PATRICK MENDIS, PhD

By J. BRIAN ATWOOD*
Dean of the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

In 1949, Harlan Cleveland, a leading Marshall Planner, coined a phrase, “revolution of rising expectations,”[1] to describe the demand side of international development after World War II. Prior to his involvement with the Marshall Plan for European recovery, Cleveland – a Princeton graduate and a Rhodes Scholar – served as director of the China Aid Program, managing U.S. aid in eight East Asian countries. A practitioner, philosopher, and academic leader (he was dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, founding dean of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and president of the University of Hawaii), Harlan Cleveland captured the primary challenge for American leadership in the post-war period. The best reflection of that was President Harry Truman’s Point Four Program and his commitment to the world’s poorer nations.

In Safire’s Political Dictionary, William Safire credits Harlan Cleveland for his original thinking on the nature of post-War socioeconomic development in Europe and Asia. Safire defines Cleveland’s “revolution” in broader terms: “unrest caused by extravagant promises; or, the constructive desire for change based on an optimistic view of society’s future; or, the increased demand for a high standard of living that comes when the media bring evidence of others’ affluence into poor people’s homes.”[2] The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, who worked closely with then Assistant Secretary of State Harlan Cleveland under President John Kennedy, spoke frequently about America’s role in responding to the revolution of rising expectations.

Since I joined the Foreign Service forty years ago – spending most of my professional life in international development, trade and foreign affairs – I have appreciated our nation’s need for more cooperation and partnership to deal with growing global problems. While serving as Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development and Chairman of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, I saw the need for a culture of proactive diplomacy, strong interagency coordination to prevent crises, and sound long-term international development investments to address the developing world’s growing expectations.[3] In an increasingly interdependent world,[4] it was clear we needed every instrument – the United Nations in particular – to prevent further violence and terrorism. A strategy of prevention requires a combination of public diplomacy, development assistance, and deterrence. We created the United Nations and the Bretton Woods Institutions: the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the regional development banks. Even these political, development, and financial institutions could not prevent the recurrence of violent conflict. Cleveland would say that the world is a better place because of the development investments we made through bilateral and multilateral institutions, but, as he would acknowledge, the debate goes on. Recently, two books have captured the attention of realists and idealists: The White Man’s Burden by former World Bank economist, William Easterly,[5] and The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs.[6] Cleveland would come down on Sach’s side of the debate as he was the optimist, but he would not have ignored Easterly’s critique.

Cleveland had, for many years, called for American leadership to translate global interdependence into an agenda for action to solve international problems.[7] To manage interdependence effectively, he advocated that following the League of Nations and the UN, we should have a “third try” in creating a new world order. Cleveland had always maintained that advanced technology, American leadership, and global partnership would make the “third try” the most effective yet in dealing with “rising expectations,” and global challenges. He knew that, in a world of global communication, the American dream would be unevenly desirable.

Patrick Mendis, an award-winning alumnus of the Humphrey Institute and a protégé of Harlan Cleveland during his tenure as dean, describes the “third try” and the concept of rising expectations through a unique dimension of American history. His journey is a relevant one, from a mud house with water buffalos in Sri Lanka to working with the United Nations, the World Bank, and the U.S. Government. Mendis’ personal experiences give him a unique perspective on America’s mission in the world.

We share the experience of having been exchange students as part of the AFS Intercultural Program. I now chair the Board of Trustees of this organization started by World War II ambulance drivers. Today, it is a partnership of some 60 countries with over 13,000 student participants. More than 325,000 individuals and an equal number of host families have had the AFS experience. I was an exchange student in Luxembourg, while Mendis came to Minnesota to attend high school in 1978. He met his American wife, a former AFS exchange student from Minnesota to Japan, at a Humphrey Institute workshop taught by Harlan Cleveland. At his graduation ceremony in 1986, he received the first Hubert Humphrey Award for Outstanding Leadership. Dean Cleveland said at the time:

He was born in Sri Lanka, and had his early education there; he is now a U.S. citizen. In Sri Lanka, Patrick achieved First Class Honors on his business administration degree in a British system that is typically stingy with Firsts. His language skills, as well as his cross-cultural understanding, were honed by an experience of living and going to school in northern Minnesota, living with a family and in a community for which he retains both love and loyalty.

A frequent visitor to the Humphrey Institute (he considers Minnesota his “home”); Patrick Mendis and I have discussed the relationship between the Founders’ vision and the values that are reflected in American foreign policy. Learning of his work with Senator Rudy Boschwitz, I once told him that there is a piece of unfinished business in our Constitutional design: the Constitution does not permit people like Rudy Boschwitz, Madeleine Albright, Henry Kissinger, and Arnold Schwarzenegger the opportunity to run for the presidency because of their foreign birth. Patrick Mendis falls into the same category. He may not aspire to run for president, but his writings leave no doubt that he is a very proud American who has internalized the Founders’ vision.

In this book, Mendis advances the notion that the “third try” is already underway in the form of the World Trade Organization (WTO) – a rule-based global trading system. He traces the origins of the international organization to the “commerce clause” of the U.S. Constitution. He cites the Federalist Papers and other writings of the Founding Fathers to show that the United States was conceived with “commercial providence,” a phrase found in George Washington’s “Providential Agency.”[8] In addition, Mendis quotes Thomas Paine, who also predicted that “trade will always be a protection.”[9] In his book, he puts forward a pertinent question:

Is the unparalleled economic prosperity of the American people, who represent only five percent of the world population but actually consume twenty-five percent of global resources, associated with divine intervention, or commercial providence?

