Lugar discusses foreign policy in lecture

When former U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar was rushed away from his Washington, D.C., office due to an anthrax attack in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, he said a drastic change in American foreign policy was underway.

“I mention this because there was, for the first time, a surge of desire to raise money for the defense department and to defend America. There had been a hiatus for several years where the public was not very involved in foreign affairs,” Lugar said. “Not so then.”

Lugar shared stories of diplomacy with dictators and anthrax scares at a foreign policy lecture Tuesday evening in the Whittenberger Auditiorium.

IU students, faculty and community members packed the room for the second annual Patrick O’Meara International Lecture, named after the recently retired IU vice president of international affairs, who introduced Lugar to the crowd.

“In short, Dick Lugar directly influenced policies that affected millions of people around the world,” O’Meara said. “His life has in so many ways been dedicated to bettering the lives of others.”

As the longest-serving U.S. senator in Indiana history and former chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Lugar is highly regarded for his work with U.S. diplomacy efforts that led to disarmament of Russian nuclear and chemical weapons, as well as his work as a bipartisan diplomat for the U.S.

“Sen. Lugar has always been a statesman that I’ve admired,” said senior Jon Jarrett, who attended the lecture. “He’s come up with a lot of legislation that’s been very impactful.”

Lugar’s lecture, titled “American Foreign Policy: Challenges and Opportunities” emphasized that the evolution of foreign relations is forcing the U.S. to change its strategies for international peacekeeping and negotiation.

“We have an evolution of American foreign policy going on,” Lugar said. “We’ll have to deal with all sorts of situations of this variety in which we’re not going to be able to send armed forces trooping in. We’re not going to be able to ‘nation build.’ But we do have opportunities in diplomacy to make a huge difference.”

Lugar, who was recently appointed as a distinguished scholar and professor of practice at the new School of Global and International Studies, plugged his current employer in a story from a recent trip to Washington, D.C.

“I was at John Kerry’s swearing in as secretary of state, and an advertisement appeared in the Washington Post that morning about the IU International School,” Lugar said. “Of all the 400 people I saw, almost every single one wanted to talk about IU and what’s going on out there.”

He also noted the fact that solutions to international conflict begin with strong educational programs.

“There are others who need our help,” Lugar said. “They need the help of people who are going to find new opportunities right here on this campus. I think we’re off to a tremendous start.”