Inviting Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak is like inviting Hitler in the 1930s, an Israeli official has said, in response to the invitations extended to the Iranian leader by the Council on Foreign Relations and Columbia University. Those invitations followed, by less than two weeks, Harvard Universitys hosting of a speech by one of Ahmadinejads defenders, former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami. The Israeli officials remark was closer to the truth than he realized. Although neither Columbia nor Harvard invited Adolf Hitler to speak in the 1930s, they did the next worst thing they welcomed senior officials of the Hitler regime.
Thanks to recent groundbreaking research by Prof. Stephen Norwood of the University of Oklahoma, the shameful details of this Ivy League flirtation with the Nazis is a secret no longer. Perhaps it makes their recent invitations to Iranian officials seem less surprising.
In May 1934, the Harvard administration played host to Nazi Germanys U.S. ambassador, Hans Luther. He visited Harvards Germanic Museum and Widener Library. The following month, Harvard president James Conant rolled out the red carpet for Hitlers foreign press chief, Ernst Putzi Hanfstangl. A graduate of the class of 1909, Hanfstangl came for the June 1934 commencement and his 25-year class reunion. He had been a close ally of Hitlers since the early 1920s, and in his new position was responsible for spreading Nazi propaganda abroad.
President Conant received the Nazi official at a tea for the Class of 09 in his home. The student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, even urged the administration to award Hanfstangl an honorary degree as a mark of honor appropriate to his high position in the government of a friendly country.
Later that year, the Harvard administration hosted Germanys Boston consul-general, Baron Kurt von Tippelskirch, at a ceremony honoring Harvard graduates who had died while fighting in the German army in World War I. The consuls wreath included the infamous Nazi swastika.
Meanwhile, at Columbia, president Nicholas Murray Butler in 1933 invited Nazi ambassador Hans Luther to speak on campus, and also hosted a reception for him. Luther represented the government of a friendly people, Butler insisted. He was entitled to be received with the greatest courtesy and respect. Ambassador Luthers speech focused on what he characterized as Hitlers peaceful intentions.
Three years later, the Columbia administration announced it would send a delegate to Nazi Germany to take part in the 550th anniversary celebration of the University of Heidelberg. (Harvard did likewise.) This, despite the fact that Heidelberg already had been purged of Jewish faculty members, instituted a Nazi curriculum and hosted a burning of books by Jewish authors.
Academic relationships have no political implications, Butler claimed. Many Columbia students disagreed. The student newspaper, The Spectator, denounced Butlers intention to send the delegate to Heidelberg, and students held a Mock Heidelberg Festival on campus, complete with a bonfire and mock book burning. Butler Diddles While the Books Burn, their signs proclaimed.
That was followed by a student rally in front of Butlers mansion. Butler was furious that a leader of the rally, Robert Burke, delivered a speech in which he referred to the President [Butler] disrespectfully. As punishment, Burke was permanently expelled from Columbia.
(In the late 1930s, Butler would change his position and speak out against the Nazis. Unfortunately, it was too late to undo the damage he already had done.)
Universities are uniquely positioned to shape public attitudes. As the pillars of Americas educational system, they are looked upon as exemplars for our society. But what example did they set in the 1930s, by hosting officials of the Hitler regime and expelling a student for the "crime" of leading an anti-Nazi rally? What message do they send today by welcoming leaders of a regime that sponsors international terrorism and threatens to annihilate five million Israeli Jews?
As it happens, President Ahmadinejhad will not speak at Columbia, but for the wrong reason. He was originally invited by the dean of Columbias School of International Affairs, Lisa Anderson, to speak as part of the Universitys World Leaders Forum. Following protests, university president Lee Bollinger told Anderson that Ahmadinejad should speak at the School of International Affairs itself rather than at the university-wide forum. Anderson, for her part, said the logistical and security requirements for the visit were too complicated to resolve on short notice. Unfortunately, neither Bollinger nor Anderson acknowledged any moral problem with inviting the Iranian president.
Robert Burke is the person who should be embraced by Columbia, not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Even at this late date, an honorary degree for Burke would constitute an appropriate replacement for the Iranian leaders speech, and a powerful expression of Columbias opposition to fascist tyrants and their proxies.
FIVE YEARS have now passed since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and what have our universities been doing? I can tell you about Harvard, and the answer is not reassuring. Harvard has just welcomed the