{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/mg7fq9rb28/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Interview with Karen Linehan Mroz, May 02, 2022"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/212/original/LOHI_aviarybanner2.jpg?1741032082","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2022-11-25 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Interviewer"]},"value":{"en":["Whalen, Emily"]}},{"label":{"en":["Interviewee"]},"value":{"en":["Mroz, Karen Linehan"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThis interview explores the growth of the EastWest Institute during the 1980s and 1990s, set in the context of historical changes occurring at the end of the Cold War. Karen discusses the complicated political environment in Eastern Europe in the twighlight years of the Cold War and how things shifted after the fall of the Soviet Union. She goes on to explain how her career moved away from Europe, as she went on to work in the Middle East with UNRWA and the Middle East Children's Institute. \u003c/p\u003e (abstract)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Contributing Institution"]},"value":{"en":["College of Charleston Libraries"]}},{"label":{"en":["Media Type"]},"value":{"en":["Oral History"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Personal or Corporate"]},"value":{"en":["EastWest Institute","Göncz, Árpád","Mroz, John Edwin","United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Topical"]},"value":{"en":["Non-governmental organizations","Organizational change","Political persecution","Refugee camps","Track two diplomacy"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Geographic"]},"value":{"en":["Europe, Eastern","Middle East","Palestine","Russia","Soviet Union"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type IMT"]},"value":{"en":["audio/m4a"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCopyright © College of Charleston\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date Digital"]},"value":{"en":["2022-11-25"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThis interview explores the growth of the EastWest Institute during the 1980s and 1990s, set in the context of historical changes occurring at the end of the Cold War. Karen discusses the complicated political environment in Eastern Europe in the twighlight years of the Cold War and how things shifted after the fall of the Soviet Union. She goes on to explain how her career moved away from Europe, as she went on to work in the Middle East with UNRWA and the Middle East Children's Institute.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCopyright \u0026copy; College of Charleston\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Lowcountry Digital Library"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Lowcountry Digital Library"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/212/original/LOHI_aviarybanner2.jpg?1741032082","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Mroz_Karen_May2022.m4a"]},"duration":2402.878,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-cofc.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/170/979/original/Mroz_Karen_May2022.m4a?1669383930","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mp3","duration":2402.878,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Transcript of Interview with Karen Mroz, May 02, 2022 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nThis is my second interview with Karen Linehan Mroz. Karen, where we left off last time is you flagged that you wanted to chat a little bit about some of the bravery of the people involved with EWI, especially prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, people coming in from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Republics without the permission or involvement of the Russians. If you could talk a little bit about that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=3.0,29.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KAREN MROZ\n\nSure. I would have to venture a guess, Emily, that this is probably about six years after the Institute started, maybe even a little bit less. What was happening was you weren't even seeing cracks in the Berlin Wall at this point. We reached out both in our resident fellows, but in our board members first to have them be a part of the Institute and engaged in it. I think there are lists of board members that could be verified who was in and when they joined, et cetera. I'm sure that'll be archived.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=29.0,66.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I'm talking about from Poland, from Ryszard Frelek, who was the foreign minister for many years, was very active in supporting the Institute. We had Hungarians, Romanians, some Romanians because our first conference had been there and the board meeting -- —our first overseas conference, and East Germans to some extent, although tightly reigned in. But particularly for Poles, for Hungarians, for Czechs, they were engaged in multiple levels of the Institute before the Russians came in, which I think was monumental because nothing, nobody did anything without Russians coming in. And to illustrate this, as we began to open the doors a bit more and see some cracks, we had a conference at Ditchley and a board meeting that followed. One of our board members was from Poland. I'm not going to mention his name, just because the story is, I don't mean the story to sound silly, but it was, if you saw the expression on his face, there was nothing silly about it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=66.0,134.