Honoring the Benjamin Franklin House Foundation

Hello, and welcome to the State Department. This is a gala dinner, in these beautiful surroundings, and the purpose is to honor you. Thank you for the work that you do. By preserving the home of Benjamin Franklin in London, you are preserving our history, our values, and our legacy as a nation.

The Benjamin Franklin House Foundation is a great organization, devoted to the memory of one of the most influential Founding Fathers in our nation's history, who also happened to be the best known American in his time.

Franklin loved London, and at the same time he loved the new nation he helped found. I can't think of a better man to symbolize the strong links of affection, and warmth and values that exist between Britain and the United States.

The Franklin House, as the only surviving structure where Benjamin Franklin lived, is a daily reminder of his life and times. The United States and Britain are fortunate that the Foundation supports the preservation and restoration of this historical building.

I also want to welcome Lady Manning to the State Department. Lady Manning is the wife of the U.K. Ambassador, Sir David Manning.

Lady Manning and I first met on the steps of her home in Brussels, when Sir David was leaving his job as Ambassador to NATO to become Prime Minister Blair's National Security Advisor, and I was leaving my job as Deputy Chief of Staff to the NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson, to be a staffer at the National Security Council. Sir David said graciously at the time, "Oh, we're going back to the same job." Not quite! But it is typical of him to be so kind. Lady Manning, thank you for being here this evening.

Dr. Marcia Balisciano, Director of the Benjamin Franklin House in London, is also with us this evening and I also want to welcome her to the State Department. I understand it is the first time the U.S. government hosts this kind of event. That is a mistake. We should have done this long ago, and we should do it again in the future.

As if these luminaries were not enough, to make me even more nervous we also have on hand Walter Isaacson. Much of what we know about Ben Franklin today, and definitely our interpretation of his life and times, we know because of Walter Isaacson's work, "Benjamin Franklin, an American Life."

Also with us is Colleen Graffy, an American who spent the last 20 years living in London before joining us here at the State Department. I think Colleen is responsible for scheduling this event on the night of the President's Iraq speech. So until today, she was our Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy (just kidding). Colleen will say a few words in a minute.

We've a number of speakers tonight and I want to be brief. Plus, it is a daunting prospect to be asked to say a few words about Benjamin Franklin, when Walter Isaacson will be speaking on the same subject just a little bit later this evening. So maybe I should talk about global warming, instead. But I can't help but say a few words myself about Benjamin Franklin.

Anyone who practices diplomacy, or tries, especially with Europe, has a special affection for Benjamin Franklin. He was the American pioneer in this field, first in London trying to avert war and keep us all under one crown and then, when our differences proved to be too wide, he came home to lay the foundations to our republic.

He took a few months to accomplish that simple task. No sooner was he finished than he was off again, this time to France, where he established our first alliance as a nation. He brokered deals and signed treaties, but also sold the unfolding American adventure to a skeptical Paris court. Here he was, a sophisticated renaissance man, playing the rustic to jaded Parisians -- even wearing a coonskin hat for greater effect. And in doing so, he won the backing of France, still an aristocracy, for American democracy. Now that's diplomacy.

But I also think of Franklin as my home town hero. I grew up just outside Philadelphia, and Franklin was our man. My favorite part of trips into the city was a visit to the Franklin Institute, a great, hands-on science museum for kids -- a tribute to his role as an inventor. We took pride in knowing that Franklin established our first public company, our first public library, our first insurance company, and our first medical school, at the University of Pennsylvania, which Franklin also founded. He was first in practically every field.

If, as Silvio Bedini said, Americans are Tinkers and Thinkers, then Franklin epitomized his nation before it was created. He was an intellectual. And a writer. And a renowned inventor: bifocals; the Franklin stove; the lightning rod...

It is remarkable to think that next week, we celebrate the 301^st anniversary of Franklin's birth. Few prominent people, even those who died within the last ten years, have the presence and influence in the current day that Ben Franklin does, born 300 years ago.

He was the original knowledge-age thinker, who said "an investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." He used his role as a printer to propagate this knowledge, not just making valuable improvements in printing technology, but also displaying a keen understanding of how the spread of an idea multiplies its value. He didn't invent the internet -- but he would certainly know what to do with it, were he alive today.

Most importantly for me, as a diplomat, is his embodiment both of our values as a nation, and their reflection abroad. Few people have done more to make our country better. And few people have done more to strengthen America's critical alliances in the world, and export the American ideal of freedom.

President Bush is known for his second Inaugural Address, and his passionate commitment to security and freedom.

It was Franklin who said, "They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety." This essential understanding of the link between security and advancing freedom is at the heart of the American identity today.

Franklin was a globalist. He said "Where liberty is, there is my country." In other words, his idealism in foreign policy and his love of liberty knew no boundaries, no frontiers.

Ladies and gentlemen, as you know our President is giving a major speech tonight on Iraq. This is a time of great challenge for our nation. Secretary Rice said earlier today, this is a "crucible time" for our nation: a time when we test our resolve. We will need to pool all our resources as a nation, and to succeed.

What the example of Franklin shows us is that -- while today's challenges are different -- the idea that the values of freedom themselves are critical to the security of our nation is a very old one. Not for nothing did the great Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle call Franklin, "the Father of all Yankees." And that's not a bad title for anyone. Not bad at all.