WASHINGTON, USA – The book “Learning Diplomacy,” which recounts the memoirs of former acting secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS) Luigi Einaudi, was presented during a panel organized by the US Mission to the hemispheric institution at the Columbus Memorial Library in Washington, DC.
“These are rough times for multilateral organizations, so its is good to sometimes refresh our memories a little bit,” said ambassador Einaudi, who recalled that the Organization has always had to manage tensions throughout its history. In the book, ambassador Einaudi reviews his long career as a diplomat and expresses his views on different historical moments of the last decades.
The permanent representative of the United States to the OAS, Frank Mora, said that ambassador Einaudi is one of his teachers.
“We are in great debt to ambassador Einaudi. He continues the long line of dedicated US Pan and Inter American Statesmen,” said ambassador Mora, who recalled the words of former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice during the OAS General Assembly held in Fort Lauderdale in 2005: “Luigi is one of our nation’s finest diplomats and one of our most dedicated defenders of freedom.”
Arturo Valenzuela, former chief US diplomat for Latin America and the Caribbean during the Obama administration, said that “at the OAS, ambassador Einaudi built a strong tradition and that is what we celebrate this week, Pan American Week.”
Johanna Mendelson Forman, an academic expert on Latin American diplomatic and military affairs, said that Ambassador Einaudi’s book highlights the concepts of “Community, Creativity, Collaboration and Civility – and I think they represent values that made ambassador Einaudi such an outstanding diplomat,” she added.
The panel’s moderator was former US ambassador (2003-2008) John Maisto, who recalled that in 1989 he joined the team of Einaudi, then his country’s ambassador to the hemispheric body. “He began to explain what his view of the OAS was,” ambassador Maisto said and quoted his words, “The need to reach out to like-minded states to take advantage of belief in democracy and human rights and regular elections, and the need for the United States to take a leading position but to work in concert with such countries in the hemisphere and move the hemisphere, move the Organization forward.”
