THE WEEKLY PUBLICATION OF THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB OF CALIFORNIA

VOLUME 95, NUMBER 34

SEPTEMBER 3, 2001

THE
COMMONWEALTH
www.commonwealthclub.org

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 6

Kiichi Miyazawa • Former Prime Minister, Japan

The U.S. & Japan: A Fifty-Year Alliance
for Peace and Prosperity

Having served as Japan's foreign minister twice (1974-76 and 1993), finance minister (1986-88) and prime minister (1991-93), Miyazawa has seen his country through boom and bust – and seen transformation of Japanese and American relations over the past century. Miyazawa's luncheon address is part of a September 6-7 conference, "The U.S. and Japan: An Enduring Partnership in a Changing World." Featured speakers also include Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Schultz, ambassadors Howard Baker, Thomas Foley and Walter Mondale.

11:30 a.m., Registration • Noon, Luncheon • 12:40 p.m., Program • Grand Ballroom, Sheraton Palace Hotel, 2 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco • $70 for members and non-members. For reservations call Club office, 415/597-6705/6706 or visit www.commonwealthclub.org. Co-sponsored by the Japan Society, the Asia Foundation, the Asia Society, the World Affairs Council of Northern California and others. For details on other conference events visit www.us-japan.org/jsnc/welcome.html.

MONDAY OCTOBER 8

98TH ANNIVERSARY & 14TH ANNUAL
DISTINGUISHED CITIZEN
AWARD DINNER

The Westin St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco

Cocktail Reception, 6 p.m. • Dinner and Program, 7 p.m.

Join us in saluting Intel co-founder Gordon Moore and community leader Betty Moore as recipients of the Commonwealth Club's 14th annual Distinguished Citizen Award. The Moores have just created one of the nation's largest charitable foundations, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Based in San Francisco's Presidio, the Foundation will pursue the Moores' long-time dedication to conservation, scientific research, higher education and the Bay Area community.

For more information or to purchase tickets call 415/597-6717 or email rolinger@commonwealthclub.org

INSIDE

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
"Does America Need a Foreign Policy?" 2

Kissinger Q&A 4

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 5

William Randolph
Hearst:
Myths and Truths

DAVID NASAW, Historian;
Author, The Chief:

The Life of William Randolph Hearst

Hearst controlled the largest publishing empire in the U.S. by the 1930s and through it achieved unprecedented political power. Based on previously unreleased papers and interviews, Nasaw delves into the life of this fascinating figure.

2 p.m., Check-In • 2:30 p.m., Program • 3:30 p.m. Reception • Club office • $7 for members, $10 for non-members. For reservations call Club office, 800/847-7730. Co-sponsored by Stacey's Bookstore.

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 17

Ann Heche

Actress; Author,
Call Me Crazy

In a poignant and humorous memoir of a difficult life, the Emmy award-winning actress reveals how she has triumphed over the personal challenges of child abuse and mental illness to flourish in her work. From *Wag the Dog* to an unforgettable role on "Ally McBeal," Heche attracts critical acclaim while at the same time delighting those who relish Hollywood gossip.

5:30 p.m., Check-in • 6 p.m., Program • 7 p.m., Book signing and Reception • Club office • $9 for members, $12 for non-members. For reservations call Club office, 415/597-6705/6706.

COMING EVENTS

Study Sections 8

Featured Events in San Francisco 1, 13-14, 16

East Bay / North Bay Events 13

Silicon Valley Events 1, 12, 16

CALENDAR:

Events by Region 14

Six Weeks at a Glance (all upcoming events) 15

THE COMMONWEALTH 1 SEPTEMBER 3 2001

## Reservations Procedure

While you may pay for all Club events at the door if there are seats available, we now require pre-payment with your reservations for all programs except for Club office reception programs and Study Sections. Call 415/597-6705/6706 or 800/847-7730. Reservations may be paid for with cash, check or credit card (Mastercard or Visa). You may also make reservations through the Club's website: www.commonwealthclub.org.

Tickets are only issued for events held outside the Club office. To receive tickets in advance, send a check (or the number and expiration date of your credit card) with a stamped, self-addressed envelope to: The Commonwealth Club, 595 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94105.

