Doing Good Together Lincoln Lecture

03 February 2011

 "Doing Good Together" - The Special Relationship in Global Development
2011 Lincoln Lecture
Wymondham College


Good evening.  Principal Roffe, Distinguished Guests, Students of Wymondham, ladies and gentlemen.  Principal Roffe, thank you very much for that kind introduction.  As my first Ambassador in London, Admiral Crowe, used to say, my father would have appreciated it, and my mother would have believed it. 

I am extremely honored to be the first American speaker to give your annual Lincoln lecture.  It is also a great thrill to follow in the footsteps of last year’s speaker, Justin Webb, a friend and keen student of the U.S.  He asked me to send you his warm regards. 

I had a chance this afternoon to talk with a number of students, and we had some fascinating discussions.  I believe we will have some time at the end for questions tonight, and I look forward to that very much. 

I mentioned my first Ambassador, Admiral Crowe.  He was from Oklahoma, as am I.  But I feel very much at home here, for I was born in England.  I am very much a child of the Cold War.  My father was briefly in the U.S. Air Force, and was posted to the airbase at Brize Norton, near Oxford.  Today Brize Norton is a large bustling regional Royal Air Force hub.  However, in 1960, when I was born, it was just one of many small airbases dotting the countryside, pressed back into service after WWII on the front lines of the Cold War.  Looking around this building, I know I don’t have to remind this audience that there were many places like that in Norfolk as well. 

Brize Norton is a large base now, but when my father was there, living with a young bride and child in nearby Carterton, things were slower.  He always said the big event of the week was when the fish and chips truck came to town on Thursday nights.

I feel comfortable in this building as well.  I don’t believe I’ve been in a Quonset hut since childhood.  There were many converted huts in Southern California, where I moved as a child, and I remember in particular one that had been turned into a seafood restaurant.  I loved going there.  They disguised it as best they could with lots of fish nets, shells, and fishing floats.  I thought it was the most exotic, opulent place I’d ever seen.  I felt like I was going to the Taj Mahal. 

So being here is a great delight. 

It is a delight for another reason, as this event allowed me to choose between two of my favorite topics – Abraham Lincoln or U.S.-UK relations.  I like both topics so much I’m going to do a bit of each, or try to at any rate.  I hope you’ll bear with me. 

Let’s begin with Lincoln.  Like most Americans, I am a keen student of Lincoln, and I was delighted that my return to the London Embassy coincided with his bicentennial, giving me many opportunities to learn more about this great American.  I learned more today, as it was my pleasure to visit Hingham and see the Lincoln plaque, and during a tour of the college I saw the plaque unveiled by Dean Acheson.  I was reminded that he used to say his favorite Lincoln quote was, “the good thing about the future is that it only arrives one day at a time.”  As preparation for tonight I also read the first Lincoln Lecture by the eminent Lincoln biographer Professor Richard Carwardine and I wouldn’t presume to poach on his territory.  But if I may, I’d like to share a bit of history I think you’ll find interesting, and which brings together Lincoln, Britain, and President Obama.  

In 1889, after weeks of speculation in the press about who would be nominated to be the next American Minister to the Court of St. James’s, then-President Harrison nominated Abraham Lincoln’s son, Robert Todd Lincoln, to represent the U.S. in Britain. A staid Chicago lawyer, Lincoln's name often came up in U.S. political circles when discussing possible presidential candidates, but he always said he was uninterested in public office.

However, he was honored to take this posting, and arrived in Britain in May 1889. 

He and his family sailed into Liverpool, which a century earlier had been at the center of the transatlantic slave trade, and was a hub of the global cotton trade for decades.  The grand buildings Lincoln saw when he sailed in had been built in part with the profits from slavery and cotton, and the city closely followed our Civil War, with partisans on both sides of the question.  Indeed during that war Liverpool was the site of an epic struggle between the Confederate James Bulloch, sent by the South to build and procure ships for a Confederate Navy, and the U.S. Consul Thomas Dudley who did everything in his power to stop him.      

Robert Todd Lincoln and his family moved on to London and he presented his credentials to Queen Victoria soon after arrival.  During his time in London, from 1889 to 1893, Ambassador Lincoln oversaw a move into a new American chancery at 4 Grosvenor Gardens, served as pall bearer at the funeral of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and read the newly published Mark Twain novel, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."

Sadly, during his time here he was also hit with family tragedy, as his son, Abraham Lincoln II, died in London from blood poisoning.  He was 17, and said to resemble his grandfather. 

Intriguingly, one of the foreign policy issues that came up during Ambassador Lincoln’s tenure was the status of the "Sandwich Islands," as Hawaii was known then.  The question of the day was whether Britain would accept the Sandwich Islands being drawn closer to the American sphere.  The London press reported that Britain “assumed” the U.S. would annex Hawaii, and we know Ambassador Lincoln sent these reports on to Washington.  We know that in early 1893, the British Ambassador in Washington told our Secretary of State that Great Britain had no territorial ambitions in that part of the Pacific.

