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AFTER DEPARTURE
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| Last update 5 Mar. 2004 |
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by Joshua Grossberg
Jan 30, 2001, 11:45 AM PT
For a guy who has made a career out of filming other people's fairy tales, Steven Spielberg finally has one he can call all his own.
The man who has made such classics as E.T., Jurassic Park
and Schindler's List was awarded one of the highest honors of the British Empire Monday, when he received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for his contributions to cinema and society over the past 25 years.
British Ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer placed a cross-shaped medallion around Spielberg's neck in a brief, but festive ceremony held in a candlelit ballroom at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. Minus the pomp one might expect at such an event, the 53-year-old director accepted the award with wife Kate Capshaw and close family and friends in attendance.
"The award of an honorary knighthood to Steven Allan Spielberg is in recognition of his unique and outstanding contribution to international film, and in particular, his services to the entertainment industry of the United Kingdom," said Meyer.
Meyer praised the director for using British actors and crew and shooting movies like Saving Private Ryan and Raiders of the Lost Ark, among others, in Great Britain, strengthening the relationship between the two countries.
"Mr. Spielberg's career has had a global impact. But the impact in the United Kingdom stands out. [He] epitomizes the cultural partnership between our two countries," added Meyer. "I am privileged to present this historical award tonight on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen."
Smiling, Spielberg humbly admitted he didn't expect the honor, and joked that he thought it might be a ploy by someone to get him to read a film script. But he still said it was a dream come true.
"The truth is, I stand before you now and I'm a knight," said a glowing Spielberg. "This is the stuff that all our childhood fantasies come from. You know, courtliness, civility and honor."
In his acceptance speech, a tuxedo-clad Spielberg paid tribute to such notable British directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Richard Attenborough and Carol Reed among those who have influenced him.
Established in 1917 to recognize service by civilians during World War I, the British order has more recently evolved to honor public service and contributions to society, especially work in the arts and entertainment.
Last year, Queen Elizabeth II handed out honorary titlesto British-born legends like Sean Connery, Elizabeth Taylor, and Julie Andrews. Americans who have received the honorary knighthood in the past include Bob Hope, Secretary of State Colin Powell, former President George Bush and General Wesley K. Clark.
Since the title is an honorary one and does not impart full knighthood (reserved only for British citizens), Spielberg will not be addressed as "Sir." However, he does have the option of adding a "KBE"--Knight of the British Empire--to his screen credits if he so desires.
"When he first got the news five or six weeks ago, he was both humbled and really thrilled about it," Spielberg spokesman Marvin Levy said. "This is one that will be very high on his list of treasured moments and honors."
The director, who is finishing up the sci-fi film A.I., begins work in March on his next project, another sci-fi thriller, Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise.
And if the knighthood wasn't enough, Spielberg will receive that greatest of Tinseltown accolades later this year when he gets his own star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.
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| The Washington Post |
from The Ultimate PR Challenge
By Lloyd Grove
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 16, 2001; Page C03
...
THIS JUST IN . .
.
We hear that on Wednesday, as former defense secretary Bill Cohen and his glamorous wife, Janet Langhart, were toasting the launch of the Cohen Group, a Washington consulting business, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark was on the other side of the country bad-mouthing his old boss. Clark, who as NATO's supreme allied commander repeatedly clashed with Cohen and was forced from his perch last May, told fellow guests in Santa Barbara at the Talk magazine/UBS Paine Webber confab that Pentagon contractors had built the Cohens a house and that the former senator had taken "his Senate henchman" into business with him. More to come, presumably, in Clark's memoirs. Neither Clark nor Cohen returned our calls.
With Beth Berselli
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| Clark's book 'Waging Modern War' |
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| The New York Times |
Wesley K. Clark, NATO's commander during the war with Yugoslavia, asserts in a new memoir that the Pentagon discouraged steps that might have made the fighting unnecessary.
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ORDER NOW (2003) |
LONDON, May 20 In a new memoir, NATO's commander during the war with Yugoslavia asserts that the Pentagon repeatedly hampered the alliance's military planning and discouraged steps that might have made the fighting unnecessary.