At recent events, the Club has had to pay for "no-shows," or those who made reservations without paying and then didn't come to the event. As a nonprofit organization, the Club is unable to cover these expenses. Therefore, to avoid increasing the cost of our programs or raising dues, we now require pre-payment. If you cannot attend a program for which you have made a reservation, please contact us to cancel the reservation. Cancellations must be received within 48 hours of the program. Registration begins 30 minutes before each event and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Please note that at luncheon events you must arrive before 12:20 p.m. to be served.

## THE COMMONWEALTH

(Publication: ISSN 0010-3349) • Published every Monday, Copyright 2001 by The Commonwealth Club of California, 595 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94105 • 415/597-6700 • Fax: 415/597-6729
World Wide Web: http://www.commonwealthclub.org
E-mail: club@commonwealthclub.org

Editor-in-Chief: Steven Boyd Saum
*ssaum@commonwealthclub.org*

Assistant Editor: Amanda Hayden Ramos
*aramos@commonwealthclub.org*

Editorial Interns: Sonya Abrams, Elise Manley,

Roy SanFilippo

Photographer: Paul Eric Felder

### OFFICERS OF THE CLUB

Toni Rembe ........................................ President

Connie Shapiro .................................... President-Elect

Joseph R. Fink .................................... Chair, Executive Committee

Angelo Siracusa .................................... Secretary

Anna W. M. Mok .................................... Treasurer

Dr. Gloria Duffy .................................... Chief Executive Officer

### GOVERNORS OF THE CLUB 2001

Mary Bitterman, Athena Blackburn, Dennise Carter, Maryles Casto, The Hon. Ming Chin, Linda Chinn, Angela M. Coffee, E. David Ellington, Joseph R. Fink, Carol Fleming, Dan Geller, Chuck Geschke, Richard N. Goldman, Rose Guibault, Jay Harris, Janet Holmgren, Mary Huss, Heather Kitchen, Julius Krevans, M.D., Watson M. Laetsch, Hon. L.W. Lane, Jr., Amy McCombs, Don J. McGrath, Diane Miller, Barbara Z. Otto, Barbara Pivnicka, Richard Pivnicka, Shannon Reeves, Skip Rhodes, Constance Ridder, George W. Rowe, Bob Saldich, Rev. John P. Schlegel, S.J., Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Tiffany Shlain, Charlotte Maillard Shultz, John Sias, G. Craig Sullivan, Darian Weltman Swig, Nancy Thompson, L. Jay Tenenbaum.

Commonwealth Club membership is open to interested people worldwide. (No initiation fee for full-time students.)

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The Commonwealth is printed with soy-based ink.

THURSDAY JULY 19

# Does America Need A Foreign Policy?

## Henry Kissinger

Former Secretary of State;

Author, Does America Need a Foreign Policy?

Having shaped a significant amount of U.S. foreign policy in the latter half of the 20th century, Henry Kissinger has earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Nobel Peace Prize – and he has recently come under fire by some for allegedly committing war crimes decades ago. While protesters gathered across the street from the Fairmont Hotel, he spoke at a sold-out luncheon hosted by The Commonwealth Club on July 19.

In terms of current challenges in American foreign policy, the fundamental problem we face is a conceptual, philosophical one. Never before has a country been as dominantly powerful as the United States, nor had global reach in almost every field – military, economic and, to the great sorrow of the French, cultural. At the same time, the historic experience of America is so unique that the conduct of foreign

been, to a large degree, our domestic experience. This is why most of the great American initiatives in international affairs have been presented with some kind of terminal date. The Marshall Plan was presented at solving a problem once and for all.

