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JOHN SHATTUCK: Good afternoon and welcome to the John F. Kennedy Library. I'm John Shattuck, CEO of the Kennedy Library Foundation. On behalf of myself, Library Director Deborah Leff, and Paul Kirk, the Chair of our Board of Directors, I want to thank the sponsors of tonight's Forum, Fleet Boston Financial, the Lowell Institute, Boston Capital, the Boston Globe, Boston.com, and, above all, WBUR, where we always know we've been treated to something special when a familiar voice wraps up her report by telling us with a certain flair, "This is Sylvia Poggioli," in Rome or in Jerusalem or in Sarajevo or in Belgrade or whatever hot spot she's reporting from that day.

For more than two decades Sylvia Poggioli has helped us understand the world, particularly the world seen from Europe and reported on by a very astute American observer. Whether it's the fall of the Wall, the Velvet Revolution in Prague, the war in Yugoslavia, the Vatican's handling of the clergy sex abuse scandal, the European reaction to the U.S. intervention in , or something as simple and wonderful as the arrival of spring in Paris, Sylvia Poggioli always seems to be there. Her vivid accounts mix the sensible with the exotic, the down-to-earth with the profound, the bright with the dark. And, in the end, we always feel a little bit wiser after hearing from her.

I can tell you, as a diplomat in the Balkans during the wars in Bosnia and , I learned always to trust what Sylvia was saying about the horrors that were unfolding in what was once Yugoslavia. And I'm convinced that it was brave reporters like Sylvia Poggioli, like Elizabeth Neuffer of The Boston Globe who was killed last month in Iraq and whom we mourn, who kept the spotlight on the

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worst human rights crisis in Europe since the Second World War, so that the world would eventually, and finally, do something about it.

Sylvia is the daughter of Italian anti-fascists who were forced to flee Italy under Mussolini. Before joining National Public Radio as a foreign correspondent in 1982, she was an editor for the Italian News Agency, ANSA, and over the years she has been showered with honors for her NPR reporting.

Her early reports on Bosnia earned her a George Foster Peabody award and an Edward Weintal journalism prize. And she later won the Silver Excellence in Media Award, the National Women's Political Caucus Exceptional Merit Media Award. She was part of the NPR team that received the Overseas Press Club Award for coverage of the NATO air war in Kosovo and Serbia. Then last year Sylvia received the Welles Hangen Award for Distinguished Journalism from Brown University.

Sylvia will speak to us tonight about the tensions between Europe and the United States over the and, more generally, over American foreign policy as it is now being conducted in its particular unilateral fashion. To guide tonight's discussion we are very fortunate to have with us another star of National Public Radio, Dick Gordon, familiar to all of us here in Boston, and host of "The Connection."

A frequent Kennedy Library moderator, Dick previously served as Senior Correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's leading national public

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affairs program, "This Morning," and during the last decade he has covered the conflicts in Bosnia, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Middle East. Dick has received two National Journalism Awards and two Gabriel Awards for Excellence in Reporting.

So please join me in welcoming again Sylvia Poggioli and Dick Gordon to the stage of the Kennedy Library. Sylvia?

SYLVIA POGGIOLI: Thank you very much. It's really a tremendous honor to be here. I don't know about you, but the last few days I've been watching television a lot. Since I'm here I'm not, I'm not in Evian. I wasn't in Evian for the G8 Summit, but I've been, like many, many reporters, closely monitoring what was going on there. I think it resembled a little bit the court of Louis XIV. All eyes were fixed on the body language, on the pecking order, and everybody was analyzing the warmth of the handshakes, the intensity of the backslapping and the smiles. And everybody counted how many minutes the courtiers, that is, the European leaders, were granted in private audiences to the world's single superpower.

The G8 Summit was seen as the testing ground to determine the state of the worst crisis in a half-century long transAtlantic relationship. Despite the assurances on all sides that the acrimonious debate over the war in Iraq was behind them, I think there were very few signs of a serious reconciliation.

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And, meanwhile, a new controversy is bubbling. Where are Saddam's weapons of mass destruction? Many European editorialists, including some that have been consistently pro-war, are now wondering whether they were deceived by the U.S. and British governments. Now the transAtlantic crisis has of course been marked by personal animosities, by bad personal chemistry, by misunderstandings, national rivalries, and a series of diplomatic errors and miscalculations on both sides. And there have been many casualties. The main institutions of the international system, especially NATO and the U.N., have been seriously weakened. The European Union's efforts to forge common foreign and security policies have been undermined. And the new U.S.-Russia entente has been battered. And now analysts are asking themselves "What went wrong?" and "Could this conflict have been avoided?" "How serious is the damage?" "What are the prospects for full reconciliation between Europe and the United States?"

In the lead-up to the war, during the fighting and in its aftermath, there has been a great deal of international name-calling, and even threats. There were mutual misperceptions on each side. Europe, I believe, did not fully grasp the impact of 9/11, the impact 9/11 had on American society and on the America psyche. And the United States underestimated Europe's deep abhorrence for war.

As German Foreign Minister Joschke Fischer has said, "Americans have no Verdun." In the U.S., there is nothing comparable to Auschwitz or Stalingrad or any of the other terrible, symbolic places in European history. And Fischer stressed that the process to create a united Europe is the answer to centuries of European wars and slaughter.

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This is one of the reasons why, despite their internal divisions, Europeans strongly believe in the role of international institutions and consensus-building through international law. And they're wary of what they perceive as American hegemony and unilateralism. The Bush administration, on the other hand, sees the status quo as inherently dangerous and destabilizing, and international treaties as ineffective, and a constraint on U.S. freedom of action.

And sharp differences in the language used on each side of the Atlantic underscore the transAtlantic estrangement. The word heard most often in Washington is "threat." In Europe, it's "negotiations." The French analyst Dominique Moisi summed up the European view this way: "The Bush administration has the great responsibility of having exported U.S. fears instead of U.S. hopes."

I believe that this transAtlantic crisis over the war did not occur in a void. It's the result of a deep disconnect between Europe and the United States, not only on how they view the framework of the new international order, but also it comes out of deep social and cultural differences. The rift has been simplified as a dispute between two cartoon-like stereotypes. Bush as the trigger-happy cowboy, and Europeans as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys." In reality, the roots of the crisis go back at least a decade to the end of the Cold War. It was in the nineties that one of the most destabilizing factors in the transAtlantic relationship fully emerged. It's the military-technological gap.

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It became increasingly apparent during the 1999 war on Kosovo. It was NATO's first war. It was the first humanitarian intervention. And it was conceived, in part, as a means to redefine the alliance's identity and to reassert the Allies' cohesion in the new post-Cold War period. But today Europeans see the Kosovo war as their diplomatic and military debacle. The Economist called it "Europe's humiliation." The campaign showed the great technological supremacy of the United States. And as the bombing progressed, the role of the European allies diminished day by day and became absolutely marginal.

The military-technological gap shocked the Europeans. They realized they had no satellite intelligence-gathering capacity, no long-range air transport, and no laser- guided bombs. A report by the French Defense Ministry acknowledged with alarm a few months later that "Europe is decades behind the United States in military technology."

During the Cold War, European and American military spending was more or less constant, with European spending 60% of what the U.S. spent. Today the American military budget is almost double that of all the other NATO countries combined. With the exception of Britain, the strategic military imbalance is so wide that the U.S. really didn't even need the European military assistance in Afghanistan or, of course, in Iraq.