The commander, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who is now retired, writes that the Pentagon opposed his proposal in March 1998 to warn Yugoslavia's president, Slobodan Milosevic, that NATO would intervene if he cracked down on the restive Albanian population in Kosovo.
Once the fighting started a year later, according to General Clark, the Pentagon was slow to approve some of the targets and resisted planning for a possible ground war.
And in the final weeks of the war, as Albanian rebels fought Yugoslavia's Serbian forces in Kosovo, the Pentagon rejected General Clark's request that American artillery, missile and helicopter rocket attacks be carried out from the Albanian side of the border. The American forces would not have entered Kosovo, but the Pentagon apparently feared a slippery slope that could lead to a land offensive.
"There was giant resistance from the Pentagon to deepening the commitment to the Balkans," General Clark said in a telephone interview today from Little Rock, Ark., where he now lives. He said the Balkans had not figured in "the Pentagon view of its national military strategy, which is to prepare to fight in the Persian Gulf and in Korea, and that short of that, the maximum amount should be spent on the procurement account."
The memoir, "Waging Modern War," is published by PublicAffairs. The 479-page book provides an inside account of the planning and conduct of the 77-day war, as well of the diplomacy that preceded it.
While it is well known that General Clark had a strained relationship with the Pentagon his tour was cut short after less than three years by William S. Cohen, who was secretary of defense the book offers fresh information about NATO's first and only war.
The fighting began as insurgents tried to break Kosovo away from Yugoslavia and Mr. Milosevic, who has been indicted for war crimes. His resistance caused the dislocations of hundreds of thousands of refugees.
During the NATO war, there was considerable speculation about America's disputes with the allies. The White House's handling of the Balkan crisis also came under scrutiny. But from the vantage of his NATO headquarters, General Clark provides a different picture.
He paints President Clinton as a capable leader who was prepared to make a tough call by moving toward the use of ground troops. Javier Solana, who was NATO's secretary general, is also portrayed as a decisive figure who tried to rally support in Europe for the bombing.
In contrast, General Clark is severely critical of the Pentagon leadership. Secretary Cohen repeatedly tried to limit the American involvement in the Balkans, he said. Fearful that General Clark would try to rally support in the administration for a land offensive, Mr. Cohen even tried to stop the general from going to Washington for a NATO summit gathering, according to the book.
Gen. Joseph Ralston, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and General's Clark's successor as NATO commander, is portrayed as more consumed with bureaucratic politics in the Pentagon than with European strategy.
General Clark is especially critical of his own service, the Army. As storm clouds gathered late in 1998, he warned Gen. Dennis Reimer, then the Army chief of staff, that war might break out and that he should get ready for a confrontation with Yugoslavia. "But we don't want to fight there," the book recounts General Reimer as saying.
Gen. Eric Shinseki, the current Army chief of staff, is depicted as a by-the-book and overly cautious officer during his tour in Bosnia.
A West Point graduate and career Army officer, General Clark came to his post with a keen interest in the Balkans. He served as a military representative on Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke's delegation at Balkan peace talks in Dayton, Ohio, which led to accords in 1995.
But after General Clark went to NATO, he found the Pentagon to be less interested in the region.
One of General Clark's first run- ins with the Pentagon occurred early in 1998, he said. As tensions grew in Kosovo, he sent a message to Mr. Cohen recommending that the United States repeat a warning that President George Bush privately communicated in 1992: that a brutal crackdown in Kosovo could lead to NATO intervention.
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"And," General Ralston continued, "the secretary is concerned that Madeleine Albright might get a copy of this," the book recounts, referring to the secretary of state. Efforts to reach Mr. Cohen today through his former associates were unavailing.
As the crisis grew in Kosovo, the Clinton administration began to prepare for a showdown with Belgrade. Serbian atrocities in Kosovo were reported, and the administration decided to warn Mr. Milosevic that he faced airstrikes if he did not end his crackdown against the Albanian population in Kosovo and subscribe to the terms that international negotiators in France were trying to work out to keep peace in Kosovo.
