WORRYING about the future of Hawaii's greatest internationalism asset, the East-West Center, calls to mind two quotations. East-West Center
needs federal support"It has great potential, and always will," would be a gentle put-down.
"Find a niche and fill it," was the mantra of the late great industrialist, Henry Kaiser.
The East-West Center somehow, despite its potential, has never caught the popular imagination in the way, for example, Moscow's Friendship University was internationally known in the Cold War.
For worse: There have been recommendations in the State Department, its funding venue, to cut federal funding to zero.
Only through Hawaii's senior senator, Daniel K. Inouye, has it held on to $12 million a year, half what it once got.
To convince Washington of the Center's worth is the primary goal of its president-designate, Charles Morrison. He says Washington support is essential to building more support from Asia-Pacific nations, where the center already is well-regarded.
He won't be bashful about projecting the center as a national policy arm of the U.S.
He sees a niche somewhere between being a research center, which others can do, and being an international consulting agency, as others also do. It will be as an openly declared U.S. policy arm to promote U.S.-Asia/Pacific collaboration.
Morrison edited and produced Asia-Pacific Security Outlook reports for both 1996 and 1997 with chapter contributions from 16 countries plus an overview by him. These have brought $400,000 a year to the center from Japan sources, paid his salary, which otherwise would be zero, and made him the champion fund-raising researcher at the center during these very hard times. Now he hopes to project collaborative fund-raising center-wide.
As a clue to his thinking, he would like to add specific annual focuses to the Jefferson Fellows program, which brings together mid-career journalists from the U.S. and Asia. For example, environmental writers might be invited one year, with international security being the journalistic focus in another year.
He highly regards the network of 40,000 East-West Center alumni, some in high places, and will try to build on it. He wants official Washington to see all this as bipartisan strengthening of a U.S. foreign policy now aimed at collaboration rather than confrontation.
He is pretty sure of the enthusiastic backing of former Hawaii Gov. George Ariyoshi, who now chairs the international board at the center. Ariyoshi, an international businessman, has thought this way for a long time.
Morrison won't have an inaugural until later but he will take over officially on Saturday, after a Friday farewell party for his predecessor, Kenji Sumida.
SUMIDA is an administrator rather than an academic or political person like other presidents. He has performed superbly in accommodating to a reduced federal budget by requiring many programs to raise their own funding, or die.
More than once I have called Sumida the right man in the right place at the right time to deal with the budget cutbacks.
Morrison has a different charge. He hopes to use his significant Asia-to-Washington contacts in international politics and economics to steer the center to a brighter future, unashamed of being a major U.S. policy arm.
A.A. Smyser is the contributing editor
and former editor of the the Star-Bulletin
His column runs Tuesday and Thursday.