Please join us for our annual dinner of the Institute of Current World Affairs on Friday, November 18, at the Cosmos Club (2121 Massachusetts Ave, NW).
This business attire event will begin with a cocktail hour at 6:30 p.m., followed by an address by our keynote speaker, The New York Times’s Paris bureau chief Roger Cohen, who will discuss his reporting in Ukraine and the changes sweeping Europe.
The event will also be an occasion to mark the historical friendship between the institute’s founder Charles R. Crane and the first president of independent Czechoslovakia, Tomas Masaryk, with the new ambassador of the Czech Republic to the United States H.E. Miloslav Stašek in attendance.
This year has been hugely consequential for global developments. The institute is thrilled to provide a moment for reflection about fast-moving events and the opportunity to connect or reconnect with peers in these pivotal times.
Returning fellow Astha Rajvanshi will be there, after reporting earlier in the day on her fellowship investigating the rights of women and other minorities in India (details coming soon). She continues to report from Mumbai, winning New York University’s Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award and a Tiny Foundation Fellowship for Investigative Journalism and writing for TIME.
Due to limited capacity, we ask that you use the link below to purchase reservations or contact Bruce Teeter to reserve multiple seats or a full table no later than October 21. Your contribution is considered a tax-deductible donation.
Keynote speaker
Roger Cohen is a journalist and author. He is currently Paris bureau chief for The New York Times. He joined the paper in 1990 and has variously worked as a foreign correspondent, foreign editor and a columnist. Cohen’s books include Hearts Grown Brutal: Sagas of Sarajevo, an account of the wars of Yugoslavia’s destruction and Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis’ Final Gamble. He has also co-written a biography of Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, In the Eye of the Storm.
Annual Dinner
Friday, November 18, 2022
Cosmos Club, Washington, D.C.
6:30 p.m.
To RSVP, please email Bruce Teeter.
Crane and Czechoslovakia
Before he founded ICWA in 1925, Charles Crane was already deeply involved in world affairs. The philanthropist, diplomat and friend and adviser to President Woodrow Wilson served in multiple roles in Russia, China, the Middle East and elsewhere.
His family connection to Czechoslovakia deepened when Masaryk’s son Jan married Crane’s daughter Frances Crane Leatherbee in 1924. Crane also became a strong supporter of Czechoslovak culture. He financed the painter Alphonse Mucha’s Slavonic Epic paintings. Mucha later incorporated his portrait of Crane’s daughter, Josephine Crane Bradley (above), in his design for the first Czechoslovak 100 koruna banknote. Crane had commissioned the portrait to decorate a house he was building for Josephine.
When an American mission was sent to the new Czechoslovakia, Crane’s son Richard Teller Crane II was the first diplomat to be accredited.
Czech President Milos Zeman posthumously awarded Charles Crane the Order of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk in 2017.