BRATTLEBORO-Vice President Hubert Humphrey once told his dear friend, Vermont's longtime Sen. Patrick Leahy, that "any person who doesn't have tears doesn't have heart."
And Leahy showed that heart - and a few tears - when he and his wife, Marcelle Leahy, came to town on Aug. 9 and 10 as part of the 60th anniversary celebration of the School for International Training (SIT).
Leahy was the longest-serving senator in Vermont's history. He represented this state for eight terms before his recent retirement and was widely regarded as the Senate's foremost leader on human rights issues in U.S. foreign policy.
On Aug. 9, the Leahys participated in a question-and-answer event as part of a symposium on globalization held in front of approximately 150 members of the SIT community - teachers, former teachers, staff and former staff, students and former students, as well as honored guests.
The next day, Leahy was the keynote speaker and received an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, at SIT's 58th commencement ceremony.
The school was officially established in 1964, 32 years after the launch of World Learning's foundational youth exchange program, the Experiment in International Living.
When President John F. Kennedy tapped program alumnus Sargent Shriver to become the inaugural director of the Peace Corps, Shriver turned to the Experiment to train some of the first Peace Corps volunteers. Out of that activity, SIT was born.
Today, SIT is the only accredited institution of higher education in the United States that is part of an international nongovernmental organization, World Learning.
Fittingly, the SIT campus, with its stunning views of the river and the mountains beyond - now mostly empty because the school has dissipated its programming to centers worldwide and students no longer live together on campus for months at a time - has taken on new life as a first residence for new Americans as they resettle in Brattleboro.
The Leahys have been lifelong internationalists. They have made many trips abroad, often to war zones or places that had recently been war zones.
The senator has been an impassioned advocate against land mines and was the lead author of legislation banning the export of antipersonnel devices, which are designed to target humans.
He established the Leahy War Victims Fund, which helps civilians hurt by land mines and other weapons of war.
The Leahy Law prohibits military assistance to foreign entities that violate human rights.
While in office, Leahy secured critical federal funding - about $1 million - to strengthen the New Vermonter Education Program that SIT and World Learning launched with local partners to resettle refugees in southern Vermont.
This funding has also helped to support SIT academic programs focused on refugees and humanitarian assistance, including a new doctorate in international relations.
Vermont welcomes new Americans
Globalization was definitely the word of the day, and one that was very much on Sen. Leahy's mind. He said he has very little patience with those who preach fear and hatred of "the other" and want to close the borders to foreigners.
"If the United States thinks they only do things alone, then they make a terrible mistake," Leahy said.
"And SIT has been so good in bringing people here from around the world," he said. "It also educates us and make us better, and that's what we have to do."
As a senator, Leahy said he would find it frustrating to hear people say, "Let's close the drawbridges, let's close the borders."
"Baloney!" he said. "None of us would be here if earlier generations had the borders closed. Our foreign policy should not be based on bluster. It should be based on who we are and what we can do together."
Leahy said that Vermont is the perfect place to welcome new Americans and give them a new start in life.
"I've been in war zones and conflict zones all over the world," Leahy said. "I cannot tell you the number of times I've met either Peace Corps people or SIT people, Vermonters, helping there."
He said that "every single time, they talk about the experiences they had here in Vermont and how they want to help."
"That's what we have to do," Leahy said. "We have to show that example - that even as a small state, we punch above our weight."
Vermont is small enough that people know everybody, Leahy added.
"That's why it's very important to encourage Vermonters to welcome newcomers," he said. "Just think of yourself as a refugee. You come to a new place, probably terrified of where you are. How great is it that somebody is welcoming?"
This welcoming becomes generational, Leahy said.
"Look at all the people in business, in medicine, in education and so on, who came here as refugees, or their parents came as refugees," he said. "We're a better state for that diversity."
The former senator said he was fortunate.
"My maternal grandparents immigrated to Vermont from Italy," Leahy said. "My mother was born here. My great-great-grandparents on the paternal side immigrated here from Ireland."
And that has made all the difference, he said.
"Our state is improved by refugees who have had education," Leahy continued. "And their lives are improved. It's a win-win situation. We should be encouraging it everywhere in Vermont."
When asked how their lives have been affected by working with refugees, Marcelle Leahy said that for one thing, it made them realize how much they have.
"And that we have the ability to share what we have, because so many people around the world are doing without and living through such hardship, and we need to help," she said.
The senator then chimed in with a story of a friend who had a blood clot that came close to killing him.
"He was rushed into the hospital, rushed into surgery, time to go, but he survived," Leahy said. "When he came awake, he saw the person who saved his life. It was a refugee he had sworn in as a U.S. citizen 15 years before."
Turmoil in today's world
Leahy did not mince words about the state of the world today.
"I don't want this to sound partisan, but [former President] Donald Trump said [Russian President] Vladimir Putin is a genius when he attacked Ukraine," Leahy said. "He's not a genius. He's a war criminal."
He applauds President Joe Biden for "bringing NATO together, as it hadn't been together in a generation, to defend Ukraine."