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"He came to the conference and as I was coming in on a bus from the main area to the Ditchley Park, I looked and saw him literally fast walking, running away from Ditchley Park back to the center where he had taken a hotel room and was not going to return until the board meeting. When I caught up with him and I said, \"Why are you doing this? This makes no sense. You've never done this before\". He said, \"There are Russians that are coming to the conference and I cannot be seen here\". Board meeting is one thing because it's not public, it's quiet. And he was listed as a board member but to be at the conference with Russians before Russian approval of all that, you can imagine what it felt like to run from that. I lived in Poland for the summer of '87 for family reasons and I'll tell you, when you realize the containment and the strictness and how things were operating before the wall fell, you began to get a very important understanding of it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=134.0,207.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We continue on, we have all kinds of things happening. We have our first board meeting in Potsdam, I believe, and we go in and again, the Russians are still not, or Soviets at the time, are still not a part of this and we meet [Erich] Honecker who was President at the time, we had a reception, and always when you have those receptions and it's a first and it's controversial, et cetera, will he come, won't come? Right up until the man walks in the door. You're never quite sure if it's going to happen. The irony was if you took a picture of Honecker and put him next to my grandfather, they could have been twins. I'm, as you know, not tongue tied or speechless, rarely am I, I couldn't talk. I'm going through receiving line and meeting the man because he just looked so incredibly ... and I think I told him, to which John was horrified. John kept saying, \"What's wrong with you? Why are you not talking to this man? Why are you not you?\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=207.0,269.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But I can remember seeing the room and these rooms were so elaborately done and beautifully restored, et cetera. It didn't match what we understood at times and we would sometimes be brought to these incredible restored palace where they would have these 14 candelabra dinners for us and they were very elegant and they wanted to show and put their best foot forward. There was high visibility, but there was low visibility at the same time. After that monumental event is when the Berlin Wall came down. Now, you have an interesting situation because you have individuals who are serving on the board, who in my mind were pioneers, not in the Soviet kids camp pioneer, but they were pioneers who bravely stepped forward, put their name and allowed it to be listed on the Institute board, which was a humongous step for them. Now they are being, you have Havel coming in and you have others coming into power and it almost, what was happening was we were being told, John was being told, \"Get those people off and get them out and replace them with the new people or we won't be engaged in your Institute.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=269.0,350.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I'm not saying [Vaclav] Havel said that so speak, but those who were the new revolutionaries, who were coming out and emerging under new democracies. And I remember, and John and I never really argued, we always had very strong opinions and took very strong stances, but I was generally the person on the streets and he was the person at the high level. Sometimes that exposure and experience doesn't always blend well. We were people who took strong opinions and I remember John saying, \"We have to get so and so off the board.\" This could be a representative from Hungary, this could be very brave representatives from Poland, from East Germany, from Romania at that time. We even had some Albanians who didn't serve on the board but were stepping forward and they were moving in that direction and he said they have to go off. And I said, we would argue, \"These are the people who stepped forward and when you needed somebody to secure the Institute's foothold in those areas, they.. and he'd say \" Well, if I stay with the, the Institute doesn't move forward.\" And I remember saying to him, \"I feel like this is McCarthyism\". These people are not being given a chance whatsoever to express their views and to stand forward and we owe them.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=350.0,434.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Again, you have to take politics at the 60,000 foot tarmac level. But John used to say that I would mute, part of my purpose was to mute his excesses. Well, I don't know if this was muting his excesses, but I certainly felt as if we weren't doing a fair assessment and standing as we should. Now, probably years later, and looking back, I think he was caught between rock and a hard place in a very, very difficult situation and if we want the Russians involved at that point, then we had to make sure that we went along with it. They were sacrificial lambs and it broke my heart because some of these people were so brave. I can think of foreign minister from Romania and I can think of individuals who just were stellar supporters of the Institute. They understood it better than I did and they graciously stepped down and they came in many cases to John and said, \"You don't have a choice\", and so I had to recognize it as well. But I found it to be one of the most challenging times in the Institute because some of our best supporters in every way were now being told to step down in what appeared to me to be a very unfair way. It's one of those lessons of life and politics.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=434.0,518.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nAnd just because this is for posterity and it's always worth belaboring a point a little bit ... so you described a split between the leadership, the leadership in the newly independent states after the fall of the Berlin Wall. People like the Václav Havel, people like Árpád Göncz. You're describing a split between them and their fellow countrymen who were some of the people who took on these risks to be involved? What do you think? Was that an ideological split or was it a sense of, was it a strategic political position? Why do you think that there was that tension between them?