Mendis argues that Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments paved the way for Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson to postulate their realist and idealist worldviews. These two contradictory traditions are reflected in the realist orientation of Jamestown’s colonists and the spiritually-inspired idealists who settled in Plymouth. Mendis maintains that the duality of American character and its embodiment, which he calls “Mercurial personality,” is appropriate for dealing with the revolution of rising expectations.

Observing his mentor’s seven attitudes of leadership, Mendis confirms “the feeling that crises are normal, tensions can be promising, and complexity is fun.”[10] Like Cleveland, Mendis believes that our Madisonian system of checks-and-balances is meant to generate creative tensions, which produce innovation and tolerance, both are attributes in a competitive globalized world.

Despite the philosophical tensions between Jefferson and Hamilton, George Washington kept the republic unified. Mendis believes that the rule-based WTO is an extension of America’s democratic and republican ideals – the “third try” to create a new world order. This book asserts that the Founding Fathers’ “global project” is still an unfinished work (as is the WTO’s Doha Round and its Development Agenda).

This highly readable synthesis, whose main theme derives from the Constitution’s preface, pleads for a rethinking of the American role in global leadership. For those who are interested in American foreign and trade policies, this work connects the dots from the Founding Fathers’ global vision to the global marketplace within which America competes today.

*J. BRIAN ATWOOD, dean of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, served as the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development under President Bill Clinton. Before coming to Minnesota, Atwood served as the Sol Linowitz professor of international affairs at Hamilton College and taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Former legislative director for foreign and defense policy for Senator Thomas Eagleton, he served as assistant secretary of state for congressional relations under President Jimmy Carter and undersecretary of state for management under President Clinton. Atwood also served on the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s Panel on Peace Operations and is a member of the Nobel Peace Prize Forum.

[1] Harlan Cleveland gave his speech titled, “Reflections on the Revolution of Rising Expectations” at Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, in 1949. Also see, John Killick, The United States and European Reconstruction 1945-1960 (Chicago: Taylor and Francis, 2000), 167.

[2] William Safire, Safire's Political Dictionary (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 622.

[3] See the Foreign Affairs article, which I wrote jointly with Peter McPherson and Andrew Natsios in J. Brian Atwood, M. Peter McPherson, and Andrew Natisos, “Arrested Development: Making Foreign Aid a More Effective Tool,” Foreign Affairs, November-December 2008, Volume 87, No. 6, 123-132.

[4] Harlan Cleveland, Nobody in Charge: Essays on the Future of Leadership (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2002).

[5] William Russell Easterly, The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (New York: Penguin Group, 2006).

[6] Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time (New York: Penguin Press, 2005).

[7] Harlan Cleveland, The Third Try at World Order: U.S. Policy for an Interdependent World (Palo Alto, CA: Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, 1977).

[8] George Washington, Jared Sparks, ed., Writings of George Washington (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855), 2-3.

[9] Thomas Paine, Isaac Kramnick, ed., Common Sense (New York: Penguin Books, 1982), 86.

[10] Harlan Cleveland, The Knowledge Executive: Leadership in an Information Society (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1985). Also see Patrick Mendis, “Visiting World Statesman Offers Seven 'Attitudes' for Future Leaders,” Ceylon Daily News (Colombo, Sri Lanka), October 11, 1995, 4.

Praise for Trade for Peace

Acknowledgments

List of Illustrations

Dedication to the late Ambassador HARLAN CLEVELAND

Foreword by J. Brian Atwood, Dean of the Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota

PROLOGUE

THIS I BELIEVE: AMERICA’S SPECIAL PROVIDENCE
Past is Prologue
The Evolution of the Punctuated Idea
The 9/11 Attacks
Trade for Peace

PART I: AN ANCIENT HOPE

1. THE COMMERCIAL REPUBLIC
The Nature of the Commercial Republic
The Constitution and Commerce
Constitution Avenue
Providence and the Prosperity Dilemma
Purpose of the Book
The Ambassador of Commerce

2. FREEMASONRY AND THE TWO VISIONS
America’s Commercial Origin
Jamestown and Plymouth: A Bridge to the Future
A Liberal and Independent Nation
Adam Smith on America
Born of Creative Tensions
The Hamilton and Jefferson Visions
The Hippocratic Oath of Commerce

3. BOSTON TEA AND AMERICAN MERCURY
Engineering the Revolution
Beyond the Tea and Sea: An Intelligent Design
The American Mercury
Enlightened Self-Interest
Manifest Commercial Destiny
A Global Mission

PART II: THE CONFLUENCE OF COMPETING VISIONS

4. THE AMERICAN MACHIAVELLI AND THE SAINT OF MONTICELLO
The Prince and the Saint
Two Foreign Policy Traditions: Idealism and Realism
Commercial Realism over Idealism
Team of Rivals: The Genius of American Tradition

5. A MERCURIAL ANSWER TO TERRORISM
A Mercurial Answer to 9/11
Moral Arguments for Trade
Private Property as a Catalyst
Enlightened Self-interest
The Idea of America
Realism and Idealism
Nature’s God

6. ONE NATION, THREE MINDSETS
The Power of Ideas
Realists on Mercantilism
Liberals on Free Trade
Marxists on Trade Regimes
Trade: The Unifying Force
Does Trade Promote Peace?
Triangulating Peace

