Raymond Tanter

Raymond Tanter was part of a team advising the president on national security issues.

Learn how attending a high school full of diversity led to a career of protecting the U.S. through diplomacy.

"I had to choose between leading the band at football games and being first-string quarterback on the football team. Choosing band over football changed the course of my life."
Raymond Tanter

NewsHour Spotlight:
The War on Terrorism

The Road Taken:
Politician Geraldine Ferraro

White House Press
Secretary Ari Fleischer

For Teachers:
Geoeconomics Questions:

In an age of the Internet and the global economy, what differentiates multi-ethnic nations that do not experience inter-ethnic conflict from those that have experienced such conflict?

How does globalization affect living standards and poverty and a country's ability to set economic policies, including efforts to help less-developed countries?

Teacher Resources: Civics

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National Security Council

Considering a career in Foreign Affairs...

When you were a teen what did you want to be?
Secretary of State or Defense.

When and how did you become interested in foreign affairs?
Attending a school populated by central Europeans in Chicago allowed me to hear foreign languages being spoken among my classmates' parents who often were first generation immigrants to the United States.

Hearing multilingual families encouraged me to study foreign languages, visit other countries, and specialize in the field of international relations.

What extracurricular activities did you participate in during high school?
Band and basketball. I had to choose between leading the band at football games and being first-string quarterback on the football team. Choosing band over football changed the course of my life. While I would not have been good enough to become either a top musician or a first-rate athlete, music provided an introduction into the life of an educated person.

How did those activities help you in the future?
After I began to attend full dress operas in graduate school at Indiana University, I began to live the good life, which prepared me for being a diplomat in Vienna, where music is part of the life among all classes.

I had the good fortune to serve as personal representative of the Secretary of Defense to arms control talks in Europe. As a result, I acquired an intense love for music. Based in Vienna, this position allowed me to travel to Helsinki, Stockholm, and Madrid. The quality of my life during this period as a diplomat was high because of the privilege of living in Vienna. It was the ultimate musical melting pot.

As noted by many commentators, Viennese composers fused their music out of Austrian, Czech, Hungarian, and Gypsy themes. Indeed, Viennese culture has a talent for blending disparate parts into a harmonious whole. The Viennese metaphor has become a theme for my life in the sense of giving me an appreciation for the importance of a diversity of ideas, cultures, and people in the good life.

Do language courses help for a career in foreign affairs?
Yes, because languages are doors to open up to diverse cultures. Indeed, I took 3 years of Latin in high school, which opened up new vistas for me even though "Latin" is not spoken in Latin America!

Given the high immigration rate of Hispanics into the States, however, I should have paid more attention to Spanish language courses I took in high school.

What other kinds of courses do you suggest for high school students that are interested in your line of work?
Geography is very important but is being phased out at many institutions of higher education. "Geoeconomics" studies phenomena like the downside of globalization, and geoeconomics is a hot field of political economy in college, for which high school students might prepare by taking courses in political and economic geography.

What is the role of the National Security Council in resolving disputes between nations or world leaders?
A primary role of the staff is to work the interagency process so that the Council has coordinated advice from the departments and agencies.

There is a distinction between the Council and the staff. I was a member of the staff. The president, vice president, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense are statutory members of the Council.

What was the most difficult or challenging part of working on the National Security Council?
Learning to have a passion for anonymity rather than seeking credit for accomplishments, understanding that the credit belongs to the president not to the staff.

What did you like most about that job?
Being able to provide options for the president in times of crisis.

Who were the most interesting people you met?
King Hussein of Jordan and Prime Minister Begin of Israel.

What was it like to advise the president? Heady!

What do you think the biggest foreign affairs problems facing the world will be?
How to handle rogue regimes like Iraq that provide freelance terrorists like Osama bin Laden with weapons of mass destruction.

What advice would you give to minority students hoping to pursue a career in foreign affairs?
My advice would be the same for students, irrespective of ethnicity, race, or religion: Just do it!

-- interview conducted May 2002