“Three Presidents, Three Policies: Nixon, Bush, Obama and Europe”

Lecture by Klaus Larres

Distinguished scholar Klaus Larres will analyze the approach taken by Presidents Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and Barack Obama in managing and exploiting relations with Washington’s European allies at crucial points in world affairs.

Larres will present the lecture "Three Presidents, Three Policies: Nixon, Bush, Obama and Europe" at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 16, at the Library of Congress in Room 119 on the first floor of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C. Sponsored by the John W. Kluge Center, the event is free and open to the public. No tickets or reservations are needed.

According to Larres, the continuing importance of America’s relations with Europe has been demonstrated again by transatlantic cooperation in the Great Recession, the Greek crisis and the war in Afghanistan, to name a few. Presidents Nixon, G.W. Bush and Obama have used very distinct approaches in dealing with the increasingly self-confident and independently minded Europeans. Although U.S. policy makers publicly have approved of the development of an ever-more-united Europe, privately the White House in particular has had a significantly more ambiguous and skeptical view.

A former holder of the Henry Alfred Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Kluge Center, Larres has returned to the center as a distinguished visiting scholar. Larres is also a visiting professor at The Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a senior research fellow at the SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations.

Larres, a professor of history and international affairs at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland, is frequently called upon as a speaker, panelist and commentator on both current and past European-American relations and the history of the Cold War. Previously, he was a professor in international relations at the University of London and the Jean Monnet Professor at Queen’s University, Belfast.

Larres has published widely on transatlantic relations and European and American foreign policies during the Cold War and the post-Cold-War years. At present he is completing a book titled "Enlightened Self-Interest: The United States and the Unity of Europe from Truman to Obama."

Through a generous endowment from John W. Kluge, the Library of Congress established the Kluge Center in 2000 to bring together the world’s best thinkers to stimulate and energize one another to distill wisdom from the Library’s rich resources and to interact with policymakers in Washington. For further information on the Kluge Center, visit www.loc.gov/kluge/.