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2002 INDUCT ION CEREMONY

On October 5, 2002, the Academy welcomed its223rd class of members at an Induction Ceremonyat Harvard’s Sanders Theatre. Nearly 75 percent ofthis year’s class of 177 Fellows and 30 ForeignHonorary Members attended. An overview of theceremony was published in the Fall 2002 editionof the Academy’s Newsletter.

President Patricia Meyer Spacks (University of Virginia), VicePresident Louis Cabot (Cabot-Wellington, LLC), Secretary EmilioBizzi (MIT), and Executive Officer Leslie Berlowitz congratulatedeach of the new members in turn. Six inductees addressed themembership on the challenges facing the world and the Academyat the beginning of a new century: cosmologist Edward W. Kolb ofthe Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the University ofChicago, medical researcher Nancy Andreasen of the University ofIowa, historian and dean Philip S. Khoury of MIT, novelist ChinuaAchebe of Bard College, news analyst Daniel Schorr of NationalPublic Radio, and US Senator Edward M. Kennedy of theCommonwealth of Massachusetts.Their remarks appear below, inthe order presented.

Edward W. Kolb

In this hyperspecialized and finely partitioned mod-ern world, there is precious little contact betweenthe sciences, the humanities, the arts, and govern-ment. One of the hallmarks of this Academy is thatit brings together artists, writers, scientists, andpoliticians so we can stand together, arms locked incamaraderie, and present a united front for the artsand sciences.

I would like to make some remarks about connec-tions between seemingly unrelated investigations.The great American naturalist and conservationistJohn Muir said, “When you tug on a single thingin nature, you find it connected to the rest of theuniverse.” Organizations may divide the sciencesinto departments, from astronomy to zoology, butNature herself is not so neatly partitioned. AsMuir said, everything is connected to the rest ofthe universe.

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The most exciting research areas in the sciences areinterdisciplinary. It’s a magic moment when peoplerealize that single things they are tugging on area common thread in nature’s tapestry. We seem tobe in the midst of such a realization in the study ofthe universe.

As a cosmologist, I study the largest objects in theuniverse—galaxies and filamentary structures hun-dreds of millions of light years across. But I work atFermilab, a particle accelerator laboratory, where weprobe the smallest things in the universe—quarksand other fundamental particles and forces. Theremarkable fact is that to understand the largestthings, we must study the smallest things. Webelieve that galaxies and everything else in the cos-mos arose from the action of submicroscopic forcesin the first billionth of a second after the big bang.We can’t understand galaxies without understandingquarks. Tugging on quasars connects us to quarks.

Modern cosmology began a hundred years ago inBern, Switzerland, when a Swiss civil servant—atechnical expert third class, working in the patentoffice—scribbled some equations on a piece ofpaper and started down the road to relativity. Thediscoveries of Albert Einstein sparked the scientificrevolution of the twentieth century. They rankamong humanity’s greatest achievements. They are

Edward W. Kolb (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratoryand University of Chicago).

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part of the framework for our understanding of theorigin and evolution of the universe.

The development of the big bang model by Einsteinand others was a triumph of twentieth-century sci-ence. We now understand the evolution of the uni-verse from the time of the bang, 15 billion years ago,until today. In spite of the great successes of moderncosmology, I believe that as we start the twenty-firstcentury, we are poised for a sweeping revolution inour understanding of the universe.

The reason I think we are on the verge of a new rev-olution traces back to, of all things, an accountingirregularity—one that makes recent accountingissues look like small change. I don’t want to alarmyou, but 95 percent of the mass and energy of theentire universe seems to be missing. Well, it’s notexactly missing—we know it is there, because wecan measure its effects—but it seems to be invisible.

This is a story that has been unfolding since 1933,when astronomers first suspected that there wasmuch more to the universe than meets the eye.Striking recent observations confirm that the neu-trons, protons, and electrons of which we are madecomprise just a few percent of the total mass of theuniverse. It seems that most of the universe is inthe form of an undiscovered elementary particle.

