NATO Ambassador Harlan Cleveland was a Friend of Sri Lanka

Patrick Mendis from Washington DC, USA
Former NATO ambassador and the founding dean of the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs passed away on May 30 at 90.  His remarkably engaging and imaginative mind kept him active and busy until his final days in the Washington, DC area.
A global network of Hubert Humphrey mid-career international fellows revered Ambassador Harlan Cleveland for his “Seven Leadership Attitudes” and admired his commitment to the development of new leaders in developing countries. During his visit to Sri Lanka in 1995, he gave a series of lectures in Colombo and Kandy and met with educational, cultural, and political leaders, including the Honorable Ranil Wickramasinghe and Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike. As president of the World Academy of Art and Science, he also recruited a number of prominent Sri Lankans to the Academy, in addition to his long-time colleague and friend, the late Sir Arthur C. Clarke. They include Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne, Venerable Dr. Bhikkhu Bodhi, the late Dr. Lal Jayawardene, and Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala.
Ambassador Cleveland served as the president of the University of Hawaii before he arrived in Minnesota in the early 1980s when I was a graduate student at the Humphrey Institute. As a farm boy from Sri Lanka, I was intimidated by him because of his stature as a former Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization under President John F. Kennedy and a NATO ambassador under President Lyndon B. Johnson.  He made me feel so welcome and put me at easy when he said, "Patrick, I am Harlan; we both seem to have come from tropical islands."  He knew that I was nervous and wanted to know more about my American Field Service (AFS) high school exchange experience in a Minnesota dairy farm and my rural upbringing with Buddhist and Catholic leaders in a three-acre rice field with water buffaloes in Polonnaruwa.
Ambassador Cleveland was born in New York City, graduated from Princeton University, and pursued further studies at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.  He was a Marshall Plan administrator, a UN relief coordinator in China and Italy, and a senior executive in government before he was appointed as dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship at Syracuse University.  With his years of tropical island experience, this unassuming American diplomat portrayed himself more as a down-home type than as a product of an East Coast Establishment.
In July 1993, he inscribed these words in my copy of his book, Birth of a New World: An Open Moment for International Leadership: "For Patrick Mendis, With many thanks for the pleasure of watching your mind working, always hard and always constructively – with admiration, in friendship ~ Harlan Cleveland." It extraordinarily revealed the greatness of this man because I was the one who needed to thank him for his kindness, generosity, and friendship.  The dean has always been charitable and "Minnesota nice" to me.
His egalitarian attitude seems to reflect Thomas Jefferson, his vibrant mind was as inspiring as Kennedy's youthful looks, and his progressive and compassionate worldview was an extension of Hubert Humphrey.  Overall, Ambassador Cleveland had been an authentic Minnesotan, who wrote a fortnightly column on world affairs for the Star Tribune Newspaper of the Twin Cities from 1987 to 1993.  He was also a trusted world leader, who had a global network of his protégés.  He once assured me that anyone who comes from the developing world would get the best education in Minnesota with its test of survival skills in the 40 degree (minus) temperature.
Professor Cleveland, recipient of 22 honorary degrees and the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, was an early advocate and practitioner of online education long before it became a buzzword – and he introduced me to online teaching.  As a futurist and author of more than 12 books and over 100 journal articles, he predicted the arrival of the knowledge worker in the global workplace and wrote about leadership and the information revolution.  He had been an avid reader of world affairs and a travel enthusiast.
During his UN tour of the Middle East and his Asian tour as president of the World Academy of Art and Science, I had the privilege to serve as his special assistant.  His intellectual curiosity was amazing; he learned how to count to ten in Arabic from a taxi driver on our way to meet with King Hussein of Jordan in Amman.  His energy level was higher than the proverbial "Energizer Bunny" as he climbed a hilltop forest hermitage to recruit the American-born Pali and Buddhist scholar, Venerable Dr. Bhikkhu Bodhi, in Kandy for the World Academy. President Cleveland had many friends and admirers in Sri Lanka. Subsequently, I established the Harlan Cleveland Leadership Award to honor him at Moratuwa University’s Sir Arthur C. Clarke Centre for Modern Technologies in 1997.
Even though he is no longer with us physically, his remarkable legacy continues.  As Mahatma Gandhi said, "My life is my message," Ambassador Cleveland told us, "All real-world problems are interdisciplinary, inter-professional, and international.  Policy analysis means combining the rigors of different disciplines, the insights from multiple professions, the work ways of multiple cultures.  But remember that a committee of narrow thinkers doesn't produce integrative outcomes.  The best interdisciplinary instrument is still the individual human mind."
With this, he often reminded us to develop a "generalist" mindset, as he himself was an embodiment of "General" George Washington in stature, mindset, and dignity.

*Patrick Mendis earned his PhD from the University of Minnesota, received the Hubert H. Humphrey Alumni Award for Outstanding Leadership, and served as an American diplomat and a military professor in the NATO and Pacific Commands through the University of Maryland. He is the chairman of The Educate Lanka Foundation (www.educatelanka.org) and the founder of The Tsunami Leaders Caring Foundation (www.patrickmendis.com) through with he established tsunami scholarships, a peace prize, and a micro-loan program in Sri Lanka.