GIANNI and President Peters go One-On-One
By LUKE SCHROEDER
and JESSICA SHOVER 
Today, Mr. Peters is the president of a small liberal arts college stashed deep in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, virtually hidden from the world. GIANNI’s wondering whether President Peters has forgotten about his life as one the United States most capable diplomats.
GIANNI: You are a distinguished officer of the United States' Army, decorated with honors including Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal and Legion of Merit. Do you ever have the urge to show up to an important meeting on campus wearing one or all of these medals just to make sure everyone knows who's boss?
PRESIDENT PETERS: You know, I haven’t been tempted to do that, [smiling] probably for lots of reasons, the least of which being that most people probably wouldn’t recognize those medals if they saw them. So I don’t know if wearing these medals would even have that effect. So, no, I haven’t been tempted to do that.
GIANNI: Are there any similarities between life in the Army and life at St. John's?
PRESIDENT PETERS:I think the fundamental similarity between life in the Army and at St. John’s is that the Army is a profession for young people. By the time you are 40, you are a pretty old guy or gal. Most soldiers in the Army are the same age as undergraduates at St. John’s or any other college, for that matter. With respect to the program at St. John’s versus West Point, there again are some similarities. At West Point, all of the classes are really small – 15 students is a big class. There are similarities in math classes too; at West Point you go to the blackboard and go through the proofs in the same way we do math here at St. John’s. There are also some similarities with the professors at West Point. Their purpose is not just to be professors, but also to model for the students what it means to be an Army Officer. Well, the tutor’s role is different, but they are not here to profess either. They are here to model what it means to be a learner. The idea that the tutors here and the professors at West Point are really role models as opposed to just professing is a similarity. But, of course the ultimate objective at West Point is quite different from the ultimate objective at St. John’s.
GIANNI: That’s a very interesting perspective. So did you ever have to read Aristotle’s Metaphysics in the Army?
PRESIDENT PETERS:Haha, the answer’s no, I never did read Aristotle’s Metaphysics in the Army. But we read a lot of things that are in the curriculum at St. John’s. We read Plato’s Republic, for example, and we read Chaucer, and Dante and Thucydides. So there are a number of texts that are in the curriculum at St. John’s that are in the curriculum at West Point.
GIANNI: What book has affected your life the most?
PRESIDENT PETERS: The most obvious answer is the Bible. But, since I have been here, I have had several occasions to re-read War and Peace. I have read it in the past, some of it in Russian, when I was studying Russian and living in the Soviet Union. So this book has also had a profound effect on me and the way I think about history and what motivates people. It’s a wonderful book.
GIANNI: You have extensive military experience. You have a master's degree in economics and many years of diplomacy. You've been to Vietnam, the USSR, Panama, and Saudi Arabia. You've seen a side of the world that most St. John's students will never see. Why do these old dusty books matter in a world that is constantly being torn apart by conflict?
PRESIDENT PETERS: Well, let me ask, when was the world not being torn apart by conflict? If you go back and read Herodotus and Thucydides or the Iliad, they capture the spirit of very violent times. In the Old Testament, from Cain and Abel on, unfortunately, conflict has been part of the human element. I think that the books we read share wisdom from what was valid in the past with what is also valid today. What makes these books great is that they raise the fundamental questions that humans have dealt with from the beginning of time including conflict.
GIANNI: Is conflict a part of the human condition?
PRESIDENT PETERS: You know, unfortunately, I think it is. I think the nature of man is such that there is an aspect which is not capable of living without competition and the potential for conflict. I think it’s a worthwhile endeavor, of course, to try to minimize it and try to reduce it as much as possible. But I can’t imagine a world without some level of conflict.
GIANNI: Do you continue to follow the political situations of the counties in which you helped bring peace to?
PRESIDENT PETERS: I try to. But it’s a little hard to from this distance. I try to keep up as much as I can on what’s going on and I still have lots of friends who are involved in that business on a day-to-day basis. The International Affairs Study Group on campus is as much for me as it is for the students. It gives me a good reason to sit down and read an article and really think about it.
GIANNI: Do you think it’s easy for the normal everyday person to find good information about world affairs?
PRESIDENT PETERS: Easy? Maybe not. Part of the problem with the internet is the quality of the information and the average person has a hard time evaluating whether the information they are getting is unbiased or accurate. But there are a number of really high quality websites in international affairs. For example, my old place, The Council on Foreign Relations website. Many of the well-known national think-tanks, like the Brookings Institution, have a lot of good information. So you can find it, but you kind of have to know a little bit about the source of the information to know whether it is accurate.
GIANNI: In the army you were constantly contemplating intelligence and strategy. But here in Santa Fe, what would you say is your most important responsibility as President of St. John's College? Campus Security?
PRESIDENT PETERS: Well, I think this might sound kind of trite, but really it’s making sure that our current students get the best education they can and our future students can get the best education they can. So making sure that the campus is working as well as it should for the benefit of the current students but also thinking about preparing for the future so that St. John’s is around for the students of the future.
GIANNI: We never knew there was a career path from foreign policy to the Great Books. How did St. John's College seduce you away from the Council on Foreign Relations?