In 1543 the Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicusproposed that Earth is not the center of the solar sys-tem. In 1918 the American astronomer HarlowShapley, a former president of the AmericanAcademy of Arts and Sciences, proved that our solarsystem is not the center of our galaxy, and in 1924the American astronomer Edwin Hubble discoveredthat our Milky Way galaxy is but one of billions inthe universe. Perhaps we have finally reached theend of the Copernican revolution. Not only are wenot at the center of the universe, but also, the verystuff of which we are made is only a very small frac-tion of the matter of the universe.

Just when we started to face up to the possibility ofinvisible matter, in 1998, astronomers uncoveredevidence that the universe is being pulled apart by

a mysterious dark pressure force. It seems thatevery nook and cranny of space is full of a new typeof dark energy. If this is true, each liter of spacecontains a million volts of dark energy.

Thankfully, cosmic accounting irregularities arenot a scandal but an opportunity. Unlocking thesecrets of dark matter and dark energy may spark anew revolution as far-reaching as Einstein’s. Perhapsthere are more than three dimensions of space.Infinite, hidden dimensions may be awaiting dis-covery. Or maybe the fundamental building blocksof nature are not particles after all, but extendedobjects we call strings. Perhaps there is more togravity than Newton or even Einstein imagined.Whatever the explanation, it is certain to involvethe interplay of nature on the smallest scales andon the largest scales.

As a theoretical physicist, I am paid to make pre-dictions, so I’ll predict that in five years the darkmatter and dark energy will be understood to resultfrom the existence of dimensions of space we haveyet to explore. I could also predict exactly how thisremarkable discovery will revolutionize philosophy,art, religion, government, technology, and every-day life, but I see that my five minutes are up.

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President Patricia Meyer Spacks (University of Virginia), Vice PresidentLouis Cabot (Cabot-Wellington LLC), and Secretary Emilio Bizzi (MIT).

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Nancy Andreasen

As a representative of the biological sciences, I’dlike to speak briefly about the importance ofintegrity—particularly integrity in the twenty-firstcentury. A comment made by Albert Einstein in alecture at the California Institute of Technologywill provide a context for my remarks: “Concernfor man himself and his fate must always be thechief interest of all technical endeavors . . . in orderthat the creations of our mind shall be a blessingand not a curse to mankind.” Einstein, above all,understood the promises and the perils of science.

Why integrity? Because the essence of its mean-ing—derived from integer, or oneness—provides uswith a compass that we may use to navigatebetween the perils and promises that we will con-front in the biological sciences during the twenty-first century. It may serve to remind us that wemust seek, achieve, and teach integration ratherthan divisiveness, and that our decisions todaymust be shaped by a recognition that we all share aoneness with humanity, here on the one planet onwhich we live, now and for what we all hope willbe many future generations.

Einstein’s century was the century of physics. Basicand applied physics have given us many things: air-planes and spaceships, telephones and television,computers and compact discs, nuclear power andnuclear weapons. In the year 2002 we can commu-nicate with one another, and also harm one another,in ways that we would never have dreamed of in theyear 1902.

Our century is likely to become the age of biology.At the fine-grained level of cells and molecules, wehave launched the twenty-first century by mappingthe genome. This accomplishment, much touted inthe media, is exceedingly modest in comparisonwith what is yet to be done. We are already begin-ning to perceive just a few of the sensational (andsensationalized) implications, such as the ability toclone sheep or human beings. The science ofmolecular biology offers us many benefits. We canpotentially replace damaged genes or damaged cells

in order to treat, and perhaps even cure, a variety ofdiseases: cystic fibrosis and multiple polyposis,Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, cardiacdisease and cancer. We will also be able to summa-rize the biological contents of every individualhuman being by the ultimate identity card: a profileof the individual genetic mutations that uniquelycharacterize each of us, or single nucleotide poly-morphisms (SNPS), colloquially referred to as“snips.” This summary of personal genetic endow-ment is a quintessential definition of what each per-son actually is, or is going to become, at the bio-logical level. Will we know how to use this andother genetic information wisely, once we have it?

