Interested in public diplomacy, history and international relations? Join a special event at the American Center, where Professor Alan K. Henrikson from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University will speak about Public Diplomacy (PD) and moving toward a more “diplomatic” world.

The talk will recount the antecedents of Public Diplomacy and discuss the role of Edward R. Murrow as head of USIA during the Presidency of John F. Kennedy. And also the close friendship and intellectual exchange that President Kennedy had with Ambassador Edmund A. Gullion who, as Dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, established in 1965 The Edward R. Murrow Center for the Study and the Advancement of Public Diplomacy. This is widely considered to be the origin of the term “public diplomacy” in its contemporary use by governments around the world.

In the course that Professor Henrikson is teaching now at MGIMO University and also in his talk he reaches out beyond foreign ministries and tries to engender throughout more of the wider public “a diplomatic understanding”. The notion that among other things implies: taking a longer view; a certain humility about knowing what is absolutely right or wrong; a realization that formal agreements (and “deals”) need to be implemented and that they sometimes have unintended consequences; an appreciation that cultures are different and that the world has a lot of group-plurality in it, along with an understanding that “we are all in this together” — generally, a sense of history. As Henry Kissinger is said to have said, “History is the only policy science.”

Alan K. Henrikson is the Lee E. Dirks Professor of Diplomatic History Emeritus and founding Director of Diplomatic Studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, where he taught American diplomatic history, contemporary U.S.-European relations, global political geography, and the history, theory, and practice of diplomacy. During the academic year 2010-2011, he was Fulbright Schuman Professor of US-EU Relations at the College of Europe in Bruges. In November 2014, March 2015, and April 2017 he taught at the Estonian School of Diplomacy in Tallinn. In the autumn of 2016, he lectured at the Australian National University in Canberra and for the National University of Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City and at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam in Hanoi.