Of Note: awards
Robert Bowie Receives the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Robert Bowie will celebrate his 100th birthday in August. To honor this milestone the president of the Federal Republic of Germany presented him with a high German decoration. At a ceremony attended by members of Bowie’s family, friends, and former Fellows, Ambassador Scharioth evoked Robert Bowie’s extraordinary career and role in postwar European and German history. Referring to "Germany’s integration in the West, Franco- German reconciliation, European integration, and, of course, German unification—which would have been impossible without the first two," the ambassador remarked that "in Robert Bowie, we today honor an outstanding member of America’s greatest generation who has made remarkable contributions to all of the above."
- Robert R. Bowie, the founding director of the then Center for International Affairs, is flanked by Karl Kaiser and the German Ambassador to the United States Klaus Scharioth (right) after receiving the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany at the German Embassy in Washington, D.C., on December 12, 2008. Photo courtesy of Karl Kaiser.
Robert Bowie, as was recalled on this occasion, played a very important role as assistant to General Lucius Clay in rebuilding German democracy in the immediate aftermath of World War II. As legal advisor to John J. McCloy, U.S. high commissioner to Germany, Bowie authored some of the most crucial clauses of the agreement between the Allies and West Germany. In so doing, he defined with amazing foresight the goals and conditions of the West’s policy with regard to making a united Germany an integral part of the West, which became reality four decades later. The ambassador stressed that Robert Bowie was one of those influential Americans who was convinced that a united Europe, based on Franco- German reconciliation, would become a close partner of the United States. As a close friend of Jean Monnet and an admirer of Konrad Adenauer, Bowie relentlessly worked toward this goal.
After returning to the United States, Robert Bowie continued to support these causes as head of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff and as a member of the Eisenhower administration. In 1957 as the newly appointed founding director of the Center for International Affairs, Bowie made the political, strategic, and economic aspects of relations with Europe one of the central foci of Harvard’s new research center.
Referring to the 60th anniversary of the Federal Republic of Germany, Ambassador Scharioth concluded his tribute by stating "…a united, prosperous, and democratic Germany, a Germany that is firmly integrated in the West and lives in peace with all its neighbors, this is also Robert Bowie’s life’s work." Warmly applauded, Robert Bowie thanked the ambassador and to the delight of the audience attending the ceremony recalled his encounters with the great politicians of the postwar period who had shaped a new relationship between Europe and the United States, a relationship he declared to be of continued crucial importance to the future of democracy and world order. He also stressed that he had always considered it the Center’s role to promote these goals and explicitly mentioned the Fellows Program as an important instrument to foster understanding and networking among policy makers to advance these causes.
Beth A. Simmons and Philippe Aghion Named Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Beth A. Simmons, director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs in the Department of Government, and Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Philippe Aghion, Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics, have been named American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) Fellows. Considered to be one of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies, Academy members include 160 Nobel Prize laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners.
Graham Allison Receives National Academy of Sciences’ Award
Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Graham Allison, director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, received the 2009 National Academy of Sciences’ Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War. According to the NAS Web site, he is being honored "for illuminating alternative ways of thinking about political decision making with special relevance to crises, including nuclear crises, as demonstrated in his groundbreaking Essence of Decision and subsequent work."
Two Faculty Associates Named 2009 Carnegie Scholars
Weatherhead Center Faculty Associates Asim Ijaz Khwaja and Tarek Masoud have been named 2009 Carnegie Scholars by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The honorees were selected for their compelling ideas and commitment to enriching the quality of the public dialogue on Islam. Khwaja and Masoud will receive two-year grants of up to $100,000 from the foundation.