At a higher level, we are also mapping the humanbrain, using the tools that I happen to pursue.Technologies such as magnetic resonance imagingand positron emission tomography permit us tolook inside the human head and literally watch thebrain think and feel. Within a few minutes afterobtaining a magnetic resonance scan, we can givesomeone a picture of her brain and tell her its sizein cubic centimeters, how much of it is gray mat-ter, and how much is white matter. Only a fewyears ago, such vivid pictures of the whole brainsurface could be obtained only after death. Nowwe can obtain these measures in living humanbeings, repeat them every year if we wish, and plot

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Nancy Andreasen (University of Iowa).

how the brain is growing in young children orshrinking in older people as they age. We can seethe brain shift its blood flow to multiple intercon-nected regions when people perform the manycomplex mental tasks that make us human—remembering the past, planning the future, feelingjoy or sorrow. Through magnetoencephalographywe can even watch this happen in real time,observing how the visual cortex records an imageof a face and then passes it on to areas such as thefrontal or temporal lobes so that the brain can rec-ognize whose face it is. We can also see how thebrains of people with illnesses such as schizophre-nia, Alzheimer’s disease, or autism perform thesemental activities differently. Someday these imag-ing tools may permit us to predict who is likely tobecome ill even before the illness itself begins. Suchmeasures of personal brain endowment may alsosomeday tell us not only what each person is, butalso what that person is going to become, at thebiological level. Again, will we know how to usethis information wisely, once we have it? Will weuse it to prevent diseases and develop new treat-ments, or will we use it to find more sophisticatedways to discriminate against and stigmatize theunfortunate people who have or will develop brainillnesses, such as schizophrenia?

We biological scientists are being inducted into theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences, not artsor sciences. C. P. Snow warned many years agoabout the dangers of creating “two cultures,” theculture of the humanities and the culture of sci-ence. My own personal journey has taken me frombeing a young professor of Renaissance English lit-erature to now being a somewhat older physicianand neuroscientist. Although people sometimescomment on how disparate these two careers are, Ifind that I am sustained by my training in thehumanities on an almost daily basis as I performmy activities as a scientist. In order to use wiselythe enormous biological knowledge that we willdevelop in the twenty-first century, we must createa healthy integration between domains such as phi-losophy or history and domains such as moleculargenetics or neuroscience. Ultimately, we will find

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the integrity that we need to exploit the promisesand avoid the perils of modern biology by creatinga unified discourse between the two culturesembodied in this Academy—the cultures of thearts and the sciences.

This sense of our twenty-first-century need foroneness, integrity, and integration—whether it bea unity of past, present, and future, of I and thou,or of arts and sciences—is beautifully expressed byWilliam Butler Yeats in the final lines of one of myfavorite poems, “Among School Children”:

O chestnut tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom, or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Philip S. Khoury

I have been asked to speak on behalf of thehumanities and social sciences. As a historian, Iam part of both, though I must admit that I amalso somewhat out of fashion in each. Forinstance, I belong neither to the wing of thehumanities associated with cultural studies nor tothe wing of the social sciences that applies math-ematical and other methods of measurement tothe study of socioeconomic and political behav-ior. But as an academic administrator responsiblefor the humanities and social sciences at my uni-versity, I have greatly benefited from the opportu-nity to read and debate with colleagues belongingto these two very different approaches to learn-ing—approaches that in some sense constitute themethodological bookends of the humanities andsocial sciences.

I think that one of the most difficult challengesfacing the humanities and social sciences in thistrying period in our country’s history is how toraise the level of awareness of cultures other thanour own, and especially of so-called non-Westerncultures, which I shall refer to as “distant cultures.”As an area studies specialist, I have thought about

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this challenge for many years, but never with moreurgency than in the past year.

For all that the forces of globalization have done tomake our world visibly interdependent, and for allthe information and knowledge-sharing that thetechnologies underpinning globalization have pro-duced, it is quite remarkable how parochial weAmericans still seem to be in our understanding ofdistant societies and, by extension, in our inter-actions with some of them. There are reasons forthis parochialism: the vast size of the United Statesand its historic self-containment; our comparativelyrecent involvement with much of the rest of theworld outside of Europe; and our tendency to judgeother societies in terms of how they resonate withour two most cherished values of individual free-dom and democracy (even though we have tendedto suspend their promotion abroad when they con-flict with our strategic and material interests).

