It was an excellent idea of the Herbert Quandt Foundation to donate this series of lectures to an institution which is by tradition a source of American interest in Europe. I could spend the next twenty minutes regaling you with headlines about transatlantic discord, about a Europe that is vanishing from America's radar screen, about an introverted America, or about a European Union that now only looks eastward - the gloom and doom stories we are all familiar with. Of course, not all of it is mere fantasy.
True reality lies deeper and looks far better than it appears.
This applies especially to the future and to the prospects for transatlantic partnership, which is what I want to talk about today. Considering the fuss in the media, however, it is not sufficient merely to invoke the solidity of that partnership. We must be sure what it will actually mean in the twenty-first century, why we need it, what its benefits are, and what it enables us to do. We should remain constantly aware of four dimensions of partnership which are as valid now as they were at its inception fifty years ago. The first of those dimensions is partnership in the awareness of political change, the second, partnership in strategic vision, the third, partnership in pragmatic action, and the fourth, partnership in commitment to common values.