In August 2016, I moved back to the Harrisburg metro area after a 24-year hiatus. Coming from the fertile cultural environment of Boston, I wondered if I could find activities to satisfy my yearning for intellectual growth.
Fortunately, a blurb in TheBurg helped ease this concern.
In the “Happenings” section of the September issue, I noticed that Gettysburg College political science professor Shirley Anne Warshaw would be giving a talk to the Foreign Policy Association (FPA) of Harrisburg. Her topic: U.S. foreign policy in an election year. Given my interest in international affairs, this was an event I was not going to miss.
The meeting room at the Camp Hill Radisson Hotel was packed. FPA President Michele Sellitto delivered some opening remarks, announcing that the October speaker would be former NSA and CIA Director Michael V. Hayden.
Warshaw then proceeded to captivate the audience with her lecture on how U.S. foreign policy would likely differ depending on the election’s outcome. A spirited Q&A followed, with questions coming from all over the political spectrum. I was hooked. Within days, I mailed a $25 annual membership check.
Unknown to me at the time, I was joining this nonprofit, non-partisan organization at a time of great growth. In fact, the Radisson recently moved the regular meetings to a larger location, the main ballroom. Fueled by the energy of Sellitto, but also by a highly contentious national election and what Sellitto calls “the Trump effect,” FPA’s ranks have swelled in just the past few months.
“The FPA’s membership held steady at around 125 for a long time,” Sellitto said. “This year, we set a goal of 160, but we have far exceeded our goal. We’re now close to 200.”
FPA traces its roots to 1949. Although the Harrisburg group is nominally affiliated with a national Foreign Policy Association, it operates independently. The Harrisburg chapter’s stated mission is “to offer, in an unbiased way, information about international issues and policies to our citizens to help them make informed judgments about their relations with neighbors in our global space.”
Sellitto added that, when she became president in June 2015, her objective was to respect FPA’s history while working to grow the organization. In particular, she wanted to expand its role in helping Harrisburg-area residents understand how U.S. foreign policy affects their lives.
FPA accomplishes its mission in several ways.
Most visibly, it conducts eight regular meetings and one president’s speaker series lecture each year. The meetings run from September to May, on the third or fourth Thursday of the month. These meetings feature talks by university and U.S. Army War College professors, scholars from Washington think tanks and other leading experts. Recent lectures have covered the geopolitics of climate change, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the future of American-Cuban relations. Most members attend a pre-meeting banquet at the Radisson.
Sellitto came up with the idea for a president’s speaker series to increase membership. In 2015, she asked an initially reluctant board of directors if the FPA could invite a big-name speaker—former Deputy Secretary of State William Burns. The board assumed financial risk by renting a large room at the West Shore Country Club and paying an honorarium. With encouragement from FPA board member (and former Camp Hill mayor) Lou Thieblemont, Sellitto’s proposal was accepted and ultimately proven correct. Burns’s talk drew 200 attendees, a record.
This enabled Sellitto to invite Michael Hayden for the second installment of the president’s speaker series. All the talks I’ve attended have been highly informative and engaging, but I found Hayden’s lecture to be utterly absorbing.
He explained how U.S. intelligence agencies navigate a fine line between protecting the American public and playing within the boundaries established by national and international laws. Speakers are instructed to be non-partisan, but Hayden indicated his strong preference for Hillary Clinton in the election. He stressed that, if Donald Trump became president, the military would refuse to obey unlawful orders.
The FPA also runs annual bus trips to Washington, D.C., so members can visit the U.S. State Department and a foreign embassy. Past excursions have included the embassies of Germany, France, China, India, Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Morocco. This year’s Washington trip, on May 10, will feature a visit to Poland’s embassy, followed by dinner at a Polish restaurant.
Members also can attend an annual event to meet international fellows at the Army War College. Thieblemont recalled that, during one of these visits, he met War College fellow Abdel Fattah el-Sisi—who is now the president of Egypt.
In what Sellitto calls “a new era for the club,” FPA member Phyllis Skok is organizing the first membership tour of a foreign country. This trip will take several dozen members to Cuba for a nine-day “people-to-people” tour next January.
“I want to have trips to places that many of our members have not visited, because that will lead to heightened interest,” Sellitto said.
In my six months as an FPA member, I’ve been impressed by the quality and scope of its activities. I’ve taken copious notes at recent meetings, signed up for the Washington tour, and plan to go on the Cuba trip. But, most of all, I’ve enjoyed meeting informed and engaged people from a variety of backgrounds. I’m very glad I saw the blurb in TheBurg!
To learn more about the FPA and see a schedule of upcoming events, visit www.fpa-harrisburg.org.
Author: Robert Naeye