In the wake of the monstrous tragedy of September11, Americans—in spite of shock, anger, and puz-zlement—have begun to express an unprecedented(in my experience) desire for information andanalysis about the complex and diverse culturesand societies of the Middle East and the widerIslamic world, and even beyond. Unfortunately,what the public has mainly had to rely on are sim-plistic theories and frameworks of interpretation

Newly elected Fellow Philip S. Khoury (MIT).

that view the world in terms of opposites, of back-wardness against progress, of clashing civilizations,of the forces of evil against the forces of good.Meanwhile, those who have other knowledge andwho have long rejected simplistic theories andframeworks for more richly nuanced portraits ofdistant cultures are seemingly incapable of render-ing them intelligible to the public. Why? In partbecause our specialized, rather insular training hashindered the development of sufficient numbersof synthesizers and generalizers among us, and inpart because those who have such capacities havenot managed to gain regular access to our coun-try’s major channels of communication.

The challenge, then, is to bring greater understand-ing of distant cultures and societies to an Americanpublic whose curiosity is growing. Our interpreta-tions must be critical and unapologetic, but theymust not presume that cultures other than our ownare inferior or are bent on undermining our valuesand traditions, September 11 notwithstanding. Inthis way, we will contribute to making ourselvesmore responsible citizens and to raising the qualityof debate within our government and policymakingcircles. And in this way we will be able to send tothe sidelines both the cultural chauvinists and theromantic apologists who are lowering the quality ofpublic discourse in this country.

I would note that at the very time that we, asAmericans, are trying to increase our awareness ofdistant cultures, we are trying even harder to locateand reassert our own core values. We are doing sonot only in reaction to the “attack against America”but also in reaction to an attack from withinAmerica by some whose enormous personal greedhas shaken our confidence and trust.

Any one of us whose business it is to study societiesother than our own knows that it is impossible todo so without revisiting our own values and tradi-tions. I would suggest that in these unsettlingtimes, there is an unusual opportunity to connectour desire and need to better understand distantcultures with our desire and need to examine andassert our own fundamental values.

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Let me conclude by circling back to the humanitiesand social sciences. Many of us gathered here todayknow that the value of a liberal arts education hasbeen diminished in the past quarter-century. Thehumanities and related social sciences are less influ-ential in our educational system and in our widersociety than they once were. There are complexfactors behind this loss of status and importance.We humanists and social scientists bear some of theresponsibility for not making our learning moreaccessible to the public and for not battling effec-tively the spread of narrowly oriented technicaltraining within our institutions of higher educa-tion. My hope is that by accepting the responsibil-ity to increase awareness of and engagement withmore distant cultures and societies, and by linkingthis effort to a reexamination of our own historyand increasingly rich and diverse culture, we canstrengthen the position of the humanities and thesocial sciences, and of liberal education generally.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, ofwhich I feel privileged to be a member, is alreadytaking the lead in making the case for the human-ities through its Initiative for the Humanities andCulture. Perhaps the Academy would also considertaking up the challenge of how to effectively trans-mit learning to the American public about distantcultures and, by extension, how to develop con-nections between this learning and the ongoingreexamination of our own social and cultural

Visiting Scholar Andrew Jewett with newly elected FellowAnne-Marie Slaughter (Princeton University).

underpinnings and historical development. Andwhile we are at it, shouldn’t we consider how tomore effectively transmit learning about Americansociety, traditions, and values in a critical andunapologetic manner to those very same distantsocieties that we need to know much more about?They are no less in need of knowing us than we areof knowing them. By so doing, we might at longlast produce a genuine dialogue of cultures.

Now, that’s at least a double challenge!

Chinua Achebe

Three years ago, here in Cambridge, ErnestHemingway’s African writing was considered suffi-ciently important and interesting by the organizersof his centennial celebration to deserve a panel ofits own, called “Writing Africa.” I was on thatpanel, as were Nadine Gordimer, K. AnthonyAppiah, and two Americans. One of the majorthemes of our discussion was Hemingway’s appar-ent lack of real interest in his African characters.Professor Appiah contrasted, to good effect, theelaborate attention Hemingway pays to what goeson in the mind of a wounded and vengeful lion inthe short story “The Short Happy Life of FrancisMacomber” with the absence of any concern forwhat goes on in the minds of the African servantswho serve the whiskey and carry the guns for thewhite hunters on safari. At question time, a youngwoman, clearly offended by our criticism ofHemingway, asked how we would write Africa. Ireplied, “Read our books.” I doubt that she rushedaway to follow this advice.