And in the war in Afghanistan, Europeans soon realized they didn't even have effective transport to deliver peacekeepers to Kabul on schedule. According to The New York Times , a country as rich as Germany had to rent Russian and Ukranian

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transport planes on the commercial market. And one country NATO officials declined to identify discussed moving troops to Kabul by railroad.

European leaders consoled themselves by saying that they spent $30 billion dollars in development assistance, nearly three times the U.S. figure. The Europeans provide about 55% of total international assistance and as much as two-thirds of all grant aid. E.U. Commissioner Chris Patten says, "This is our contribution to international security."

Europeans soon realized that their vaunted "soft power," the ability to influence events through diplomacy and persuasion, was not enough and that their military irrelevance risked also making them politically irrelevant. Nevertheless, efforts to create a European Rapid Reaction Force have been delayed by internal divisions and grumbling about footing the hefty cost, as well as by strong U.S. opposition.

Many European analysts say that the United States has always, in principle, liked the idea of a united Europe. But in practice, they say Washington resents European attempts to be more autonomous. This mutual distrust has increased since the Bush administration came into office. Many Europeans still remember when Donald Rumsfeld came to Europe on one of his first visits as Secretary of Defense and never once uttered the words "European Union" in his official speeches.

The crisis over the war in Iraq has sharpened European suspicions that the Bush administration actively worked to divide Europeans. For example, with the

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infamous "Letter of Eight" published in the Wall Street Journal , and the Vilnius 10 statement, both inspired by Americans. But this divide between the so-called "new" and "old" Europe is perceived almost exclusively in the chancelleries, because European public opinion proved much more united than the E.U. governments showing a strong collective antiwar sentiment.

The overwhelming majority of Europeans opposed war in Iraq without U.N. Security Council approval. This opposition reached a peak of 90% in Spain, in spite of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's unwavering support for President Bush. European public opinion played a larger role in this crisis than in any previous international debate.

Many changes have taken place in European societies over the last decade, and these changes also underscore the growing estrangement between the two sides of the Atlantic. With the end of the Cold War, ethical, social, and cultural issues have become much more prominent. Mutual incomprehension had been lurking for some time, but it fully came out into the open with the arrival of the Bush administration.

There was much ill feeling over the U.S. decision to ditch the 1997 Kyoto Protocol in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the American refusal to sign international treaties such as the ban on land mines, the International Criminal Court, and the Comprehensive Test Ban.

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George Bush faced strong political fire in Europe for his opposition to gun control, for his enthusiasm for genetic engineering, and especially for the death penalty, which is banned throughout the European Union. Abhorrence for the death penalty is so widespread in Europe that it's not uncommon for European politicians, on their campaign trails, to travel to the United States to visit American prisoners on death row. Today, Europeans consider the death penalty and gun control as human rights issues, and they do not understand why this view is not shared by Americans, who have always been the world champions on human rights.

One of the most striking differences is the attitudes towards religion. While religion has a prominent position in American society, Europeans are deserting their churches in droves. Centuries of religious wars have convinced Europeans even to keep the name of God out of the draft of the new European Constitution, much to the Vatican's dismay.

The idea that an America President conducts Bible studies in the White House and starts Cabinet sessions with a prayer is incomprehensible in Europe. And Europeans strongly defend their welfare states, and they approve of state intervention. Even in Britain, despite the Thatcher legacy, polls at the end of last year showed that 62% favor higher taxes in exchange for improved public services. Just the opposite is true here.

But few issues have raised as much grass roots passion in Europe as what is known as "the food fight." And I have to say President Bush just didn't get it when last week he played the "starving Africa" card, trying to press European governments

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to lift their ban on the import of genetically modified foods. The food issue is a rallying cry across Europe. The British press calls genetically modified food "Frankenfood," or "mutant food." The French and Italian media periodically denounce big American agribusinesses for trying to tell Europeans what they should eat.

The European rejection of genetically modified crops or hormone-fed chickens is rooted in the recent food scares, in part, such as Mad Cow and Foot and Mouth diseases. There are other factors that have turned this almost into a battle of ideology and culture. Deep down, Europeans do not share Americans' trust in science and technology. Americans often accuse Europeans of being technophobic and hypochondriac about technological progress in the food industry.

Europeans, on the other hand, see Americans as manipulating food, conjuring visions of the Sorcerer's Apprentice with the witches of Macbeth cackling over their boiling cauldron. The tone gets very strident at times. It often sounds like a religious war. But I think it's important to remember that food is a crucial element in European's cultural and national identity and is closely connected with their traditions. Europeans today are proud when they say they eat the same foods and recipes their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents ate.

So it's not surprising that, according to a European Commission poll, Europeans are more likely than Americans to view agricultural biotechnology as a threat to the moral order, and more likely to associate biotech foods with menacing images of adulteration, infection, and monsters. These different viewpoints may seem

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marginal, but with the disappearance of the common Communist threat, cultural and social issues have risen in importance in international relations, and, more than ever before, public opinion sets the agenda.

This brings us back to the strength and nature of the antiwar demonstrations in Europe. During the Cold War, anti-American protests were inspired by leftist movements. This time it was different. From Madrid to Rome to London, the rallies brought out into the streets people who had never demonstrated before -- middle class, middle age, and young couples pushing baby carriages. In Rome, on February 15, perhaps as many as three million people marched. And the customary ideological red flags were eclipsed by the new, and now ubiquitous, rainbow peace banner.

I attended other antiwar rallies in Paris and in London and, as a reporter, I never encountered any form of anti-American animosity. As an American who first went to live in Europe during the Vietnam War, I know something about anti- Americanism of the sixties, which was based on a leftist ideological opposition to that war.

I perceived the European anti-Americanism of today as something very different. It embraces a broader political spectrum and, paradoxically, it coexists with a much more widespread appreciation of American popular culture than there was in the sixties. And every year more and more young Europeans go to America to study.

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But Europeans increasingly see the American political establishment as distant and alien. Stanley Hoffman, writing in the latest issue of The New York Review of Books , described it this way. The anti-Americanism on the rise throughout the world is not just hostility toward the most powerful nation or based on the old clichés of the left and the right. Nor is it only envy or hatred of our values. It is, more often than not, a resentment of double standards and double talk, of class ignorance and arrogance, of wrong assumptions and dubious policies.

And all this has been very, very closely identified with the Bush administration. Today, even many of America's friends simply don't like President Bush, not only for his policies but also for the manner in which he presents them. For Europeans, Bush's language is too strident, his habit of finger-pointing too confrontational, his view of the world too black and white, and his religious rhetoric simply alien.

Several European analysts point to what they describe as the sharp decline in what has been called the "soft power" of the United States, meaning the ability of a country to influence events through persuasion and attraction rather than thanks to the hard power of military and financial coercion.

The French daily Le Monde synthesized European sympathy and solidarity with the United States after 9/11 with the headline, "We Are All Americans." But that extraordinary feeling of support and sympathy has long vanished. The lead-up to the war was a major diplomatic debacle for the United States. Not only did the Bush administration antagonize a long-standing American ally such as Turkey, it was also unable to win the support of more than three of the 14 members of the

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Security Council for a second resolution authorizing war in Iraq. Neither bribes nor threats were enough to secure the support of some poor African countries or that of traditional allies such as Pakistan, Chile, and Mexico.