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=518.0,558.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KAREN MROZ\n\nIt might seem easy to say, but maybe a little bit of all of the above. Because remember, some of these people who served valiantly and bravely were a part of the regime that imprisoned these people and that you know, have to placate your teammates who rise in a new independent state and so you can't say, \"Well, out of the 10 people in that government, here are two people that served on the East West Institute who probably would've made sure I had food in prison\". I'm jesting but it's all or nothing. I'm taking on the Velvet Revolution, so I have to take on the velvet revolutionaries with me. I can't necessarily, and these people were between a rock and a hard place, they couldn't stand up right then and there because they had the Soviets and they had the Soviet pointed regimes in place and they're somewhere waffling independently in the center so for them to come out and immediately embrace the revolutionaries in the new states, I don't imagine that was a particularly easy thing to do.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=558.0,628.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But more often than not, they graciously stepped back or stepped to the side or stepped away in order again to further the cause of independence within their own countries, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes not so happily. But I didn't see that they had much choice. And it was also difficult because some of the very people who were on the board were very close friends with these folks. I think of Dan Rose in particular and some of the Polish folks who were on, who he had introduced us to, and I can think of others who had the same thing so they were caught as well, so again with their governments to endorse the wrong people, put them in a very difficult position career wise. I think it was, an answer to your question again, I think it was a little bit of all of it and some still bravely stepped away for the best interest of their country and their countrymen.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=628.0,693.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nAnd then you, we started to get into it a little bit, it's after the Potsdam Conference. The Potsdam conference, which took place in Eastern Germany-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=693.0,701.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KAREN MROZ\n\nRight.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=701.0,701.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nIn East Berlin actually specifically, which is an interesting moment and then after the Berlin Wall falls, is that around the time that the Institute starts thinking, \"Okay, we need to start bringing in Russians specifically\"?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=701.0,716.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KAREN MROZ\n\nYes, because remember also things are changing in the Soviet Union, the Russians are interested in, they now have, some of the things that happened that were so interesting at the time was people didn't know what to do. They didn't have a connector and I can remember a really interesting conversation or a series of them around what do you do if you have an incident of a criminal nature happening in the United States? You used to go to this particular government or this particular force or security forces that joined. Now you had new governments and they didn't know how to join a security force that used to exist and they would go through the Soviets so in order to do that, the Institute played a very quiet role of bridging gaps so you would have police departments and you would have FBI and you would have others who would come and say, \"We need to, we have a situation in Chicago\", for example, \"involving East European heritage folks recently immigrate, there's a criminal situation. It's involves Poland,\" who do we go to? What are the emerging entities?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=716.0,794.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"It became a connector in many different capacities for putting people in touch with one another. It was very much the behind the scenes kind of thing, which was very difficult because you couldn't raise funds for it because you couldn't promote it and you couldn't advocate it and you couldn't take credit for it. There were all kinds of, but then the Institute did do some very interesting things with the banking industry. We had a banking segment that opened a branch in Budapest and they began to see the connectivity and put the banking industries together. And then we had a branch in Poland that involved, I've forgotten what they did exactly, but that unique connectivity that, and the Institute had a, at that point had developed some very good individuals and networks within Russia so they could make that connectivity and engage them. And then of course it emerged later on as we got into cyber security and others where we had, and there was a report on Russia that got huge notoriety.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=794.0,862.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"It emerged probably just about after the banking center, et cetera, talking about the new Russia and doing business with and doing, and it also had the banking industry involved in it and that was a very major, and probably Vlad could tell you so much more about it than I could, our Moscow rep, but it was just amazing to me how all of that came about in terms of the quiet bridging that the Institute did. The other thing that we didn't touch upon but had a humorous aspect and a very serious aspect is we had to be very, very careful vetting people and you couldn't vet people before the Berlin Wall fell. And we knew we had certain people that were placed with a very strong Soviet linkage, KGB, et cetera so you had to be very careful. Who did you believe that said Emily's connections are so and so, and Karen's connections are so and so you had to trans address that very carefully because who were you getting them involved in? What meetings were you allowed? And you pretty much began to develop a sixth sense for who to go to validate that somebody, it was a fine line that John walked that was not always easy and wasn't always safe.