Brokaw Speaks to Executive Education Class About U.S. Election, Foreign Policy

The television journalist Tom Brokaw recently addressed one of SIPA's executive classes, discussing trends in American politics since the 1950s and offering insights on the November election and U.S. foreign policy.

Brokaw spoke to Saudi Arabian officials who are finishing a year-long training program in policy and governance. It’s one recent offering of SIPA’s Picker Center for Executive Education, which operates customized educational programs for a variety of organizations, ranging from the Federal Aviation Administration to the New York Fire Department to Guangdong Province, China.

As part of an executive course entitled Managing the Media and Public Relations, the communications consultant Kristian Denny Todd had arranged to bring Brokaw to SIPA. The former NBC News anchor was scheduled to address the class in the final days before the presidential election, but due to Hurricane Sandy ended up speaking on November 12 — about a week after the election.

Arriving in Room 1512 on a bright morning, Brokaw graciously greeted everyone present, shaking hands with the two dozen or so students and other attendees. He began to speak with the distinctive voice that is familiar to anyone who has watched television news in the last four decades.

Taking a bird’s-eye view, Brokaw said that “democracies are dynamic, truly living forms of government.” He said the recent U.S. election was a “postmodern” one, which reflected the changing face and composition of the nation: African Americans, hispanics, and women all had greater voices than in years past.

Brokaw said the Republican party did not seem to understand the just how dynamic American society is, and said it’s unclear for now what the consequences of this will be.

For most of the era since World War II, Brokaw said, the United States has expanded government benefits — providing retirement benefits, college tuition, and medical care to different groups. He suggested that such programs will be reevaluated in coming years: “We’re in for a daunting but exciting time because we have to redefine America for the 21st century.”

Overall, Brokaw said he believed that the nation’s greatest successes came “from big ideas that united us, not small ideas that divided us.” He cited the GI Bill, the civil rights movement, and the space program as just a few examples. The question today, he said, is can the United States renew itself and adapt, as it has in the past, or “will it just be business as usual?”

Following his remarks, Brokaw conducted a wide-ranging Q-and-A session that addressed U.S. foreign policy more extensively and touched on the Middle East as well.

He suggested that American presidential candidates rarely have substantive debates, especially with respect to foreign policy. The typical televised debate is “unsophisticated and bombastic,” he said, because it’s about satisfying interest groups. In fairness, though, he acknowledged that it’s “a tough place” to have a nuanced discussion.

Brokaw also discussed some of the challenges facing the United States in the Middle East, noting that America's image on the Arab Street is not favorable. “We need more Arabic speakers in our agencies,” he said. Common dialogue is necessary to reconcile western and Islamic values, he said, because both side generalize: “We lump the Islamic world together, and Muslims look at a monolithic ‘west.’

“There used to be [in the United States] a much wider foreign-policy establishment,” Brokaw observed. For now, though, despite the importance of foreign policy, he said the biggest issues in United States are still domestic, such as taxes and health care.