PART III: THE EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY CONNECTION

7. CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL TRIANGLES
Unifying the Capital City
Concealing yet Revealing
As Above, So Below
Celestial and Terrestrial Triangles
The Sacred Avenue
Commercial Providence

8. THE FEDERAL TRIANGLE: A CITY OF VIRGO
The McMillan Plan
The Andrew Mellon Memorial Water Fountain
The Federal Trade Commission Building
The National Archives
The Department of Justice
The Internal Revenue Service Building
The Old Post Office Building
The Federal Triangle Building Complex
The Department of Commerce
The Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
The Celestial Bridge to Somewhere

9. SPECIAL INTEREST ENTREPRENEURS
Lobbyists as a Tribe
K Street: The Boulevard of Lobbyists
The Political Drama of Lobbyists
A Hamiltonian World
Are All Lobbyists Hamiltonians?
PACs: Politics of the Marketplace
The Metaphysics of Political Action
The Essence of Soulcraft

PART IV: UNITING NATIONS THROUGH TRADE

10. USTR: GOVERNOR OF THE COMMERCIAL REPUBLIC
Omnipresent Monuments to Hamilton
Protectionists vs. Free Traders
USTR: An Anomalous Compromise
Mercurial Trade Architecture and Philosophy
Strategic Trade Policy Framework
Hamilton vs. Jefferson: Is Harmonization Possible?

11. WTO: CHANCELLOR OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
An Empire of Liberty through Trade
Birth of a New World
United Nations: The Second Try
The Global Architecture
WTO: The Third Try
The Trinity of the New World Order
Global Rules for Free and Fair Trade

12. A NOBODY IN CHARGE WORLD
The Debtor Nation: Is it a Salvation?
Moral Equivalency
The Past as Prologue
Is Anybody Really in Charge?

PART V: AMERICA’S FOUNDING VISION

13. THE NEW WORLD ORDER THROUGH TRADE
Somewhere over the Rainbow
Good Morning, America!
The Future of Ancient Hope
The Revolution of Rising Expectations
Greco-Roman vs. Yin-Yang
The Master Builder

Endnotes
Glossary
Select Bibliography
Index
About the Author

This I Believe: America’s Special Providence

I have always been engrossed by two facts about the universe that seem to me self-evident. One is the remarkable degree of order that we are able to ascertain–in natural law, in musical harmony, even in the relations of one person with another. The other fact is the interwoven continuity of everything and everybody with everything and everybody else. When I was very young, I learned something I hope is true: that if I wiggled my little finger, it would affect the farthest star.[1] Ambassador Harlan Cleveland, American Statesman


In the 1950s, millions of Americans listened to Harlan Cleveland’s essay “Affect the Farthest Star” through radio pioneer Edward Murrow’s This I Believe series.[2] The legendary journalist hosted this daily five-minute syndicated radio program from 1951 to 1955. He included one-hundred personal philosophies by luminaries such as President Harry Truman, the genius scientist Dr. Albert Einstein, and many others.

Professor Cleveland’s philosophy of universal interconnectedness captured on Murrow’s program clearly resonates with the belief system shared by our Founding Fathers, the Enlightenment thinkers, and the philosophers of antiquity. TEruman – the thirty-third U.S. president and a thirty-third degree Freemason – shared a similar worldview. When he told the listeners of Murrow’s program, “I believe in a moral code,” Truman was trying to “inspire the people of the world whose freedom (was) in jeopardy, and to restore hope to those who (had) already lost their civil liberties.”[3] The Masonic president’s belief naturally aligned with those of Einstein and Cleveland.

When Cleveland wrote the introductory quote at the beginning of this prologue, he reaffirmed an ancient conviction of “order,” and its celestial connection.[4] More than a century ago, American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson articulated the notion that man is tied to a larger system. He said that for “an isolated beggar, the farthest star felt him, and he felt the star.”[5] These are more than so-called New Age sentiments; Einstein joined this assembly of philosophers with a similar scientific affirmation. In the biography, Einstein: His Life and Universe, Walter Isaacson wrote that the brilliant scientist was “a locksmith blessed with imagination and guided by a faith in the harmony of nature's handiwork."[6] In a confluence of faith, science, and imagination, Einstein shared his personal philosophy, “An Ideal of Service to Our Fellow Man,” on Murrow’s This I Believe:

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the Mysterious – the knowledge of the existence of something unfathomable to us, the manifestation of the most profound reason coupled with the most brilliant beauty. . . . I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with the awareness of – and glimpse into – the marvelous construction of the existing world together with the steadfast determination to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature.[7]

With his scientific and intuitive mind – and with his imaginative and integrative thinking that emanated from the left and right brains –, Einstein helped to advance our understanding of cause-and-effect relationships in a cosmic scale. These relationships had previously been detected by Galileo, Isaac Newton, and Benjamin Franklin, among others—in both the physical and metaphysical worlds.[8] Truman’s moral code and freedom, as well as Cleveland’s two “self-evident” facts, permeate through the brilliance of Einstein’s discovery. First, Einstein’s admiration for the harmony of nature, which helped him to develop a unified field theory, proves that “behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable.”[9] He added, “Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious.”[10] Einstein was referring to a high priest of the moral code, or the Creator. Second, Einstein’s material existence and imaginative mind are a testament to the connection between creativity and freedom. Einstein remarked, “Without such freedom there would have been no Shakespeare, no Goethe, no Newton, no Faraday, no Pasteur, no Lister.”[11] Freedom nurtures creativity and discovery. Walter Isaacson, president of the Aspen Institute and former managing editor of Time magazine, summarizes these two facts with relevance to American and global progress:

Einstein [was] a rebel with a reverence for the harmony of nature, one who had just the right blend of imagination and wisdom to transform our understanding of the universe. These traits are just as vital for this new century of globalization, in which our success will depend on our creativity, as they were for the beginning of the twentieth century, when Einstein helped usher in the modern age.[12]

For the biographer, Einstein was “the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos and the locksmith of the atom and the universe.”[13] At a fundamental level, everything and everybody may find justice in nature. Equally, all things and all people are governed by the Creator, or Nature’s God as the Founding Fathers believed. This led Einstein – and Cleveland – “to embrace a morality and politics based on respect for free minds, free spirits, and free individuals.”[14] (Einstein, who was involved in the Manhattan Project, adamantly opposed atomic and nuclear weapons after witnessing the horrifying devastation from the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima). Moral sentiments in economic and political affairs are important to “foster individuality;” thus, “only the individual can produce the new ideas.”[15] The most basic goal of economic and political decision-making is morality – or a sense of well-being – within each person. In a cosmic system, this moral imperative is linked to both everything and everyone. It is the essence of an individual and of a nation as a whole. After World War II, Cleveland wrote:

It's hard to say whether the beliefs I now hold were cause or effect; before the war I chose to be associated with a program to help low-income farmers in this country; during and after the war I got into relief and reconstruction work in Europe and the Far East. In any case, whether cause or effect, this is what I believe: that I should do what I can to maximize the morale of the greatest possible number of individual human beings.[16]

Cleveland’s This I Believe is a grand scheme of scientific and intuitive philosophy: the connection between creativity and freedom, and the harmony of nature. This harmony was also a key characteristic in the Founding Fathers’ integrative thinking. In turn, it graced American civilization as well. Within this harmony, there is order. This perennial notion of order – supported by Galileo, Newton, and Einstein – is real; it is sustained by immutable principles, which are not inherently associated with a political persuasion or ideology. Order pervades through a sense of morality and justice in the world. When an individual finds freedom from ideology or political bias, the forces of creative energy are naturally synchronized with the Creator. Harmony, creativity, and freedom are then unified like a laser beam that connects to the source. Indian sage Jiddu Krishnamurti affirmed this experience when he said, “He (God) will find that I am within him for I am free of all ideologies.”[17]

In Cleveland’s mind, an individual’s morale and sense of well-being are determined by the extent to which four basic desires are satisfied: “A man wants a sense of security, a sense of achievement, a sense of justice, and a sense of participation in the decisions that directly affect his own living and his own destiny.”[18] Morality, as the Founding Fathers believed, is the thread that connects these principles – harmony, creativity, and freedom – all three of which are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.[19] Following the Revolutionary War, the Founding Fathers sought to build a new order through the Constitution. Guiding them through this process was a perennial belief, both in Nature’s God and in ancient knowledge, which has flourished since antiquity.

PAST IS PROLOGUE

This book is an exploration of that past. Indeed, “What is Past is Prologue.”[20] The designers of the National Archives in Washington, D.C. purposefully inscribed that motto, borrowed from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, on the pedestal of the statue located on the Pennsylvania Avenue side of the building.[21] The inscription is a constant reminder that American ideas and ideals, which have evolved from the Egyptian and Greco-Roman civilizations, intend to create a New World Order based on these “self-evident” principles.[22]

Within the grand scheme of things, this book is a synthesis of the connection between trade and peace—a connection embedded in the U.S. Constitution. This perceived union of trade and peace derives from – and corresponds with – the shared belief that everything and everybody under the sun is intrinsically interconnected. Therefore, this book proposes that trade – the exchange of goods and services – is the language common to all, transcending religious, racial, ethnic, and other divisions. America’s economic success depends upon the effectiveness of international trade, the grammar of the New World Order. This Order evolved over the course of two hundred years, from the Constitution’s commerce clause to the founding of the World Trade Organization in 1995. Metaphorically speaking, this book is simply an observatory analysis of the ongoing American trade drama from the “balcony” – a term used by Harvard Kennedy School professor Ronald Heifetz in his highly acclaimed book, Leadership without Easy Answers, to describe the panoramic view of the dance floor as seen from the balcony.[23]

The idea for this book was initially conceived when I first met my future mentor, Professor Harlan Cleveland, the founding dean of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. It was a memorable late Tuesday afternoon on September 11, 1984. I was naturally intimidated. For me, he was George Washington – with his solemn stature and the dignified aura of a reflective leader. In fact, he was a distant relative of two former U.S. presidents: Grover Cleveland and Martin Van Buren.[24]

Our meeting took place in his office in the Walter F. Mondale Hall of the University’s Law School (before the new Humphrey Center was built in 1986). It was meant to be a short introductory meeting, likely to end with the traditional Minnesota farewell, “Have a nice day!”[25] Cleveland always disliked that ever-present popular phrase. Instead, he often said, "What I want is [sic] exciting days, passionate days, blessed days, wondrous days, surprising days."[26] Affirming the creative nature of the ever-changing dynamics ingrained in the universal order, Cleveland always had a reflective response: "Thank you, but I have other plans," like the workings of the cosmos. Our conversation lasted longer than expected. He was curious about my Buddhist and Christian upbringing in Sri Lanka, and my Minnesota connection through the AFS exchange program. I, in turn, was fascinated by his This I Believe narrative and his remarkable life, much of which was spent trying to manage world peace through the instruments of U.S. foreign policy, the Marshall Plan, and the United Nations.

