BRUNSWICK — Ambassador Laurence Pope, a member of the Bowdoin College Class of 1967, returns to campus Monday, Feb. 6, to deliver the talk “American Security in the 21st Century” in Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center. The event is free and open to the public.

 

The legacy of the Bowdoin Marines who fought in World War II was the internationalist consensus which has guided American foreign policy since 1945. That consensus is threatened today by the backlash against globalization and the rise of radical nationalism, both here and around the world. 

Ambassador Pope will address the risks for our security of a new “America First” doctrine, and how American foreign policy institutions, militarized by the war on terror and the pressure of nation-building wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, might be reformed to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.

Pope is a 31-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service. From 1993 to 1996, he was ambassador to Chad, where he worked to organize the first presidential election in that country’s history. From 1997 to 2000, he served as the political advisor to Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, USMC, at the U.S. Central Command.  In 2012 after the assassination of Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi, Libya, he returned briefly to active duty to take charge of the American embassy in Tripoli.

Pope is a recipient of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Distinguished Civilian Service, the highest award given to a civilian by the Department of Defense. He is currently a historian and national security consultant, and lives in Portland.

Free and open to the public, the lecture begins at 7:30 p.m.