Association of Black American Ambassadors Hold a Conversation with George Soros
By Mary Wells
WI Staff Writer

George Soros, a Hungarian turned American billionaire, known for donating large sums of money to causes for unseating President George W. Bush in the 2004 election, addressed several Black ambassadors among others at a luncheon held at the Meridian International Center in Washington , D.C. , in May. The Association of Black American Ambassadors staged the luncheon as a “Conversation with George Soros.”

Among the guests attending the luncheon were 14 Black ambassadors, who are not currently serving as ambassadors. Included were the following ambassadors and the countries they served: Ambassador Kenton Keith - Qatar, who is now the president of ABAA; Ronald Palmer – Mauritius, Togo and Malaysia, Vice President of ABAA; Treasurer Ruth A. Davis – The Republic of Benin, also served as Director General of the Foreign Service; Terence Todman – Chad, Guinea, Costa Rica, Denmark, Spain; Robert Perry – Central African Republic; John E. Reinhardt – Nigeria; George Moose – The Republic of Benin, Senegal; William B. Jones – Haiti; Shirley Barnes – Madagascar; Donald McHenry – United Nations; Johnny Young – Togo, Bahrain, Slovenia; and Horace Dawson – Botswana.

For many years Soros did not become involved in United States politics, but that changed during President Bush’s campaign re-election in 2004. In 2004 The Washington Post reported Soros saying removing President Bush from office was the “central focus of [his] life and a matter of life and death” worthy of sacrificing his entire fortune. [He then proceeded to give away millions of dollars to groups supporting Democrats in the 2004 election.]

In his conversation on stage, his views and positions on issues post 9/11 and post election have not changed, he said he feels that “we must protect our security but we must also correct the grievances on which terrorism feeds. We must police war, not military action.”

As to whether the United States could ever leave Iraqis to their own governance and when, he told The Washington Informer, “Maybe within three years the United States would leave Iraq to their own governance, but they would still have internal problems and not be stable.”

Soros was born in Hungary in 1930 but escaped the fate of many Jews since he was the grandson of a Hungarian official overseeing the confiscation of Jewish properties. He immigrated to England in 1947 and graduated from the London School of Economics in 1952. Moving to the United States with the intent of earning enough money on Wall Street to support himself as an author and philosopher, his net worth reached an estimated $11 billion.

In 1979, he became an active philanthropist when he started providing funds to help black students attend the University of Cape Town in Apartheid South Africa .

Ironically, although Soros spent his time and energies on trying to keep Bush from being elected in 2004, years earlier one of his companies bailed out Bush in 1986 by buying his ailing oil venture, Spectrum 7.

Soros’ most recent book, “The Bubble of American Supremacy,” was published in January 2004.

Visit www.GeorgeSoros.com and www.ABAA.Meridian.org for the Association of Black American Ambassadors who try to make available to the government and to the people of the United States the knowledge, experience and perspectives gained during their ambassadorial service and to advance public understanding of diplomacy.