In subsequent meetings, Cleveland and I engaged in discussions about the various attempts at a New World Order to secure world peace: the “first try” through the League of Nations and the “second try” through the United Nations. However, we did not stop there. Over one Sunday afternoon tea at his northern Virginia home on December 11, 2005, I remarked to Cleveland that the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) was the “third try,” culminating almost a half-century of American-led negotiations on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Borrowing President Abraham Lincoln’s phrase, he responded, “There may be something in it.”[27] We left the conversation on that note, as if the suggested “third try” were a sort of titular celebration of the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the WTO. In this context, the past is prologue.

My introduction to the Hubert Humphrey Institute in 1984 by the late Professor John Brandl (I met him at the Minnesota House of Representatives when he was a legislator) was the beginning of an extraordinarily enriching period in my professional and personal life. I served as Cleveland’s assistant while he was president of the World Academy of Art and Science, and even traveled with him on the United Nations University’s trip to the Middle East and the Academy’s Balkan and Asian tours.[28] This opportunity afforded me a wide range of intellectual discourses and professional endeavors. More importantly, I met my Scandinavian wife in Cleveland’s graduate workshop, “Management of Peace: Tying the Global Villages Together,” in the spring semester of 1986. (Acknowledging this title, Cleveland joked at our wedding reception two years later that the workshop had produced a “tangible outcome”). Years later, the happiest professional relationship of my life ended after almost a quarter-century with his final goodbye on May 30, 2008.[29] Until the infirm physical body finally gave up, his remarkable mental vitality and crisp intellectual curiosity were intact. He was 90 years young!

THE EVOLUTION OF THE PUNCTUATED IDEA

In retrospect, Cleveland’s notion that human actions “Affect the Farthest Star” has been a driving factor for this book. This inspiration was punctuated by three intermittent events since 1984: my first two assignments – with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the State Department – and the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

In late 1985, a somewhat “other worldly” notion of celestial connections began to revive in Washington, D.C. when I had the opportunity to work on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff of Minnesota Senator Rudy Boschwitz. I became curious about the architecture around the city. For me, various designs in the nation’s capital seemed to orchestrate a symphony of celestial instruments – the symbols, sculptures, and paintings – in constant prayer. These include the Zodiac signs in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, the paintings and sculptures of President Washington's heavenly ascendancy (i.e., The Apotheosis of George Washington) in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, and other Greco-Roman architectural designs. A weekend walk starting from the Andrew Mellon Water Fountain – the so-called Zodiac Fountain – at the corner of Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues to the celestial statue of Albert Einstein at the Potomac end of Constitution Avenue led me to believe further that “there may be something in it.”

The fifteen years that followed, during which I lived and worked in Minnesota, Europe, and Asia, marked a hibernation period from matters related to my “other worldliness” experience in Washington, D.C. Working on Ambassador Cleveland’s special projects, as well as my teaching and research assignments, prompted me to learn more about American history – and Freemasonry. In 2000, I returned from China (where I had been an exchange professor through the University of Maryland at the Northwestern Polytechnic University in Xi’an) to work at the U.S. State Department. As it happened, Cleveland, who had retired from the University of Minnesota, and I were reunited as neighbors in northern Virginia. Our frequent discussions on foreign policy and international affairs resumed.

During my second Washington, D.C. tour with the State Department, my fascination with the Founding Fathers and Freemasonry deepened. As a hobby, I began reading Masonic literature, researching esoteric traditions, exploring the architecture of federal buildings, and visiting museums and memorials, including the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia. I became convinced that the Founding Fathers were highly influenced by the teachings of Freemasonry and various denominations of esoteric knowledge derived from ancient civilizations. Shrouded in history and mystery, the Founders integrated all of these traditions – including democratic ideals from Greece and republican principles from Rome – to build an Egypt on the Potomac.[30] This Egypt is symbolized by the Washington Monument, i.e., the American pyramid. It has a celestial connection with the star Spica (the goddess of harvest in the Egyptian allegories),[31] which lies within the constellation of Virgo in the sky over Washington, D.C. The Capitol building aligns with the star Regulus (the heart of the Lion, or the lawgiver in Greek traditions),[32] which is situated within the Leo constellation. The White House corresponds with the star Arcturus (the Bear Guardian in Greek lore),[33] the brightest star in the constellation Bootes. The Founding Fathers knew that the celestial triangle formed by these three stars around the constellation Virgo, and positioned directly above the Washington skies, was most auspicious—as if Nature’s God had specially blessed the new nation’s capital through Virgo herself. For George Washington and other founding city architects, the nation was protected by this “special providence,” as Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations wrote in his book, Special Providence.[34]

Cleveland had “come to believe that even in our culture, steeped though we are in the philosophy of rationalism, there is both rational and instinctive evidence of God.” He elaborated, “The God of this orderly and continuous cosmos is also a personal God. The evidence here is that at the critical moments in his life a man in trouble instinctively prays.” George Washington's prayer at Valley Forge during the American Revolution is a vivid and celebrated example of this, illustrating the value of praying “as a conduit to obtain divine inspiration.”[35] In his book, The Faith of Our Fathers, historian Alf Mapp at Old Dominion University wrote that Washington “believed that the Deity intervened in human affairs. Therefore, it would not have been inconsistent for him to petition for such intervention.”[36] His belief system is indeed reflected in the celestial alignment of the major landmarks and in the architectural design of the nation’s capital, which is both rational and intuitive. The city’s celestial-terrestrial alignment corresponds with Virgo, whose ruler is Mercury, according to esoteric and Masonic traditions.