In the late 1990s, when we sent troops to Bosnia, it was explained to the American public as a one-year project after which we would withdraw. Disraeli described to the British Parliament in 1878, in response to an idea to send troops to Bosnia, the situation in terms that can be applied verbatim to the present situation in terms of religious and ethnic hatred. He said it would take 50,000 of Europe's best troops to calm the situation and that they would be there indefinitely. There is no argument: There are situations in which we have to intervene even if it means a prolonged stay. But another aspect is that we

> "For America the challenge of a country like China is to avoid the temptation to slide it into the position vacated by the Soviet Union, as a kind of permanent enemy against which all our efforts have to be directed."

policy in the traditional sense presents major conceptual problems for us. We are the only major country that has never had a powerful neighbor, that for the greatest part of its history could genuinely believe that its involvement in international affairs was largely up to it, and that it could engage and withdraw. We are almost the only major country with a national belief that almost every problem has a solution and therefore a terminal day to it; that has

find little in our experience to indicate that when you deal with an issue, you really deal not just with one problem but a whole sequence of events.

In the 19th century, a European statesman said, "Policy is like a play in many acts. It unfolds inevitably once the curtain is raised. People can comment on the quality of the play, but the really important question is whether you raise the curtain, because once the curtain is raised the

THE COMMONWEALTH 2 SEPTEMBER 3 2001

play will be completed either by the ac-
tors or by the audience that mounts the
stage." We see something of that in
Kosovo. We entered for important moral
convictions, but we entered also into the
legacy of three Balkan wars, into the ques-
tion of whether we want an independent
Kosovo. If we don't want an independent
Kosovo, should American troops be used
to prevent self-determination? And if we
have an independent Kosovo, what hap-
pens to Macedonia, Montenegro and
other countries with substantial minori-
ties? This is not a new war but a continu-
ation of a centuries-old contest.

I'm not going to go into the history of
individual decisions but what we face at
this moment in terms of long-range
thinking. We don't have an overwhelm-
ing enemy as we did in the Cold War,
but we have treaties in many parts of the
world. We have environmental problems
that were never considered part of for-
eign policy 20 years ago. We have an
economy of globalization but a politics
of national interest; how to relate the eco-
nomic and technological evolution of the
world to the political evolution is one of
the key issues before us. As Americans
there is a tendency for us to believe that
our unique experience can be made uni-
versally applicable; many Americans think
that every foreigner is an aspirant Ameri-
can.

Very often we tend to believe that it is
our duty to recast the structures of every
other country. Last week I was in Russia
and met with President Putin. The first
thing I was asked afterwards was "What
did you tell him about Russian reform?"
Here's a country that has had 600 years
of turbulent history, and while I strongly
favor reform, we still have some fairly
long-range problems. Is Russia going to
face east or west? Do you integrate it into
Europe? How does it relate itself to
NATO? Can NATO survive with Rus-
sian membership? Can Russia be respon-
sible if it is isolated?

When we think of the world as respon-
sive to a uniform set of solutions, I would
argue that there are different kinds of
worlds that exist out there for the U.S. to
deal with right now

Latin America and most of Europe, west
of Russia

In those countries with democratic gov-
ernments and market economics, military
conflict is highly improbable, and the val-
ues that have made America great are ap-
plicable in the day-to-day conduct of the
societies. Many of the disagreements be-
tween us and Europe reflect the following
strange phenomenon: When we deal with
individual European countries we can of-
ten form a consensus, but when we deal
with the European Community as a unit
their expression is almost always criticism
of the U.S. So in the long run one of the
issues that must be settled first by the Eu-
ropeans and then within the North Atlan-
tic region is whether common purposes
can be developed in the absence of an over-
riding threat, or whether those who share
similar histories are doomed to repeat the
weakness of Western civilization: the in-
ability to submerge selfish or particular
interests in a common good.

Asia

With Asia we deal with a structure that
is comparable to Europe in the 19th cen-
tury: countries that think of each other as

potential strategic and
economic opponents in
terms of equilibrium
and balance of power
rather than of integra-
tion. For America the
challenge of a country
like China is to avoid
the temptation to slide
it into the position va-
cated by the Soviet
Union, as a kind of per-
manent enemy against
which all our efforts
have to be directed. As
a military threat, China
is insignificant for the
next 10 to 15 years. It
had a military budget in
1999 of $12 billion.
Even at $20 billion, that
is still less than half of
what the surrounding
countries have: Japan
having $150 billion and
the U.S. over $300 bil-