But NATO ran into problems when it began to act. Some of the problems, General Clark's book recounts, had nothing to do with the Pentagon. General Clark's own command failed to foresee that Mr. Milosevic would try to stymie the alliance by expelling thousands of Albanians and creating a refugee crisis.
And General Clark issued a secret order that NATO's first requirement was to avoid the loss of any aircraft, according to his book. The preoccupation with avoiding NATO military casualties limited the effectiveness of the air campaign and increased the prospect of civilian casualties, because allied warplanes bombed from high altitudes. General Clark defended the order in an interview as necessary to maintain public support for the war.
The book recounts sharp debates among the allies. France and other nations believed that airstrikes should concentrate on Serbian forces in Kosovo. The American insisted that they should be directed against command-and-control sites and other targets in Belgrade. And well before the war began, a French officer compromised security by providing an early version of the air war plan to the Serbs.
But many of the bitterest and most important disputes were between General Clark and the Pentagon. Soon after the bombing started, the general writes, he became frustrated when the staff of the Joint Chiefs in Washington disallowed some targets, namely petroleum storage and electrical power plants, because the Pentagon wanted to be able to bomb them later in case the Serbs attacked American peacekeepers in Kosovo or other NATO forces.
Even after the bombing started in late March, the Pentagon repeatedly resisted efforts to plan for a ground war. As the air campaign progressed, General Clark says he found himself in a dilemma. Many allies were becoming concerned about civilian casualties from the airstrikes and wanted to begin serious planning for a ground war. But the Pentagon was anxious to avoid a land campaign and pressed for an escalation of the air campaign.
The debate became personal when the Pentagon tried to keep General Clark from attending the NATO meeting in April and, later, from attending a crucial meeting at the White House at which land-war planning was supposed to be discussed.
As the debate continued, General Clark was given a memorandum former officials say it was from the British of a conversation between Mr. Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. The memo indicated that Mr. Blair had urged that a ground offensive be carried out if necessary.
"Clinton was in general agreement that he would do whatever was necessary to win and was moving toward a positive decision on the ground option," General Clark writes, referring to the memo.
The Pentagon's opposition to a land war was evident when rebels of the Kosovo Liberation Army fought Serbian forces in a vicious battle on Mount Pastrik in Kosovo at the end of May. General Clark asked for authorization to attack the Serbs with Apache missile-firing helicopters, surface-to-surface missiles and artillery.
He says he acted because American aircraft were having trouble finding the targets, while American ground forces in Albania had counter-battery radars and other targeting systems able to pinpoint the source of Serbian fire. The ground forces were also able to respond quickly to intelligence coming from the insurgents.
General Clark had been denied permission to use the Apaches in Kosovo on the ground that that was too risky. But even when he planned to keep the forces on the Albanian side of the border, the request was again turned down. Eventually B- 52's were sent to pound the Serbs.
General Clark said in the interview that he hoped his book would be an important lesson about coalition warfare and Pentagon planning. "We have to learn from the Kosovo operation," he said. "Nothing has changed. If anything, the problems are deeper."
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Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Clark is now retired, but during the Kosovo conflict he was the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. This book is a record of his experiences during the conflict. Clark tells a story of frustration with NATO allies, who had to approve each operation and target selection. Often, he was at odds with U.S. policymakers as he tried to formulate a strategy that would achieve his military goals. He also had to deal with the Serb government and Slobodan Milosevic. While the Kosovo conflict was never a declared war, Clark feels that the Allies were victorious in the sense that the goals of the operation were realized. Milosevic was forced from power, ethnic cleansing has been stopped, and Serb forces have been withdrawn from Kosovo. All of this was accomplished without a single Allied combat death. The reader can follow Clark's story as he tries his own brand of shuttle diplomacy. The last chapter deals with the future of modern war. This title recalls several recent books (e.g., Ralph Peters's Fighting for the Future, LJ 1/99) that discuss the future of America's military. However, it is largely a record of the Kosovo conflict and will appeal to subject specialists or scholars. Recommended for public and academic libraries. Mark Ellis, Albany State Univ., GA
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
The Supreme Allied Commander who directed and won NATO's war in Kosovo offers a unique behind-the-scenes look at how the war was actually fought, and explains the conflict's surprising implications for how war will be waged in the decades to come.