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=862.0,949.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Particularly for those encounters in East Germany, that was probably the most delicate of the places. Others were, I mean we had funny stories of when you discover somebody, is you're at the door with your ear to the door and you open the door and the guy falls in the room. Well, the nature of doing business at the time, but these were pretty serious at the board level that we had to be very careful who people were and what they were hearing and there were some very fascinating, intricate conversations that took place at the board level that you didn't want to go back unless you purposefully planted it there. It was a fascinating time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=949.0,991.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nSounds like it. Yeah, this was something that when doing my work, especially looking at newspaper coverage of the Institute, the very little that was out there, the Institute was often accused of being too close to spying agencies or facilitating spying. How did John navigate that when those allegations came up?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=991.0,1012.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KAREN MROZ\n\nWell, very cautiously, very carefully. He had some really good people to call upon from the standpoint of that, but there were always allocations, allegations, rather. One of the things he did from the beginning is he never took funds from governments. He was adamant about that. He would take, if we were in East Germany and they wanted to throw a big dinner for the board with arts and events during the dinner, et cetera, he would do in-country services like that if they wanted to put together tours or they wanted to loan facilities et cetera for conferences. That was very in-kind services is the term I'm looking for. But he then could turn to a no track record of contributions or engagement, et cetera. I think there was always, you had different levels of it. Sometimes it came from sources that you wondered why would they come after it? And it was I think a bit of envy over the success of the Institute.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1012.0,1082.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Some of those allegations were made on that basis and then sometimes folks who didn't get the board seat or didn't get the fellowship, et cetera, would leak something. A lot of the time for John, what he was advised to do was say nothing, just don't respond. Sometimes it would be said, \"Well, there's so little known about the Institute\". Well that was intentional. We couldn't take credit for 90% sometimes of the work that the Institute was doing because it endangers those who were doing it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1082.0,1116.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Many, many times, and you, Emily, having now done all the research you did, probably could recite them better than I could. But there were so many times that people gathered quietly without anyone knowing in order to make steps. I mean that was any particular, the Germans, it could have been Israelis, Palestinians, it could have been any number of hot issues that were brought together for the sake of, again going back to John's book, private perceptions among the players of an incident and that's where the heart and soul, and that's why Putin in his early days, certainly not today, but in his early days, came to the Institute and said he'd like to put a coffee table approach together. And what he meant was, who can I have around that table that will have a conversation and learn who I am and what we're trying to do here, and I can learn from them. When he was listening.. or attempting to listen.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1116.0,1175.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nWell that was, yeah, and that was about 2000, around 2000 and 2001 when that happened. I think what's interesting about that is that, well it comes out of a little bit of the aftermath of the Balkan Wars, I think. It's a really transformational moment for Russia. It's also when Putin is very first stepping into power so there's a lot of uncertainty I think, about what happens next.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1175.0,1202.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KAREN MROZ\n\nWell, and another time that was so interesting was when Sasha [Havlicek] and Sasha's last name escapes me to which I apologize to Sasha at the moment, who did the cross border work that was done for so many Sasha [Havlicek], I think, was done for so many years and the Institute was invited into assess and to publish on a situation and the work that they could apply. And then they were quietly brought into some other conversations about cross border work discussions, opportunities in the way of opening conversations and bringing people together on it. And that was a rare ability to be asked to do that sort of thing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1202.0,1255.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Sometimes the levels at which they work, I think it worked, I think had individuals wondering, well how could they do all this without certain contexts, et cetera. I know, we lived in a very small town in western Massachusetts and I was always was kidding, it was John not in town 65% of the year because he was off in the CIA or something, which was not the case at all. And they would always kid about it so you were always open to questions and challenges.