September-October 2005
From the Editor
Dear Readers, 
Among the official anniversaries Austria is celebrating this year is another important event which has gone virtually unnoticed. It is the 100th anniversary of the birthday of James W. Fulbright, the creator of one of the most successful international student exchange programs. Some of the ideas which inspired Fulbright to develop this program are based on his early experiences in Austria.
Austria is preparing herself for the assumption of the EU Presidency at the beginning of next year. In anticipation of this new role, Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik paid her first official visit to the U.S. and discussed Austria's EU agenda for 2006 with Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.
After the negative referenda on the EU Constitution in France and the Netherlands, Austria has taken several steps to bring the European Union closer to the citizen, by establishing the platform Europe is listening.
A central theme of the Austrian EU Presidency will be the so-called Dialogue Between Civilizations, Religions and Cultures, which has been a traditional focus of Austrian foreign policy. For the first time this summer, a past seminar in Vienna brought together representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church and Kosovo Albanians to discuss the future religious law of Kosovo.
An ancient Austrian custom may have helped Thomas Jefferson draft the Declaration of Independence.
Yours sincerely,
Christoph Meran
Administrator
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In Sync
During her first official visit to the United States in early September, Austria's Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Ms. Plassnik's visit was designed to ensure that optimum preparations were made for Austria's European Union (EU) Presidency during the first six months of 2006.
Farewell to Austria
As I write this, my wife, Alice Cary, and I are preparing to leave Vienna sometime this fall, and our time representing the United States in this wonderful and vibrant country will come to an end.
Tales of a Helping Hand
When Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, it left behind devastation of an area the size of England. International aid offers from all over the world began to reach the United States. Austria was one of the first countries to help.
Fulbright's Legacy
James W. Fulbright and William B. Bader were separated by one generation but united by their fascination for Austria. Fulbright was inspired by the complexity of Europe and created an international student exchange program adapted to the cultural challenges of our multiethnic continent. Bader was one of the first Americans to profit from the Fulbright exchange and has ever since been researching the intricacies of Austria's post-war reconstruction. Both men understood the importance of soft power.
The Declaration of Independence - the Austrian Connection
While preparing the draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson searched for those democratic principles and ideas that would best serve the young American nation. There were only few examples of living democracy at hand that helped him in this important undertaking, and the scholar and bibliophile Jefferson consulted all of them.
Elsa Hilger (1904 - 2005)
Elsa Hilger was born in 1904 in Trauenau in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and grew up as the youngest of eighteen children, of which only four survived.
Religious Freedom in Kosovo
One of the bloodiest chapters in the history of the Balkans took place in the 1990s when major violence erupted in the Serbian province of Kosovo. What started as a guerrilla conflict between Albanian separatists and the Serbian and Yugoslav security forces in 1996, developed into an international conflict between Yugoslavia and NATO. It came to be remembered as the Kosovo war.
Photo Credits
Associated Press; Gretta and William Bader; Canal + Image, London; Harvard University Gazette; Bernhard J. Holzner © HOPI-MEDIA; Int’l. Inst. of Social History, Amsterdam, NL; Kärntner Medienzentrum; Martin Krämer; Library of Congress; Nat’l. Inst. of Standards & Technology; U.S. Embassy, Austria; U.S. State Deparment; Vermont Woman; World Religions Photo Library