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Mark Albertson

The Treaty of Versailles (French: Traité de Versailles) was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I were dealt with in separate treaties. Although the armistice, signed on 11 November 1918, ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on 21 October 1919, and was printed in The League of Nations Treaty Series.

Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial required “Germany [to] accept the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage” during the war (the other members of the Central Powers signed treaties containing similar articles). This article, Article 231, later became known as the War Guilt clause. The treaty forced Germany to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions, and pay reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente powers. In 1921 the total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion Marks (then $31.4 billion or £6.6 billion, roughly equivalent to US $442 billion or UK £284 billion in 2015). At the time economists, notably John Maynard Keynes predicted that the treaty was too harsh—a “Carthaginian peace”, and said the figure was excessive and counter-product ive. The contemporary American historian Sally Marks judged the reparation figure to be lenient, a sum that was designed to look imposing but was in fact not, that had little impact on the German economy and analysed the treaty as a whole to be quite restrained and not as harsh as it could have been.

The result of these competing and sometimes conflicting goals among the victors was a compromise that left none contented: Germany was neither pacified nor conciliated, nor was it permanently weakened. The problems that arose from the treaty would lead to the Locarno Treaties, which improved relations between Germany and the other European Powers, and the re-negotiation of the reparation system resulting in the Dawes Plan, the Young Plan, and the indefinite postponement of reparations at the Lausanne Conference of 1932.

Mark Albertson is an historical research editor at Army Aviation magazine, has been a member of the United States Naval Institute for more than twenty-five years, as well as being a member of the Navy League.

Arranged by Alex Garnett

Peter Georgescu

Peter Andrew Georgescu, Chairman Emeritus of Young & Rubicam, was born on the eve of the Second World War in Bucharest, Romania. His Romanian parents were educated in England and France. Peter’s father was the Managing Director of Exxon’s operation in Romania. While on a business trip to New York in 1947, the Iron Curtain fell and Peter’s parents could not return to Romania. Overnight they became the enemy of the Communist regime (his father would have been killed if he’d returned to Romania). Peter and his brother were left in Romania with his grandparents and would remain apart from his mother and father for eight years. His grandfather was seized and imprisoned as a political threat, and then murdered in captivity. Shortly after his grandfather was taken away, Peter, only nine years old, was arrested along with his brother and grandmother and sent to a work camp. In 1953 his father was approached by Romanian Communist diplomats in New York and asked to spy for them in exchange for “good treatment” for the children. Georgescu’s parents refused and went to the press, causing an international scandal. With the intervention of Congressman Frances Bolton and President Eisenhower, the boys were reunited with their parents in April of 1954.

Peter’s American journey started with a gifted admission to Exeter Academy in the fall of 1954—which generously overlooked his inability to speak English and having had no formal schooling since second grade. He attended Princeton and earned an MBA degree from Stanford Business School. In 1963 he entered Young & Rubicam as a trainee in their research department. Thirty-seven years later he retired as Chairman and CEO of Young & Rubicam with Y&R at the pinnacle of the advertising and related communications industry.

Under Mr. Georgescu’s leadership, Young & Rubicam successfully transformed from a private to a publicly-held company. During his tenure, Young & Rubicam built the most extensive database on global branding and, from its findings, developed a proprietary model for diagnosing and managing brands. Within the marketing community, he is known as a leading proponent of creating unified communications programs, agency accountability for measuring the impact of communications programs, and structuring value-based agency compensation.

In recognition for his contributions to the marketing and advertising industry, Peter was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame and received several Honorary Doctorate of Humanity degrees and other recognitions from a number of colleges and universities.

Peter has served on eight public company boards and continues as a Vice Chairman of New York Presbyterian Hospital and several other nor-for-profit organizations.

In 2006 Mr. Georgescu published his first book The Source of Success — asserting that personal values and creativity, devoted to creating lasting relationships with individual customers, are the leading drivers of business success in the 21st Century.