If I had to deal with that challenge again, I wouldbe more patient. I would tell that young womanthat what African writers do is take stories of Africawritten by Westerners and stand them on theirheads by giving center stage to those servants whobring the whiskey and carry the guns, as NadineGordimer does in July’s People and as I do in every-thing I write. In dealing with the gigantic problemof using a European language as a medium forwriting Africa, I have rejected the exotic broken

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English preferred in Europe’s tradition of so-calledAfrican romances. The English language has asmany dialects as anyone could wish, from that usedin the King James version of the Bible to countlessvarieties of authorized and unauthorized speech. Ihave chosen a version of English capable of match-ing the eloquence and gravitas of the speech ofAfrican elders. If you read the kinds of books I readgrowing up, in which African savages are presented,you will remember that they have no speech; theyhowl, screech, make all kinds of other noises.

What I heard growing up in my village was differ-ent, and that’s what I write about. I’m going to readyou a short passage* from my first novel, ThingsFall Apart, about an event in the life of the charac-ter Okonkwo. Okonkwo is in deep trouble. He isexiled from his community. He flees to his mother’svillage far away and is received by his uncle,Uchendu, but he is in great despair. The uncle, see-ing that Okonkwo is heading for deeper trouble,calls a meeting of the kindred to give advice toOkonkwo:

Chinua Achebe (Bard College).

*Reprinted from Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.Copyright � 1958 by Chinua Achebe. Published inNorth America by Heinemann, a division of ReedElsevier, Inc., Portsmouth, NH. Reprinted by permis-sion of the author and publisher.

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On the second day Uchendu called together hissons and daughters and his nephew, Okonkwo. Themen brought their goatskin mats, with which theysat on the floor, and the women sat on a sisal matspread on a raised bank of earth. Uchendu pulledgently at his gray beard and gnashed his teeth. Thenhe began to speak, quietly and deliberately, pickinghis words with great care:

‘It is Okonkwo that I primarily wish to speak to,’he began. ‘But I want all of you to note what I amgoing to say. I am an old man and you are all chil-dren. I know more about the world than any ofyou. If there is any one among you who thinks heknows more let him speak up.’ He paused, but noone spoke.

‘Why is Okonkwo with us today? This is not hisclan. We are only his mother’s kinsmen. He doesnot belong here. He is an exile, condemned forseven years to live in a strange land. And so he isbowed with grief. But there is just one question Iwould like to ask him. Can you tell me, Okonkwo,why it is that one of the commonest names we giveour children is Nneka, or “Mother is Supreme”? Weall know that a man is the head of the family and hiswives do his bidding. A child belongs to its fatherand his family and not to its mother and her family.A man belongs to his fatherland and not to hismotherland. And yet we say Nneka—“Mother isSupreme.” Why is that?’

There was silence. ‘I want Okonkwo to answer me,’said Uchendu.

‘I do not know the answer,’ Okonkwo replied.

‘You do not know the answer? So you see that youare a child. You have many wives and many chil-dren—more children that I have. You are a greatman in your clan. But you are still a child, my child.Listen to me and I shall tell you. But there is onemore question I shall ask you. Why is it that whena woman dies she is taken home to be buried withher own kinsmen? She is not buried with her hus-band’s kinsmen. Why is that? Your mother wasbrought home to me and buried with my people.Why was that?’

Okonkwo shook his head.

‘He does not know that either,’ said Uchendu, ‘andyet he is full of sorrow because he has come to live inhis motherland for a few years.’ He laughed a mirth-less laughter, and turned to his sons and daughters.‘What about you? Can you answer my question?’

They all shook their heads.

