Peter Bell: A Life to Celebrate & Remember

Remarks by Peter Hakim at the memorial  service of Peter D. Bell, founding member and co-chair emeritus of the Inter-American Dialogue, Universalist Unitarian Church, Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Thank you Karen, and Jonathan and Emily too, for giving me the privilege of speaking here today.

It was 47 years ago this month, in 1967, that Peter Bell called to offer me a job with the Ford Foundation in Brazil. For most of those 47 years he was my boss. I had the great pleasure of meeting Karen on the same day he did, just a few hours late that’s all. It was at a dinner in Peter’s apartment in Rio de Janeiro. That night the guests left early, very early for Brazil, because Peter ignored us. He was absorbed by Karen. I knew Jonathan and Emily since the day they were born. I remember many happy occasions with them. There was one irritating memory, however: their nonstop campaign to convince me to stop smoking. But they kept at it, and I finally broke the habit.

Peter Bell was a remarkable man. He had vision, stubborn courage, profound intelligence, and—most important—simple decency. Nor will I ever forget his constant drive for perfection in whatever he did.

When I joined Ford, its international work was dedicated to development, meaning economic development—making poor countries richer. Peter was among the first to insist that democracy, human rights, and social justice were just as important—that politics and values had a central role in development. Peter had a leading role in the reinvention of the Ford Foundation’s mission. He also helped create a vigorous social science enterprise in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America. Back then, and throughout his life, he was a pioneer in rethinking the purposes and priorities of international aid efforts.

Perhaps his most memorable action in Brazil was to support with a Foundation grant the creation of one the country’s first independent research and policy centers. The center played a vital role in sustaining the work of Brazil’s leading social and political thinkers, including future President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, after their expulsion from public universities by the nation’s military rulers. Peter got the grant approved despite the skepticism of some Foundation officials and an explicit warning from the US embassy, which was suspicious of the political leanings of Cardoso and the new center

On his arrival in Chile in 1971, just as socialist president Salvador Allende took power, Peter took on another political battle. Until then, nearly all Ford Foundation grants had been directed to institutions associated with one political party. No it was not Allende’s party. Peter immediately set out to reshape the Foundation’s grant making and make it reflect the broad ideological diversity of Chilean politics.

His success elevated the Foundation’s credibility as an independent, nonpolitical actor. It also paved the way for the Ford’s subsequent nonpartisan efforts to assist scholars and human rights activists who were victims of the repression that took hold in Chile after the military took power in 1973. The Foundation supported Chileans who thought they could continue their research and writing in Chile—but had been banned from universities. And it helped to sustain, at times rebuild, the careers of many others who decided to leave because they feared for their lives and families. Nearly all of them eventually returned to Chile, joining with those who endured the dictatorship, to reconstruct one of Latin America’s most vibrant democracies.

Long after, Peter and I still wondered why the Foundation’s actions were so highly praised and so well remembered—in Chile and across Latin America. We both knew that nothing heroic or of great risk had been done. The Foundation had simply acted with decency and intelligence. It was a powerful combination that personified Peter throughout his life.

In 1980, Peter became president of the Inter-American Foundation, a small US government agency designed to support collective development initiatives of the poor. Unlike Ford, where he worked hard to reshape the culture and mission, his new task, as he saw it, was to protect the Inter-American Foundation and its idealism, passion, and commitment.. But the challenge was also to make the Foundation more orderly and coherent—and better at communicating its mission and results. The idea was to show that this relatively unknown organization was not merely a curiosity among aid institutions, but that it had a great deal to teach others about what development is and how best to achieve it. He took all that on while, from nearly the outset of his three-year tenure, he was fighting attempts by hard liners in the Heritage Foundation and the Reagan administration to replace him—which they regrettably succeeded in doing.

While still president of the Foundation, Peter helped found the Inter-American Dialogue. He later served as its co-chair for many years. The Dialogue was designed to address the most important issues in United States-Latin American relations and build cooperation among the countries of the hemisphere. I have worked there for nearly 25 years. For 17 of them, I was president.

There is no way I can summarize all that Peter contributed to make the Dialogue grow from a yearly conference to the premier independent center working on Western Hemisphere affairs. Looking back over the years, Peter actively participated in every major decision affecting the Dialogue’s programs, leadership, and institutional development. He was a constant monitor of the quality of the Dialogue’s work. He sought to make sure that our analyses and recommendations were fair and balanced, and he insisted on inclusiveness and diversity in our staffing and programming.

The Dialogue benefitted not only from Peter’s oversight—but also from his regular participation in our activities. No one was more engaged with the Dialogue. He attended, religiously, every board meeting, was present for every major conference, joined commissions and working groups in Cuba, Haiti, Peru, and elsewhere—and greatly enriched all of them. And he did all as a volunteer, while working full-time managing other, larger institutions.

In our work together over many years, Peter always got to the next place first and was the first to depart—Ford in Brazil, Ford in Chile, the Inter-American Foundation, and the Dialogue. I inevitably had the task of toasting him at his farewell. Sadly, I am doing that again today. I complained to him once that he was never there for my farewells. He replied yes, that was true, but that he was always there to welcome me at the next stop. Who knows? Maybe once again. Peter Bell is a man to be remembered and celebrated.

Thank you again Karen, Emily, and Jonathan for sharing him so often with me.