureau, I will develop and nurture partnerships–with friends and allies, with organizations and institutions throughout the globe–to help all men and women secure their fundamental rights.

And I want the many NGOs who are represented here today to know that while we may not always agree, I welcome you as partners in our common cause of freedom.

As Assistant Secretary, I, and the men and women of the bureau, will work closely with strong democracies, will help struggling or fragile democracies, and will call to account democracies who step backwards. But where there is no democracy, we will make it plain that America stands with the oppressed and the silenced. These courageous men and women may often feel their voices are lonely ones, but they must never, ever feel they are alone.

Madame Secretary, when you were sworn in, you asked that junior officers attend the ceremony. Your message was clear: advancing the President’s Freedom Agenda is a long, hard road, whose success will depend not only on our efforts, but on the next generation of officers, and the generation after them.

We cannot make a perfect world, but we can build a better one. I can pledge to you, Madame Secretary, that the fine men and women of DRL will join me in this endeavor. We owe that to you, to the President, to the American people, and to countless others throughout the globe who still see this country as the last best hope for humanity. Thank you.