Show Details for the week of July 13th, 2015

Posted on July 13, 2015

On The Monitor this week:

• BP ‘Got Off Cheaply’ With $18.7 Billion Settlement – an interview with Antonia Juhasz
• Behind the Greek Crisis – an interview with William R Polk

More about this week’s guests:

Antonia Juhasz is a leading oil and energy expert. She is a policy analyst, author and investigative journalist. Juhasz is the author of three books: Black Tide (2011), The Tyranny of Oil (2008), and The Bush Agenda (2006). She holds a Masters Degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University and a Bachelors Degree in Public Policy from Brown University. An award winning writer, her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, Harper’s Magazine, CNN.com, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, Petroleum Review Magazine, The Advocate, The Nation, In These Times, Washington Post, Cambridge University Review of International Relations Journal, Roll Call, The Daily Mirror – Zimbabwe, The Star – Johannesburg, Multinational Monitor, Tikkun, LeftTurn, Alternet.org, The Huffington Post, and many more. Juhasz received grants in 2014-2015 and 2013-2014 from the Max & Anna Levinson Foundation to support her ongoing work in investigative journalism in the oil and energy sectors with Media Alliance and the Investigative Reporting Program, respectively. Juhasz was a 2012-2013 Investigative Journalism Fellow at the Investigative Reporting Program, a working news room at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. She investigated the role of oil and natural gas in the Afghanistan war. In 2012, Juhasz received funding from The Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute to conduct two on-the-ground investigations into the ongoing impacts of the BP Gulf oil spill. Juhasz is the author of BLACK TIDE: the Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill (Wiley 2011), a searing look at the human face of BP’s disaster the Gulf. An in-depth investigation into the causes and consequences of the largest offshore drilling oil spill in world history. It uncovers the public policy choices that enabled the disaster to take place and the obstacles that have prevented the best policy responses from occurring. Black Tide includes first-hand interviews with key actors in government, industry, and advocacy organizations. Juhasz reports from the front lines where she was embedded in those communities most impacted by the disaster. “These remarkable stories—of loss, heroism, and culpability—are a vivid reminder that this catastrophe will be with us for decades” Naomi Klein “Masterfully report,” Ms. Magazine. “Both engaging and informative,” Mother Jones.

William R. Polk is a graduate of Harvard University (B,A.  and Ph.D.) and Oxford University (B.A. and M.A.).  He also studied at the Universidad Nacional de Mexico, the Universidad Nacional de Chile, the University of Baghdad and the American University of  Beirut. Dr. Polk taught history and Arabic language and literature and helped to found the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University from 1955 to 1961 when President Kennedy appointed him the Member of the Policy Planning Council responsible for the Middle East,  Central Asia and much of Africa.  On the Council, he also dealt with a number of special issues including development, refugees and cultural exchange.  And there he was the head of various interdepartmental tasks forces on foreign affairs including efforts to end the Algerian war, the revision of American relations with Turkey and the Palestine problem.   During the Cuban Missile Crisis, he served as one of three members of the Crisis Management Committee.  During this period he was asked to become Deputy Commissioner General of UNRWA. In 1965, Dr. Polk resigned from government service to become Professor of History at the University of Chicago.  There he established the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and was a founding director of the American Middle Eastern Studies Association. In 1967 he became the founding director (later President) of the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs which, among other ventures, hosted the 20th Pugwash Conference on nuclear weapons and did much of the planning for the United Nations Environment Program. He was called back to the White House briefly during the 1967 Middle Eastern war to write a draft peace treaty and to act as assistant to the former Director of the National Security Council and then the President’s special assistant, McGeorge Bundy.   In 1970, at the request of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir he successfully negotiated with President Nasser of Egypt a ceasefire on the Suez Canal. Born in Fort Worth, Texas, he grew up there and on a nearby ranch.  He attended public school in Fort World and, during the Second World War was trained for the cavalry at the New Mexico Military Institute.  After the war ended, he worked on a newspaper in Rome before entering college. He was awarded four Rockefeller Foundation, one Ford and one Guggenheim fellowship and, during his time in government, he received a commendation from the Department of Defense and the Medal of Honor from the Kingdom of Afghanistan. Dr. Polk has traveled extensively throughout Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe and speaks several of he languages of those areas. He has written a number of books (some of which are listed under “Books”) and has served on the boards of various foundations and businesses.  In addition,  he has acted as an advisor to the chief executives of a dozen major corporations. Dr. Polk has lectured in over a hundred universities, including Harvard, Brandeis, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Chicago, Northwestern, SMU, Texas, UCLA, Berkeley, the University of Colorado, and research institutions including The Council on Foreign Relations, the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), Brookings, and the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In addition he has appeared frequently on radio and television programs including CBS, ABC, PBS, BBC, Channel 24 (Paris)  and a large number of local stations. He has also spoken to many public affairs groups, clubs and civic organizations.