Mr. Secretary, meet the
National Security Advisor

One unique aspect of Henry Kissinger's career is the fact that, as he pointed out when he thanked immediate past Club president Skip Rhodes for his introduction, "There was a time when I was simultaneously National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. The only reason I mention it," Kissinger said, "is because never before and never since have relations between the White House and the State Department been as friendly and amicable as they were in those days."

lion. Whatever danger China represents
in terms of its economic evolution and
what might have happened 20 to 25 years
ago, our challenge is how we can best af-
fect that today, whether by a policy that is
open to cooperation or by a policy of con-
frontation that may feed Chinese nation-
alism. Do we assume it will happen any-
way and start trying to reduce the Chi-
nese evolution at a moment when politi-
cal changes are inevitable? No country can
undergo the economic changes that China

*continued on next page*

THE COMMONWEALTH 3 SEPTEMBER 3 2001

KISSINGER *continued*

From left: Henry Kissinger, Commonwealth Club board member Rose Guilbault, Richard Guilbault.

is undergoing without some changes in the political structure. In 2003, the current Chinese leadership will change; they have a 70-year-old retirement age and a two-term limit, which will catch everybody at the current top level of China. A lot depends on how we interpret the future.

## The Middle East

If we go to the Middle East we are in Europe of the 17th century: a period of religious, ideological conflict in which, paradoxically, the surest way to produce an explosion is to attempt to bring about a final settlement, forcing each side to accept things that they might acquiesce in, in the name of coexistence, but cannot accept in the name of permanence. This is why last year the very idealistic and very American attempt to bring the two leaders of the Palestinians and Israel to Camp David, trying to settle in one week those deep conflicts, produced not progress towards peace, but emphasized the most radical elements who then took charge of the subsequent de-

all the time. Foreign policy requires an ability to grasp the past and project it into the future. For any problem that has a practical, relatively short-term base, training on computers presents an enormous advantage over the previous way of learning, but it does not produce an incentive to train your memory, or to encourage conceptual thinking. There is a disparity between the ability to solve technical problems and the ability to solve historical problems. This is one of the distinguishing features of our period. In the 15th century, when printing developed, there was a huge expansion in the realm of knowledge. As learning shifted from pure memory – without books – to the availability of a vast expansion of knowledge, it also led to the disintegration of the universal church and the so-called Holy Roman Empire. It took 150 years of political turmoil until thinking adjusted to the new reality. The doctrine of national sovereignty that people often criticize today as one of the sources of international tension developed as the human rights doctrine of that period; it was designed to

prevent the incursions of foreign armies, in the name of religion, into the territories of countries and to substitute some domestic order for what had turned into a European-wide civil war.

These are some of the challenges facing us that I've tried to deal with in my book, summed up in a proverb – or an alleged proverb – that a Chinese friend told me: "When there is turmoil under the heavens, little problems are dealt with as if they were big problems. And big problems are not dealt with at all. When there is order under the heavens, big problems are reduced to little problems and little problems should not obsess us."

The fundamental challenge before the world today is whether we can recognize and distinguish big problems from little problems, whether we can reduce big problems to little problems. After all I've said about the difficulties America has in forming an overriding concept, there is no other country that has the optimism, self-confidence and faith that America has shown. This is our opportunity and, in a way, our obligation; we cannot solve every problem, but few of these problems and none of the fundamental ones can be solved without us.

## Q&A for Henry Kissinger

### Q: What does the term "globalization" mean to you?

A: Globalization is a concept that is applied primarily to the economic world and it argues that free markets on a global basis will produce the best conditions for everybody, that the attempt to keep a nation or a region behind walls, tariff walls, or other walls, leads to a lowering in standards of living and eventually to a global crisis. With financial markets being truly worldwide and with technology being in many respects, fungible, the world from the economic point of view has become one large economic institution. This is challenged vocally by many groups and serious people – not the ones looking for a pretext for demonstrations – who point out that while globalization produces rapid economic progress in many countries, especially developing countries, it produces political and spiritual dislocation

bate.