I can’t cite for you chapter and verse, but it's not hard to imagine the senior U.S. official in Britain engaging prime ministers Salisbury and Gladstone on this issue of intense American interest.  Robert Lincoln was known for his calm and reasoned approach to issues, and I’m sure he brought this talent to bear on the issue of Hawaii.  And lucky for President Obama that he did.  If our relations with Britain had not been smooth, and Hawaii had become a contest between us, President Obama might not have been born in the United States.

(Hmmmm, where have I heard that before?).
This is yet another example of how history links the U.S. and the United Kingdom in sometimes surprising ways.

Speaking of milestones, in April of this year we will mark the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War.  If there are students of American history here, and I hope there are many, I urge you to learn as much as you can about this great conflict.  I’m a diplomat and not given to statements of bald certainty – it is bad form.  But I’ll give you one now:  You simply cannot understand American society if you do not study our Civil War.

And as you gain that knowledge, you will learn that the United Kingdom was a key player in the drama.  Until recently I was unaware of how deep the involvement was.  I knew the diplomatic history.  I knew how Britain made the critical decision to declare official neutrality, and how the South labored mightily to change that and gain the recognition they knew was crucial to victory.  I knew about the North and South sending agents to the United Kingdom to buy arms, ships and the endless supplies needed to fight what many call the first “industrial” scale war.  I knew of such dangerous diplomatic episodes as the Trent affair – when the North seized confederate agents from a British ship, violating its neutrality – bringing the Union and the Union Jack to the edge of war before cooler heads prevailed. 

All this I knew.  What I did not know was how our civil war convulsed British society.  Thousands of British citizens flocked to the U.S. to volunteer – on both sides.  The contest was passionately followed here, with opinions divided and loudly shared in the press -  and parlors of stately homes.

If you want to learn more about this fascinating period, I recommend Amanda Foreman’s new book, A World on Fire.  It is first and foremost a comprehensive diplomatic history of the U.S. and United Kingdom during the war, but it also provides a fascinating stroll through the lives of many of the British citizens who participated in the conflict.  They gave many reasons for going to America – glory, wealth, convictions about slavery, state’s rights, and  freedom – but all were drawn to this titanic American contest like moths to a flame.  

Why?  Personally, I believe there is something about the American experiment that has always inspired the passions, concerns and dreams of our British friends.  I believe you can draw a straight line from the volunteers who went to fight in our Civil War to the young people from the United Kingdom who went to the U.S. to work in the Obama presidential campaign.  And I believe that at base, this attraction grows out of a common devotion to democratic values and individual liberty, even as we express it in different ways in our societies.   
This is what makes our alliance a special relationship (to bring me to our second topic – I knew I’d get there sooner or later)

There is a comity of values that underpins this alliance, making it unlike any other. 

This is normally where any supporter of the special relationship would insert a quote from Winston Churchill.  He did after all invent the term.   However, I will resist this temptation.  But I will indulge in one of my favorite stories about Churchill in the U.S.  It illustrates his love of language and his mischievous sense of humor. 

Winston Churchill once found himself in Phildelphia at a dinner.  It was a buffet, and he found himself standing next to a distinguished American lady.  Chicken was on the menu, and Churchill asked for breast.  “Oh Mr. Churchill,” said the matron, “in America, we do not say ‘breast.’  We say ‘white meat.’”   He thanked her for the information and went on his way. The next day a package arrived at the home of the lady in question. In it was a corsage.  And a note from Winston Churchill.  “Dear Madam,” he wrote, “please pin this to your white meat.”

By the way, for those of you who have been troubled by the occasional articles in the press about President Obama’s supposed Anglophobia, take it from somebody who knows.   I have served four U.S. Ambassadors to the Court of St. James’s under three different U.S. administrations and I have never seen a wider gap between the reality and the rhetoric than in this strange notion that President Obama does not understand or appreciate the importance of the special relationship.  In fact the opposite is the case.  He is an enthusiastic proponent of this essential alliance.  Any other notion simply has no basis in fact.

Consider - President Obama’s first overseas trip was to the United Kingdom.  The first phone call from a foreign leader to the newly elected Prime Minister Cameron was from President Obama.  Ambassador Susman spent hours with the two leaders in July 2010 and saw firsthand how quickly they developed a close working relationship, not to mention friendship.   And if you are worried about the Churchill bust, which some claimed was exiled from the White House by a spiteful new President, let me state for the record that it is still in the White House.  The President simply moved it to another spot to make room for a bust of Abraham Lincoln.  I don’t think Churchill minds the company.

So much for the niceties.  More importantly, the United States and the United Kingdom are in agreement on how to approach the great issues of the day.  We are on the same page in Afghanistan, with a revamped, properly resourced strategy aimed at stopping the Taliban, destroying Al Qaeda and building up Afghanistan’s ability to take care of its own security needs.  We have traversed a global economic crisis together, and are in constant touch as we build the tools and structures to ensure that it won’t happen again.  We both recognize the need to maintain support for an open, market-based global economy.  Our law enforcement and intelligence cooperation in the fight against terrorism is absolutely unparalleled.     

