Unfortunately, I can hardly remember anything he said because I was transfixed with horror when the Secretary picked up my three-year old grandson and held him in his arms as he spoke, as I was sure that Andrew’s blood-curdling screams would immediately fill this beautiful room. In fact, much to my relief, Andrew listened quietly as the Secretary talked about UNESCO’s critical role in promoting peace and security around the world, and about UNESCO’s particular mandate in education, the key to promoting freedom and opportunity around the world.

President Bush’s decision to return to UNESCO, the organization the United States helped start almost sixty years ago, was a strong statement that the United States, the world’s only superpower, wanted to strengthen its efforts in multilateral diplomacy. It demonstrated the President’s hope that the United States, as a full member of UNESCO once again, could work collaboratively with UNESCO’s other 190 Member States to try to address the root causes of some of today’s global challenges, particularly extreme poverty and terrorism.

I know you have had many speakers today that have told you a great deal about UNESCO, about how it is organized and what it tries to do. Since I don’t want to repeat what you have already heard, I will simply try to give you a brief glimpse of what life has been like as the first US Ambassador to UNESCO in twenty years.

After arriving in Paris in March 2004, my first major challenge was simply trying to learn my way around UNESCO’s building, or more accurately, buildings. As those of you who have visited UNESCO know, UNESCO’s headquarters is complex, with wings and annexes going in every direction-Fontenoy, Miollis, Bonvin, the World Heritage Building-and offices identified with long difficult-to-remember numbers. Moreover, many of the elevator doors shut even when someone is still in middle of the doorway, a most unpleasant situation.

At the beginning of my tenure at UNESCO there were several occasions when I thought I might end up being profiled in the State Department’s monthly magazine as the first US Ambassador to be lost in the line of duty in an accident with an elevator door. If buildings reflect the personality and function of their occupants as is often claimed by architects, the complicated and confusing structure of UNESCO’s headquarters is an accurate reflection of the complicated and confusing structure of UNESCO’s programs and initiatives.

Since effective diplomacy requires good interpersonal relationships with one’s colleagues, my next challenge was to meet as many of UNESCO’s Ambassadors, permanent representatives, and members of the Secretariat as possible. Needless to say, everyone was intensely curious about the new US Ambassador, which meant that they were always available when we requested a courtesy visit with them.

As a sign of respect, I decided to visit them in their own offices, as opposed to making them come to mine. That turned out to be a good decision, since there were often interesting pieces of art or sculpture in their offices which gave me an immediate topic of conversation.

Perhaps my most memorable experience in that regard was with one of the Assistant Director Generals at UNESCO who had a coffee table that curved up quite steeply at one end. During our conversation I kept staring at the table trying to figure out why a coffee table would be constructed in a way that absolutely precluded putting anything on a large part of the table.

Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer and told him that I was interested in his most unusual coffee table. He explained that it was a death table on which the body of the deceased is placed in a sitting up position-a tradition in the African country from which he came. Clearly this was news to his assistant who looked as surprised as I was by this explanation.

UNESCO is truly an international organization. Like the permanent delegations, the members of the Secretariat come from all over the world. English and French are the two working languages, which can sometimes be a problem for those who come from Latin American or Arab countries, particularly when we need to deal with complicated documents. The real heroes of UNESCO’s work are its translators, who are able to do instantaneous translations on any topic during meetings.

Their skills are particularly evident during UNESCO’s Executive Board meetings when initial plenary interventions are limited to eight minutes. This means that delegates have to spend a great deal of time making sure that their statements can be delivered in eight minutes. When the time limit is exceeded, soft music begins to play, which rapidly increases in volume. Some determined speakers continue to talk, shouting over the music, but I did not think it would be very dignified for me to deliver a statement on behalf of the United States in that manner.

