Join the Diplomacy Center Foundation at DACOR Bacon House as Frederic B. Hill, former correspondent for The Baltimore Sun and foreign affairs director for Senator Mathias in 1985 and 1986, marks the publication of Mathias of Maryland, a collection of essays on the life and career of “a Lincoln Republican in the Senate”, co-edited with Monica Healy, former senior legislative assistant for Senator Mathias. Joining the conversation, and a contributor to the book is Casimir Yost, adjunct professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.
Senator Charles “Mac” Mathias was a lifelong Republican who won every election in a 26-year congressional career in heavily Democratic Maryland. A courageous risk-taker, Mathias led efforts to advance civil rights, voting rights, environmental initiatives to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, and establish the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. On foreign policy, he was an early critic of the Vietnam War and a consistent advocate for nuclear arms control, Middle East peace and sanctions against apartheid South Africa.
His story, captured here by senior staff members, members of Congress and others, is an inspiring example of what a courageous political leader can do when he follows his conscience and acts on principle. His remarkable career is a stark reminder of the days when the Republican Party stood for the rule of law, respect for the Constitution and a bipartisan foreign policy.
Meet the Panelists:
Frederic B. Hill
Frederic B. Hill was a foreign correspondent and editorial writer for The Baltimore Sun, from 1965 to 1985, including six years covering Western Europe and southern Africa. In 1985 and 1986, he served as foreign affairs director to Sen. Charles “Mac” Mathias (R., MD), and assisted the senator on a number of path-breaking legislative achievements, including the U.S. sanctions against South Africa's apartheid regime.
From 1986 to 2006, he helped establish and then led the Office of Special Programs at the Foreign Service Institute of the Department of State. The office conducted policy planning (gaming) exercises on national security, economic and global issues for the department and interagency community.
Hill is the author or editor of six books, including the recently published Mathias of Maryland; Remembering a Lincoln Republican in the Senate. Earlier books included Ships, Swindlers and Scalded Hogs, the Rise and Fall of the Crooker Shipyard in Bath, Maine and The Life of Kings; The Baltimore Sun and the Golden Age of the American Newspaper. Other books include A Flick of Sunshine, The Remarkable Shipwrecked, Marooned, Maritime Adventures and Tragic Fate of an American Original and Dereliction of Duty, a collection of his columns for leading newspapers on the first presidential term of Donald J. Trump.
He is a member and former president of Maine's First Ship, an organization that built a reconstruction of the first vessel built by English settlers in North America, at Popham Beach, Maine, in 1607-08.
Casimir Yost
Casimir Yost is an adjunct professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, also at Georgetown. He directed the Institute from 1994 to 2008. From 2009 to 2013, Mr. Yost served on the National Intelligence Council directing its Strategic Futures Group. Prior to Georgetown he was president of the World Affairs Council of Northern California and director of the Center for Pacific Affairs in the Asia Foundation in San Francisco.
Mr. Yost served on the staff of the US Senate from 1977 to 1986 first in the personal office of Senator Mathias and then on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Prior to working on the Hill, he worked for First National City Bank of New York in Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia.
