Hope M. Harrison

After completing her B.A. in Social Studies at Harvard, Hope came to Columbia to study at the Harriman Institute in 1986. She completed the certificate program in 1991 and earned her Ph.D. in Political Science in 1993. Hope has taught at Brandeis University and Lafayette College and is now a tenured Associate Professor of History and International Affairs at George Washington University, where she has been since 1999. In 2003, Princeton University Press published her book, Driving the Soviets Up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953-1961, in the International History and Politics Series. The book won the AAASS 2004 Marshall Shulman prize for an outstanding monograph on the international behavior of the countries of the former communist bloc. Harrison was one of the first Western scholars to use the archives in Moscow and Berlin beginning in 1991-92. Her book is based on extensive archival research and argues that a persistent East German leadership was able to push the reluctant Soviets into building the Berlin Wall. As the citation for the Shulman Prize put it, “Harrison’s interviews and extensive work in both Soviet and German archives make this book the definitive account of the foreign relations of the period, while also contributing significantly to our theoretical understanding of the dynamics between relatively strong and weak allied states.” Harrison has appeared on CNN, C-SPAN, the History Channel and elsewhere in the media discussing her work.

Harrison’s new research project examines how Germany since 1989 has been dealing with the East German communist past by political, legal, cultural and other means. To begin work on the project, Harrison was a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin in the spring of 2004 and at the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung in Potsdam in the fall of 2004. In the fall of 2005, she will become the Director for the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

Harrison has also been active outside of the academic world. She was a Director for European and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council from 2000 to 2001, as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. Harrison’s portfolio included Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Greece and Cyprus.

If anyone asks me the rhetorical question of where I spent my most formative years and most intellectually stimulating time, I would, without hesitation, say my student days at the Russian Institute (now the Harriman Institute) of Columbia University.

The 1960s were exciting years for those who were majoring in Russian Studies. It was the height of the Cold War in the bipolar world. At that time, the Russian Institute attracted the brightest students from home and abroad, and the faculty was superb. It was able to arrange a stream of eminent scholars and practitioners in the discipline from, literally, all over the world as visiting professors or lecturers or speakers. Hardly a single day passed without one of these forums. The Institute was lively and truly the center of intellectual activities and learning.

Students studying at the Institute, whether specializing in politics, economics, history, literature, etc., had to take required courses in these subjects. It was a specialized area studies program. As a foreign student, having finished my undergraduate studies in three years, the Russian Institute helped fill an intellectual void for me.

I am indebted to all my professors, but if I may I would single out Professors John N. Hazard, Alexander Dallin, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Geroid T. Robinson, and William T.R. Fox as professors to whom I am especially indebted. Although Professor Fox was not directly associated with the Russian Institute, his introductory course on International Politics was required for International Affairs majors. These professors were not only great scholars and teachers, but also great human beings. They were rigorous in the academic discipline, but sympathetic to students’ interests. Professor Hazard was the epitome of the model scholar and teacher. I have never met a more civilized person than he. Many foreign students have fond memories of Christmas dinners at the home of Professor and Mrs. Fox. They literally opened their home and hearts to us.

Concurrently, in 1971, I received my certificate from the Russian Institute, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Upon receiving my certificate and degree, I received several offers from colleges and universities for teaching positions. This good fortune was very much the result of great recommendations from Professors Hazard, Fox, and others. I still feel strongly that I am indebted to them for my career. Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, offered me the opportunity to establish a new International Affairs department. Having always relished adventure and challenge, I accepted the position. Subsequently, if you will excuse my immodesty, I established one of the finest International Affairs departments in the country. In the beginning, when organizing the I.A. curriculum, Professors Fox and Hazard, spent generous time making suggestions to improve the curriculum. Within a few years, it became the largest department at the College and attracted, and continues to attract, the finest students from all over the world. I have sent many undergraduates to Columbia’s SIPA. As part of the curriculum, I established an annual International Affairs Symposium, which still continues as one of the major events of the College. The Symposium speakers include leaders of the scholarly, political, economic, and civic worlds. When I retired, the Trustees of the College established a Distinguished International Lecture Series in my honor.

In 1974, I established the Trans Pacific Dialogue with Academician Georgi Arbatov, of the Institute of U.S. and Canada Studies, Academy of Sciences, Soviet Union (at that time). We had an annual conference with Soviet experts. I believed that such a dialogue was necessary in the dangerous Cold War era. I continued this dialogue, alternately, in the Soviet Union and the U.S. until the early 1990s. I established many personal contacts with the Soviet leaders, including Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Evgeny M. Primakov, Vladimir P. Lukin, and Aleksandr Yakovlev. Later these relations helped me establish normal relations between the Soviet Union, and Eastern European countries with the Republic of Korea. In 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Arbatov’s Institute granted me an honorary doctor’s degree, one of only two people to have ever received such an honor from the Institute. It was an irony of history that the first person was Gus Hall, Secretary of the Communist Party of the U.S., at that time. Gus Hall’s citation described his “contribution to the cause of the Communist movement in the U.S.” Mine was for the “contribution in helping to end the Cold War.” Later I received two more honorary doctoral degrees from Russia: one from Khabarovsk State Pedagogical University and the other from Far Eastern State University in Vladivostok.

The education I received from the Russian Institute provided me with the necessary tools to negotiate with Russians and Eastern Europeans on various projects, too numerous to mention. Among them, however, I was instrumental in bringing the Soviet and Communist Bloc athletes to the 1988 Seoul Olympics, in my role as the principal advisor to the Olympics. At the same time I helped negotiate formal diplomatic relations between South Korea and the Soviet Union. My primary contact for the negotiations was Evgeny M. Primakov, who was then a member of the Politburo. Mssrs. Lukin, Arbatov, and Yakovlev were all involved at one stage or another. The South Korean government recognized my contribution and I was recognized with a distinguished service award from the Korean Broadcasting System and an honorary doctor’s degree from Hanyang University in Korea. I also negotiated many business projects, representing both U.S. and South Korean firms, and was active in the U.S.–Soviet Trade and Economic Council.

During my academic career I have published several books, including three for the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and other books in Korea and Japan, and I edited several books as well. I have written more than fifty scholarly articles published in Problems of Communism, Asian Survey, Orbis, Pacific Affairs, Asian Perspective, and many other journals.

Upon retiring from Lewis & Clark College, I took my current job with Nike as Vice President of International Business & Government Relations. My background and experience in Russia and Eastern Europe have helped me in establishing Nike companies in those regions, as well as in China, and other countries. I serve on the boards of many business organizations and academic institutions, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Council), and the SIPA Council, and am still active in giving lectures and participating in symposiums, both at home and abroad. I have received many honorary professorships and scholarly honors, but I note one in particular: In 1997 I received the First Annual Alumni Appreciation Award from The Harriman Institute. I proudly display it on my office wall as a symbol and reminder of my intellectual origins and the noble men who mentored me.

Joseph M. Ha