Individuals who speak on behalf of groups, such as the European Union or the African Group, are often given extra minutes from their colleagues to use in their statements. For example, at the April Executive Board meeting, the representative of the African Group announced that he would be speaking for nineteen minutes. Since I did not have that option, I simply gave my nine and one-half minute intervention in eight minutes, speaking as fast as I have ever spoken. Somehow the translators kept up with me, though as a precaution we had written copies of my intervention available as well. When the morning session of the meeting adjourned for lunch, I received many compliments on having managed to complete my rather extensive remarks in only eight minutes.

As in other multilateral organizations, much of the work at UNESCO is not done in formal meetings but at lunches and dinners. The occupational hazard of working in this manner is obvious, especially in France where there is delicious food and wine. It is also fun and interesting to go to lunch or dinner at the homes of the Ambassadors and have an opportunity to enjoy their national cuisine.

Of course lunch with the Russian Ambassador poses a particular challenge, as it always includes vodka as well as the usual champagne and wine. The Russians love to make toasts, and each toast is accompanied by some excellent vodka, thereby making the rest of the day useless as far as work is concerned. Although the Ambassadorial training course here at the State Department is very comprehensive, I really think they should add a session on how to deal with this sort of challenge.

During my formal and informal meetings, the most frequently asked question put to me by my colleagues concerned President’s Bush decision to rejoin UNESCO after so many years of being out of the organization. They knew that during the UN’s General Assembly in 2002 President Bush said that the United States wanted to reengage with the international community at UNESCO to promote tolerance, learning, and human rights, but they wanted to know more about the reasons for our return.

I responded by saying that three important things had changed during the twenty years we were absent from UNESCO. The first is that the world has changed, and that the challenges of today are increasingly global in nature. Illiteracy, the lack of gender parity in education, the need for clean water and sustainable development, disaster-prevention, which includes tsunamis and earthquakes, the AIDS epidemic, and other similar challenges that do not respect national borders, contribute to the political instability that characterizes so much of the world today. Global challenges require global solutions, and an intergovernmental organization like UNESCO is particularly appropriate in addressing these kinds of issues.

The second is that UNESCO has changed, and is now a very different organization from what it was when the United States left in l984. Thanks to the impressive leadership of Kochiro Matsuura, who has been UNESCO’s Director-General since 1999, UNESCO is on the path to reform. Although much remains to be done, results-based budgeting, increased oversight and accountability, and merit-based personnel decisions are being established at UNESCO. Since UNESCO is not a funding agency, its influence is dependent on its reputation, which is why these reforms are so important. Therefore we are working with other countries to push for additional administrative and management reforms so that UNESCO can continue to improve the quality and effectiveness of its programs.

The third is that the United States has changed, particularly since 9/11 and the war on terrorism. We as a country have become more aware of the need to explain to the world who we are as a people- our culture, our values, our ideas, and our concerns. We need to reach out to other countries, and to try to make our public diplomacy more effective. As a full member of UNESCO once again, the United States will be able to participate in international discussions and initiatives in all the areas covered by UNESCO’s mandate. Our return to UNESCO will also enable us to learn more about the traditions, values, and cultures of other countries,

Certainly other countries want to learn more about us. An example of this occurred several weeks ago when the new Ambassador to UNESCO from a country in Africa made a courtesy call to my office. As usually happens in these kinds of meetings, he described his professional background and told me a bit about the challenges faced by his country. It was a pleasant and relaxed meeting. Then he said that he had three requests for me. I immediately assumed that there were some problems that he needed help with, such as obtaining a visa for someone.

In fact, the three requests were as follows: the first was for a book on the founding of our country with a particular focus on the founding fathers and the ideas incorporated in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution; the second was for a anthology of American literature; and the third was for a book of American poetry. It turned out that he was a tremendous admirer of the United States, and wanted to learn more about Americans and the American experience. Collaborative activities, cultural events, and social interaction are the best way to promote and strengthen mutual understanding.

My UNESCO colleagues also wanted to know what the United States hoped to do at UNESCO, and where we intended to focus our activities. This was a very important question for them, since the return of the United States has brought additional financial resources, substantive expertise, legitimacy as an inter-governmental organization, and prestige in the international community to UNESCO. They want energetic American leadership at UNESCO, but not American domination.