Ugly, shocking, frightening, war came to Europe once more in March 1999.
The world watched in dismay as Yugoslavia's military machine attacked its own citizens in the province of Kosovo. Pictures of refugees fleeing and stories of murder and rape flashed to the top of the news. But this time, the United States and its allies intervened. Using an innovative, high-technology air operation, NATO brought modern military power to bear against Serb forces in the field and the machinery of repression that backed them up. It was modern war-limited in scope, measured in effect, extraordinarily complex in execution.
The American commander who oversaw this massive military effort and managed the often incompatible demands of NATO's nineteen governments was General Wesley K. Clark. In Waging Modern War, Clark recounts not only the events that led to armed conflict, but also the context within which he made the key strategic decisions. He also describes, for the first time, the personal conflict he felt as he walked the tightrope of high diplomacy and military strategy and navigated the crushing restraints of domestic politics. Laying out the new realities of war-fighting and war-planning, Clark reveals how the American military infrastructure will have to adapt if it is to meet new threats. This is the story of war today, and as it will be fought tomorrow.
About the Author
General Wesley K. Clark, U.S.A. (Ret.), was Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, from 1997 to 2000. He served previously as director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Staff at the Pentagon from 1994 to 1996 and was the lead military negotiator for the Bosnian Peace Accords at Dayton in 1995.
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WIRE: 08/27/2001 3:36 pm ET
The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) Retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, formerly the supreme NATO commander, has agreed to serve as an on-air military analyst for CNN, the network announced Monday.
Before his retirement in May 2000, Clark commanded the Allied military operation in Kosovo in 1999. He became the NATO commander in July 1997.
"His 34 years of firsthand experience with military procedure coupled with his understanding of the world's troubled areas will provide CNN viewers with the best analysis available of armed conflicts around the world," said Phil Kent, president of the CNN.
In his book "Waging Modern War," Gen. Wesley Clark, now retired but then commander of NATO forces, reports that when the Army briefed senior defense officials on the possibility of using the helicopters, it listed, "in a column that went on for two or three pages, all the weapons that were capable of perforating the skin of an Apache." Clark says the list shouted, "Don't do the mission." When the Apaches were sent to Albania, the Army insisted they be protected by 6,200 soldiers, and 14 70-ton M-1 Abrams tanks. The Apaches were never used.
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http://www.sunspot.net |
By Ray Jenkins
Special To The Sun
Originally published September 22, 2001
War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals,
by David Halberstam. Scribner. 544 pages. $28.
For an author who wrote the hugely acclaimed earliest book
defining the Vietnam War, it surely took considerable courage to undertake a
sequel 30 years later. Yet that is what David Halberstam has produced, and he
has pulled it off wonderfully well.
His new book exploring the intractable tensions between the political and
military cultures of America is every bit as good as The Best and the Brightest.
And that's quite an achievement, considering that the role of national defense
at the dawn of American supremacy in the post-Cold War period is more fraught
with peril and ambiguity than ever.
The overarching theme to War in a Time of Peace is the struggle within the
U.S. military - the Army, in particular - to come to terms with the trauma of
the Vietnam defeat. It was more than a decade after the last American troops
evacuated Saigon in 1974 before the military leadership settled on the
"doctrine" which bears the name and imprint of Gen. Colin Powell.
"The Powell Doctrine"
states: In the future soldiers would fight wars only when their commanders were
given full authority to use overwhelming force, in situations where a successful
outcome would be swift and certain, and the troops would marching in homecoming
parades in no time at all. And, furthermore, the Army is not to be used for
"peacekeeping" or "nation-building."