Julia Wade

Since 1972, Domus has helped thousands of our region’s most vulnerable youth experience success. Domus is the Latin noun for home, which is where our roots are: We opened our doors as a group home for homeless boys and stay in touch with many of them. We also keep home and all its positive connotations in mind as we create loving relationships and warm, loving places to heal from trauma.

Our goal for the young people we serve is to create the conditions necessary for them to get on a path toward health and opportunity so they can engage and succeed in school and ultimately have satisfying and productive lives. Our programs–schools, community programs, and residential programs–lead youth to that path.

In order to help our youth stay in school and catch up academically so they can achieve the important milestone of high school graduation, Domus focuses on three interventions:

• High-quality remedial academic instruction;
• Effective out-of-school-time programming;
• Support in overcoming non-academic barriers to academic success

A United Way Agency Partner

The underlying causes of World War I, which began in the Balkans in late July 1914, are several. Among these causes were political, territorial, and economic conflicts among the great European powers in the four decades leading up to the war. Additional causes were militarism, a complex web of alliances, imperialism, and nationalism. The immediate origins of the war, however, lay in the decisions taken by statesmen and generals during the July Crisis of 1914 caused by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie by Gavrilo Princip, an ethnic Serb and Yugoslav nationalist from the group Young Bosnia, which was supported by the Black Hand, a nationalist organization in Serbia.

The crisis came after a long and difficult series of diplomatic clashes among the Great Powers (Italy, France, Germany, Britain, Austria-Hungary and Russia) over European and colonial issues in the decade before 1914 that had left tensions high. In turn these public clashes can be traced to changes in the balance of power in Europe since 1867.[2] The more immediate cause for the war was tensions over territory in the Balkans. Austria-Hungary competed with Serbia and Russia for territory and influence in the region and they pulled the rest of the Great Powers into the conflict through their various alliances and treaties.

Some of the most important long-term or structural factors were the growth of nationalism across Europe, unresolved territorial disputes, an intricate system of alliances, the perceived breakdown of the balance of power in Europe, convoluted and fragmented governance, the arms races of the previous decades, previous military planning, imperial and colonial rivalry for wealth, power and prestige, and economic and military rivalry in industry and trade – e.g., the Pig War between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. Other causes that came into play during the diplomatic crisis that preceded the war included misperceptions of intent (e.g., the German belief that Britain would remain neutral) and delays and misunderstandings in diplomatic communications. Historians in recent years have downplayed economic rivalries and have portrayed the international business community as a force for peace. War would hurt business.

Mark Albertson is an historical research editor at Army Aviation magazine. He has been a member of the United States Naval Institute for more than twenty-five years, as well as being a member of the Navy League.

Arranged by Alex Garnett

Chris Filmer

Born in South Africa, Chris Filmer lived there and in England until 1977 when he moved with his family to the US.

His business career was spent in Marketing and Executive Training, including twenty years with Pepsi Cola International. The extensive world travel involved in his job only enhanced his lifelong fascination with world history.

Chris is the author of Famous Lives That Shaped World History. This book project started the day after he retired on February 1, 2000. Chris Filmer is an enthusiastic sportsman, conservationist and artist. He lives with his wife Sandra in Darien Connecticut.

James Rickards

James G. Rickards is an American lawyer, economist, and investment banker. He is a regular commentator on finance, and is the author of The New York Times bestseller Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis, published in 2011.

Jim is Chief Global Strategist at the West Shore Funds, Editor of Strategic Intelligence, a monthly newsletter, and Director of The James Rickards Project, an inquiry into the complex dynamics of geopolitics + global capital. He is the author of New York Times

He is the author of New York Times best seller, The Death of Money (Penguin, 2014), and national best seller, Currency Wars (Penguin, 2011). He is a portfolio manager, lawyer, and economist, and has held senior positions at Citibank, Long-Term Capital Management, and Caxton Associates. In 1998, he was the principal negotiator of the rescue of LTCM sponsored by the Federal Reserve. His clients include institutional investors and government directorates. He is an Op-Ed contributor to the Financial Times, Evening Standard, New York Times and Washington