## Changing Conceptual Thinking

In almost every country, domestic politics overwhelm long-range foreign policy thinking. Much foreign policy thinking is geared to timetables that are much shorter than the historic process. In dealing with this issue, we also face

a profound cultural transformation. I belong to a generation that was brought up on books; I can't even type. When you're brought up on books, you must train your memory and develop concepts because you can't keep rereading the same book

> "Much foreign policy thinking is geared to timetables that are much shorter than the historic process."

## '76 - '84 - '01

Henry Kissinger also addressed The Commonwealth Club in February 1976, during his tenure as Secretary of State, when he focused on the U.S.S.R., the SALT treaty, and Angola. In 1984 he spoke on "American Foreign Policy: Problems and Opportunities" and discussed U.S.-Soviet relations as well as Central America.

Hear Kissinger's 2001 speech in digital audio and read transcripts of his 1976 and 1984 speeches online at www.commonwealthclub.org.

THE COMMONWEALTH 4 SEPTEMBER 3 2001

[L]

as people move from the countryside to the city. Economics alone is not an answer to the political issues that are raised; there is potential for incongruity between the economic progress and the political base for it.

**Q: Putin is urging Russia's eventual inclusion in NATO, or in a new and broader European pact, in order to avoid different security levels and mistrust. What are your views on broadening NATO?**

A: NATO is the one political organization that ties us to Europe, formed originally because of the fear of Soviet aggression, shared by most of the European countries. Some of the traditional bonds of NATO have weakened as a result of the disappearance of a Soviet threat. On the other hand, if you travel in Eastern Europe - Poland, Hungary or the Czech Republic - they will not accept the proposition that there's no longer a Russian threat. You can read in the papers that high-ranking officials say, "Russia is no longer an enemy," but then the Russians'

question is, "If we are no longer an enemy, why do you have NATO?" This is not the time to debate the issue of whether Russia should be in NATO, because that would produce a huge dislocation in ex-

isting arrangements. It is the time to work out political relationships with Russia which permit a parallel approach to international problems over a sufficient period of time, so that we can then decide what happens to NATO and what happens to Russia's relationship. The first challenge is what kind of political relationship we'd like to evolve with Russia before we deal

with the NATO question, and what happens on the issue of missile defense. It is possible, based on what I've seen there, to come to an understanding with Russia on missile defense, but what form that takes and how it is institutionalized has not yet

the expansion of NATO to other European countries, and that in a way runs counter to the attempt to improve relations with Russia.

**Q: And what do you think should be a condition of entry into NATO?**

A: The key issue will be Slovenia and Slovakia and the other Baltic states, the countries in the Balkans, the

former satellites of the Soviet Union. It's a practical decision: to what extent we consider them threatened and to what extent we think it important for the stability of Europe to have them as members of NATO. Certainly there's no concern about adding Slovakia and Slovenia. The real question is the Baltics. The Baltics used to be part of the Soviet Union until the early 1990s, though the U.S. never recognized the takeover that occurred in 1940 and again at the end of World War II. On one hand, they're tiny countries that are totally exposed, so they have a massive security problem; on the other hand, the border of Estonia is 50 miles from St. Petersburg so we are not worried about Estonia in NATO, we are worried about NATO in Estonia. Is there any alternative? The Europeans are building a European force, which they claim can act outside of NATO - though it's never quite clear where that is supposed to be. I suggested to a group of European leaders that if you want to have a force, why not as-

*continued on next page*

From left: Michael Nacht (Dean, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley), Henry Kissinger, Blas Pérez-Henriquez (former Club quarterly chair).

> **"This is our opportunity and, in a way, our obligation; we cannot solve every problem, but few of these problems and none of the fundamental ones can be solved without us."**

been settled within our government. The debate on Russian membership in NATO is something that should be left for the future; long before that is reached we are going to have a debate next year about

THE COMMONWEALTH 5

SEPTEMBER 3 2001

**KISSINGER** *continued*

sign it to defend members of the European Union that are not members of NATO; take the Baltic states into NATO, then we could back it up as a general guarantee without advancing the NATO frontier as such - that way there would be a security system which is not a direct challenge. It was not greeted with great enthusiasm.

