On Tuesday, March 25th, U.S. Representative John B. Larson spoke to all history, politics, and economics students as the 2008 Adlai Stevenson ’18 Fellow. Congressman Larson has been in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1999, and is currently serving his fifth term for Connecticut’s first congressional district.
A dinner was held in Rep. Larson’s honor before the program, attended by a select group of government and history students along with politics teacher Mr. Goodyear and several prominent members of the Choate administration. Among the other guests was Jonathan Renfrew ’91, a Choate alum and Larson’s Washington office chief of staff. The entire Ruben family also made an appearance; current Yale student Drew Ruben ’07 was the 2007 Junior Stevenson Fellow.
Topics at the dinner table included Thomas Paine’s great contributions to the founding fathers, climate change, the 2008 presidential campaign, media coverage of the candidates, stories about Larson’s children, Larson’s support for the House Shellfish Caucus—even Suril Kantaria ’09’s reasons for choosing the vegetarian lifestyle.
Suril Kantaria ’09 explained, “I asked Rep. Larson why he was so passionate for protecting the shellfish industry and he in turn asked me, ‘Don’t you think shellfish is delicious?’ Of course, he didn’t know I was a vegetarian so we began to talk about the vegetarian lifestyle and well, I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.”
When dinner ended, the guests headed down to the Paul Mellon Arts Center to hear Congressman Larson speak. The program began promptly at 7:30 PM.
The program started off with a half hour of introductions. Mr. Zachary Goodyear began with a question: “What does the word statesman mean to you?” He went on to define statesmanship as “a sacrifice of personal ambition,” saying that Adlai Stevenson, with his “deadpan humor and omnivorous mind,” is that rare and inspiring politician worthy of the title.
Goodyear then turned the podium over to Nina Tarnawsky ’08, this year’s Adlai Stevenson Junior Fellow. Each year, the History Department chooses one student with particular passion for politics and government to be the Junior Fellow; he or she has the role of researching Stevenson’s biography, providing a brief speech on his lifetime and various accomplishments before introducing the night’s speaker. On being chosen, Nina says, “It was an honor, a total surprise, and I feel way lucky.”
To prepare for her speech, Nina visited the Choate Library’s archives. With the guidance of Mrs. Judy Donald, Choate’s archivist, she found biographies on Stevenson, books of his many speeches, letters he wrote as a student at Choate, and accounts of him from people who had known him. Using these resources and six audio clips, she constructed a balanced speech of information and entertainment, with her own added flair: “[Adlai Stevenson] is the kind of politician we could only imagine on the West Wing.”
Mr. Goodyear then introduced Congressman Larson to his audience. Larson began his lecture by commenting on how impressed he was with Nina and by thanking Choate for the honor. Early on, he stated the focus of the evening, saying, “The convergence of global warming, global trade, and global policy are personified by the war in Iraq,” which he called the “worst foreign policy blunder in our nation’s history.”
He proceeded to list the major effects of the war, as well as some figures on the cost, before asking the second question of the night: “How did we get to this point?” In his strong, well-practiced voice, Larson went on to explain the intricate political process that led from 9/11 to the Iraq War.
A startling point that Larson made was on the subject of American troops’ continuing presence in Iraq. He stated that 80 percent of Iraqis don’t want Americans in their homeland and that 60 percent of them believe it is acceptable to kill American soldiers. With these numbers, Larson said, we should let the Iraqi people go their own way.
Larson made sure to point out the major lessons that America can learn from the first five years of the Iraq War. One of these came in the form of a contemplative question on the nature of victory: “What is victory? Victory is the willingness to face the truth.”
Larson then opened the floor for questions from students. Of the four questions asked, he responded most forcefully to one posed by Sean Carey ’09. Carey wondered, with the severity of anti-Americanism in Iraq, what the repercussions will be when the troops are pulled out. To this, Larson responded, “It’s time for America to provide the kind of tough love that it needs to!” He stressed that it would be a long-delayed opportunity for surrounding countries to reengage in the Iraqi issues.
The student body’s reaction to Larson’s lecture was positive overall. Nina registered the Congressman as “less like a slick politician, more like a regular guy.” She thinks that with his thoughtful lecture and engaging presence, Larson will “encourage people to become more involved, instead of continuing to live in a bubble.”
Representative John Larson of Connecticut’s First Congressional District at a Congressional delegation in Denmark. Contributed photo
