Living History by Unknown (best non fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

publicly acknowledged. Bertie chose the occasion of my visit to go public. As Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith accompanied me onto the stage to address the crowd, Bertie and Celia walked up the stairs. The Irish press was electrified. As soon as Bertie and I finished speaking, they rushed for their phones and computers. The reporter for the Irish Times, Susan Garrity, who was based in Washington and had flown over with me to cover the trip, told me later that she overheard one reporter yelling into the phone, “I’m telling you, he put his mistress on the stage with the First Lady. Can you believe it? The First Lady!” This earthshaking news had no impact on the political fortunes of Ahern, who was reelected in 2002, and it certainly wasn’t a topic of conversation at the private dinner Bertie, Celia and I later attended with some of my favorite Irish, Seamus and Marie Heaney and Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes.

The next morning I flew to Belfast to deliver the first Joyce McCartan Memorial Lecture at the University of Ulster. I spoke of Joyce’s relentless commitment to peace and recognized the women like her who, despite their own personal losses, had contributed to greater understanding between the traditions during the Troubles and who were now playing a role in the peace process. I especially admired Monica McWilliams and Pearl Sager, who were representing the Women’s Coalition at the talks taking place under former Senator George Mitchell, whom Bill had appointed to chair the negotiations.

On this trip, I witnessed firsthand the importance of ongoing contacts between Catholics and Protestants at a roundtable discussion of young people from both communities held in the new Waterfront Hall, a monument to Belfast’s optimism about the future.

Conferences such as this supported the peace process and brought together students who would not likely have met under any other circumstances. They lived in segregated neighborhoods and went to rigidly sectarian schools. I’ll long remember what one young man said to me when I asked what he thought it would take to establish lasting peace.

“We need to go to school together like you do in America,” he replied.

One reason I support improving our public school system through higher standards and greater accountability and oppose weakening it through vouchers is that it brings together children of all races, religions and backgrounds, and has shaped and sustained our pluralistic democracy. Very few countries in the world benefit from such diversity in education. As our society grows ever more diverse, it will become even more important for children to study together and learn to tolerate and respect their differences as they affirm their common humanity.

Also attending the Belfast conference was Marjorie “Mo” Mowlam, Tony Blair’s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Mo had recently completed debilitating treatments for a nonmalignant brain tumor, which had caused her hair to fall out. She wore a wig and later asked if I’d mind if she took it off. I learned that she did this at official meetings, exposing her bald head with its few wisps of blond hair. I wondered whether removing her wig was a subtle way of suggesting that she had nothing to hide in her work on behalf of the peace process―or a not so subtle reminder that she was a woman more interested in substance than show. Mo became a delightful new friend.

I flew from Belfast to London and then drove forty miles north to Buckinghamshire, where Chequers sits on one thousand acres of rolling English countryside, its grounds lined with stone paths and manicured gardens. An immense front door signals the entrance to the redbrick manor house that has served as a weekend getaway for Prime Ministers since 1921, after the estate was bequeathed to the British government. Tony met me at the door wearing blue jeans and his trademark boyish grin.

That evening, the Blairs, Melanne and I enjoyed a private dinner and stayed up late into the night, sitting in front of the large stone fireplace in the Great Hall, talking about a broad array of subjects ranging from Yeltsin and his inner circle to French perfidy vis-àvis Iran and Iraq to U.S. involvement in Bosnia. We also discussed what Tony called the “cellular fatigue” that seems to come with public life these days and the connection between our religious faith and public service. Both of us rooted our political beliefs in our faith, which molded our commitment to social action. I talked about John Wesley’s invocation, which I had taken to heart when I was confirmed in the Methodist faith―Live every day doing as much good as you can, in every way that you can―and about what theologians have described as “the push of duty and the pull of grace.”

The next morning, the other American and British participants arrived. Over coffee in the Great Parlor on the second floor, we discussed policies that could support families in their primary functions of raising children, as well as education and employment policies.

After our discussions, we walked through the gardens, looking out over the lush green meadow that seemed to stretch to the horizon. England can be gray and wet in late autumn, but on this day the sky was deep blue and the sun was bright, making the surroundings vivid with color. As I looked beyond the lawns and rosebushes, I realized that although Chequers was guarded and secure, there was no visible fence or any indication that it was a secluded government facility.

At dinner, I sat next to Tony Giddens, a brilliant and prolific scholar who has written extensively about the Third Way. Giddens told me that when the history of the bloody twentieth century is written, the advancing status of women will be seen as a historic change, as profound as the extraordinary march of technology and the successful defense and proliferation of Western democracy.

As soon as we got back to the United States, Sid and I briefed Bill and recommended that he continue the Third Way