THE 9/11 ATTACKS

The nation’s capital, relentlessly bowed in symbolic prayer, is covered by a cloak of “providence,” as President George Washington believed. His doctrine of providence, which contained elements of Freemasonry, was not as “subtle as that of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or James Madison,”[37] according to Frank Grizzard, a distinguished historian of the University of Virginia. In his affirmative language, Washington referred to God as “Providence” or “Heaven,” although he sometimes appealed to the “Director of Human Events,” the “Great Ruler of Events,” the “Supreme Ruler,” the “Governor of the Universe,” the “Author of the Universe,” the “Supreme Architect of the Universe,” the “Grand Architect,” and the “Great Creator.”[38]

It appears trivial, but there is no more evidence of Washington’s idea of providence than the prevention of the fourth airliner – United Airlines Flight 93 – from striking the nation’s Capitol building during the tragic 9/11 episode. For me, and for all Americans (even the French, who called themselves Americans that day!), the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, was horrendous. After American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, my colleagues and I looked on from the balcony of the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center (The Foreign Service Institute) in Arlington, Virginia. My lecture on the role of international exchange programs in public diplomacy, which had recessed for short break never resumed. Instead, we watched CNN reports of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. We were instructed not to return to the State Department in Washington, D.C. because a fourth airliner headed for the Capitol building was still in the air. On my way to the Metro station, I remarked to a colleague that the airspace over the nation’s capital is protected, and that no one could ever harm it—especially the Capitol building. I told her that the symbols have protective powers that have been bestowed upon them by providence. Her expression conveyed her disbelief. While she left for Virginia, I returned to what I believed to be the safest place – the nation’s capital. I went to the desolated Harry S. Truman State Department building, only to be denied entrance by the security guards. Flight 93 never made it to Washington D.C. Instead, the jetliner was diverted by the heroic actions of fated passengers and crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania. This was confirmation for me that the nation’s capital is indeed protected from unwarranted harm by special providence.

To argue otherwise would make the protection of President Washington’s city inconceivable. As Einstein, Truman, Cleveland, and the Founding Fathers believed, the nation’s Capitol is a symbol of “freedom,” which cannot be harmed by unjust forces or evildoers. In his This I Believe speech, Einstein said, “I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, or who has a will of the kind we experience in ourselves.”[39] As long as the United States cherishes its freedom, the Creator by his very nature protects it as the symbol of freedom.

This chain of seemingly unrelated events in my life – from working on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the State Department, and finally witnessing the 9/11 Pentagon attack from the nearby Foreign Service Institute – is a thread within a larger scheme of things. After I received the Benjamin Franklin Award from the State Department in 2002, I decided to read Walter Isaacson’s excellent book, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life.[40] The book solidified the congruousness of the three events by featuring two illustrative diagrams from Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanacs that integrate the symbolic language of celestial and terrestrial affairs (as detailed in the chapters ahead). I had known Isaacson, a gifted author and remarkable leader of the Aspen Institute, an influential global think-tank based in Washington, D.C. and once led by Ambassador Cleveland. He had influenced me through his previous book, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986).[41] Through Benjamin Franklin’s biography, Isaacson rekindled my spirit; I looked deeper into Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanacs from 1733 to 1758, which were most intriguing.[42]

The art and science of these almanacs revealed, as Benjamin Franklin believed, the very essence of Nature’s God – an all-encompassing, universal mind. Indeed, the Creator was the unifying force behind all things. The Enlightenment writers and ancient philosophers (and wise rulers) used wisdom traditions and esoteric knowledge (understood only by a small, select group of people) to appreciate human affairs and predict events. (Franklin demonstrated some of this knowledge in accurately predicting the date and the time of the death of his friend, Titan Leeds).[43] The arcane symbols and zodiac signs found in Franklin’s almanacs at once reveal and conceal this understanding of human affairs. If one is not fully aware of the symbolic language, it is nearly impossible to connect the dots between seemingly disjointed events. It was these same Masonic and secret teachings that prepared the Founding Fathers to design a city of symbolic power coupled with an analogous governing belief system.

TRADE FOR PEACE

The Founding Fathers were a congregation of learned men who were committed to a common cause: Peace. They were acutely aware of two facts, according to Cleveland: “One is the remarkable degree of order that we are able to ascertain–in natural law, in musical harmony, even in the relations of one person with another. The other fact is the interwoven continuity of everything and everybody with everything and everybody else.”[44] In the minds of these perceptive men, the greatest challenge of government is the maintenance of autonomy and unity while securing the freedom to act.

Of all the available alternatives, the Founding Fathers chose trade as their primary means to advance American ideas and ideals. Religion, race, ethnicity, language, and color might unite some individuals and groups, but the classifications might equally prove to be destructive forces capable of permanently dividing nations. Trade, however, is not bound by these divisions. In this context, eighteenth century Irish philosopher Edmund Burke declared, “Free trade is not based on utility but on justice.”[45] The most contested issue between the state and religion in America’s commercial republic was resolved within the U.S. Constitution without jeopardizing the connection between governance and spirituality. The Constitution is the Grand Central Station of American justice. The Irish thinker further advised, “Be content to bind America by laws of trade. … Let this be your reason for binding their trade.”[46] Influenced by Burke, the Founding Fathers believed that trade would inherently be an ideal medium for unifying power both at their time and for years to come.

