Straight talk from lecture

JOSEPH N. BELL

The Newport Beach Library Foundation wound up this season’s

Distinguished Speakers Lecture Series with a winner against some

tough competition. A responsive audience that could have been

watching the Lakers’ first playoff game against Minnesota showed up

last Friday night to hear former United Nations ambassador Nancy

Soderberg. This in spite of the fact that she is an admitted Democrat

who worked for Bill Clinton and was probably going to say good things

about the United Nations.

The turnout for Soderberg speaks well for a community seeking a

variety of viewpoints on critical national issues and a Library

Foundation that provides speakers who make that possible. It takes a

lot of dedicated work on the part of foundation members and financial

support from local residents and businesses to attract the quality of

speakers to which we’ve become accustomed, but they’ve been bringing

it off for seven years.

A dramatic example that the foundation is on its game showed up

last Sunday on CBS-TV’s “60 Minutes.” The lead interview was with

recently retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, whose dedicated and decorated 40

years of service to the U.S. Marine Corps, both military and

diplomatic, qualified him superbly to deliver some straight talk

about the accountability of the Bush administration architects of the

Iraq war for the mess we are in there today. Distinguished Speakers’

subscribers heard Zinni deliver a similar message at our public

library a month ago -- and had a chance to question him afterward.

Soderberg’s qualifications for speaking on the U.N. -- she has

held high-level foreign policy and national security posts in the

Clinton White House, the United Nations and the U.S. Congress and is

currently director of a multinational organization called the

International Crisis Group -- are as solid as Zinni’s, but she comes

at her subject a little more obliquely. She threw us some local bones

before plunging into her topic, and she was heavy early on with

dubious poll numbers -- 61% of Americans feel these are the most

dangerous times in our history, seven of eight Muslim countries feel

threatened by the U.S., that sort of thing. But the meat was

decidedly there.

Given the current somber news tidings, she was remarkably upbeat,

combining her tough criticisms of the course we have taken over the

past year with an assurance that we are finally stumbling onto the

right track.

“Winston Churchill liked to tell us that Americans have a history

of getting it right, but only after exhausting all other

alternatives,” Soderberg said. “And we are beginning to get it right

in Iraq, even though the map to peace is still on the side of the

road in Washington where they are mostly just reacting to events.

“The Bush people came to office with the myth that they could

shape the world,” she continued. “In that vision, the U.N. was

sidelined and ridiculed instead of seen as a useful tool and part of

the solution. I’ve never seen such acrimony in the U.N. as there was

during the debate before the attack on Iraq. The Bush people pushing

the attack had never before been involved in nation-building, and

they fundamentally misunderstood what had to be done.”

But she sees this depressing scenario starting to turn around as

the U.N. “has begun to come back in style” with the Bush

administration. She warns there won’t be a dramatic change, that it

may take three to five years to “get it right,” but at least we are

headed in the right direction. And to stay on course, we need an exit

strategy, a new legitimate government in Iraq, and a gradual

withdrawal of our forces.

“It’s going to be a long and tough fight,” she said. “A lot of bad

stuff is going to continue. So it’s essential that we find more

modest goals to define success, which won’t really start until there

are successful elections next year. Meanwhile, we have no more urgent

agenda than pursuing a fundamental change in the attitude of the Arab

world toward the United States.”

When I talked with Soderberg briefly afterward, she made two

points I found of special interest. First, Secretary of State Colin

Powell is coming back in favor at the expense of the Pentagon

neo-cons as Bush changes direction. And, second, there is a heavy

load of resentment toward the U.S. at the United Nations, but that

won’t stop other countries from pursuing “the right thing,” even if

it gets Bush off the hook.

As we left the auditorium, each member of the audience was given a

card on which to suggest speakers they would like to hear in upcoming

programs. I called Lizanne Witte, who has been deeply involved in the

process of selecting and negotiating with prospective speakers, to

find out how that process works and what may be in store for next

year.

She told me this year isn’t over yet. The foundation lucked into

an opportunity within their budget range to land New York Times

columnist and PBS commentator David Brooks for a one-night stand on

June 18 and jumped at it.

The new season, she said, is still uncertain while foundation

workers study upcoming books and project compelling interests as they

try to psych out the Zinnis who will turn into stellar attractions.

“Next year,” she said, “we probably couldn’t afford the general.

We got him just in time.”

I skipped the dinner that followed Soderberg’s Friday night talk

in an effort to catch the end of the Laker game. I was too late, of

course, but still in plenty of time to watch the Angels. Between

innings I tried to think up affordable candidates for the library

series. Witte told me they were looking for speakers who were “both

funny and bright.”

I couldn’t get beyond Shaquille O’Neal and Mike Scioscia. I’m not

sure they qualify, but they’d probably come too high, anyway. If you

have any better thoughts, drop them off at the library. Meanwhile,

Brooks assuredly does qualify.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.