From the art world from Washington to Lisbon. portrait of an ambassador
Ensuring the security of ordinary Americans in Portugal, deepening the economic relationship and working together to resolve existential challenges – highlighting “any significant challenge the People’s Republic of China poses to our national security” and as “Russia’s destabilizing activities”. It was three united states in determination that Randi Charno outlined in his Senate hearing that gave him confirmation as a sender from the United States. The philanthropist and cultural diplomat, who until recently will become the burden of commissioners and Executive Committee members at the Smithian National Portrait Gallery, will soon arrive in Lisbon to become the second woman to lead Washington’s diplomatic representation in the Portuguese capital. With this choice, President Joe Biden follows Lisbon’s career tradition of having a presidential nomination ambassador and not a career diplomat.
Presented by the White House as “a champion of the arts and cultural leadership”, Levine succeeds George Glass, the ambassador appointed by Donald Trump and who left the embassy after the Republican president left in January 2021. Portugal Business Kristin Kane function as America’s highest officials. And it’s a very feminine embassy that Levine will now join. Even if she is only the second woman to hold the charge, after Elizabeth Bagley, who between 1994 and 1997 was the US ambassador to Portugal under Bill Clinton.
Emphasizing the role of the family, from grandfather Joe, who at the beginning of the 20th century left Poland and settled in Brooklyn, the New York neighborhood where his father, Eddy Charno, had a pharmacy, through his husband, Jeff – president and founder of Douglaston’s National Fund of the company -, the children, Ben, Jessica and their correspondents Dara, and not forgetting the grandchildren, Eli and Ou, Levine assured in his hearing in the Senate that he would do his best to “serve our great country and lead the US Mission in one of our most trusted partners”. The Levines, who according to the American media divide their time between Manhattan, Washington and Arizona, were important funders for Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
The new ambassador highlighted the long relationship between the two countries, noting that Portugal has “been a strong partner of the United States for more than 200 years and was among the first countries to recognize US independence”. Levine also doesn’t forget the fact that the American consulate in the Azores is the oldest in the world in continuous operation. It is directed by a woman – Consul Kathryn Hammond, who in July 2020, at the height of 25 years of diplomatic representation, said in an opening interview with DN: “There was never an openness to think how, when this consulate opened for the first For the first time, Thomas Jefferson was our Secretary of State, George Washington was President.”
A Place That Almost Was John Quincy Adams
Now, Randi Charno Levine also comes to occupy a place that was almost to be in an American future. In fact, John Quincy Adams was even appointed by George Washington in 1796 to serve at the embassy in Lisbon. But if his portrait appears in the gallery of former ambassadors, the one who would later become the sixth US ambassador never served in Portugal. When he was chosen as ambassador – at the time, he was said to be elected – his father, John Adams, had been president. He was the second in the republic’s history, succeeding George Washington. Instead of traveling to Lisbon, young Adams, then 30 years old, received a letter from his father asking him for further instructions. In November 1797 he was appointed ambassador to Prussia for Berlin, where he spent four years. Louis, Quincy’s wife, the already English woman, but the thing Adam dispatched was Lisbon.
Perhaps thinking about this common history, Levine also recalled in the Senate that the partnership between Portugal and the United States “is built around common rights: a commitment to common rights, democracy and the rule of law”. And he did not fail to highlight that as a founding member of NATO, Portugal is “essential in strengthening our transatlantic relations and in defending against evil influences in the region”. The new ambassador highlighted the Portuguese commitment to sending troops abroad in any scope of missions of NATO, European Union or United Nations. And she could not fail to mention the Lajes Base, “an important outpost for transatlantic peace and security.”
A graduate of Journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia, as a commissioner of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, Levine has continued to organize and expand the museum’s collection, presided over the 2019 Portrait of a Nation gala, and revitalized the museum’s business partnerships program. museum. She was also held at the Meridian International Center, also in the federal capital, chaired the Meridian Center for Cultural Diplomacy, guided and led international exchange programs, as well as managing knowledge development and strategic and commercial partnerships. She was also the trustee of the New Museum in New York and a member of the Artemis Board, where she supported diversity and equality for women in the arts.
The legacy of Frank Carlucci
The first US ambassador to Portugal, an officer who distinguished himself in the War of Independence and who presented credentials in Lisbon in 1791. But one of the most outstanding in the long list of names who served in Portugal was Frank Carlucci. Appointed by Gerald Ford, Carlucci arrived in Portugal in January 175, in the midst of a revolutionary period9. That Hot Summer, then Henry Kissinger Secretary of State, Carlucci developed what he would dub “strategic complicity” with Mário Soares, working together to stop the communists and keep Portugal in the western alliance. In 2019, Ambassador George Glass even decided to rename an official residence of the American ambassadors in Lisbon Casa Carlucci. He returned to Lisbon Carlucci, a widow of Marcia who, after returning to the US, was Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Defense. Excited, this outline like those years in Portugal, she traveled the country in a small Fiat and told her husband what she saw and heard. and, above all, the eligibility to assert itself, because the right decision is that the only option, in a country that has just emerged from a dictatorship to a dictatorship.
In recent years, a group of media ambassadors was recognized by Robert Sherman, videos supporting Portuguese women at Euro 2016 have become known to almost all Portuguese people. Appointed by Barack Obama, the Boston lawyer saw the national team even offer him a shirt with the signatures of all the players – the shirt he wore next to the now first lady Jill Biden, during her visit to Lisbon seven years ago. . In early 2021, the day after Joe Biden took office as president, Sherman shared the image of that moment on Facebook, confessing days later to DN that he missed Portugal. “I miss people,” he said in an exchange of messages.
Sherman’s “heritage” was such that, in an interview with DN before the 2018 World Cup, George, a well-known football fan, joked about keeping this kind of new American tradition difficult for his predecessor. And he said, “I don’t know if I can even be as excited a cheerleader as my predecessor was, but I’m excited.”
With the Qatar World Cup almost upon us, we’ll see if the new ambassador follows in the footsteps of her predecessors. Even being a woman of the arts. With proven experience in developing relationships with shareholders Levine was a member of the Friends of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a board member of FACES at the New York University Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, a board member of FACES at the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at New York University, and a founding member of the High Line Council. Two years ago he published his first children’s book Princess Orlita, the curious princess.
Still at the hearing in the Senate, a new ambassador guarantees that she is still looking forward to “working to strengthen our partnership with Portugal Portugal offers the alliance that “a collaboration by Portugal offers the Portuguese-speaking African alliance an opportunity with regional security countries to promote prosperity in the South Atlantic.”