And now the effort to impose peace in Iraq seems to be much harder than Washington had expected. It's increasingly clear that the U.S. needs international help in peacekeeping and nation-building. In fact, in the last few weeks efforts have been made by both sides to find some common ground and agreement was reached on some form of U.N. role in Iraq's postwar transition. And NATO agreed to provide support for Poland as it takes on a peacekeeping role in Iraq.

But there's much that still divides the U.S. and Europe and another dangerous conflict is looming just around the corner -- the stalled negotiations in the World Trade Organization. This year the moratorium on farm sector complaints expired, opening up a Pandora's Box of disputes over issues such as genetically modified foods and E.U. agricultural subsidies.

Europe and the United States account for about one-half of all the world's exports, and a conflict between these two giant trading blocks could have devastating effects on world commerce and global stability.

Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

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DICK GORDON : Well, I want to thank the Kennedy Library for just giving me the opportunity to sit with Sylvia for an hour or so. It's a delight to hear her perspective and to have a chance to interact with her, and I hope that you'll take an opportunity to do that a little bit later this evening. You'll see two microphones in the center aisles and I'll chat with Sylvia for a while, and you'll hear my questions and decide that yours are much better. And just come to the mic and we'll try to split the time that we have left to us.

You know, I noticed as well the writing about body language. For the first time in about six months, the Americans and the Europeans were agreeing that this was the lead story. Le Monde was writing about the fact that Chirac guided George Bush to the photograph with "just four fingertips on just one shoulder." At the same time, Elizabeth Bumiller in the New York Times was saying, well, it was a "swinging handshake" for Tony Blair and something much for tepid for … It matters! When you don't get a chance to put a microphone like this on the aides who are whispering in the ears of the President, that's all you have to go on. And it's not necessarily a bad read of where they are. Is it, Sylvia?

POGGIOLI: No. Essentially, though, that became the story, because, as you looked at it, there was no substance. At least as far as I could see today, there was practically no substance to the meeting. And I wonder also if this isn't also Bush's dismissal of these kinds of events, this soft PCs, identifies the G8 Summit, these kinds of encounters, beyond his gripe against President Chirac and Gerhardt Schroeder. I think he just doesn't care about these kinds of meetings any more. He doesn't want to have this kind of cooperative meeting.

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GORDON: The NATO that the U.S. used to lead is not the NATO that is as easy to control. There are almost too many chairs around the table, the G87s, the G8, and Jacques Chirac turns it into the G-whatever with the President of China and Algeria. In a way, that was France's snub to Bush, was it not? To say, "We are genuinely multipolar, and you can see it in the way that we manage our meetings." The diplomatic fighting seems to continue.

POGGIOLI: And I think this is the big problem. Because I think this is the way it's going to be, there's just going to be … As Tony Blair said, the importance of this Summit was going to be whether the Europe and the U.S., the transAtlantic rift will be repaired or whether the two partners will continue to drift apart, will begin drifting apart. I think they have definitely drifted apart, and the question is, is there a will to bring them back together.

I think, certainly, if the United States wants to repair relations with its European partners it's going to have to put more emphasis on what we call, what's been dubbed the "soft power," the diplomatic aspects, instead of only using hard power. Now, an event like this in Evian, it's the personal, we've seen the bad chemistry, everybody's proved their role. But the problem is there are important things around.

Iraq has to be rebuilt and it's clear that the United States is not going to do it on its own. It's not just the question of can they do it, are they able, but who's going to foot the bill? Is only the United States going to pay for this? So I think there are a

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lot of problems ahead, because the Europeans and the Americans see the aftermath of the Iraq war very differently. Everybody thought a speedy end to the war is going to make everything okay, we're going to end the dispute, everybody's going to jump back on the American bandwagon again.

But it isn't happening. Most Americans tend to see this as a war that was successful, it freed Iraq from dictatorship, and there's less importance given to the issue of the weapons of mass destruction. In the case of the Europeans, they see this as having created more chaos and more anarchy.

GORDON: Are you seeing that in the coverage? The day-to-day coverage?

POGGIOLI: Absolutely.

GORDON : You'll open The New York Times and it'll be, "Two more American soldiers were killed in an attack, but they persevere and they do this and they do that and here's the plan, and here's what Bremer's saying today." Not the same story in Europe?

POGGIOLI: In Europe it's seen as the U.S. is not in control of the situation. And I think the turning point, the very major thing, was the scenes of when it was the looting of the museums in Baghdad, in particular. This was an absolute turning point. In fact, Chirac, at the E.U. meeting in Athens at the end of April, actually called it a "war crime," the looting of the Baghdad Museum, one of the most important art treasures in the world. And the people saw that the oil wells were

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protected, but not the museums and the library. Europeans see it as the U.S. is not in control of the situation. They're very, very worried about this.

GORDON: Let's go back a little bit if we can to where this began to go off the rails at the United Nations. Because there was that Security Council Resolution 1441. Everybody signed on. It seemed that, despite the rhetoric, everybody was going to march to the same tune. And then, of course, the conversation -- and you've mentioned it a couple of times -- about weapons of mass destruction became louder and louder, and there was that dramatic appearance by Colin Powell at the Security Council, which seemed to indicate that the United States was going to go its own way. Now, what did that do for the American diplomatic image in Europe? Colin Powell, up to that point, was seen as the only reasonable person that you could talk to at the White House.

POGGIOLI: In fact, that's exactly the way. He was the one person that they could look to. The Europeans said, "We have nobody but Powell in the Bush administration whom we can trust and talk to." After that, it was seen like he had been lost to the hawks, too. If you remember, a dramatic event, a meeting in, I think it was in February, in a NATO meeting, when Joschke Fischer turned to Rumsfeld and basically just said, "You have not convinced us." It was almost a shriek. "You have not convinced us of the weapons of mass destruction issue."

And now this is really emerging as a big thing. There's a big brouhaha now in the British media about possible erroneous use of the intelligence, that it was blown up. And Blair is under huge pressure now in the public opinion, and there's a

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demand for an inquiry. And Robin Cook, the former Foreign Secretary, who also stepped down just before the war started, in opposition to this war, he said it was a "monumental blunder," and he said he felt that we had "all been cheated." There's a lot of concern now about what exactly the actual original motives were for this war. Europeans are asking a lot of questions now.

GORDON: What I'm interested in hearing from you, because you live on the streets that you report from, is whether or not the people, whether they're in Germany or in France or in Italy, are taking the lead from the politicians here. Seeing the rifts that develop between Chirac's people and Bush's people and then saying, "Yeah, right, let's be anti-American. They're anti-French." Or whether or not the politicians themselves are seeing this groundswell of frustration or anger with the way that America is acting from among the average European people, and then the politicians reflecting that. Who's pulling the cart here?

POGGIOLI: Well, as you know, the European governments did not all agree. Britain, Spain in particular, but also Italy, were very much, at least at the governmental level, were pro-war. The leaders ignored their public opinions in this case. The question is, where will this go? Because also local elections in Britain and in Spain and in Italy last weekend, and all these governing parties suffered substantial losses. In Britain, it is the Liberal Democrats that seem to have gained quite a bit, not the Conservative party, from the Labor Party. But this could be the beginning of … Certainly war was not the only issue, because they were local elections. But there may be a message to these governments. I really think that public opinion has been very, very united in Europe on this issue.

