ManufactuRed Housing - The Taft School

j Steve Erlanger ’70, in the oldcity of Jerusalem, gets ready tomove to Paris after four yearsin the Middle East as New YorkTimes bureau chief. Rina CastelnuovoFrom Jerusalem to ParisThe first piece Steve Erlanger ’70 wroteas Jerusalem bureau chief for the NewYork Times was about a roadside bombing,and there’s been no shortage ofnews in the four years since: the deathof Yasser Arafat, Ariel Sharon strugglingfor life after a massive stroke, Israel’swithdrawal from Gaza, and Hamas’ victoryin the Palestinian elections.As he packed for the move to becomethe paper’s Paris bureau chief,National Public Radio’s “Talk of theNation” asked Steve about the chancefor a peace agreement. “There’s a longway to go,” Steve said, “Peace is notcoming soon, I promise.”Despite that sober summary, Steveoffered this observation:“Gaza is fascinating, somethingnew in the world,” he said. “It’s a semistate,it’s semi-occupied and it’s in thecontrol of a group that by the U.S. andthe European Union and Israel is considereda terrorist group…. Gaza seemsto be pulled apart from the West Bank,so it’s making the idea of a future of aPalestinian state, which George Bush favors,seem more divided, farther away.”Steve was interviewed on OpenSource back in January about GeorgeBush’s legacy in the Middle East:“Whatever you thought of the Annapolismeeting, the United States snappedits fingers and within a week got 49countries to come to Washington, includingthe Saudi foreign minister andthe Syrian deputy foreign minister. Thatwas power,” said Steve. “That power hasnot disappeared. George Bush may beconsidered—particularly at home—aweak figure, and abroad he may behated by many people. But this notionthat American power is down the drainis simply wrong.”Steve got his start in professionaljournalism as a correspondent for theBoston Globe while still a teaching fellowat Harvard. He joined the Times asa metropolitan reporter in 1987, butsoon became Bangkok bureau chief andhas since served as Moscow bureau chief(the post he held when Barclay Johnson’53 interviewed him for the spring 1995Bulletin), chief diplomatic correspondentin Washington, bureau chief forCentral Europe and the Balkans andBerlin bureau chief.Is it depressing to report from theMiddle East? NPR asked. “It’s also enthralling,”said Steve. “I like reportingfrom places where there are real problems,not just whether you have a latteor something. People live at an edge.The Palestinians have enormous problemsand yet they are willing to talk toyou, they’re hospitable. The Israelis havereal enemies in the region but they’revery talkative and eager. It’s a fascinatingstory; it’s just not one that’s going to endvery quickly. What depresses me sometimesis feeling that when it’s not goinganywhere quickly, that I’m just cataloginguseless death. That is depressing.”To listen to these interviews, orread recent articles by Steve, or any,in fact, from his two decades with theNew York Times, visit TaftAlumni.comfor the links.Taft Bulletin Spring 2008