PRESIDENT PETERS: It’s kind of a long story so I will try to keep it short. As I mentioned, I taught at West Point and then I was the Chief of Staff, which is the chief administrative officer. So when I got out of the Army, I pretty much intended to go into higher education. But then the opportunity came up at the Council on Foreign Relations, which was quite serendipitous, but it was also pretty exciting. I spent nine years at the Council on Foreign Relations. But, always in the back of my mind, was the plan of getting back into higher education and so I kept talking to people and thinking about it. I decided that if I was going to go back into higher education it was going to be at a small liberal arts college, because I wanted to be at someplace which was relatively small so you could get to know the students and could see the impact of what you were doing. The St. John’s opportunity came up, one thing lead to another and the next thing you know, I was here. Higher education has always been on my mind. I enjoyed my life in the Army and I enjoyed my life at the Council on Foreign Relations. But there is something exciting about having three very distinct careers.
GIANNI: You lead the Foreign Policy Study Group here on campus. Iraq is beginning to find some stability. How should the United States proceed to best ensure peace in this country?
PRESIDENT PETERS: That’s a really tough question and if I had good answer for that I would probably be a candidate for Secretary of State in the next administration. I think it is very very difficult. The bottom line is that, ultimately the Iraqis are going to have to figure out how to do it. The challenge that we face is, in a sense, how long and how effectively can we work to allow the Iraqis the time it might take for them to work it out for themselves. And I think that is what the debate is really all about. You know, personally speaking, I tend to think that we have a fairly substantial moral responsibility to try to do whatever we can to make it successful. I mean, we broke it, so we have some responsibility to ensure that it has got the highest probability of being successful. That makes me lean toward the side of being willing to stay a little bit longer, even though the sacrifices are great for our country. But again, at the end of the day, the Iraqis are going to have to figure out how to do it; the United States can’t do it.
GIANNI: As far as moral responsibility goes, do you think that extends to the individuals at this college?
PRESIDENT PETERS: That’s a really good question. One of the great challenges that our country faces, in my view, is that there isn’t a ‘demand’, if that’s the right word, for public service and for commitment. I think that’s a loss. I think that’s a loss for our country and for the citizens of our country; that you can avoid that obligation - not necessarily to be in the army or whatever, but to have some responsibility to give back and to serve is an individual obligation.
GIANNI: That’s interesting. So would this ‘demand’ come from the government or from the ‘demand’ that comes from having an awareness of the world abroad?
PRESIDENT PETERS: I think it comes partly from the government. I don’t think it comes completely from the government. But one of the lost opportunities, I believe, in the aftermath of 9/11, was that I certainly had the impression that most citizens in the United States were prepared to try to do something to help. And for a lot of reasons, I guess, the government never quite saw the utility to do that. I think that was a real lost opportunity because people really felt in their guts that they wanted to do something. They were affected personally by 9/11 and they wanted to give back in some way. I think the government missed an opportunity by not providing some mechanism for that to happen.
GIANNI: The Council on Foreign Relations has done some reporting on the United States Military interrogation techniques. You were in the Army for over 27 years. Is water-boarding a necessary interrogation technique to use in order to win the 'War on Terror'?
PRESIDENT PETERS: I don’t know that I can answer the question specifically about water-boarding. But I think torture is counter productive. I think the costs are ultimately much greater than whatever benefits you can get out of it.
GIANNI: Just as you appear to be doing in your Study Group, in GIANNI's April issue, we pondered Mr. Bush's legacy. How do you think the current Commander and Chief will look 100 years from now?
PRESIDENT PETERS: I am reminded of a quotation from Chou En-Lai. He was the premier of China when Mao Tse was chairman of the Communist party in China in the 1970s. Chou was allegedly asked a question about how he evaluated the French Revolution, which, of course, happened in the late 1700s. He said, ‘it’s too early to tell’. So, that’s my answer to your question of how George W. Bush is going to be evaluated.
GIANNI: Considering your understanding of the world, what should students here at St. John's fear most about the future of the country?
PRESIDENT PETERS: Well, I would say the biggest challenge facing our country’s democracy is the education of our citizens. Our democracy is predicated on an educated electorate and if we can’t continue to sustain a well-educated electorate, it’s going to have a very profound effect on our country and I think it could ultimately be destructive. I don’t think our big challenges are going to come overseas, I think they are going to come from inside.
GIANNI: How does a liberal arts education play into this country’s need to maintain a well-educated electorate?
PRESIDENT PETERS: I would say that this kind of education is really an education that would benefit a much broader part of the populace than is currently available. This kind of liberal arts education teaches the fundamentals to help people ‘think’, to question, to understand the difference between truth and opinion and to hopefully see a responsibility for citizenship that comes out of the books that we read.
GIANNI: President Peters, you really have an interesting background, one that is making quite an impact at St. John's. Would you ever consider adding International Relations as the eighth Liberal Art to be learned at St. John's College?
PRESIDENT PETERS: Haha. I don’t think so. I could imagine some things that we might be able to add to the reading list that have, broadly speaking, political science or international relations. But the difficulty that we face with all these things is, unless we want to have a 5 year undergraduate program and a 2-4 year graduate program, we will have to take something out. That is where the choices get really difficult. For the most part I think we have the curriculum just about right.
GIANNI: Do you have a farewell message for the graduating class of 2008? Any advice for those of us still seeking our own path?
PRESIDENT PETERS: The message I would give to the graduates is; do something you take joy in. I believe that one of the sources of having joy in whatever you do is to feel like you are making a contribution to others. They should think about what the things are that bring joy to their lives and to consider whether or not service to others might be an important part of providing that joy.