Most of the time when we talk about this alliance, we focus, as I just did, on the defense of freedom part of this equation.  Forged in the blood and steel of World War II, tempered by the long Cold War struggle, today we enjoy unparalleled security, intelligence and defense cooperation.  The cooperation we enjoy is, sadly, still necessary in a dangerous world, and quantum leaps above what we have with any other ally. 

But the values that underpin our security links also inform another part of our relationship, equally important, but which is rarely mentioned.  That is the work we do together on aid and development issues around the world.  Our habits of cooperation and trust built up over the years are regularly put to use as we confront development challenges.

This is important for three reasons. 

One – it is an important focus of my government.  Secretary Clinton came into the State Department reaffirming the essential nature of development work as part of what she called the triad, or “3Ds” of foreign policy: diplomacy, defense, and development.  Elevating development to the same level as defense and diplomacy has been one of her signature issues.  A savvy Washington operator, she initiated a planning process called the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review or QDDR that is a deliberate imitation of the Defense Department’s planning process.  The first one was just completed, and my Ambassador was in Washington this week being briefed on the results.  The review anchors development work in our bureaucracy, bolsters our ability to make the case for aid dollars to our Congress, and also supports the idea of an “all government” approach to development issues using resources and expertise from all parts of our federal government.  During the planning process we actively sought input from our British friends at DFID and the Foreign Office.  The British approach to development has many admirers in our government.  Our director of planning, Dr. Anne Marie Slaughter, was just in London briefing the FCO and DFID on the results of the QDDR.

Second - our joint work on aid illustrates our shared values.  Both our nations understand that doing what we can to help countries in need is consistent with the value we place on human dignity and contributes to the growth of the open global economy upon which we depend.  I know the United Kingdom places a high value on development work, as the new coalition government took steps to ensure that the UK overseas development aid budget was protected during the recent spending review.  Indeed, at present the United Kingdom is the only G-8 nation on track to meet the UN’s Millennium Development goals for overseas aid. 

Third – when we work together on the ground, we get better results.  Let me conclude with some brief examples of what I mean.

Pakistan
Pakistan is a huge aid priority for both the United States and the United Kingdom.  When devastating floods hit Pakistan last year, the U.S. and United Kingdom were the largest bilateral donors to the United Nations floods appeal.  We've been working closely together on the ground to ensure all the needs of those displaced by the floods and those who have now returned home are met. We were also at the forefront of efforts in the summer of 2010 to encourage the wider international community to do more including at UN meetings in August and September.  This kind of cooperation on emergency relief is common.  When the Haiti earthquake hit, DFID placed an official in our USAID disaster relief office in Washington to ensure smooth coordination of our efforts in Haiti. 

We also cooperate on longer term issues.  In Pakistan we work together to encourage and support the Government of Pakistan’s economic reform efforts.  We share information, divide up tasks, and coordinate our approach to the government of Pakistan.  It makes eminent sense, given the size of the challenge.  

Polio
Another example is our fight against polio.  The U.S. and United Kingdom are core donors to the global campaign to eradicate polio.  The world is engaged in the final assault on this curse, and with any luck polio will be the first disease wiped of the face of the earth in the 21st century.  Pakistan, India and Nigeria are three of the remaining front line countries.  All three have close ties with the U.S. and United Kingdom, which we are using to very good effect.  Working with us, and private groups such as the Gates Foundation and Rotary International, India and Nigeria wiped out 95% of their remaining cases last year.  So we are very close – 99% of the way there, and U.S. and UK development professionals work together every day to chase the last cases into the history books. 

Food security
Food security is another issue that Secretary Clinton has focused on.  Long the preserve of scientists and development experts, it has recently hit the headlines.  Just look at how rising food prices contributed to the democratic uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.  Food security is a global issue, where a lot of the action takes place in international organizations.  London and Washington often coordinate their approaches when addressing these multilateral institutions, to include the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Program (WFP), and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).  All three organizations are undergoing internal reforms to become better able to deliver on their mandates, whether emergency food aid (WFP), financing anti-poverty programs around the world (IFAD) or helping countries modernize and improve agriculture, forestry and fisheries practices.  British and American diplomats work together on all these issues.  The Chief Scientist of your government, Sir John Bennington, has been quite eloquent on the need for global action on this front.  The United Kingdom has also been a key supporter of the Obama Administration’s Feed the Future initiative, which was launched at the 2009 G-8 summit in Italy.  Feed the Future is designed to comprehensively address the underlying causes of hunger and under-nutrition using country-led strategies.  U.S. and UK scientists and experts are in constant contact on how to drive this process forward. 

Conclusion
I could give many more examples, but I think I’ve taken advantage of this audience for long enough.  My point is simple – our two nations enjoy a comity of values, and the willingness and ability to act on them around the world.  That translates into British and American men and women around the globe, working quietly together every day to improve things as best they can. 
I think it proper, in this place, and with this audience, to conclude by remembering that too often, our work together has been sealed with a bond of blood.  Our armed forces have fought and died together on many fields of battle, and, sadly, still do today.  Their willingness to make that sacrifice is the highest testimony of our common devotion to liberty and a better future for our children as well as children around the world.
Thank you for your kind attention.  I look forward to our discussion.