That comes pretty close to putting the political
leaders on terms and puts the civilian policymakers in a perpetual state of
conflict with the soldiers. These simmering tensions boiled to the surface,
especially, in the anguished decision of the Clinton administration to exert
American military might in the treacherous region of the Balkans.
Halberstam tells his story mainly
in a series of deftly crafted profiles of the major players, military and
civilian. The author takes care to allow the reader to draw his own conclusions
about the role of these players, but clearly there are heroes. One is former
Sen. Bob Dole, who took courageous positions about the use of American military
force even when it was against his political interest to do so. Another is
Madeleine Albright, a mere woman who had the temerity to ask General Powell what
was the point of having such a wonderful military if we weren't going to use it.
(Interestingly, it was pretty much the same question President Lincoln asked
General McClellan in the early stages of the Civil War.)
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But others are less famous. There was John
Warden, the Air Force colonel who, over the intractable opposition of the
conservative generals with a famous propensity to fight today's wars with
yesterday's strategies, devised the war plan which prevailed so spectacularly in
the Gulf War in 1991. And above all, there was Gen. Wesley
Clark, the brilliant young NATO commander who devised the
strategy that ultimately ended brutality in the Balkans and brought the
loathsome Slobodan Milosevic into the dock as a war criminal. Both Warden and
Clark were forced into early retirement by a resentful
military establishment.
And
there are clear villains - chiefly, the encrusted traditional military
leadership which has come more to resemble a public-employees union than a
fighting machine.
This is a
fairly hefty book, but after a bit of a sluggish start, it picks up such steam
that the reader turns the last page almost before he knows it. But just as that
reader closed The Best and the Brightest 30 years ago with a sense that there
had to be more to come, so it is that we close War in a Time of Peace with a
sense that there is yet more.
So let us assume - and hope - that this intrepid old "working
reporter," as Halberstam modestly calls himself, is already at work to tell
us, at some date in the problematical future, how the military waged a war
against an insidious enemy in which a handful of terrorist guerrillas can strike
a blow that kills thousands of defenseless Americans within a single hour. In
such an hour, David Halberstam is truly a national resource.
Ray Jenkins began in 1951 as a reporter for the
Columbus (Ga.) Ledger. He won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for his
coverage, with another reporter, of the 1954 Phenix City, Ala., upheaval. He has
worked for the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser-Journal, The New York Times in
Alabama, and was editorial page editor of The Evening Sun. He wrote Blind
Vengeance, published in 1997 by the University of Georgia Press.
Copyright © 2001, The Baltimore Sun
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By David Folkenflik
THE BALTIMORE SUN. The Baltimore Sun is a Tribune Co. newspaper.
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Copyright © 2001, Newsday, Inc.
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FRANK DAVIES
fdavies@herald.com
WASHINGTON -- A blue-ribbon panel that includes ex-generals, a former FBI chief and civil libertarians will begin work today on recommending ways to protect constitutional rights while improving domestic security.
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The committee, sponsored by the Constitution Project, a non-profit organization based at Georgetown University, plans to debate such issues as detention of suspects, the use of profiling and the tension between the military and the news media in handling war information...
For more information, check the Constitution Project's website: constitutionproject.org
For more on this, read War On Terrorism Oct. 26 - ...
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News
from the
Committee on Education and the Workforce
John Boehner, Chairman
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 8, 2001 |
CONTACTS: Dave Schnittger or Heather Valentine Telephone: (202) 225-4527 |
Former NATO Commander Wesley Clark, Others Testify on Importance of Impact Aid to Families
“Today’s hearing is designed to learn how well the Impact Aid program has responded to the changing needs of school districts impacted by federally connected children,” said Chairman Castle. “Consistent with our commitment to provide all children with a quality education, Congress has provided the Impact Aid program with a substantial increase in funding. The House-passed version of the education spending bill for FY 2002 provides $1.1 billion for the Impact Aid program-an increase of $223 million over the last five years and a testament to the bipartisan support this program has enjoyed.”
