Senator Warner Speaks on War, Long Career; Answers Student Questions
By Elliot August ’08
Editor-in-Chief
On February 19th, the day after his 80th birthday, Virginia Senator John Warner visited campus to speak as the 2007 Adlai Stevenson ’18 Fellow. The visit was the second to Choate Rosemary Hall for Mr. Warner, who is currently serving in his twenty-ninth year as senator of the Commonwealth of Virginia. His first occurred last year when he spoke to the politics and history classes. At that point, he was still Chair of the Armed Services Committee, on eof the senate’s most powerful policy units.
Before Mr. Warner’s speech, select faculty members and students (including both Effecting Political Change sections) met with Senator Warner and his wife of three years, Jeanne, for dinner in the Sally Hart Lodge. At the dinner, Senator Warner urged students to ask him any question at all. As he explained, of the approximately 300 million people in the United States, only 100 are U.S. Senators.
Student questions ranged in topic from the current war in Iraq to Mr. Warner’s childhood. When asked whether he knew early on that he wanted to serve in public office, Senator Warner conceded that prior to his military service, he was not the most driven, hard working student. Following the dinner, the students and faculty in attendance walked down to the Paul Mellon Arts Center along with history and political science classes and other interested members of the Choate community, to hear Senator Warner’s speech.
The presentation opened with a few words from Andrew Ruben ’07, head of the Choate Young Democrats and this year’s Junior Stevenson Fellow. Every year in which a Stevenson Fellow is brought to Choate, the History Department also selects a student as the Junior Stevenson Fellow. The role of the Junior Stevenson Fellow is to inform the student body of the life and accomplishments of Mr. Adlai Stevenson II, in addition to reminding students of his importance to the Choate community. After Ruben spoke, faculty member Mr. Zachary Goodyear introduced Senator Warner to the audience.
Senator Warner began by addressing the Junior Stevenson Fellow, kidding Ruben that he had “butchered” one of the quotations from Mr. Stevenson that he himself had planned to use. He advised Drew that in order to succeed, “you are going to have to get a modicum of humility.” This prompted the Junior Fellow to redden slightly. Ruben later concurred with the Senator’s humorous advice, admitting sheepishly, “I think my friends, teachers, and family would agree.”
On a more serious note, Senator Warner relayed to the audience information that he had researched in preparation for his speech. He had discovered a few connections between himself and Mr. Stevenson. For example, in his first two years as senator, he served alongside Adlai Stevenson III, the son of Choate’s distinguished fellow.
Before getting into the bulk of what he had to say to the audience, Senator Warner expressed the intention to deliver his speech without regard to its affect outside of Choate. “I couldn’t care less if not a word left here and found its way into print or otherwise,” he explained. He stated that “I really want to have a sort of a heart to heart talk.”
Senator Warner stressed the importance of the help he has received over the course of his life, help that has assisted him in achieving his goals. He advised students to “stop to think, as you achieve your goals, [that] you are going to need help from many.”
Before he took any questions, however, Senator Warner read five quotations from Adlai Stevenson, reflecting briefly on the significance of each one. One of the important messages he relayed during this part of his speech related to endurance through tough times. He stated that, in the face of a loss, personal or occupational, “You’ve got to learn how to snap back.” He also commented on the new global community, and the frightening fact that, unlike in World War II, we no longer know who the enemy truly is. Finally, Senator Warner emphasized that, in a democratic community, if one is upset with what is going on they should personally move to make a change. Then, Mr. Warner stepped away from the podium and moved to center stage, prepared to answer student questions.
Rather than engaging students in an hour long speech however, Senator Warner opted to instead answer questions. He said that his father once taught him as a young man, “you learn absolutely nothing while you are talking, only while you are listening.” Therefore, he opened the floor to audience members who wished to ask about any subject, explaining that Choate students were in the presence of one of only one hundred senators and encouraging them to take advantage of the opportunity. He told the audience that “you can have at [me] as hard as you want to.”
Like those at the dinner at the Sally Hart Lodge, the questions posed to Senator Warner by the student body were varied. Senator Warner, with no prior knowledge of what students would be asking, remained poised and composed in answering each question. One student brought into question Mr. Warner’s voting record, highlighting that he had voted against stopping drilling in Alaska. Senator Warner explained that, having visited Alaska, he viewed that only a “very minute, small piece of acreage that would be affected by that drilling.” More importantly, however, was the implication that the U.S. could free itself of “the ever increasing bondage and dependence on foreign oil.”
On the hotly debated topic of the Iraq war, Senator Warner stated his dismay that, although 320,000 Iraqis have been trained as soldiers or policeman, American GI’s are still being forced to police the country. He disagreed with President Bush’s decision to send more troops into the Middle East. Rather, he stated, the U.S. should “get the Iraqi forces to take on getting the security of that nation.” American GI’s don’t speak the language, and they do not understand the dividing forces that have driven Iraqis to war for numerous years. That said, he would not support any current move to cut funding for the war or immediately bring all troops home. He explained that “there is nobody that wants to bring them [the troops] back home any faster than this senator, but we’re not going to do it until we see the Iraqis’ military begin to stabilize that country.”
Although the senator remained calm in answering most questions, one did catch him off guard. The question, posed by Adam King ’08 and Erik Rahtjen ’08, probed the senator regarding his views on gay marriages. After a long period of student laughter and applause, the senator laughed that “you really got me good.” The senator explained that “we have got to learn to accept our fellow man and woman.” Mr. Warner believed that, although gay couples should be granted the right to a legal bond, “the word marriage is reserved for a man and a woman who wish to procreate children.”
Student reaction from both sides of the political spectrum was generally positive. Unlike a prior special program presented by documentary film maker Robbie Leppzer, students felt that Senator Warner was both interesting and well informed. Zack Remsen ’07, head of the Choate Young Republicans, stated that Senator Warner’s position as a longstanding senator “ensures that the program is going to be a lot more beneficial.” He added that “I thought he answered all of his questions quite well.”
Warner was married to actress Elizabeth Taylor from 1976 to 1982. PHOTO/Joe Raedle/Getty Images