In concert with the power of the Internet – an invention from the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) – trade has revolutionized the way democratic capitalism works through the World Wide Web (WWW). Indeed, this ethereal world has given a new meaning to Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” within a networked economy. At any one time, millions of people are engaged in a range of byproducts of the Internet economy: e-mailing, e-networking, e-learning, e-commerce, and e-government. A significant number of large, Internet-based, corporate giants have also emerged, like AOL (America Online), Apple, E*trade, eBay, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, to name a few.

In their book, Revolutionary Wealth, futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler correctly observe that the new wave of wealth creation in everywhere (globalization), nowhere (cyberspace), and out there (outer space)[47] was made possible by American ingenuity. This would astonish Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and their faithful adherents. The Internet has now become a unifying, democratic, uncentralized, and autonomous force – the most promising wave of the post-industrial revolution – that the Founding Fathers never envisioned. Yet, their fundamental belief in harmony, creativity, and freedom remains relevant – these principles have had decidedly positive effects on American progress. This is an enormous tribute to the Constitution’s commerce clause.

With this backdrop in mind, this book explores the evolution of the commercial republic and its intrinsic power to begin the world over again through the World Trade Organization. At this moment of our national and international circumstances, with “change” as the dominant force of the time, I hope this glance back at our origins will illuminate the path to the future and America’s rightful destiny.

[1] Harlan Cleveland, “Affect the Farthest Star” in Edward R. Murrow, Raymond Swin, ed., This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of One Hundred Thoughtful Men and Women in All Walks of Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954), 37.

[2] This series turned into a book. See Edward R. Murrow, Raymond Swin, ed., This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of One Hundred Thoughtful Men and Women in All Walks of Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954).

[3] See the entire portion of This I Believe by President Harry S. Truman, “A Public Man Must Live in the Present” in the National Public Radio (NPR) website: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4555422

[4] Harlan Cleveland, 37.

[5] Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life and Society and Solitude (London: McMillan and Company, 1883), 230.

[6] Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007), 2.

[7] See the entire portion of This I Believe by Dr. Albert Einstein “An Ideal of Service to Our Fellow Man,” in the National Public Radio (NPR) website: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4670423

[8] Michio Kaku, Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004).

[9] Walter Isaacson, Einstein, 384.

[10] Walter Isaacson, Einstein, 384-385.

[11] Quoting Albert Einstein in Walter Isaacson, 423.

[12] Walter Isaacson, Einstein, 7.

[13] Walter Isaacson, Einstein, 551.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Harlan Cleveland, 36.

[17] See Bette Stockbauer, “The teachings of Maitreya and Krishnamurti,” Share International Magazine, February 1, 1990, 5. When I first attended one of Krishnamurti’s lecturers at the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka in July 1982, he elaborated on this concept of freedom: freedom from ideologies. President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke about four freedoms (freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear), which resonate the metaphysical aspect of freedom—the Source.

[18] Harlan Cleveland, 36.

[19] Among these philosophical principles, creativity is, for example, important for the economic progress of the American civilization as it was then and is now. See Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution is known as the Copyright Clause, the Copyright and Patent Clause, the Intellectual Property Clause, and the Progressive Clause, empowers Congress “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

[20] The phrase comes from William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act II, Scene 1, lines 253–54.

[21] See Marjorie Garber, Profiling Shakespeare (New York: Routledge, 2008), 285.

[22] Harlan Cleveland, 36.

[23] This is my favorite phrase since I took Dr. Heifetz’s leadership seminar at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. See Ronald Abadian Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994).

[24] See Dennis Hevesi, “Harlan Cleveland, Diplomat and Scholar, Dies at 90,” The New York Times, June 13, 2008. See the entire article at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0CE2DB113EF930A25755C0A96E9C8B63

[25] See Joe Holley, “Harlan Cleveland: Dean, Author, Statesman and Lifelong Learner,” The Washington Post, June 6, 2008, p. B7. See online: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/05/AR2008060503520.html

[26] Ibid.

[27] President Abraham Lincoln spoke these words to Frederick Seward, who served in Washington as his father’s private secretary, i.e., president’s Secretary of State William Henry Seward. The secretary sent his son to hand over a confidential message to the president who was staying in the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia. The president said to Frederick Seward, “If different persons, not knowing of each other’s work, have been pursuing separate clews [sic] that led to the same result, why then it shows there may be something in it. But if this is only the same story, filtered through two channels, and reaching me in tow [sic] ways, then that don’t make it stronger. Don’t you see?” (Italics added). Read this fascinating story in Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005), 311.

[28] Joe Holley.

[29] See my tribute to Professor Harlan Cleveland in Patrick Mendis, “A student's Memory of Harlan Cleveland,” The Minnesota Post, June 9, 2008. See the entire article: http://www.minnpost.com/community_voices/2008/06/09/2147/a_students_memory_of_harlan_cleveland

[30] Historian Anthony Browder argues that the Founding Fathers intended to build Egypt on the Potomac. See Anthony T. Browder, Egypt on the Potomac: A Guide to Decoding Egyptian Architecture and Symbolism (Washington D.C.: Institute of Karmic Guidance, 2004). Some authors argue that the Founding Fathers never envisioned a “new Rome on the Potomac” in the new capital as opposed to structured societies of New York and Philadelphia – two former U.S. capital cities. See Catherine Allgor, A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation (New York: The Macmillan Press, 20060), 45 and Karl Galinsky, Classical and Modern Interactions: Postmodern Architecture, Multiculturalism, Decline, and Other Issues (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1992), 155.