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GORDON: But as you pointed out in your remarks to begin with, it didn't start with the war in Iraq. It began with frustration over Kyoto, over the International Criminal Court. And when you say that the Europeans never really got 9/11, I've also heard it said that the Americans never really got the E.U. Never really figured out that there was a certain amount of shared sovereignty, a big risk that the European countries decided to take. France, be it one of the proudest of "old" European countries, if you want to use the "old-new" phrase, had to say, "Yeah, we're going to give up some of that sovereignty, allow the E.U. to speak on our behalf." And that was something that was never acknowledged by America, how much the Europeans gambled on even the creation of the E.U. Do you think that's an accurate way of looking at it?

POGGIOLI: I think that's true and even the one example is they haven't gotten how enthusiastically Europeans embraced the Euro, the single currency.

GORDON: More enthusiastic every day as it goes up and up and up!

POGGIOLI: But, now, I have to say, everybody got kind of cheated, because what happened was practically every country prices, everybody took advantage because nobody could understand this. It was three months where you could have both your old currency and the new currency and it was all very confusing. Basically, shopkeepers and everybody took advantage and prices rose 20% to 30%.

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Despite all this, in every country, not just in Italy I know, but also in Holland and other places, nevertheless Europeans embraced the single currency with huge enthusiasm. I mean, there is a sense in many of these countries to be a part of Europe is something very strongly felt. To be a European citizen. It is something that, of course, is the east Europeans for members-in-waiting are about to enter, and they are also very, very eager to be part of what is now, they call The Club. The European Club.

GORDON: Now you know it was Rumsfeld who publicly said "old Europe" versus "new Europe." But the Europeans themselves look a little bit askance at new European countries. Are they at all concerned about how the balance of power in The Club will shift when The Club gets that much bigger.

POGGIOLI: There's a big debate right now because, as you know, there's been this work on creating this European Constitution, this new Charter, which, of course, the Union is now 15 members and in a year there will be 10 more, it'll be 25. It's been very difficult for them to get their act together, to speak with one voice. As we all know, Europeans have failed to do that. It's going to be much more difficult when it's a bigger union.

There is some concern. Germany is concerned about, there's still some fear about this whole influx of cheaper labor from these Slavic countries. There's still ethnic animosities. The Czech Republic is worried about the Sudeten Germans. Some of the old problems, the old animosities of Europe are still there. And so there's a big debate between small countries and big countries on what to do about the

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sovereignty issue, whether the consensus issue, the veto power. It appears it's going to remain, the veto power. And that is probably just going to ensure that there'll be more and more paralysis. It's going to be harder and harder for Europeans to speak with one voice. There are still a lot of problems there.

GORDON: And is anybody getting any closer to a long-term understanding of where Britain's going to fit into all this?

POGGIOLI: That's a big question. I spent a lot of time in London. I spent most of the war in London. I spoke to a lot of analysts to try to understand also. Their public opinion was hugely against it. The polls started showing high approval ratings for Tony Blair as the war went on. It was seen primarily as approval for British troops. There was a very strong rallying around British troops. But still, the question. Many analysts told me that, in a sense, many Britons found themselves to be more European in their opposition to the war. This, in the long term, is something that Tony Blair's going to have to probably deal with. His own public opinion. Is it going to be more with Britain or more with the United States? And, again, Britain is a mystery. It's still an island. You really feel that when you're there. And they are not yet sure of their place. And so most Europeans still don't know exactly where Britain will be in the next five or six years.

GORDON: And is the jury still out on Tony Blair's decision to back the war in Iraq as strongly as he did. If, for example, we wake up tomorrow and there's a radio news report on NPR that they've come across this huge stash of chemical weapons somewhere in a desert bunker in northern Iraq, you know and I know that

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that's going to change the equation and the reaction to whether or not this was a good idea in the long run.

POGGIOLI: Oh, absolutely. But still, as I said, public opinion was a majority against this war.

GORDON: Blair's in trouble right now, more so than Bush, over this. They haven't found any weapons of mass destruction, and this is hurting him day to day.

POGGIOLI: Very much so.

GORDON: I mean, there's complaining about it in this country, but nobody has Karl Rove's personal …

POGGIOLI: Now, there was a report today that Claire Short, who recently resigned again, in opposition to Blair's policies; she was the Overseas Development Secretary. And she threatened to resign on the eve of the war and then didn't. She resigned afterwards. But she came out just recently saying that Blair made a secret deal with Bush, already in September, to go ahead with the war, and this is creating big, the beginnings of a concern, demands for an inquiry into this whole weapons of mass destruction. The people, as I said, Robin Cook is upset. They're all feeling … he used the word, "we've been suckered."

GORDON: I want to ask you a question, but I'll start it with a story, if I can. And I'll be short. Our program went to Baghdad for a couple of weeks. And one of the

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things that we heard there, which I found quite revealing, was that -- it was the same sort of thing. Everybody looked at the American reporters, and nobody expressed any anti-Americanism. None of the people who were just out of their houses after the month of bombing and the two or three days of the tanks rolling in. Nobody expressed any anti-Americanism at all.

I said to my translator, Achmed, I said, "I don't get this. Had I been living in Boston after a month of being bombed by the Iraqis, and an Iraqi reporter showed up on my door and said, 'So, talk to me about this,' I'd have been furious." And he said, "Here's the difference. In this country, in Iraq, people were so determined not to be a part of Saddam Hussein for all of his brutality and all of his dictatorial habits, that they said, 'We're the Iraqis, and that's the government. We're not a part of that government. That government doesn't necessarily represent us. And we see America the same way. So when your government, when America, does something bad to our government, we don't blame the citizens. Why would we blame the citizens? We've never had any say in anything that was done in our country. So we simply assume that nobody has any say in anything that's done in your country.'" [LAUGHTER]

But then you're telling me that you're standing with these antiwar protesters in Europe who are determined, angry, wronged, furious at the idea that there's going to be this unilateral, of sorts, attack. And there's no anti-Americanism there. And that puzzles me, because I don't understand.

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POGGIOLI: It's anti-Bush. It's very, very personal. And I can tell, because many of these problems, as I said, these cultural differences, go back before this administration. But when Clinton was President, Europeans loved him. Even if there were many differences, cultural differences. For instance, the war in Kosovo. Most European governments did not really want to go -- again, with the exception of Tony Blair's Britain. But the Germans and the Italians and the Greeks really did not want to go along with this war. But it was Clinton's ability, his charisma, his art of persuasion that got them to do that.

This has been totally lacking under Bush. It is so personal, the animosity, the sense of anger or fear. I'd say most anti-Americanism in Europe now is a sense of concern because they just don't know what the United States, this administration, is doing. It's very personal against President Bush and Rumsfeld and the people around him.

GORDON: You talk about fear. Do you mean Syria, do you mean Iran, North Korea? What are these guys up to?

POGGIOLI: Everything. Just even just doing, as I said, just seeing Iraq as a destabilizing … Again, the United States sees this as having freed Iraq. The Europeans see it as, instead of having put an end to terrorism, they fear it has actually encouraged terrorism. They look at cases like the attacks recently in , Morocco, and also the recent ones in Chechnya. This is where they see the link now, and there's the fear that this kind of policy, they don't know where it's

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going to go, and essentially, as I repeat, it's the destabilizing effect. They fear the destabilizing effects of the Bush administration's policies.