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1255.0,1287.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nYeah. So as you mentioned, this is happening, all of these developments are happening at a time when you're taking a less directly active role. I think you've always been active in the Institute, but less directly active role in the Institute and looking at broadening your own career horizons. I would love to hear a little bit about your career after you've gotten through rate, well not through, it's never a finished project, right after your children are a little bit older and you start building your own career. I'm interested in how your experiences with the Middle East and, excuse me, especially in the context of the early days of the East West Institute, how that shaped your thinking about your career?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1287.0,1328.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KAREN MROZ\n\nWell, thank you. It was, certainly both John and I have been in our own ways, very much entrepreneurs. We started three organizations together, and you will laugh, you probably know some of them. In the bicentennial of the United States we started reassessing American values with four pilot cities, Austin, Portland, one in West Virginia, maybe it was three. The idea was looking for American values and really what was this bicentennial about? It was fascinating, ground grassroots kind of thing. We did that one, we started the two versions, the Institute for International Studies and East West Institute for International Studies Security Studies and then the later final version, East West Institute. And then I started one in, which was when I got back to the Middle East. As John was more and more engaged in this and the kids were older, I was working the whole time, but I really missed working on the Middle East.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1328.0,1394.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I don't know what it is, but it's a place some things called you, a book, a place, an adventure, an experience. But for me, I have always loved the Middle East and I'm not quite sure why, you and I have talked many hours about what it is and we can never put our finger on it, but it's an intriguing, fascinating place. John used to say, \"You always have a positive image of it\", and so many people like John and others who worked on various negotiations and opportunities or what John worked on, you get to a point where, \"I can't do this anymore. There's no headway, I've got to move on.\" Not me. Whatever it was, it was, there's got to be a better way and it came down to children and the next generation women and children and I really thought we talked about social media today and influencers, well I don't know anybody who is more of an influencer than a mom.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1394.0,1454.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The concept is that if you work with empowering women and women can teach a next generation to think of the equivalency of sisters and brothers and that change has a huge impact. Working with women was really important, working with children and that generation and empowering them was very, very important to me. I put my mindset on, I'm returning to the Middle East and discovered that there was an opportunity for establishing a non-for-profit, which was supporting in the United States the work both in awareness and raising funds for projects under the United Nation Works and Relief Agency for Palestine refugees or UNRWA, or Al-Wakala, as it's referred to in Arabic. And here was something that was working in and outside of refugee camps. Today we're so familiar with refugees, but that's been going on for 73 years that organization's been, and it never had a presence in the United States so in the early 2000 I discovered that they were looking to hire a founding executive director for the United States entity.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1454.0,1532.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I sought probably harder than I sought anything getting in for an interview and was very fortunate to be selected and spent several years establishing the organization, walked camps and housing in Gaza and schools, et cetera, medical facilities, Gaza, West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon in that period of time. And then through several of the wars between the Israelis and Palestinians, particularly in Gaza and had been there post. I found it fascinating and it just was something that I loved doing and loved trying to find ways to improve and educate on that work. And then probably in around 2008 maybe, I always feel that part of our job is to train the next person coming in so at that point it was great to have the next generation of friends of UNRWA in the United States come in and some great people have taken over and done wonderful things with it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1532.0,1603.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But something appealed to me, something called the Middle East Children's Institute or MECI, which was at the time focused in the West Bank with a small project in Jordan. They were working with the non-refugee population, which appealed to me because I wanted to work and after school, this was a community of individuals with 96% literacy and yet the kids were traumatized by daily life. The women, although educated, some were not, certainly to the extent of those who were living in the larger cities so I loved having the opportunity to do afterschool program with arts supporting English and it allowed me a lot of creative opportunities to put in place things that I had worked in my background way back when I was training as a teacher, although I didn't formally teach, I ended up supporting a doctoral candidate who went off and did all these great adventures like East West Institute.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1603.0,1662.