I think that President Obama has made a great choice for the Chairmanship of NEH in Jim Leach. Admission: He is a close friend and Princeton University colleague.
It is hard to think of a public official in recent years who has shown greater support for and understanding of the humanities than Jim Leach. He was, of course, one of the founders of the Congressional Humanities Caucus, and he was the deserving recipient of the National Humanities Alliance’s Sidney R. Yates Award for Distinguished Public Service to the Humanities. For the 30 years he was on the Hill, his support was crucial to the creation of a favorable climate for all aspects of the humanities. He was, especially during his last years in Washington, our go-to guy.
By now everyone has read a lot about Jim. Younger humanists will probably not know that there used to be such a thing as liberal internationalist Republicans — Jim is one of the last of the species. He also models integrity in public life in a way that seems striking in these dark times — he won the Wayne Morse “Integrity in Politics” Award several years ago. Earlier, he was educated in political science (we call it “Politics” here at Princeton), where he graduated in 1964, and he later did graduate work in international relations both at Johns Hopkins and at LSE. He worked on the Hill right after his college graduation, and later became a Foreign Service Officer, resigning from government service in protest of the Saturday Night Massacre in 1973. He has all the right moves and all the right stuff.
It is also important to say that Jim is actually and spiritually an Iowan. I am also a Midwesterner, but Jim is really a Midwesterner. He is a soft-spoken, thoughtful, unassuming, deliberate, and considerate person — he has all of the Middle American virtues. But he is also an expert in finance (he chaired the House Banking Committee) and Asian affairs (he chaired the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs). He and his accomplished art historian wife Deba are art collectors. He is, in short, a really interesting guy, and he is as nice as anyone I know.
Jim is of course not a professional humanist, but we have learned the hard way that a Ph.D. is neither necessary nor sufficient to qualify someone as a successful NEH chair. Indeed, since the Endowment was founded in 1965 there have not been many truly distinguished chairs (don’t ask, and I won’t tell). I think, however, that Jim has the instincts and the background to be superb in the job. I am especially confident that he comprehends the breadth and complexity of the stakeholders in the national humanities community, and he also understands that the humanities do not stop at the water’s edge. I can’t wait to see what Jim Leach will do in the Old Post Office Building.
