Reprinted from U.S. Department of State Website

Notice to the Press
Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
July 28, 2003

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell Honors Two U.S. Veterans with First Harrison H. Schmitt Leadership Awards for Fulbright Alumni

Powell Praises Award for Fulbright Alumni

Bureau introduces Harrison H. Schmitt Leadership Award

"Our rising leaders in the Fulbright program establish relationships with counterparts abroad that will form the foundation of successful and mutually beneficial partnerships in the years ahead," said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in remarks at a July 29 ceremony at the Benjamin Franklin Room in the State Department.

The Fulbright Program, sponsored by the U.S. government, was established in 1946 to encourage communication and understanding between people from the United States and from foreign countries.

At the ceremony, Powell presented the Harrison H. Schmitt Leadership Award to Raymond Jefferson, a Fulbright Fellow in Singapore, and Jason Santamaria, who spent his fellowship in Venezuela.

The award was introduced by the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to honor recent Fulbright Fellow alumni who are emerging leaders and dedicated to public service. It was named in honor of Harrison H. Schmitt, Chairman Emeritus of The Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy, and Lunar Module Pilot on the 1972 Apollo 17 flight.

"Dr. Schmitt, we have created this award in recognition of the very inspirational role that you have played in public service and in international exchanges," said Powell. "We hope that this award will motivate future leaders to venture to distant lands, or even to the stars, in the spirit of adventure and understanding.

"By creating the Harrison H. Schmitt Award, we pay tribute to a bold idea that has become America's flagship program for international exchange. Fulbright Fellowships were a direct outgrowth of the role this country inherited some 50 years ago. A world wasted by war looked to the United States for leadership and we responded with creativity, with know-how, and with renewed resolve to promote lasting peace among citizens of every creed, every country and of every continent."

In his remarks, Powell shared his own experience as a White House Fellow who held posts in Russia and China in the 1970s.

"It was an experience that I did not know at that time the influence it would have in my life, but I left that experience seeing both China and Russia impressed by the vitality of those countries, impressed by the people that I met, but also realizing that it was a system that could not last in the kind of world we were heading into," said Powell.

Powell stressed that those early experiences in an international exchange program were "so vital and so important in allowing me to understand the kind of world that I would be responsible for in later years."

"More than ever, we need to interact with people around the world," Powell said. "More than ever, we need economists to interchange with each other, military officers to change views with, not only other military officers from other nations but other leaders, whether they be politicians, scientists, economists, what have you, all mixing it up, so that we broaden the perspective of all parties. And the Fulbright program, more so than any other program, provides an ideal backdrop for these kinds of connections, these kinds of interchanges to take place and to flourish.

"And I salute Fulbright scholars -- past, present and future -- for acting as goodwill ambassadors for our country as we advance the cause of peace, prosperity and freedom across the globe.

"The dawn of the new century has heightened the demand for dialogue, the demand for diplomacy, and I think this program is an important adjunct to all of our efforts," said Powell.

Read transcript of Secretary Powel's speech