Prime Minister Stephen Harper accepts Appeal of Conscience Foundation’s World Statesman Award from founder/president Rabbi Arthur Schneier with Henry Kissinger’s hearty approval
Stephen Schwarzman and Louis Chenevert assist Rabbi Arthur Schneier in presenting Appeal of Conscience Award to Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit
Virginia M. Rometty, chairman/president/CEO of IBM, and husband Mark
Ronald Lauder, Rabbi Arthur Schneier and Louis R. Chenevert
Henry Kissinger	Louis Chenevert

APPEAL OF CONSCIENCE
Lionizing Canada’s Prime Minister,
Citigroup’s Leader And IBM’s
Most Powerful Woman In Business

H

ENRY KISSINGER, introducing Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the Appeal of Conscience Foundation awards dinner, made note of his own public service as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State simultaneously in the 1970s.

"The only reason I mention it," he said, "is because never before and never since has the White House and the State Department been as amicable as it was then."

Harper declined an invitation to address the annual General Assembly of the United Nations in September. Instead he appeared at the Waldorf Astoria to accept the Appeal of Conscience World Statesman Award.

Before the award presentation, a reporter asked Kissinger about his relationship with Harper. He demurred. "I had so much trouble becoming an American citizen," Kissinger said. "I don’t want to get into Canadian politics."

The Canadian prime minister who, three weeks earlier had cut diplomatic ties with Iran, labeled the government "a clear and present danger" for a combination of reasons: "its appalling record of human rights abuse, active assistance to the brutal regime in Syria, undeniable support of terrorist entities, determined pursuit of nuclear weapons" as well as routine threats to the existence of Israel, anti-Semitism and constant denials of the Holocaust.

"It is important to state that whatever Israel’s shortcomings, neither its existence nor its policies are responsible for the pathologies in that part of the world.

"We are also mindful of the lesson of history: that those who single out the Jewish people as a target of racial and religious bigotry will inevitable be a threat to all of us."

Harper added, "When confronted with evil, we take strong principled positions in our dealings, whether popular or not. I believe that the appeal of our conscience requires us to speak out against what the Iranian regime stands for."

Rabbi Arthur Schneier, founding president of the foundation, described Harper as "more than prime minister—he’s a mensch."

Stephen Schwarzman, co-chairman/CEO of the Blackstone Group, the renowned private equity/investment management firm, presented an Appeal of Conscience Award to Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citigroup.

Peter Peterson, former secretary of commerce and co-chairman of the Blackstone Group which he co-founded with Schwarzman in 1985, presented an Appeal of Conscience Award to Virginia M. Rometty, president and CEO of IBM.

According to a New York Times business report, "IBM is the largest supplier of information technology—computer hardware, software and services—to corporations and governments."

Earlier this year Rometty was named No. 1 in Fortune magazine’s annual ranking of the most powerful women in business. A week after the Appeal of Conscience dinner, IBM added "chairman" to Rometty’s title. She has become almost as invincible as Watson, the company’s room-size computer that triumphed over its human rivals in Jeopardy!

"We’re both graduates of Northwestern University," Peterson said. "Ginny’s degree was in engineering and computer science. Mine was in retailing and as a result I can’t even do email."

"Peter," Rometty countered, "with all your accomplishments for the world, I think I should go back and a get a retailing degree."

Wall St. Shocker! Only three weeks after receiving the Appeal of Conscious Award, Vikram Pandit was the subject of secret backstage deliberations on his performance as chief executive of Citigroup, resulting in his abrupt resignation on Oct. 16. For five years he’d been at the helm of the nation’s third largest bank by assets. He was succeeded by Michael Corbat who’s been with Citi and its predecessor companies for three decades.

She credited an early leader, Thomas Watson, with the foresight in 1924 to rename the company International Business Machines.

As she said, "Through era after era, for more than a century, we have asked, how can the world work better? This is how we came to understand global integration, not only as an event in the history of economic competition, but also as a point in technological and societal progress. We are a global enterprise with 400,000 IBMers."

Louis Chenevert, chairman/CEO of United Technologies, presided over the event. Among the 1,000 guests were ambassadors and diplomats from 30 countries, including Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman.

Rabbi Schneier, a survivor of the Holocaust in his native Vienna and communist oppression in Budapest, has served as spiritual leader for 50 years of Park East Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. He created the Appeal of Conscience Foundation in 1965 to promote global religious understanding. He will present next year’s World Statesman Award to Dr. H. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, president of Indonesia, home of the world’s largest Muslim population.