GORDON: This question wasn't actually written by Ari Fleischer but it might have been. Bush goes to Acaba, Jordan, on Wednesday. Sits down for the first time since Clinton spoke with Arafat and Sharon. Sits down with the Prime Ministers of the Palestinian people and Israel, and wants to push forward this road block. Is anybody saying, "Well, maybe. Maybe the neocons have something here. Maybe something will work. Maybe the whole military exercise in Iraq has given the Americans a sort of, "Watch these guys! They're crazy! Maybe we should sit down and talk with them!," idea. So they're getting people to the table that wouldn't otherwise be at the table. I don't know whether or not America's re- engagement in the Middle East is buying them any credibility in Europe. But they're saying, "This is part of the plan. Watch us. Follow us."

POGGIOLI: Well, sure. No. And I think there's a lot of hope on that. The problem is, more broadly, even the whole idea of the redrawing of the political map of the Middle East to bring democracy to this area, to all these … This could be seen very positively. The problem is, again, the Europeans don't believe the U.S. has the constancy to do it, to be in the job of nation-building. They look at Afghanistan. They don't see, they don't think the United States has got it in it, the desire and the will to do it.

GORDON: Is that tied to the U.S. political agenda and the fact that this country is a year and a bit away from an election, and everybody knows that things overseas

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aren't going to matter? Is it something deeper than that? Does it go back to that First World War and Second World War reluctance to enter?

POGGIOLI: No. I think they look at a more immediate situation, just looking at Kosovo and Bosnia. The U.S. is more and more pulling out, certainly out of NATO. Europeans and other nationalities are more and more doing the nation- building there. They just don't see the U.S. as having the patience to stick it out.

GORDON: We should talk a bit about that. Because you're just back from a trip through Bosnia, through Kosovo, and whatever nation-building is going on there should stand as something of an example for Europe, for America, in terms of a place that is blown apart and how you put it back together. You went there knowing full well that everybody's keeping their eye on the weeks aftermath of Iraq, so that's in your head as well. What were you watching in the Balkans that was revealing for you about what's happening in Iraq?

POGGIOLI: First, to separate a little bit the two. Because Kosovo, it's been, what? Four years since the end of the war, and it is completely being run by a U.N. administration. Bosnia, the war ended in December '95, we've got now, almost eight years. And it was more of a hybrid, it was some U.N., some international community, some European Union. Now it's mainly European Union and many fewer, fewer NGOs, because also in these places with the international, they're no longer in the spotlight, many of these groups leave because the funds … There's also donor fatigue and so forth.

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So I'll start with Bosnia. And now everybody agrees in the international community that one of the major, major mistakes they made there was to have elections so soon after the war and so often. The first elections were in September '96, less than a year after the end of the war. And what has happened, there have been five elections since then, and in four of those cases the nationalist parties, the right-wingers, those who actually started the war, were re-elected. So the question is now, sure, elections are wonderful sign of democracy. It's a democratic tool. But does it mean you're going to create a democratic situation?

They had elections when rule of law, the sense of safety had not yet been restored. And so the fear element convinced people to vote for the same people whom they thought would be protecting them. I think this has set back Bosnia tremendously. At the same time then, you have very few refugee returns. You have, basically, this was supposed to be this multiethnic, wonderful thing, and you have a totally separate ethnic -- Sarajevo now is a 99% Muslim city. Serbs all live in the north. The Croats live in the south. And it seems amazing to me. I went there and I just did a story. It's just now are they beginning to do -- the international community is trying to impose an educational reform, trying to create one Army out of three separate military formations, trying to create a one custom service for the entire country; it's a small country.

And so what have they been doing? They've poured billions of dollars into this place. Nobody knows where this money's gone. It's gone half into the hands of corrupt politicians. Organized crime is rampant. Nothing is produced in Bosnia. Everything is imported, even fruits and vegetables. There was a flourishing

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agriculture. Unemployment is horrendous. And a poll I read, carried out by the United Nations Development Fund, said something like 90% of university students want to leave the country. So it's bad.

GORDON: Why is it that a small factory, a small shop in Sarajevo that might have been producing something prior to the war, can't reopen, can't compete, can't sell in its own country? Why is it that industry is just so stagnant?

POGGIOLI: Well, first of all, practically everything was, of course, the old Communist system. It was the old state-run. Getting things started, there's no incentive. There haven't been the incentives for agriculture, in particular; there have been no incentives for farmers.

At the same time, I went back to Sarajevo last year for the first time in many years, and one of the things that surprised me was, I remember that before the war there was a wonderful mineral water, Sarajevska Voda. And I couldn't get it anywhere. You could only get something called Bonaqua, which is made by Coca Cola. And everywhere you looked, every café -- and there are many cafes and everybody's sitting in cafes all day long, the young people, because there are no jobs whatsoever -- and all the cafes have Coca Cola umbrellas. And they all have a Coca Cola refrigerator, and Coca Cola gives them the refrigerator for free as long as they sell this Bonaqua mineral water, along with Coca Cola, of course.

So, this year I went back, I did see Sarajevska water had returned. So in a year somebody had started bottling that one again. But otherwise it's a very depressing

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situation. And what the result is, the animosity of the Bosnians towards the international community is phenomenal.

GORDON: Towards everybody? The Europeans, the Americans?

POGGIOLI: Toward everybody. The word is "internationals" now. There's tremendous resentment, and you'll hear just about everybody say, "These people are working here only because it’s a good job, it's tax-free, and they have interest in prolonging the protectorate, because that way they'll stay longer, the job will last longer." And there's a tremendous cynicism.

GORDON: Is that true?

POGGIOLI: I think there may be some people that … but no. Certainly, no. That's not the policy, certainly. I mean there may be some people, but it's not the individual who has an interest. But certainly these are heavy, heavy bureaucracies that have been created. These nation-buildings create their own kind of bureaucracies, and the same is true in Kosovo.

And, again, in Kosovo, where the Kosovo Albanians, it's now total, 99% Kosovo Albanian. There are very few Serbs. I think in Pristina alone there's something, one building that has 180 Serbs in it, and that's about it. In the capital of Pristina there used to be 20,000 Serbs there.

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But there the impetus is they want independence, and they feel that the prolonged presence of the international community is just delaying their getting independence. You hear the same kind of cynicism there.

GORDON: So if the idea of going quickly to the polls as a gesture of putting a country back on its feet didn't work there, could it be an equally flawed plan to try and get ballots into the hands of Iraqis, as a gesture, as a way of saying, "See, the country is on its way to self-determination."

POGGIOLI: I think it could be a very bad idea. I don't if I could really make … I don't know Iraq; I haven't been there, so I don't know if I should make the parallels. But, again, there are three major groups in Iraq. The Kurds, the Sunnis, and the Shiites. It's not quite exactly the same as the Serbs, the Muslims, and Croats in Bosnia, but there could be a danger of just solidifying and creating sort of ethnic religious divisions.

I think, also, one of the major lessons, another major lesson to learn from both Kosovo and Bosnia, is that local people have to be involved much more in the early stages of self government. The Kosovars ostensibly have been allowed to have some roles. They call it government, they've had their elections, but basically they have no powers whatsoever. They're treated more or less like children.

GORDON: I've got just a couple more questions so if you have anything that you'd like to ask Sylvia, perhaps this would be a good time to scramble to the

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microphones and then we can move from me to the questions from the floor. I know it's a stupid question, but I like stupid questions.

POGGIOLI: So do I.

GORDON: Is there anything good about the split? Is there, when we talk about the way that European leaders and this particular White House are not getting along and, in effect, causing people on both sides of the Atlantic to ask questions, why? I'm just wondering whether or not, in your view, having that conversation, getting Americans thinking about what it is that's not connecting with Europe, and getting Europeans to ask the same questions, is there anything positive about it, or do you see the long-term effects as being largely negative?