The question of membership of the Baltic states in NATO is going to be a key question in our relationship with Russia. On the other hand, we cannot leave these countries hanging out there unprotected: Either they should be in NATO or some other security system should be devised, giving some assurance to people whose countries have been brutally occupied for many decades.

**Q: In light of the recent Harper's articles, how do you respond to charges that you helped destabilize democratically elected governments and should therefore be tried as a war criminal?**

**A:** I won't comment on the articles—which are untrue, reckless and contemptible—but I do want to comment on one aspect of this debate. The evolution of an international criminal code can represent great progress in international affairs, but if this is being used to score cheap political points—if people do not have the courage to disagree, to state their substance, but turn every dispute into an argument of their opponent being a war criminal, they are undermining the very goals that they are pretending to serve. I'm not worried about occasional articles of this kind, but we should remember that over the last 20 years

we went through many crises about which opinions in this country were severely divided and we will never heal these wounds if we do it on the basis of competitive discussions of criminal charges.

**Q: Comment on Beijing's bid to hold the Olympics in 2008 and the impact on the openness of China.**

**A:** I'm an honorary member of the Olympic Committee, which means that I have no vote. The International Olympic Com-

mittee theoretically, and I think practically, makes its decisions not on primarily political grounds. There is a general debate about whether giving the Olympics to China strengthens oppression on the human rights side or whether it strengthens the course of evolution in a positive direction. There are many shortcomings in the human rights record of China, but the transformations that have already taken place should be more adequately recognized. The IOC made the right decision and on balance, strengthens the forces that we all believe in.

**Q: Does the legacy of Vietnam still affect the intent of U.S. foreign policy?**

**A:** This is partly a question of generations. The generations that went through Vietnam find it almost impossible to separate themselves from positions they took 20 or so years ago. A few months ago, I spoke at a meeting in a university and somebody

warned me beforehand that it would lead to traditional arguments on Vietnam. But I said to this person, “My impression was that the students that I was talking to weren't quite sure whether the Vietnam War came before or after the Spanish-American War.” The generation that did not live through this period has a different perspective and therefore represents a hope to overcome this division.

I came into office with the Nixon ad-

ministration and we found 550,000 Americans in place in Vietnam and we had the responsibility for extricating them without catastrophe. It's inconceivable to me that any American administra-

tion would want to be in a position to commit hundreds of thousands of Americans to a regional conflict of such duration. We faced an offensive of the Vietnamese within two weeks of Nixon's coming into office in which there were 500 dead a week. There would be no tolerance for any casualties of this nature, so the conduct of our foreign policy would be severely circumscribed, and I think we have learned a lesson. The Kennedy and Johnson administrations that went into Vietnam did so for no good motives. They did not assess correctly what they were facing and they did not understand the difference between a country like Vietnam, which had not really been a national country, and the European experience from which they drew their lessons. That kind of mistake will not be made again; that lesson has been learned.

**Q: Comment on the Bush administration's foreign policy in its first six months.**

> **“Economics alone is not an answer to the political issues that are raised.”**

Protestors outside the Fairmont Hotel during Henry Kissinger's speech.

THE COMMONWEALTH 6 SEPTEMBER 3 2001

A: I supported President Bush in the election and the people in high office are all people I've known for decades and many of them are personal friends of mine. Any new administration when it takes over, no matter what the quality of people, is not running the foreign policy of the U.S. It's not about having great soloists; it's a question of turning them into an orchestra and that takes a while in any administration. I agree with the basic direction of the foreign policy of the Bush administration. Some of the tactics have sometimes been a little unilateral for my taste and could have been tactically better handled, but I support the basic direction of the Bush administration and have confidence in them.

**Q: You've commented on the missile defense system. Why is Europe so scared of the system and do you think Bush's push to restart it will have a destabilizing effect?**

A: In a world in which missiles and nuclear technology are spreading, and in which there is the possibility of irresponsible leaders in some of the established nuclear countries, I do not see how a president of the U.S. could face the American public if there were a small scale attack and explain why he refused to protect us against at least a certain level of danger. This issue of missile defense has become a very emotional issue on several grounds. Many people believe that the evolution of new technologies in the military field ought to be stopped simply to prevent an endless escalation of the arms race. They have a tendency to be against any new system for three different reasons: 1) it won't work; 2) it will work so well that it will destabilize the situation; 3) a better system is coming along in 10 years, so you're wasting money.