‘Then listen to me,’ he said and cleared his throat.‘It’s true that a child belongs to its father. But whena father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in itsmother’s hut. A man belongs to his fatherlandwhen things are good and life is sweet. But whenthere is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in hismotherland. Your mother is there to protect you.She is buried there. And that is why we say thatmother is supreme. Is it right that you, Okonkwo,should bring to your mother a heavy face andrefuse to be comforted? Be careful or you may dis-please the dead. Your duty is to comfort your wivesand children and take them back to your fatherlandafter seven years. But if you allow sorrow to weighyou down and kill you, they will all die in exile.’ Hepaused for a long while. ‘These are now your kins-men.’ He waved at his sons and daughters. ‘Youthink you are the greatest sufferer in the world? Doyou know that men are sometimes banished forlife? Do you know that men sometimes lose alltheir yams and even their children? I had six wivesonce. I have none now except that young girl whoknows not her right from her left. Do you knowhow many children I have buried—children Ibegot in my youth and strength? Twenty-two. I didnot hang myself, and I am still alive. If you thinkyou are the greatest sufferer in the world ask mydaughter, Akueni, how many twins she has borneand thrown away. Have you not heard the songthey sing when a woman dies?

‘“For whom is it well, for whom is it well? There is no one for whom it is well.”

‘I have no more to say to you.’

Daniel Schorr

Call it elitism if you wish, but I find it simply awe-some to be admitted into this impressive society ofAmerican luminaries. Yet, in candor, I must say thatI may be sailing under false colors. Presumably, the

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Fellows are chosen to epitomize the professions anddisciplines they come from. If I am supposed torepresent the world of journalism and communica-tions, this may be a big mistake. Over the years Ihave developed serious reservations about an indus-try in which I have worked for the past six decades.I have now come to feel alien to the media thatonce used to be the Press.

Having experienced journalism in its print, radio,and television incarnations, I have come to mournthe way my beloved profession has become pro-gressively oriented to entertainment, scandal, andprofit. I have become aware of increasing publichostility to an institution supposed to monitor theEstablishment, but now itself a vast establishment.A public that finds the media insensitive andexploitative is no longer willing to forgive us ourpress passes.

It is a long way from Hildy Johnson and “Hello,sweetheart, get me rewrite!” to the multimillion-dol-lar blow-dried television star of today. Sometimes itseems to me that our whole profession is crowdedinto a small corner of a vast entertainment stage,obliged to borrow the tools and values of entertain-ment and live by its standards in the grim strugglefor ratings that denote profits to the corporatenabobs who now control journalism’s destiny.

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Daniel Schorr (National Public Radio).

Edward R. Murrow, our idol at CBS, in a famousspeech to news directors in 1958, warned that tele-vision “insulates us from the realities of the world inwhich we live.” Time has borne him out. From O. J. Simpson to Monica Lewinsky, the media havedisplayed an inexorable attraction to scandal, alongwith violence and the hot pursuit of celebrities.

In the rush for ratings, no one is spared. Recently Isaw CNN dump out of a live speech by PresidentBush in order to switch to Los Angeles for the latestword from the sheriff on the investigation of a childkidnapping. I am not aware that the White Houseeven complained about this insult to the presidency.

The Internet has introduced a new dimension ofunedited irresponsibility in journalism. Do youremember how the Clinton scandal that led toimpeachment first got started? Self-styled gossip-monger Matt Drudge posted on the Web therumor that Newsweek was working on some storyabout the president and his relationship with anintern. In fact, Newsweek was working on a storyand holding it for further fact-checking. Drudgedidn’t see the need for checking. From gossip onthe Web, the story quickly escalated to the so-called mainstream media. So a gossipmonger start-ed the ball rolling to impeachment.

Our networks have displayed a willingness to takedictates from the government that once wouldhave been inconceivable. Remember when, in thewake of September 11, National Security AdviserCondoleezza Rice had a conference call with newsexecutives of the five networks and asked them toplay down a videotaped statement by Osama binLaden? They all agreed to do so and were praisedby the White House for their patriotism. In the1930s I heard a lot of Adolf Hitler on the radio. Itnever occurred to anyone that Americans might beunduly influenced by hearing him.

The definition of “journalist” has changed. A jour-nalist can be a pretty face and pleasant manner ofreading from a teleprompter. (A Pew ResearchCenter poll indicated that 77 percent of viewerslike news anchors who deliver news in “a friendly

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and informal way.”) Journalists can be talk-showhosts, skilled at getting guests to yell at each other.A journalist can be a celebrity who came throughthe revolving door from government. (Of the fiveSunday television hosts, two—Bob Schieffer ofCBS and Wolf Blitzer of CNN—are career jour-nalists. Three—George Stephanopoulos of ABC,Tim Russert of NBC, and Tony Snow of FOXNews—came from government.)