POGGIOLI: Well, I think the only positive thing there could be -- but I don't see any signs of it -- is if it could finally force the Europeans to get their act together and create a more, speak with one voice. As I said, I see these new developments also there. There're still so many things that the Europeans … They've got their own social crisis dealing with immigration and not knowing how to deal with it and this problem of sovereignty, the small countries versus the big ones, now it's going to be a bigger European Union. I don't see, unless public opinion forces these governments to really speak with one voice, that is the only positive thing I could say about this rift.

GORDON: And are people going to measure the differences, the distinctions between America and Europe, or the American leadership and the European

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leadership, still on Iraq? Is that still the fulcrum point where people measure what separates the two?

POGGIOLI: Well, we'll see what the next developments are? If they're going to be … Now we haven't heard so much about what's going to happen. Syria was in the media a few weeks ago. Then it was Iran. There's a lot of concern about what the next movements will be, if there are going to be any new wars. But, yeah, I think Iraq is going to be … Everybody's going to look at that one and see where it goes.

GORDON: Let's start here, if I can.

Q: What pressure do you think was put on Colin Powell to make him turn 180 degrees overnight. I know they blame France, but I think it was more than that?

POGGIOLI: I don't know. I really haven't followed that. There was certainly a lot of animosity, a lot of anger between Colin Powell, and I think he was very angry at the French foreign minister De Villepin. There are things that are beginning to come out now that were not so much reported in the American media, that France also made many more overtures towards the U.S. Chirac did not rule out war absolutely.

And on the issue of the second Security Council resolution, the French ambassador went to the White House. I don't know who exactly he spoke to, whether it was to Colin Powell or who, but he said, basically, why don't we just forget the second

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resolution, let's agree to disagree, and let's try to gain some more time. The French wanted inspectors, a stronger inspection regime.

Then there's another theory. In Europe there's a growing feeling that a lot of this, that Chirac was also trapped into this thing. All this "new-old" Europe rhetoric was aimed at -- this is a theory -- to get him angry and to get him … The veto was what the U.S. actually wanted, this veto, so there could be a clear division. This is a European feeling, that the U.S. purposely wanted the division. I don't know if this is true or not, but this is certainly what is felt there. Many people feel that way.

GORDON: So Colin Powell goes back to Europe now on a regular basis as Secretary of State. Does he have then less credibility because people feel that he's not listened to, or that he's actually gone over to the dark side. [LAUGHTER] How do people see him?

POGGIOLI: I think when he said in that interview on TV, he was asked, "Will France be punished?" I can't remember the exact quote. And he indicated, "Yes." I think that was it. I don't think they feel that there's going to be any possibility of dialogue there. I think the sense really is, the Europeans feel, there's no dialogue with this administration any more.

GORDON: Okay, one more from this side and then we'll go back over here. You go ahead, you were here first.

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Q: Thank you for a very reassuring presentation. [LAUGHTER]

GORD ON: We're just here to make you feel better!

Q: And I think most everyone here and in the 30 previous assemblies in this room agree that Mr. Bush doesn't get it, as to what the Europeans think. And he's not interested in listening to ordinary people like us. [APPLAUSE] He has a dozen people around him, and my feeling is, what's left except our media, the television and the press, and they're not on our side. How does one get them to see it, so that finally Mr. Bush can get it?

POGGIOLI: I wish I had the answer. I have to say I quote again, I think it was Stanley Hoffman in this recent piece of his in the New York Review of Books , I think he said, "At times it seemed even that the American media in Washington was embedded in the White House." [LAUGHTER]

GORDON: If you want to be further depressed, look at the FCC ruling that came out.

POGGIOLI: I'm not too optimistic on that one, either.

GORDON: Thank you for that, and over here, sir.

Q: On behalf of your many fans, who listen to you and listen for you all the time, and think of you as a Cantabrigian, we want to welcome you back. And I also

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want to say we tremendously enjoy your far-roaming reports from all over the place, and love it when you get back to Rome and resume your Italian accent. [LAUGHTER]

So my first question actually is about Rome, and then I have a second one. And that's the Pope. There was a great campaign before the war began to get the Pope to go to Baghdad. To physically and by his presence block the war from happening. And there's been no talk since then of why he didn't. And I know the conventional reasons, that he's old and infirm, but in fact he's planning travel right now. Do you have any insight?

And then my second question …

GORDON: Let's do this one.

POGGIOLI: Well, actually, yes, there were certain Catholic groups in the U.S. who also hoped he would come to the U.N. There was also talk about that.

Q: Yes, but Helen Caldicott, for instance, ran an e-mail campaign globally.

POGGIOLI: Yes, I think actually it's true that his health … He did send Palagi, a very close, important Cardinal, to come to talk to Bush. I think he realized that it was really more from the pulpit, from his balcony in St. Peter's Square, that he could make his appeal. Going to Baghdad was not really going to … I don't think he felt that that was going to be very helpful.

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Q: The language was strong.

POGGIOLI: That language was very strong. I think he had one goal in mind. Of course, he would like to have prevented the war, but I think his most important goal was to prevent that there be any conflict, physical conflict, between Christians and Muslims. And I think he can take great comfort and say he was very successful. That has been avoided. In the Christian communities in the Arab world, the Islamic world, were not attacked. There was nothing like that. And I think he can probably say that was thanks to his very, very vocal campaign against the war.

Q: My second question is about your statement that the Europeans seem to loathe Bush but not Americans. And yet you reported to us that they're concerned the "crazy Americans" may bring us to another war. You didn't mention it, but we are not finding any nukes … there aren't very many … And you mentioned the figures of two-thirds of Europeans were against the war, but the reverse was true in the United States. So how is it that Europeans don't, in fact, suspect us as Americans of being … and mostly see this as a Bush issue?

POGGIOLI: I think, again, they'll say …

Q: Some people voted for him. Like 50%, give or take. [LAUGHTER]

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POGGIOLI: Well, they'll say he effectively convinced, the sense of his having produced more fear than hope.

Q: So they think we've been duped.

POGGIOLI : Yes.

Q: And they're excusing us for the time being because we've been hoodwinked as well?

POGGIOLI : Yes. I would say that's … I mean, it really isn't against American society, as it really was during the late sixties, during the Vietnam War. I say that's certainly the way I felt in Europe when I went in '68, I really felt European, it was very leftist. They really did not like anything about American society. There was also infinitely more ignorance about the United States and about American society at the time. Today there is much, much more knowledge. People travel much more. There's not as much naiveté. And American culture is much more liked than Americans may think. That's why I think there's more sophistication in the analysis and that's why I think it's much more -- it's a little bit like the Iraqis -- it's the government to blame.

GORDON: You know there was a really interesting article -- it said that, I think it was people who are better with numbers than I am may correct me, but college students, high school students in the United States were in a majority supporting the war. Hawks outnumbering doves two to one. These were the kids of the

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sixties generations, the people you were reporting on the antiwar protest. Do you see any kind of generational switch like that in Europe, where the high school or university students may have a different point of view from their moms and dads?

POGGIOLI: In this case, I don't think so. Because there were a lot of young people at these demonstrations. I don't think so. Not on this specific case, no, on this issue, no.

GORDON: Over here. Thanks for that.