I answered that question in broad terms-education, particularly literacy, teacher training, and gender parity, civic education, natural and cultural preservation, water-related activities, engineering, science education, sustainable development, freedom of the press-the kinds of things that you all have been discussing today. I also told them that we really needed to learn more about what UNESCO actually did before I could discuss specific programs and activities with them.

Almost every one of my colleagues laughed when I said that, and said that it would take me years to discover what UNESCO actually did. Even the Ambassador from Oman, who has been at UNESCO for twenty years, said that he is constantly discovering things that go on at UNESCO that he knows nothing about, and I suspect that occasionally that may even happen to Madame Riviere who is truly knowledgeable about everything that goes on at UNESCO.

After spending the past sixteen months at UNESCO, it is clear that they are right. Every day multiple notices appear in my office inviting me to a meeting or informing me about yet another UNESCO event, many of which take place on the same day and often at the same time. It is impossible to keep up with everything.

It was particularly difficult in the beginning when we didn’t know what the various acronyms stood for-BSP, BPI, WHC, IOC, IHP, IPDC and numerous others. Then there were all the groups and committees, such as Group 1, of which I was Chairman, the Geneva Group, the CR, and worst of all, the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Three Organs, which was discussed earlier today. I was a bit concerned when I heard about that group, as I had no idea which three organs the working group was supposed to strengthen. Given the breadth of UNESCO’s activities, anything was possible.

Thanks to the help and support of numerous individuals within UNESCO’s Secretariat, especially our luncheon speaker, Madame Riviere, I, and the members of my Mission, have slowly become familiar with UNESCO and many of its initiatives. UNESCO has some very good programs in education, culture, science and communications that could truly benefit the lives of people from around the world, especially in developing and post-conflict countries.

In order to try to make sure that these programs have long-term sustainable results, the United States tabled a draft decision at the April Executive Board meeting that requires a greater focus on capacity building in UNESCO’s programs. The draft decision was co-sponsored by twenty other countries, and adopted unanimously by the Executive Board. Afterwards, twenty-five countries representing all parts of the globe took the floor to congratulate the United States on its initiative.

In addition to working with our fellow delegations and UNESCO’s Secretariat, and of course the State Department, we also work with other agencies of the U.S. government. These include the Department of Education, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Park Service, the Institute of Museums and Libraries, the U.S. Forestry Service, the National Endowment for the Humanities, USAID, the U.S. Geological Service, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Now we look forward to working with you as well, the U.S. National Commission, which represents our civil society.

Thanks to Chairman Gioia, we have also done a series of cultural events with the National Endowment for the Arts, which have included a Blues concert, a discussion on the American novel, and an evening of poetry. These kinds of initiatives are important in helping to promote American ideas and culture to an international audience. In fact, after the poetry reading, an Ambassador from an Arab country told me that although he had usually thought of Americans in terms of guns and tanks, he would now start to think of us in terms of poetry.

This point was emphasized again after a Donors conference on Kosovo. I was pleased to be able to announce during that conference that the United States would donate one million dollars to the reconstruction of Serbian Orthodox, Islamic, and secular monuments and sites in Kosovo. That was by far the largest new donation from any participant in the meeting. When the meeting ended, a member of the press came up to me and said, “ The United States doesn’t usually give funds for culture…what has changed?” Of course, we all know that that is not true, but the perception is there nonetheless.

Unfortunately I have not spent as much time as I would have liked during the past sixteen months on educational, scientific, and cultural initiatives because I have instead had to focus on negotiating four standard-setting instruments. As was mentioned earlier today, we have been negotiating two legally binding conventions (treaties), one on anti-doping and one on cultural diversity, a non-binding declaration on bioethics, and a set of non-binding joint guidelines with OECD for quality assurance in cross-border higher education.