Within Europe some of the key countries are center-left governments which are already under attack by radical wings for being too moderate in economics, so they find it very hard to join approaches identified with America that are unpopular with their left wing. They have domestic reasons for being extremely cautious in inviting a domestic debate.

There is a serious argument about the impact of a missile defense system on the overall strategic situation. I would like to think it is possible to define a limit to the

missile defense – which will be primarily directed against accidents, unauthorized use and small scale attacks – without threatening the overall strategic equation. I have the impression, at least in Russia, that such a dialogue is possible. The next question will be how we embody that into an understanding or agreement. I do not believe that missile defense needs to be a destabilizing element.

**Q: How did your experience at George Washington High School prepare you to strategize on the foreign policy level?**

A: George Washington High School is on 190th Street on Amsterdam Avenue in New York. I went there as an immigrant, a refugee from Germany, in 1938. When I was 15, I went there one year during the day and then for three years at night because I was working in a shaving brush factory. I was not concentrating on how to strategize for the U.S., and if anyone had told me then that I would first serve in the White House and then as secretary of state, I would have thought he was absolutely demeNTed. I would also say that there's no other country where you can go to these offices with an accent from George Washington High School other than the U.S.

THIS PROGRAM WAS MADE POSSIBLE WITH THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF THE MEMBERS OF OUR BUSINESS COUNCIL, INCLUDING CHEVRON CORPORATION AND BANK OF THE WEST. WE ARE GRATEFUL FOR THEIR SUPPORT.

### THURSDAY OCTOBER 30

#### Christopher Hitchens

Author, Letters to a Young Contrarian and The Trial of Henry Kissinger

Never one to shy away from controversy, in 2001 Hitchens lit a fire with accusations leveled at Henry Kissinger in *Harper's* and in a new book. Whether you agree with him or think he's way off the mark, hear what this outspoken writer has to say here in October – and, more important, bring your questions.

5:30 p.m., Registration • 6 p.m., Program • 7 p.m., Reception • Club office • $9 for members, $12 for non-members. For reservations call Club office, 415/597-6705/6706 or visit www.commonwealthclub.org.

### San Francisco Estuary: Achievements, Trends & the Future

October 9 - 11

Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, San Francisco

Is it safe to eat fish from the Bay? Are invasive species taking over? What are the challenging connections between water and energy? Learn more about the San Francisco Bay Estuary at the upcoming fifth State of the Estuary Conference, an important biennial event sponsored by the San Francisco Estuary Project, the CALFED Bay-Delta Program, and over 70 local, state and federal organizations and businesses, including The Commonwealth Club.

The conference provides an update on the environmental health of the Estuary and includes presentations on biological resources, invasive species, contaminants, restoration efforts, climate change, water and energy needs, growth and hazards in the Pacific Rim, and the proposed San Francisco Airport expansion. Spencer Michels of KQED moderates the airport panel.

A keynote address by Richard Katz, former member of the California State Legislature and a new member of the California State Water Resources Control Board, will be followed by a series of presentations on the urbanized Estuary. On Tuesday and Wednesday, programs will conclude with late afternoon receptions, providing an opportunity to view more than 100 posters and to talk informally with the presenters. Conference speakers include Sam Luoma, Peter Gleik, Malcolm Margolin, Gray Brechin, Khalil Abu-Saba, Mary Lou Zoback, Peter Moyle and Pat Showalter.

Program cost: Three days - $180; Two days - $150 (Tuesday & Wednesday); One day (Tuesday or Wednesday) - $80; Thursday only - $50. Location: Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon Street, San Francisco. For further information and to register online visit www.abag.ca.gov/events/estuary_state or call the San Francisco Estuary office, 510/622-2465.

THE COMMONWEALTH 7 SEPTEMBER 3 2001