Q: Miss Poggioli, on September 11 we felt the pain here of terrorism and since we've conducted two high-tech wars. Particularly the war in Afghanistan, we've never been told how many Afghan civilians were killed. And it's a way of keeping us from feeling the pain, dealing with the pain we're causing. Could you comment on that, please?

POGGIOLI: Well, isn't this an old tradition of not … Well, in Vietnam it was always the opposite, weren't they counting the bodies of the Vietnamese and not of the Americans? There's a lot about the Afghan war coverage, again, of that war, too, that we don't know very much about. There're many things that are very unclear. I don't know how the Americans were … There wasn't anything of the embedded journalism in Afghanistan.

GORDON: No, there was nobody up there.

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POGGIOLI: I think we know very little. Of course, that started also with Grenada. We don't know anything of what happened in that war. This is gradually becoming … I think we don't know much of what goes on.

GORDON: Do you see anything in Europe about … Because Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and other people are in there and they're saying "best guess 5000 people killed," and that doesn't get a lot of ink in this country. I don't know whether or not it's a way that people are using to try and evaluate the war in Europe or not.

POGGIOLI: No. And, also, having covered the wars in ex-Yugoslavia, it's a numbers game all the time, too. You never, still today there's a lot of arguing about what the numbers are. The Serbs have never said how many people died of their own.

GORDON: So do you think people don't wonder about it, or do you just think that the numbers are so manipulated whenever they're given, that they're not worth trusting anyway?

POGGIOLI: I think so.

GORDON: And over here, sir.

Q: Good evening. There was an article in The Boston Globe several weeks ago entitled "Soft Balancing." Pretty much the crux of it was that, in the times when

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there's only one dominant superpower, smaller nations somehow collectively unite to thwart the dominant superpower. So do you think that perhaps with the admission of the 10 new countries, especially eastern Europe, to the European Union on June 10, with Britain entering into the Euro, perhaps, that European Union might be the tool of the coming years and decades to somehow thwart what they perceive as U.S. aggression and that will sort of somehow balance off the one dominant superpower that will unite, thwart our efforts, or what they perceive as our efforts.

POGGIOLI: Well, that's President Chirac's hope and dream, I think. There have been divisions, and certainly this administration has been trying to also put more and more wedges. This whole "new Europe-old Europe thing," trying to draw over to itself countries like Poland and the Czech Republic and Hungary. I think that's wishful thinking on the part of this administration to think that they actually are going to be able to do that. But I don't know. As I said, I think the divisions and the problems of creating a united body out of these 25 very diverse countries is going to be very, very difficult.

GORDON: But you look at the frostiness of the meeting in Evian in contrast to Bush and Putin in St. Petersburg, where they're smiling at each other. That's a pretty good example of the U.S. administration learning how to use wedges, isn't it?

POGGIOLI: Yes, it certainly is. But the point is whether it will be successful, because I don't know what Russia has gotten out of this. Putin's Russia has come

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very much forward, made many concessions. Afghanistan, the American troops stationed all over former Soviet republics and no objections. Putin has certainly attenuated his objections about the Baltic States entering NATO. But I don't know what Russia's gotten in exchange for all this. There've been a lot of handshakes. I certainly think if Putin, if Russia, and France and Germany, if they create a strong bloc together, that will be of great concern here in Washington.

GORDON: Thanks. Over here.

Q: Why do you think Tony Blair supported this war so strongly? And do you think he would deliberately mislead the British people about the weapons of mass destruction?

POGGIOLI: I have to say, I spent, as I said, six weeks there in London watching this, and I'm flummoxed by Tony Blair. I don't get it, completely, why. From what I understand, he truly believed. This is really an ethical, moral issue for him. He truly, truly believed in the rightness of this cause. And I have no reason to believe that that isn't the case. Clearly, he perhaps, on a more, political level, he looks at Europe and says, “This is still a weak, divided entity. Perhaps it's more important now for Britain to be on America's side.” And that was an important political move. I don't know in the long term, though. The rest of the Europeans are saying, Britain is going to have to decide at some point on which side it wants to be. It's sort of a straddling the fence for a long time. And I think it's been postponed, this Euro referendum. Because there's division also within the British

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government between Blair and Gordon Brown about the Euro. And he doesn't feel quite strong enough to have that Euro referendum, I think.

GORDON: A fair amount is made about the sort of Christian affinity that Blair and Bush have on this war, on this issue. Does that get attention in Britain? Is that perhaps a part of the story?

POGGIOLI: That Tony Blair is a very religious person? Yes, indeed. This is something that I learned recently, that Blair went to see the Pope just a few weeks before the war started, and it was a very private meeting, and everybody was very, very curious. And there's a rumor that when Tony Blair is no longer Prime Minister of Britain, he may actually convert to Catholicism. And that his wife is a very fervent Catholic. I don't know. I put that as things that are being talked about in Vatican corridors anyway.

GORDON: You read it here first. [LAUGHTER] Over here.

Q: Yes, you mentioned that Europe never really got 9/11. It seems in the past year that Europe never really got the Holocaust. There's been a resurgence of anti- Semitism in European countries, especially France, Germany, Belgium with every little response from their governments, and it seems now that even many of these governments are hostage to their considerable Arab/Muslim minorities. I'd like your comments.

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POGGIOLI: Well, in terms of the Europeans not having gotten the Holocaust, I agree with you. I think this is really one thing … It's a subject that's not talked about much, but I think you're right. In terms of the anti-Semitic incidents, there has been certainly a surge in several countries. The case in France, it seems from what's documented, that in great part they are the work of, they're carried out by members of the Muslim immigrants or children of immigrants from the Muslim community. There is concern, though, in France about that. I have to say, I was doing a series on Muslims in Europe. I did a lot of reporting on this in the early part of this year, and I remember having an interview with a well-known Moroccan writer who's been living in France for a long time, Taher Ben Jalun, and he first spoke to me with great concern about this rising anti-Semitism in the Muslim community. There have been many incidents in schools that are very bad. These are actual incidents again cemeteries, against synagogues that comes from that sector.

In terms of language and tone, also, there is a resurgence, I believe, of anti- Semitism. One reads, hears it also in newspaper editorials; I think particularly, also, in places like Britain.

GORDON: How connected is it to headlines from Israel? I mean, last March when there was all the controversy over the attack on Jenin. That was a time …

POGGIOLI: There was a lot. There was even a group of British academics who, if I remember correctly, decided to not have … There was a review that kicked out the Israeli members. It was a translator's, if I remember correctly now, there was a

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periodical that had to do with translation, and two Israeli members were just completely kicked off, and they decided to boycott any kind of events that had any Israeli members. It caused quite a lot of scandal about this. This was really quite shocking.

The height of it was last year at the time of the whole Jenin, and there was an enormous amount of anti-Semitic rhetoric, I recall, in the Vatican media, in L'Osservatore Romano , the Vatican daily, and in Vatican circles, at the time of the siege of the Church of the Nativity.

So, yes. There is.

GORDON: Thank you for that. Sir?

Q: It just so happens that that's a similar line of questioning that I was going to ask you, but to be more specific, I disagree a little with the previous questioner's statement that the Europeans don't get the Holocaust. I think they get it only too well. But on a subliminal and subconscious basis. I was at a conference in Vienna a few years ago called "The Presence of the Absence." It was dealing almost entirely with the gaping hole that the disappearance of European Jewry has left in the European consciousness. And there is an incredible unwillingness to deal with that, even in Germany, which ostensibly makes huge efforts to come to terms with it. But that's on such a superficial level.

