Fox Features Choate Alumnus Work As Ambassador Makes Headlines
By Zoe Gorman ’09
News Associate Editor
The January 24th Fox News broadcast featured a segment on Ambassador John J. Danilovich ’68, Chief Executive Officer of Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and winner of the Choate Alumni School Seal Prize in 2007.
Fox reporter William La Jeunesse interviewed Ambassador Danilovich for the Special Report with Brit Hume, broadcasting from Chinandega, Nicaragua where the MCC is financing road construction for lifelines to commerce and links to educational and health care opportunities.
The MCC, established by President George W. Bush with bipartisan Congressional support, is a government-owned corporation that promotes sustainable economic growth through foreign aid in 24 countries in the developing world which have met the corporation’s 17 policy benchmarks to reduce poverty.
President George W. Bush appointed Danilovich in 2001 to serve as the American Ambassador to the Republic of Costa Rica, where he orchestrated negotiations of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). He served as ambassador to the Federative Republic of Brazil from 2004 until November 2005 when he began his current duties as CEO of the MCC in Washington D.C.
“The foundation stone of my career, and, in a sense, the foundation stone of my life, was laid at Choate,” John Danilovich remarked to the 600 alumni and guests who came during the May 18-20th 2007 weekend to celebrate his School Seal honour as well as the dedication of the Bruce ’45 and Leuza Gelb Track and Field Facility and the 100th Anniversary of the Choate News.
After sweeping aside his acceptance letters from Exeter and the Gunnery in 1964 and enrolling at Choate, John Danilovich found the New England setting much smaller than his native California, but the people he met in Wallingford, Connecticut would have a lasting impact on him. In his speech Danilovich described the “most marvellous teachers” whose open humanism taught him about himself in and outside of the classroom. His closest friends are from his Choate days.
He addressed the Choate graduates as among a select elite of “bright, brilliant, beautiful, and wonderfully young,” individuals who are obligated to work towards the creation of a better world, whatever they perceive that to be. He empowered his audience to take the steps to becoming world citizens, because the 21st century planet, he claimed, is too small and its problems too big for anyone to remain otherwise. Just as an ancient Roman could proudly proclaim “civis Romanus sum,” he announced, we can state “civis Americanus sum” and now each must also declare “civis mundi sum.”
The ambassador applied Lincoln’s “House Divided Speech” to the 21st century world, invoking his belief that it cannot continue half slave and half free. His definition of modern slavery included poverty, poor health care, improper education and climate change. Danilovich urged a move from plutocratic venture capitalism to constructive venture philanthropy.
John Danilovich has made $21,425 contributions to the Republican candidates and party committees prior to his ambassadorial appointment to Costa Rica, but he and his family have not made any donations since.
In a Fox News segment from July 24, 2007, John Danilovich was cited for sharply criticizing cuts to the $3 billion proposed by the administration for the MCC foreign aid program. The House and Senate had proposed $1.8 and $1.2 billion respectively, which the ambassador found “devastating,” claiming new programs in developing countries such as Mongolia required at least $2 billion.
Fox also noted Ambassador Danilovich as one of the guests to sit with First Lady Laura Bush during the State of the Union Address on January 28th, 2008.
John Danilovich has received numerous national and international honours. He served as a board member for the Panama Canal Commission from 1991-1996 and chaired the Commission’s Transition Committee prior to the transfer of the canal to the Panamanians. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an Associate Fellow of Pierson College of Yale University, and a Knight of Malta, Danilovich was leader of the Republicans Abroad and Chairman of Americans Abroad for both Presidents Bush.
John Danilovich has a strong background in the international shipping business and has held directing posts in the property, publishing, and investment industries including Director of University Trust at Stanford, where he received a Bachelor of Science; Trustee of the American Museum in Britain; and a Director of the U.S-U.K Fulbright Commission. He lived in London for several years, where he earned his masters in International Relations from the University of Southern California.
As he attempts to bolster economic stability in developing countries, Ambassador John Danilovich reaches out the Choate community asking for moral devotion to society: “I ask you to serve—for in this world, a life without service, without the vision of service, is a hallucination of monstrous proportions.”