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"This to me was exciting to have exposure and we did women's entrepreneurship and I always would say as someone who grew up in the sixties, it wasn't about emancipation. People often say, \"Oh, are you emancipated those women? Are they throwing off the hijab?\" No, that's not necessary. The important thing is to empower women. If you help a woman speak English, who can get a job, who can learn skills on a computer or a driver's license to drive to the nearest town, say Ramallah, and join in a farmer's market or bring their supply to a small shop and they bring home income and their husbands will allow them to do this or encourage them because it provides family income, it expands the household, you have to admire women.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1662.0,1709.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"One comes to mind in particular who had, she had something like 13 children, 14 children, and she put on two small buildings, additions to her house, her one room house. And she was so proud of herself and what she could do as a teacher's helper, which was essentially a custodial job and supporting whatever teachers needed. So for me, I loved doing that and then later we worked with Syrian refugees in Jordan and I left them in 2014 and then moved on to, away from the Middle East formally and then onto other adventures as I moved into North Carolina in continuing education for adults. I've had that education background, but I love the Middle East and have gone back several times and-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1709.0,1760.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nWell it's interesting. It's interesting to hear the way that you talk about friends of UNWRA and MECI. It reminds me a little bit about of the way that you described some of the founding ethos of the East West Institute, which is to influence the influencers and to think about change in a generational lens. Do you think it's fair to say that's a parallel?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1760.0,1783.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KAREN MROZ\n\nOh, I think so. Definitely. Certainly as founding director of UNWRA, how you set something up and how you work in this importance of a board and trying to educate and illustrate self-awareness amongst whether you're working with refugees or whether you're working with a community, that you're talking about the plight of the children and why would you say there is no PTSD? Because there's no post. These kids grow up and live in generations in the trauma and they're just again and again, it's like that Groundhog Day movie, it just keeps going and going on all sides but particularly for these kids. I wasn't the founder of MECI, I wouldn't want to imply that, but certainly I was provided with all kinds of opportunities to be able to create and to work and to create teamwork. They were our resident fellows, so to speak, and to create opportunities for teachers and how business is conducted. Yeah, it was a wonderful education.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1783.0,1851.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"There were certainly parallels and certainly things that I could bring from the experience of the Institute over and in dealing with a board. John was direct interface with the board. I was on the outskirts, but now I have my own board. And while I was very much attuned to and a part of things at the Institute, not to the level that I had been before, because I couldn't, I mean had my own thing I had to do. But actually we laughed, about two years before John passed, he went back to Jordan for the first time in many years because as we had talked about in our last interview, he was on that Abu Nidal hit list so I set up a series of meetings for him and he came back and he said, \"Nobody knows Karen Mroz over in Jordan\". I said, \"Oh really? Even the people I set up meetings with\", he said, \"No, they never call you that. They call you Um Rami, which is mother of Rami, that was the name of our oldest child. And he would say, \"Everybody calls you that\". I said, \"Well, that's my name, nom de plume, but that's my name.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1851.0,1917.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nWonderful.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1917.0,1918.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KAREN MROZ\n\nYeah, it's really weird. You certainly apply what you learn and there was much I had to learn.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1918.0,1925.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nSure, absolutely. Well I'd love to talk a little bit about the shift in 2014 for you. I want to talk about whatever you'd like to share about what it was like looking at towards the ends of John's life and the way that he was thinking about the Institute at that moment in time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1925.0,1944.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KAREN MROZ\n\nSure. Just a quick background. He had in 2012 developed some symptoms that were mysterious. As I said, leave it to us, mysterious and just a bit, couldn't quite put their finger on it when they did identify it was a rare thing called macrophage activation syndrome and it leaned in the rheumatoid category and it's something children have, adults very rarely have it. And finally, when it was diagnosed and found for 2012, the remainder that, and into 2013, he was much better. And he was certainly, it never entered John's mind until, which is probably a good thing, until about two weeks, three weeks before he passed that he wasn't going to make it. And then in January, February of 2014, some symptoms started showing up and that's about the time that I think they felt lymphoma came into it. And so if you had a Formula One car, we knew the macrophage was driving, was the body of the disease. We didn't know that lymphoma was there. We couldn't figure out what the driver was. And then it turned out to be that, and then things went very quickly. But I think in those, he went in the hospital in April '21 and passed on August 15th. And during that period, we spent a lot of time talking about the Institute and where things were going.