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General Wesley K. Clark, United States Army (Ret.), former NATO Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, spoke of the importance of Impact Aid to children of military families:
“Put simply, the quality of youth education remains a key factor in the retention and recruitment of personnel in the Armed Forces. Beyond mere expedience, our nation must assure that the children of its Armed Forces personnel are provided a top quality education. The United States’ military force is highly educated and its members hold the same expectations for their children’s education,” stated Clark. “More of our men and women are basing their decisions to enter or leave the military on perceptions of the quality of education their children will receive.”
Richard Vought, the superintendent for the school district located on the Lac du Flambeau reservation, recognized the significance of the program to his area: “It is a highly efficient program with most of the dollars appropriated going directly to the schools and ultimately to the youth of the communities.”
Dennis Jarrett, chief financial officer for the York County School Division in Virginia, commented on the wide-range of uses for Impact Aid money: “In addition to teacher salaries, Impact Aid provides textbooks, instructional supplies and equipment for students in the classroom. Impact Aid funds are important to keeping school buildings open, comfortable and safe for use. This includes heating, lighting, ventilation systems and maintenance equipment.”
“The federal Impact Aid program is one of the most popular, bipartisan programs existing today,” said Dr. Thomas Madden, superintendent of Lemont Township High School District 210 in Illinois. “It provides important funding that goes directly to school districts to be used to operate schools. The Impact Aid community is deeply grateful to the members of Congress for providing such funding. We are grateful to the members for their realization that the funding levels have been inadequate for years. And we are grateful for their continuing efforts to increase such funding, especially over the past few years.”
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Keep SouthCom headquarters where they are
For years efforts
by bureaucrats and politicians to manipulate the strategic vision of three
prominent four-star generals have failed. But opponents of the U.S. Southern
Command's mission finally may get their way and relocate the command at
taxpayers' expense again.
These games potentially may eliminate the single tool our country
has had for successfully engaging Latin America for a century.
With the top post at SouthCom headquarters vacant, politicians from
Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia are salivating at the
prospect of finally landing a piece of the pie. The Army brass now weighs
strategic military interests and a sound theater architecture versus
self-serving interests and questionable justifications.
Now just two years later, media report that Army South's Commander, Maj. Gen. Alfred Valenzuela, has started his own campaign to relocate SouthCom to his native state of Texas. This would jeopardize the command's strategic engagement and its existence. According to reports, Valenzuela cites a high cost of living and employee retention as reasons that ``may'' affect the mission.
After expert military analysts went through years of scrutinizing 126 sites in 26 cities, it seems absurd that we are back to square one.
Consider that in Puerto Rico there are more than 150,000 military veterans and 5,000 part-time soldiers in the reserves. Puerto Rico, moreover, is a top U.S. Army recruiting location. Does the Army expect taxpayers to believe it can't hire and retain a couple of hundred qualified employees in Puerto Rico to support its mission?
If approved, relocation undoubtedly would unstitch SouthCom's strategic posture and mission, triggering a domino effect that will unravel our engagement in Latin America and the Caribbean. This will reward the years of arm-twisting that Congress and the Pentagon have inflicted upon Miami's Southern Command to move or eliminate the headquarters, its 1,350 employees, $167 million-per-year local impact and thousands of visitors to South Florida.
RAUL DUANY
Miami
[Editor's note: Raúl Duany is a former spokesman for the Southern
Command.]
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For other activities of Gen. Wesley K. Clark (ret.) or site updates
during this period see the following links:
Cyberwar could spare bombs - Nov. 5, 1999
West Is Tiring Of Struggle to Rebuild Bosnia - Nov. 25, 2000
EUROPE'S DEFENCE - since Nov. 26, 2000
PRESIDENT BUSH AND NATO - Oct. 25, 2000 - Jan. 4, 2001
DEPLETED URANIUM SHELLS - since Jan. 9, 2001
THE ALLIANCE - 2001
FIGHTING IN MACEDONIA - since Mar. 23, 2001
U.S.A. UNDER ATTACK AND THE ALLIED RESPONSE - since Sept. 11, 2001
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