In 1998, he was the principal negotiator of the rescue of LTCM sponsored by the Federal Reserve. His clients include institutional investors and government directorates. He is an Op-Ed contributor to the Financial Times, Evening Standard, New York Times and Washington Post, and has been interviewed on BBC, CNN, NPR, C-SPAN, CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox, and The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Rickards is a visiting lecturer in globalization at the Johns Hopkins University and the School of Advanced International Studies, and has delivered papers

Mr. Rickards is a visiting lecturer in globalization at the Johns Hopkins University and the School of Advanced International Studies, and has delivered papers on risk at Singularity University, the Applied Physics Laboratory, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is an advisor on capital markets to the U.S. intelligence community and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Mr. Rickards holds an LL.M. (Taxation) from the NYU School of Law; a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School; an M.A. in international economics from SAIS, and a B.A. (with honors) from Johns Hopkins. He lives in Connecticut.

Arranged by Gehr Brown

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy

Senator Christopher S. Murphy is the junior United States Senator for Connecticut. Elected in 2012, Murphy serves on the Appropriations Committee, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and the Foreign Relations Committee.

Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Murphy served Connecticut’s Fifth Congressional District for three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Fifth District includes the towns of Danbury, Meriden, New Britain, Torrington, and Waterbury. During his three terms, Murphy served on the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Energy and Commerce Committee, and the Committee on Financial Services.

Before his service in the U.S. Congress, Murphy served for eight years in the Connecticut General Assembly. He spent four years representing Southington and the 81st district in the House, and then spent four years representing the 16th Senatorial District, which includes the towns of Waterbury, Wolcott, Cheshire and Southington. While in the Senate, he served as the Chairman of the Public Health Committee.

Senator Murphy grew up in Wethersfield, Connecticut, and attended Williams College in Massachusetts. In 2002, he graduated from UConn Law School in Hartford, Connecticut. He practiced real estate and banking law from 2002-2006 with the firm of Ruben, Johnson & Morgan in Hartford.

On August 18, 2007, Murphy married Cathy Holahan, an attorney. They have two sons named Owen and Rider.

Congressman Jim Himes

Congressman Jim Himes represents Connecticut’s 4th District in the United States House of Representatives where he is serving his fourth term. He is a member of both the House Committee on Financial Services and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Jim grew up as the child of a single working mom in a small town. As a member of Congress, Jim works hard to provide all American children the same opportunities he had to succeed: access to a first-rate public school, affordable and effective health care, a decent and safe home, and a supportive community.

Born in Lima, Peru in 1966 to American parents, he spent the early years of his childhood in Peru and Colombia while his father worked for the Ford Foundation and UNICEF. As an American abroad, Jim grew up fluent in both Spanish and English and was raised with an awareness of the unique position of the United States in the world. At the age of ten, Jim moved with his mother and sisters to the United States.

Jim graduated from Hopewell Valley Central High School and then attended Harvard University. After completing his undergraduate work, Jim earned a Rhodes Scholarship, which enabled him to attend Oxford University in England where he continued his studies of Latin America, including research in El Salvador.

Prior to his service in Congress, Jim ran the New York City branch of The Enterprise Community Partners, a nonprofit dedicated to addressing the unique challenges of urban poverty. Jim’s team led the way in financing the construction of thousands of affordable housing units in the greater New York metropolitan region, often using new green technologies to achieve energy efficiency and reduce utility costs.

Jim’s experience at Enterprise spurred his involvement in politics. Putting his expertise in affordable housing to work, Jim served as a Commissioner of the Greenwich Housing Authority, ultimately chairing the board and leading it through a much-needed program of reforms. Jim went on to become an elected member of his town’s finance board, setting tax and budget policy for Greenwich. Jim has also served as Chair of his local Democratic Town Committee, organizing others in the community to become more active in the political process.

Jim began his professional career at Goldman Sachs & Co. where he worked his way up to Vice President over the course of a 12-year career. There he worked extensively in Latin America and headed the bank’s telecommunications technology group.

Jim lives in Greenwich with his wife Mary and two daughters Emma and Linley.