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I sat down with Professor Ginsberg to discuss his career and how he arrived at Skidmore College. Dr. Ginsberg recently finished his coau-thored book, The European Union in Global Security: The Politics of Impact, with a colleague from Santa Barbara. His particular focus this term is to work closely with students to improve their writing and re-search skills. What ensued was a storied session, rich with information I did not know about Dr. Ginsberg.

RHG: I developed an interest in international affairs and government as a child when I was intrigued by memorabilia that my father brought back from Germany, where he served in the US Army after World War II. The occupation currency and the photographs of bombed German cities made me think as a child how awful war is and how much more I wanted to learn about issues of war and peace.

In college, I was mentored by Dr. Nicholas Nyaradi, Director of the School of International Studies, Bradley University. Dr. Nyaradi was Hungary's postwar ambassador to Moscow and Hungary's last Minister of Finance before the Communist takeover in 1948, when he left the country for the United States. Dr. Nyaradi taught me a lot about the value of free-dom in a world of totalitarianism. I saw that for myself for the first time when I passed through the Berlin Wall from West to East Berlin in 1974 and appreciated the freedom I had to return. No one ever fled free-dom in the West for communism in the East during the Cold War. In graduate school, a doctoral research grant from the European Commis-sion allowed me to spend three months in Brussels and Strasbourg, where I cemented my interest in the topic of European integration from an American perspective.

RHG : I had studied at Georgetown University and interned on Capitol Hill in the summer of 1973, and attended many congressional hearings on the break-in at the Democratic national headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. I witnessed Attorney General John Mitchell giving testimony. I was one of the congressional interns brought from Capitol Hill to the White House for the welcoming ceremony hosted by President and Mrs. Nixon for the Shah and Empress of Iran during their state visit. At various receptions, I met and talked with people like Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, and the last two ambassadors from Iran and the Re-public of China. It was during that summer that I got bitten by the Wash-ington bug and knew I would return to the nation's capital for graduate school and work. I graduated from Bradley at 20 years of age in 1975 and began the MA program at GWU in the fall of that year. In 1977, I gradu-ated from the MA program in international affairs and entered the Ph.D. program in political science at GWU as a University Fellow. This meant I received tuition benefits in exchange for being a teaching assistant. It was as a "T.A." that I began to learn what it means to be a teacher and how hard and fun it was.

I chose GWU because of the excellence of its academic programs, the professors who had government experience (my dissertation director was national security advisor for international economic summits dur-ing the first Reagan administration), and its proximity to federal agen-cies. I began working part-time in the federal government in 1977 at the Foreign Agricultural Service at the US Dept of Agriculture, and took graduate classes at night; in time I migrated to the U.S. Foreign Commercial Service at the Department of Commerce, the Office of Management of Budget in the Carter White House, and the U.S. Inter-national Trade Commission. In between those jobs, I did research and other jobs in the intelligence field. I finally graduated from my doctor-al program in 1985 and left government for Skidmore in 1986. What I liked about studying and working in Washington was being at the intersection of theory and history on the one hand, and practice and policy on the other. It is at that nexus that I hope to ground theory in practice in my teaching and advising/mentoring of my students. JW : What was your favorite part of living and working in DC? RHG : The immersion in the life of the nation's capital and capital of the free world was surely a reason to stay for so long before coming to Skidmore. Having friends and professors in all three branches of gov-ernment meant there was seamlessness across my studies, work, and social life. Wherever I worked and studied, I was well mentored; what I liked about DC and still do is the opportunity for young people with an interest in politics to get experience and exposure to the formulation and execution of national and foreign policy--and then to take that experience to the next level in DC or take it back home. I still think Washington is more open to quality and welcoming internship experi-ences than most other western capital cities.

RHG : I always planned to complete a terminal degree AND work in government because I wanted to be at that nexus. There was never a thought of doing one without the other during those years. I thought my research and writing and teaching would be better ground-ed because of my exposure to government decision-making. So even upon my arrival at Skidmore, and during the past 26 years, I still kept my connections in Washington, not only for consulting and research but also for my students as they pursued/pursue internships, jobs, and graduate school options there.

Coming from DC to Saratoga was an adventure. It remains so. To quote my favorite French chanteuse, Edith Piaf, je ne regret rien (I have no regrets). I have had the best of two worlds.

RHG : Upon receiving my doctorate in political science in 1985, and after having worked in Washington from 1977 to 1986, I had decided it was time to take a break from life in the nation's capital. There is no academic freedom, so to speak, in government. One writes within statutory constraints and deadlines and changing policy preferences of presidential administrations. One thinks and writes and produces pa-pers on which others make final decisions. I wanted to teach and re-search, and write books without inhibition and fully on my own steam. The break from life in the nation's capital in 1986 turned into an adven-ture with Skidmore that is still going strong, thanks to our remarkable government majors who never fail to amaze me with their talents, interests, and accomplishments.