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=1944.0,2043.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Certainly, there was a board meeting that took place in May, I think, in Moscow and he very dearly missed having that or being there. But the real challenge was the future of the Institute and he would talk a lot about the, we were funded domestically, primarily, but we were international in scope, we the East West Institute. And so we had wonderful board members from all over the world who generously gave of their time or their funds or their networks to really do a tremendous job with where the Institute was going. I think had he lived, he was more interested in getting back to the international scope of what we were doing and we were doing some phenomenal work with the party to party talks in China. We were doing some phenomenal work with some of the military to military work that was going on.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=2043.0,2108.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I've said this to colleagues in the board because I was very graciously asked to join the board in 2014 and then later the executive committee, is that so many times since John's passing, I've thought, gosh, we feel like we're back in the beginning again. And Peter Castenfelt, fellow former board member who's a wonderful and dear friend, and I have had conversations about this as I have with others, but particularly Peter who was there in the early stages where we were looking for the influencers again, who was the influencer to the leader. We were looking for that camaraderie of the network to talk about the problems and the situations, The current situation with Ukraine, I often, and people ask me all the time, I don't know what John would've done, but I do think he would've been very involved in the discussions that take place behind the scenes, that pulling together what that who is best to sit around a table and analyze the what if strategies and we are missing that we don't have that linkage, and certainly began to see some of that develop again under President Trump because people didn't know who to talk to and Americans didn't know, how do I reach out with the degree of sincerity to my Russian counterpart or my German or this or that, and reassure them that this thinking is going on?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=2108.0,2206.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"A lot of the early, it felt like we could use a lot of the early times of the Institute all over again. And I think that's very much a part of what's missing today is how to do it. And it's very funny because, and I feel like I'm having a brain drain when I go through these interviews. I'm trying to think Stoltenberg, well, his father was on the board of the East West Institute from the beginning, and I knew him as a young man, not very well. And I think to myself, wouldn't it be an interesting conversation if his father and he and John Mroz sat down over a beer or an Aquavita or something and talked about this whole aspect of how the nature, how do you define the what if answers to these questions? Because so many things are taking place. We're 50 miles from Warsaw who, and not Warsaw, but from the Polish border, who would've ever, ever thought that you could be sitting having dinner on your terrace in Poland and listening to bombings that are going on 20 miles away. And what happens to that?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=2206.0,2281.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I think those would've been the questions that John would've been very engaged in. And just that, that's a perfect example of how we worked behind the scenes was those questions and convening them and bringing those players together and say, What if we gathered at so and so's estate and had a quiet gathering of these people and they'd very quietly come in and they would sit there and have that conversation and those what ifs what, and again, driven by the concept of private perception among the players very much applies today. I think that was more of a driving force than John or I ever discussed but that whole concept and that doctor's diagnostic treatment that he applied to situations and prescriptions and just the prescription might be, let's have that gathering and let's have that discussion. And then who do you pass along doing who's in the network that we can work with that's trusted that we can pass this along?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=2281.0,2351.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I think if I could guess what his role would be, it would be those roles and I think more than anything, I was looking at some notes he made not too long ago, and a lot of it was the more looking at the international concept of the Institute and reassessing in a way where was the Institute with all of these things and how did they relate moving forward? Does that, I hope that makes sense.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=2351.0,2381.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nYeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I think that's probably a great place. I think we're at the end of our allotted time for now, but I think it's a great place to end and we'll schedule another session where we can chat a little bit about your time on the board and the transition that happened in 2020. But thank you so much, Karen. I'm going to stop the recording right now.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=2381.0,2400.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979/transcript/40707/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KAREN MROZ\n\nThank you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82650/file/170979#t=2400.0,2402.878"}]}]}]}