Occasionally, our news media measure up to theirresponsibility at a time of national tragedy. Tel-evision displayed its capacity to bind Americansinto a community at moments like the assassina-tions of John and Robert Kennedy. It reached newheights on September 11, and then on the anniver-sary of September 11. I was impressed by televi-sion’s willingness, on those occasions, to cancelmillions of dollars’ worth of commercials.

But the Ground Zero coverage is the exception.For the rest, I am sad about the state of journal-ism—a profession I have loved not always wisely,but well. So if you want someone who can speakfor the media, you have the wrong fellow.

I hope you don’t take my fellowship back. I wasjust getting to enjoy it.

Edward M. Kennedy

The Academy was founded two centuries ago inthe tradition of the highest ideals of our youngdemocracy. John Adams, John Hancock, and oth-ers established this distinguished community ofability and ideals—a place where the best mindscould convene and recommend measures toimprove public policy and benefit the lives of allour citizens. They envisioned an American centerfor the arts and sciences, and I know that theywould be very pleased today with the Academy’sachievements.

President Kennedy was proud to be inducted intothe Academy in 1955. Years later, at the WhiteHouse, he hosted a dinner honoring Nobel Prizewinners of the Western Hemisphere. In welcoming

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his guests that evening, he said, “I think this is themost extraordinary collection of talent, of humanknowledge, that has ever been gathered together atthe White House, with the possible exception ofwhen Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” Jack would saythe same thing, I’m sure, about the Academy today.

This Academy was founded at a time of greatuncertainty and challenge. Important as that chal-lenge was for our country, the founders under-stood that America could not afford to neglect thearts and humanities in the nation’s life. Our liter-ature and poetry, our music and dance, our paint-ings and sculpture help to define us as a people.They are not an extension of our national life;they are its expression.

As Adams said, “I must study politics and war thatmy sons may have the liberty to study mathematicsand philosophy . . . in order to give their childrenthe right to study painting, poetry and music.”

Much has been written of Adams in recent years.Thanks in large part to David McCullough, thenation’s second president has earned a prominenceand respect that even he could not have imagined.His vision so many years ago is at the very heart ofAmerican values today. We study his writings andaspire to his example. As future generations ofAmericans look back on this time in our history,

Edward M. Kennedy (US Senate).

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we want them to know that we too had the courageand wisdom to meet the challenges of our day—that we defended the principles of democracy andfreedom, and preserved our founding ideals andour national sense of purpose.

Today we face a new threat of war, one that willchange the way America is viewed by its allies andadversaries. The question of whether our nationshould attack Iraq is playing out in the context ofa more fundamental debate that is only just begin-ning—an all-important debate about how, when,and where in the years ahead our country will useits unsurpassed military might.

In September the Bush administration unveiled itsnew National Security Strategy. This documentaddresses the new realities of our age, particularlythe proliferation of weapons of mass destructionand terrorist networks armed with the agendas offanatics. The Strategy claims that these new threatsare so novel and so dangerous that we should “nothesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise ourright of self-defense by acting preemptively.”

The administration’s discussion of self-defenseoften uses the terms “preemptive” and “preventive”interchangeably. However, in the realm of interna-tional relations, these two terms have long had verydifferent meanings.

Traditionally, “preemptive” action refers to timeswhen states react to an imminent threat of attack.For example, when Egyptian and Syrian forcesmobilized on Israel’s borders in 1967, the threatwas obvious and immediate, and Israel felt justifiedin preemptively attacking those forces. The globalcommunity is generally tolerant of such actions,since no nation should have to suffer a certain firststrike before it has the legitimacy to respond.

By contrast, “preventive” military action refers tostrikes that target a country before it has developeda capability that could someday become threaten-ing. Preventive attacks have generally been con-demned. For example, the 1941 sneak attack onPearl Harbor was regarded as a preventive strike by

Japan, because the Japanese were seeking to blocka planned military buildup by the United States inthe Pacific. The coldly premeditated nature of pre-ventive attacks and preventive wars makes themanathema to well-established international princi-ples against aggression. Pearl Harbor has beenrightfully recorded in history as an act of dishon-orable treachery.