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The other fact that I see, and maybe it's not a fact, but a peculiarly warped line of reasoning, and maybe you would comment on it, is the born-again tone of George Bush's Christianity, essentially submitting itself to the far right. And Israel's reasoning against the Europeans. Because, basically, the Israeli response to European criticism of their actions is, "What right do you have?' "You have no moral standing as far as telling us what to do, because look what you did to us?" And the fact that there is no evenhandedness in American foreign policy towards Israel and the Palestinians to speak of, compared to our previous President.

Maybe part of the European distaste for George Bush has to do with, essentially, looking at American foreign policy in the Middle East and towards the Arabs, and, again, because of the large constituency of Muslims in Europe right now, compared to the Jews, are all gone, may simply look as if the U.S. is hostage to Israel.

POGGIOLI: Well, taking the issue of these large Muslim communities, I have to say that I don't think any European really feels it as a, certainly not on an electoral level … I mean, Europe has a huge problem in dealing with immigrants and has an enormous blind spot to this whole issue of trying to integrate immigrants, and, of course, Muslims in particular. So I don't think that there is a sort of pro … The pro-Palestinian thing is not so much dictated by this sort of large contingent.

I think this largely pro-Palestinian sentiment in Europe has, first of all, older roots. Leftist, sixties. They sort of see it as a liberation struggle, this whole Third World idea, of this tiers mondes and everything. There's a lot of that. And then,

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subconsciously, yes, I think in terms of anti-Semitism, there is this unspoken thing. There is anti-Semitism. I mean, it's there. It's latent in some places. It has different causes. But it's there, and it's hard to separate it sometimes between that and anti-Israeli.

Now, of course, this Bush being the whole Christian fundamentalist thing just helps reconfirm the prejudices also that Europeans have.

GORDON: Thanks for your question. Over here, ma'am?

Q: Thank you for your time here tonight. I was wondering if you found that the Europeans understand or see the many Americans that are anti-Bush and anti-war? If they understand that many Americans share their same sentiments?

POGGIOLI: Well, every time there's an antiwar demonstration it gets huge coverage in the European mean. I mean, it does, especially on TV. You'll see it. There is a sense of that certainly. Movies like, what was it? Bowling for Columbine had a huge success in Europe. No, there is a sense that … And I think the movie that just won at the Venice Film Festival also had dealt with a kind of Columbine. It was a fiction but it was that kind of a story. Very critical. So, no. There's an awareness.

Q: Thank you.

GORDON: Is that encouraging? Over here.

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Q: Thank you for a wonderful talk. My question is how would you address people like Robert Kagan and other Machiavellian authors who argue that the only reason that Europeans are using the Lilliputian ropes of international institutions to kind of constrain the Gulliver of U.S. power is that well, they don't have the power? And if one of the European states had the power the U.S. had, they'd be doing the same thing as the United States. This was in Robert Kagan's relatively new book, Of Paradise and Power . And I'm very interested in how you would address it. Do you think the Europeans have a different mindset or different perspective when it comes to international power now?

POGGIOLI: I think the European -- this is the whole Venus versus Mars, or Mars versus Venus school -- I think the European would react by saying that they don't really believe, they don't even really see that the U.S. is so Martian. Martial. Because look at the case of the Kosovo war, for instance. There was always this fear of Americans coming back in body bags and everything. I have the sense also that the Iraq war was easy. I mean, America had overwhelming force, and that there wasn't … It was easy to pick a war with Iraq, because the Army was insignificant. So I think the European will put down that argument and say this is not really very credible.

GORDON: Two more. Let's do these two here. Go ahead, sir?

Q: In your opening remarks you mention that there seems to be a great alienation, a great misunderstanding on both sides of the Atlantic. Do you see any serious

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attempts on any level of government or any level of society of trying to breach this misunderstanding?

POGGIOLI: We're in the early stages. This whole thing has exploded in the last few weeks. So I think everybody is, as I said, looking at what the leaders are doing. I think tourists are still coming here. American tourism has declined tremendously in Europe, but I think there're still exchanges. It's very much at the level of governments.

Oh, I have to say, what was very surprising to Europeans was the tone, the Europhobia tone in the media and all these things of pouring French wine out and boycotting. I don't know if that was exaggerated or not. Oh, and this thing of not calling them French fries. Freedom fries in the Congress, even. But you know what? Somebody pointed out that they did leave one other French word, menu.

GORDON: Freedom fries on the menu. Does that answer your question?

Q: It probably does.

GORDON: It's interesting because part of what you're saying is, put it at the government level, why is it that there was no one at Evian who went, "Okay, enough of this? We're better off working together than apart." None of the political leaders were ready to make that kind of grand, humble gesture. Any idea why? Is that playing to the constituents, or is that because the animosity really runs deeper than your average diplomatic spitting match.

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POGGIOLI: I think it's in Bush's court right now, because the French and the Germans have made some overtures in the past few weeks. There was the passage of the resolution at the U.N. Security Council. I think it really, right now, it's Bush's move to decide, to make the overture.

GORDON: Thank you very much. Sir? This will be the last question because we're a little tight for time. Go ahead, sir.

Q: Had there been a discussion of the American foreign policy in the first months of the Bush administration pre-9/11, it would either have focused on or certainly would have included a big country called China. Let's drop out. We haven't said China tonight. But China is still there. Do you see, perhaps, the U.S. and the Europeans vying for the affection or influence of China as the next half-decade goes forward?

POGGIOLI: I certainly think the U.S. will. I think China is further from Europe's mindset than it is from the United States'. But I think what's interesting about your question is that periodically over the years, everybody says-- even before the Bush administration -- it'll be the Asia century, it'll be the whatever century, and that Europe is no longer important. And yet, all this stuff shows that this relationship is extremely important, even in its difficulties. The drifting apart is going to be damaging, one way or the other. There are just too many reasons why they have to work together. And so, China is extremely important, but for Europe it's far away. And I think the most important thing is the economic thing.

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We talk about soft power, hard power, everything, Europe is almost equivalent to the United States as an economic power. It certainly is a market and the exchange, the trade is huge. Billions of dollars every day. They've got to work together. The gap cannot get wider. Sooner or later it's going to have to get narrower.

GORDON: You're going to force me to break my rules, aren't you? See, if I was hosting "The Connection," I could say, "We have no more time." Quick. Last question.

Q: I can't understand why we have such a great CIA and FBI, why we still cannot find Bin Laden or Hussein. [LAUGHTER] Why, we're so great in everything else? We know where Bulger is. We got him. I have another question, but actually it's a statement, so please answer that.

POGGIOLI: That's beyond me.

GORDON: Come on, you spend a lot of time on the road. You must see somebody at the café.

I want to thank the Kennedy Library and the corporate underwriters. Especially Sylvia Poggioli for this opportunity. And John Shattuck for hosting us here. Thank you, John.

[APPLAUSE]

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SHATTUCK: Let me, at the risk of inviting more applause, which I think is certainly well due here, let me particularly thank Sylvia for being and continuing to be and to build a bridge across the Atlantic. I wish there were more traffic across that bridge, at least at high levels of government, in any event. And Dick Gordon, for your wonderful and always wonderful way of bringing out the best and, in this case, having NPR and WBUR having this exchange in the Kennedy Library. I cannot resist concluding this program for your listeners by saying "This was Sylvia Poggioli. Reporting from the Kennedy Library. Live."

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