[31] Fred Schaaf,The Brightest Stars: Discovering the Universe Through the Sky's Most Brilliant Stars (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2008), 218-245. Also see Chet Raymo, 365 Starry Nights: An Introduction to Astronomy for Every Night of the Year (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), 87.

[32] Fred Schaaf, 247-254.

[33] Fred Schaaf, 126-135

[34] In his book, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World, Walter Russell Mead described “an anatomy of providence” by referring to Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” (p. 310). In the minds of the Founding Fathers, as evidence suggests, special providence is completely different notion. I failed to detect Mead’s direct reference to George Washington (i.e., “providential agency”) or other Founding Fathers who used similar terms in the context of their time that followed from antiquity. Mead made a single connection with “‘God has a special providence for fools, drunks and the United States of America’ – Otto von Bismarck’” (p. vii). His doctrine of special providence needs a better definition and a meaningful interpretation to represent the title accurately and reflectively. Nevertheless, he provides an excellent synthesis of the four foreign policy traditions of Hamilton, Jefferson, Jackson, and Wilson. See Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World (New York: Routledge, 2002).

[35] Alf J. Mapp, The Faiths of Our Fathers: What America's Founders Really Believed (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), 68.

[36] Ibid.

[37] See Frank E. Grizzard, Jr., The Ways of Providence: Religion and George Washington (Buena Vista, VA: Mariner Companies, 2005), 4-5.

[38] George Washington, Julius Friedrich Sachse, ed., Washington's Masonic Correspondence as Found among the Washington Papers in the Library of Congress (Lancaster, PA: Press of the New Era Printing Company, 1915), p. 22, p. 26, passim. Also see Frank E. Grizzard, Jr., 4-5 and Gary Scott Smith, Faith and the Presidency: From George Washington to George W. Bush (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

[39] See the entire portion of This I Believe by Albert Einstein in the National Public Radio (NPR) website: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4670423

[40] Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003).

[41] Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made: Acheson, Bohlen, Harriman, Kennan, Lovett, McCloy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986).

[42] Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard: The Almanacks for the Years 1733-1758 (New York: Limited Editions Club, 1964).

[43] Read the predictions for his friend Titan Leeds and others in James Parton, Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin (New York: Mason Brothers, 1865), 227-242 and Benjamin Franklin, Walter Isaacson, ed., A Benjamin Franklin Reader, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), 94.

[44] Harlan Cleveland, 37.

[45] Peter James Stanlis, ed., Edmund Burke and the Natural Law (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003), 56.

[46] Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke, Volume II (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1866), 73.

[47] Alvin Toffler and Heidi Toffler, Revolutionary Wealth (New York: Knopf, 2006).

PATRICK MENDIS serves as the vice president of academic affairs at the Osgood Center for International Studies and is a visiting scholar in foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins University’s Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. He is an adjunct professor of diplomacy at Norwich University’s Master of Arts in Diplomacy program.

Before returning to academia, Mendis served as an American diplomat at the U.S. Department of State where he chaired a number of U.S. interagency working groups, managed the Department’s international educational and cultural programs, advised the U.S. Delegations to the United Nations, and served as vice chairman of Secretary Colin Powell’s Open Forum. After his service, for which he earned the Department’s Meritorious Honor and Benjamin Franklin Awards, he worked as a consultant and economist at the Department of Energy’s Center for Global Security Research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He also lectured at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute, the USDA Graduate School, and participated in the NASA Leadership Program at the Federal Executive Institute. Mendis served as a board member of the USDA Graduate School, a senate staffer on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a legislative intern in the Minnesota House of Representatives, a delegate to the United Nations (from Sri Lanka), and a consultant to the World Bank.

Mendis served as a visiting professor of economics and public policy at the University of Pittsburgh’s Semester at Sea program and authored a book, The Human Side of Globalization (3rd Edition), exploring the impact of Washington Consensus in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. He has taught in the former Soviet Union through the University of Minnesota, where he received the President’s Outstanding Leadership and Service Award and the Hubert Humphrey Alumni Award for Leadership. As a military professor through the University of Maryland, he taught MBA and international relations courses at every major military base in the NATO and Pacific Commands, and later in China, for which he received Maryland’s Stanley Drazek Teaching Excellence Award. Mendis has also been a visiting professor at Yale University’s Center for International and Areas Studies for two summers.

Mendis has been recognized with numerous honors for his leadership and scholarship, including the Governor Harold Stassen Award for United Nations Affairs, the Twenty-first Century Trust Fellowship at Oxford University, the Socrates Fellowship at the Aspen Institute, the Coolidge Fellowship at Columbia University, and the Harvard Leaders Scholarship at the Kennedy School of Government. A fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, Mendis is listed in Who’s Who in America and serves on the editorial board of The Public Manager and the board of directors of The Bureaucrat, Inc. He served as the founding president of the Society for International Development and vice president of the United Nations Association in Minnesota.

An alumnus of the Harvard Executive Leadership Program at the Kennedy School of Government, Mendis earned his PhD in geography/applied economics from the University of Minnesota, MA in international development and foreign affairs from the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and BS in business administration and economics (first class honors) from the University of Sri Lanka.

He has authored more than 100 books, journal articles, newspaper columns, seminar papers, and government reports. A travel enthusiast, Mendis has either traveled to or worked in more than 75 countries and all 50 states. He also enjoys hiking, swimming, and watching the sunset with his family.