Remembering Harvey

By Shirin Tahir-Kheli

The Hon. Shirin Tahir-Kheli served in various posts in the State Department and the National Security Council, most recently as Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State for Women's Empowerment in the Muslim World. She also served as an FPRI Senior Fellow for many years.

I am very lucky to have known Harvey Sicherman. We were graduate students together at the University of Pennsylvania. We took many of the same classes and sat through endless seminars where smoke from cigarettes billowed around us. As the hours dragged on and the professor began to lull students into slumber, Harvey would raise his hand and ask a wickedly clever question. Everyone woke up and the class went on.

Over these many decades, Harvey taught me a great deal about the Middle East. We periodically lunched together and we picked up on where the previous tutorial had left off. It always amazed me how despite the lapse in time, our conversation and friendship always had continuity without a break.

When I went to work at the policy planning staff of the Department of State in 1982, Harvey was senior advisor to the Secretary of State. He guided me through the thicket of departmental policy and personalities. It was during a lunch with Harvey in the department cafeteria while discussing the upcoming state visit of the Pakistani president that Larry Eagleburger, Undersecretary of State came by. We talked of some of the thorny issues in the U.S. - Pakistani relationship. Harvey mentioned that I had offered three points for getting past the issue at hand. Eagleburger looked for a pen to jot this down. Harvey, as always and in so many ways, came to the rescue. He helped us all talk it through, and later when we heard about the official line on the subject, Harvey gave me a knowing nod and no more was said!

Everyone who knew Harvey was struck by his deep knowledge of so many issues and his phenomenal memory. He was always able to summon an appropriate quote for any given occasion. He was a great speech writer because he could draw from his firm grasp of events, people and situations, and the contexts in which they operated. He was widely read and had an extensive library, inherited from his father and added to by his own collection. He could pen phrases that were elegant and full of insight. Harvey knew not only policy, he knew history, making him a truly unique figure in the corridors of power.

We would often talk about the difficulties of making peace. He reflected on the Middle East experience and I would talk of the problems between India and Pakistan. When I started to work on the Track II effort to build bridges in the subcontinent, Harvey was encouraging - making the case that one had to try and use knowledge and connections for the goal of a better relationship. The Balusa Group did make a difference and it was always wonderful to update Harvey on where we were with the effort.

In the forty five years that I knew Harvey Sicherman, he never said an unkind word. He was truly a real scholar and gentleman. I shall miss him.

Shirin Tahir-Kheli

FPRI Wishes to Thank its 2011 Partners
Who help make all our programs possible.

On November 15th at the FPRI annual dinner Fouad Ajami was presented with the Seventh Annual Benjamin Franklin Public Service Award. The event was attended by over 360 people.
Dr. John M. Templeton, Jr. was dinner chairman.

FPRI 2011 Annual Dinner

Video of keynote address
Reflections on the Arab Spring
Fouad Ajami

Special Partner Event
Al Qaeda and Jihadi Movements After Bin Laden
Christopher Swift

Special Partner Event
The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al Qaeda
Peter Bergen

FPRI Dinner Booklet and Annual report