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[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 70 (Monday, May 1, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5919-S5920]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      A BULLET FROM AMERICA THREATENS AN INVALUABLE BEIRUT SCHOOL

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, my wife and I took off on a rare 
vacation of any length, when we spent 10 days in Spain and Portugal 
over the Easter recess.
  While I was there, I picked up the New York Herald Tribune and read 
the Tom Friedman column, which originally appeared in the New York 
Times, paying tribute to Malcolm Kerr, who served as president of the 
American University in Beirut.
  An incidental surprise in the article was to learn that Steve Kerr, 
who plays for the Chicago Bulls, is the son of the late president of 
American University.
  Mr. Friedman has a point to make on what we ought to be doing in the 
field of economic assistance to other countries. I ask that the Tom 
Friedman column be printed in the Record.
  The column follows:

      A Bullet From America Threatens an Invaluable Beirut School

                        (By Thomas L. Friedman)

       Washington.--When I was a reporter in Beirut in the early 
     1980s the three most chilling words anyone could say to you 
     were: ``Have you heard?'' The news that followed was almost 
     always bad. That is why I shuddered on the morning of Jan. 
     18, 1984, when a banker friend called me to say: ``Have you 
     heard? Malcolm Kerr has been shot.''
       Malcolm was the president of the American University of 
     Beirut, an expert on Arab politics and a friend of mine. I 
     immediately ran over to the AUB campus. By the time I got 
     there Malcolm was dead, the gunmen were gone and the only 
     trace left of the murder was the bullet hole that had gouged 
     the wall on the stairs to his office.
       I have been thinking about Malcolm and the AUB lately 
     because his widow, Ann Zwicker Kerr, has just published an 
     affectionate memoir of both entitled ``Come With Me From 
     Lebanon.'' The book chronicles how they met on the AUB campus 
     in 1954, she as a junior year abroad student from Occidental 
     College and he as the son of AUB instructors. (Ann's parents 
     wanted her to go to school in Europe, she wanted to go to 
     India, so they compromised on Lebanon.)
       Years later, after marrying, she and Malcolm returned to 
     the AUB as teachers, and finally, after 20 years at the 
     University of California at Los Angeles, they came back to 
     run the AUB in the middle of the Lebanese civil war, out of a 
     conviction that it was an institution worth saving. In 
     Malcolm's case, it became an institution worth dying for.
       I fondly recall sitting on the veranda of Marquand House, 
     the AUB president's residence overlooking the Mediterranean, 
     drinking freshly squeezed lemonade and listening to Malcolm's 
     sober and always biting analysis of Arab politics. I was 
     reminded of it reading Ann's book, in
      which Malcolm complained that there were ``two rival student 
     groups each wanting to organize its own Miss AUB contest--
     a Miss Left-Wing AUB and a Miss Right-Wing AUB, and after 
     heroic efforts the dean of students finally got them 
     together, only to have the army move in and scrap the 
     whole thing!''
       No one knows who murdered Malcolm, but clearly it was 
     extremists intent on driving the United States, and its 
     marines, out of Beirut. (He left behind four kids, one of 
     whom, Steve, plays guard alongside Michael Jordan for the 
     Chicago Bulls.)
       I hope this book gets read by two audiences. For the 
     general reader it is a throughtful period piece about 
     Americans abroad--a reminder of that generation of American 
     secular missionaries, most of them teachers and doctors who, 
     long before the Peace Corps, dedicated their lives to 
     spreading the gospel of Jefferson and Lincoln in the Arab 
     East. They came innocent of any imperial ambitions and they 
     both nourished and were nourished by the local educational 
     institutions they ran.
       I also hope it is read by all those in Congress who today 
     are so eagerly, and mindlessly, slashing U.S. foreign aid. 
     Because when America cuts foreign aid, it isn't just cutting 
     payoffs to the Guatemalan army. It is also cutting off the 
     AUBs.
       Who cares? Well, consider this: When the United Nations was 
     founded in San Francisco, there were 19 AUB graduates among 
     the founding delegates, more than any other university in the 
     world. Educational institutions like the AUB are literally 
     factories of pro-Americans.
       Since its founding in 1866 it has graduated 34,000 students 
     from all over the Middle East, who were educated in the 
     American system and exposed to basic American values and 
     standards. Today those graduates are cabinet ministers, 
     business executives and educators peppered throughout the 
     region.
       Most important, the AUB is still one of the only real 
     liberal arts colleges in the Arab world. It is the best 
     answer to Islamic fundamentalism. In fact, most of the AUB's 
     students today are Sunni and Shite Muslims, who still see an 
     American degree, not a Khomeini decree, as their ticket to 
     advancement in the world.
       But the AUB today is struggling. In 1985 it got about $15 
     million a year in American foreign aid. Today it gets $1.8 
     million. Tomorrow, if some in Congress have their way, it 
     could get nothing. It would be an ironic tragedy if the AUB, 
     having survived civil wars, bombings and the murder of 
     Malcolm Kerr, were to have the fatal bullet put in its head 
     by a stingy U.S. Congress controlled by people with no sense 
     of America's role in the world or the institutions that 
     sustain its values abroad.

  Mr. SIMON. I visited the American University in Beirut long before I 
was a Member of Congress and was favorably impressed by what they did. 
The stunning statistic, which I had never read before, that there were 
19 American University in Beirut alumni among the founding delegates at 
the San Francisco U.N. Conference, is dramatic evidence of the good 
work that they do.
  The first lesson from the Tom Friedman column is that we should 
adequately support this fine and important university.
  [[Page S5920]] But there is another lesson to be drawn. Until the 
political earthquake of November 8, 1994, I served on the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee and chaired the Subcommittee on African 
Affairs. I learned to my chagrin, a little more than a year ago, that 
only 1\1/2\ percent of American economic aid to sub-Sahara Africa goes 
for higher education.
  In our aid programs we have to meet emergencies--and Africa has more 
than its share of emergencies--but we also have to be looking long-
term, and one of the ways that we help Africa long-term is to see to it 
that they have leadership in the future. One of the most effective ways 
to see that they have good leadership in the future is to make an 
investment in higher education.
  I hope we reflect on the Tom Friedman column.
  

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