"If we don't defend Ukraine, what's next? When you have a powerful country like Russia bombing hospitals, bombing schools, bombing orphanages? That's a war crime, and we should call it that," Leahy said.
How can the world hold Putin responsible for war crimes?
"You're not going to unless the people in his country do," Leahy said.
"But if Ukraine survives and stands as free, that will at least make Putin see what happened, and maybe the Russian people will see what happened when they realize how much this has cost them in soldiers, finances, and everything else," he continued.
Leahy was equally strong in his remarks about the fighting in the Middle East.
"I wish it was an easy answer," Leahy said.
He pointed to the Leahy Law [which prohibits the U.S. State Department and Defense Department from providing military assistance to foreign security forces that violate human rights].
"The Leahy Law has saved tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of lives around the world," Leahy continued. "We're finally applying it to the defense forces in Israel, because some of the things they've done."
"Did Israel face a terrible attack from Hamas? Of course they did. When you look at the children, the innocent people who were killed, the others were captured, tortured, and died in captivity. Some of them are still there. Of course, that's horrible. Nobody accepts that," he said.
"But you can't bomb hospitals. You can't bomb schools. You can't bomb like this. You've got to find a better way," Leahy said.
Crossing a bridge
The former senator provided one such example of a better way in the form of the peace deal that Israel and Jordan negotiated between their two nations in 1994.
"I go back to history, when you have real leaders who want to do something," he said. "[Yitzhak] Rabin was the prime minister of Israel. King Hussein was the king of Jordan. Their parties were trying to negotiate. And I know this for a fact because both Rabin and Hussein told me this face-to-face."
As Leahy described it, "King Hussein called Rabin in Israel and said, 'Why don't the two of us sit down and work this out?' I remember there was a price on Hussein's head in Israel, just as there was a price on Rabin's in Jordan."
They discussed meeting in Geneva or someplace neutral, but then King Hussein said, "I'll come to you."
There was a bridge between the two countries, the Allenby Bridge, guarded by the Jordanians on one side and the Israelis on the other.
"The prime minister is on one side, and all these cars and security people pull up on the other side," Leahy said. "The king gets out. He waves them away. He walks alone across the bridge."
Meanwhile, "Rabin tells his driver and bodyguards to get out of the car. He holds the door for the king, takes the car keys, and he drives away. People are following, but they go to his office, negotiate for a few hours, and work out the final details."
They got back to the Allenby Bridge.
"Rabin says, 'I'll walk you home,'" Leahy continued. "Remember, there's the price on his head in Jordan. But he walks alone across the bridge with the king. They get to the other end, they stand and salute each other, and he walks back."
Leahy asked both men, independently, whether they had been afraid for their safety.
"And almost verbatim, they gave me the same answer about the other: 'He's a soldier. He gave me his word I'd be safe.'
"Why can't we get back to something like that?" Leahy said.
He believes that Palestinians have "made bad mistakes in not finding a way for a two-state solution," and that Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "is so much opposed to it."
"I fear for them," Leahy said. "I have seen so many mistakes and missed opportunities in that part of the world, and now it's going to get worse with Iran and Lebanon."
Leahy said that it's "sometimes hard to keep track of what all the different groups are."
"And I wish I could wave a magic wand, but it's going to take men and women of leadership," he said.
Our diverse country
Leadership is hard to find in the United States, as well, Leahy said.
"We must stop trying to become the most powerful, the richest, the best, the most influential country in the world," he said.
"Our country has gone through civil wars, World War I, World War II," Leahy said. "We've gone through some devastating things like forest fires and Covid. We have to stop trying to figure out, 'Oh, how do we become the most powerful?' 'How can we be the best?' 'How can we keep these foreigners out here?'
That doesn't work, he said.
"We've got to realize we are a diverse country," Leahy continued. "We have enormous opportunities in this country, both in our population and in our geography. We should be working on that."
Meanwhile, "we should be aware of the fact that we are one country. There are a whole lot of other countries. And we should be reaching out to them," he said. "And I think SIT and others teach us to do that."
'An easy difference'
Leahy also shared what he thought of Biden's recent decision to step down as a Democratic Party candidate for president in the upcoming election in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris as the party's nominee.
A grin spread across Leahy's face as he applauded Biden's "brave and courageous" decision.
"I think there is one big difference between the two nominees," Leahy said: Harris, he said, is a former prosecutor, while former President Donald Trump, this year's Republican Party nominee, has been "convicted of dozens of felonies."
"Now that's an easy difference," Leahy said. "As a former prosecutor, I always go to the prosecutor, not the felon, but I've known [Harris] for years. I recruited her to come on the Senate Judiciary Committee."
Leahy said he saw Harris as "a woman of integrity, hard working, knowledgeable."
"I think she is one who could bring America back together," he said. "And I think our choice of vice president [Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz] is superb. That's somebody who could walk in a farmyard in Vermont or a boardroom in New York and be at ease and knowledgeable."
A final question
One last question before the Leahys lost their voices was about how retirement was working out for them.
They burst into laughter and embraced each other.
"We're busier than ever," Marcelle Leahy said. "And I need some time off."
This News item by Joyce Marcel was written for The Commons.