Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel came together for an afternoon of political, cultural and artistic discussion on Monday in Gaston Hall.
The event, titled “A Unique Conversation,” was a welcome back to Georgetown for Havel, who spoke in Gaston Hall 15 years ago.
Havel came to visit Washington, D.C., in 1990, shortly after the Velvet Revolution, during which peaceful protestors overthrew the communist government in Czechoslovakia. He said that Georgetown was one of the first places he visited after the revolution.
“I wanted to visit students because students played a very important role in our Velvet Revolution,” Havel said.
After that 1990 visit, Havel served as president of Czechoslovakia until 1992, when Slovakia declared its independence. He was the president of the new Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003.
Havel spoke Monday about the deep political changes that the Czech Republic has undergone in recent years and emphasized the republic’s membership in NATO, which it joined in 1999, and the European Union, which it entered last year.
“It’s extremely important for us that we are members of NATO and the EU,” he said, “because in this moment we have the feeling that our country is equipped in the international context.”
Havel also stressed the need for the Czech Republic to bolster its defense against terrorism.
“There is a completely different enemy,” he said. “Terrorism is much more complicated.”
Albright, who was born in Czechoslovakia, began her remarks with a verbal jab at John Bolton, President Bush’s nominee for U.N. ambassador – the position Albright held during the first Clinton administration.
Referring to a briefing School of Foreign Service Dean Robert Gallucci gave her at the beginning of her term, she said, “All I can say is your briefing is a lot better than Bolton’s.”
After the discussion between Albright and Havel, the audience was invited to ask questions, which ranged from the political to the personal.
Michael Ledecky, a fourth grader at the Little Flower School in Bethesda, Md., asked about the Czech Republic’s relationship with Slovakia for a report he was doing for his class. Havel replied that “relations have never been better.”
The questioning session was disrupted at one point by a man who demanded a promise of restitution for the 3.5 million Germans that were displaced from the Sudetenland in what he called a “theft of homeland.” The man then addressed Albright, saying that he heard that her family owned paintings that were originally the property of the displaced Germans.
Havel responded at length in Czech and then said in English that the Germans’ belongings had already been returned.
Albright told the man to read her book for her response. When he tried to interject, she cut him off, and he relinquished the microphone.
Some of the students in attendance came from Professor James Collins’ European Civilization class, which recently finished studying Havel.
“You could tell in his answers that they could have significant diplomatic repercussions to his country,” Collins said. “He was being more indirect than he would if he were a private citizen.”
Other students said that they had come to see Albright.
“I’ve always been a fan of Madeleine Albright,” Molly Keogh (SFS ’08) said. “I actually didn’t know much about Havel except for what’s in Madeline Albright’s autobiography, so I wanted to learn more.”
The event was sponsored by the SFS dean’s office.