Historically, the United States has condemned theidea of preventive war, arguing that it violates basicinternational rules against aggression. But at timesin our history, preventive war has been seriouslyadvocated as a policy option.

In the early days of the cold war, some US militaryand civilian experts advocated a preventive waragainst the Soviet Union. They proposed a devas-tating first strike to prevent the Soviet Union fromdeveloping a threatening nuclear capability. At thetime, they said the uniquely destructive power ofnuclear weapons required us to rethink traditionalinternational rules.

That debate ended in 1950, when PresidentTruman ruled out a preventive strike, arguing thatsuch actions were not consistent with ourAmerican tradition. He said, “You don’t ‘prevent’anything by war . . . except peace.” Instead of a sur-prise first strike, the nation instead dedicated itselfto the strategy of deterrence and containment,which successfully kept the peace during the longand frequently difficult years of the cold war.

The argument that the United States should takepreventive military action in the absence of animminent attack resurfaced in 1962, when welearned that the Soviet Union would soon have theability to launch missiles from Cuba against ourcountry. Many military officers urged PresidentKennedy to approve a preventive attack to destroythis capability before it became operational. RobertKennedy, like Harry Truman, felt that this kind offirst strike was not consistent with American val-ues. He said that a proposed surprise first strikeagainst Cuba would be a “Pearl Harbor in reverse.”“For 175 years,” he said, “we have not been that

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kind of country.” That view prevailed. A middleground was found, and peace was preserved.

As these two cases show, American strategicthinkers have long debated the relative merits ofpreventive and preemptive war. Although nobodywould deny our right to preemptively block animminent attack on our territory, there is disagree-ment about our right to preventively engage in war.

The circumstances of our new world require us torethink this concept. The world changed onSeptember 11, and all of us have learned that it canbe a drastically more dangerous place. The Bushadministration’s new National Security Strategyasserts that global realities now legitimize preven-tive war and make it a strategic necessity.

The document openly contemplates preventiveattacks against groups or states, even absent thethreat of imminent attack. It legitimizes this kindof first-strike option, and it elevates it to the statusof a core security doctrine. Disregarding prece-dents of international law, the Bush strategy assertsthat our unique military preeminence exempts usfrom the rules we expect other nations to obey.

I strongly oppose any such extreme doctrine, andI’m sure that many of you do as well. Earlier gen-erations of Americans rejected preventive war onthe grounds of both morality and practicality, andour generation must do so as well. We can dealwith Iraq without resorting to this extreme.

It is impossible to justify any such double standardunder international law. Might does not makeright. America cannot write its own rules for themodern world. To attempt to do so would be uni-lateralism run amok. It would antagonize our clos-est allies, whose support we need to fight terrorism,prevent global warming, and deal with many otherdangers that affect all nations and require interna-tional cooperation. It would deprive America ofthe moral legitimacy necessary to promote our val-ues abroad. And it would give other nations anexcuse to violate important principles of civilizedinternational behavior.

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The administration’s doctrine is a call for twenty-first-century American imperialism that no othernation can or should accept. It is the antithesis ofall that America has worked so hard to achieve ininternational relations since the end of WorldWar II.

Obviously, the debate is only just beginning on theadministration’s new strategy for national security.But the debate is solidly grounded in Americanvalues and history. I know that all of you in thisdistinguished Academy will be part of it, and I lookforward to your contributions.

It will also be a debate among vast numbers ofwell-meaning Americans who have honest differ-ences of opinion about the best way to use US mil-itary might. The debate will be contentious, butthe stakes—in terms of both our national securityand our allegiance to our core beliefs—are too highto ignore.

On this and on so many other challenges we willface in the months and years ahead, I know thatthis Academy will help us all to live up to the idealsestablished by the founders of our country twocenturies ago.

Remarks � 2002 by Edward W. Kolb, NancyAndreasen, Philip S. Khoury, Chinua Achebe, DanielSchorr, and Edward M. Kennedy, respectively.

Photos � 2002 by Martha Stewart.