The most recent set of negotiations on the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Cultural Contents and Artistic Expressions, commonly referred to as the cultural diversity convention, began by our being told that we needed to throw out the basket of crabs so that we could have a female meeting that produced a child. That is the kind of language that is sometimes used at UNESCO. It meant that we should ignore a previously negotiated intergovernmental text that reflected serious disagreements among governments, and discuss instead a new text that had been drafted by the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Meeting that eliminated most of the language he considered problematic. Needless to say, that included many of our comments.

As far as the United States was concerned, it went downhill from there. The problem was that we felt that we were negotiating a trade agreement using cultural rhetoric, and we do not want UNESCO to evolve into a trade organization for an undefined category of “cultural goods and services”. However, most of UNESCO’s member states strongly support this proposed convention, partly because they feel threatened by modernization and globalization. They use the word “culture” to refer to their identity, and they are determined to try to find ways to protect their identities. Although we are deeply disappointed by the results of the negotiations thus far, we intend to keep trying to improve the text of this convention.

As those of you who have worked in the international diplomatic arena know, advancing U.S. strategic interests involves constantly changing alliances, which means that it is important to maintain good relationships with countries while disagreeing with them on specific issues. For example, one of the countries that fought hardest against U.S. positions during the negotiations on the cultural diversity convention is one of our strongest allies in trying to prevent an increase in UNESCO’s current budget ceiling of $610 million. We, along with a sizable group of other countries, want UNESCO to focus on its core priorities instead of trying to be all things to all people. Until UNESCO starts to eliminate programs and activities that are low-value and only marginally related to its priorities, we will resist an increase in its budget.

In less than two weeks we will once again be engaged in intergovernmental negotiations, this time on the bioethics declaration. This time that same country will agree with some of our positions, but not with others. Once again the countries of UNESCO will be engaged in serious discussions with each other about a very sensitive and delicate topic in the attempt to find consensus, something that is normally characteristic of UNESCO’s work. But I suspect once again that will be difficult to achieve.

Unfortunately, many of UNESCO’s member states are enthusiastic about using UNESCO to establish a body of soft and hard international law in areas that come under its mandate. Although in rare instances there may be a need for some sort of international instrument, the United States will generally oppose the development of new normative instruments as we think they are divisive and undermine the collegial spirit of UNESCO. Moreover, constant negotiations on normative instruments take time and resources away from the development of results-based programs that could actually improve the lives of people worldwide.

We hope that UNESCO will return to a focus on its programs and activities after concluding its work on these normative instruments. UNESCO has important things to do, such as working on initiatives in education, cultural preservation, and scientific collaboration in politically sensitive areas like the Middle East, which UNESCO, as a neutral platform, is uniquely qualified to do. Arguing about normative instruments, particularly conventions that may only be ratified by a handful of UNESCO’s member states, divert time and resources from other more urgent challenges.

It is hard to believe that almost two years have passed since I went to UNESCO’s General Conference in late September 2003 as part of the First Lady’s delegation. Some of you here tonight were part of that delegation as well. It was an exciting occasion that celebrated the US’s official reentry back into UNESCO. Our First Lady, Mrs. Laura Bush, the UN’s Honorary Ambassador for the Decade of Literacy, made a memorable speech that expressed our hopes and aspirations for UNESCO, particularly in the field of education. The Chairman of the General Conference ended his remarks with a song, something I absolutely promise you I will not do tonight.

Soon it will be time for UNESCO’s next General Conference. I doubt it will be as much fun, for it will be the moment of truth for UNESCO. Will it vote to adopt normative instruments that have been negotiated too fast and are flawed instruments? Will it start to temper its limitless ambition with reality? Will it have the political will to say no to some things, and to start to make some tough decisions on its program and budget? Will it be able to continue the reform process, despite opposition from those who are unable to see the need for change?

UNESCO is an organization with great potential to help promote peace, freedom and democracy around the world. Those of us at the US Mission in Paris will do everything possible to help UNESCO fulfill that potential, but it will be difficult, and we need your help. Please work closely with us. Share your expertise, experience, and enthusiasm with us. Perhaps together we can achieve our goals and aspirations, for UNESCO, and for the entire world.