Aleksander Smolar - 'I would like to take care of your money' (192/201)
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Aleksander Smolar (b. 1940) is a Polish writer, political activist and adviser, vice-president of the Institute for Human Sciences and president of the Stefan Batory Foundation. [Listener: Vitek Tracz]
TRANSCRIPT: I met Soros, as I've already mentioned although I don't quite remember what I've said so unfortunately I might be repeating myself. The first time I heard about him was from François Furet, the rector of the institution where I was at the time, École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. An eminent historian, he invited me into his office and said, 'Listen, we've received quite a lot of money from an American multimillionaire as a grant for academics from Central Europe. I'd like to form a board which will allocate these grants. Would you agree to join it?' I said of course I would. That was the first time I heard the name of Soros – later, of course, I heard it all the time – and I was one of the people who divided up his money among Polish academics. This is what I do – I'm head of the institution which for the past 26 years has been directing the Batory Foundation. I decided to visit him. So then friends informed him that there was someone who wanted to meet him. I went and I've mentioned how I strolled across that huge square in front of his house which was gated and exclusively his. We walked all around it and that's when I told him, 'I would like to take care of your money'. Well, he's not someone who has a great sense of humour so he didn't even smile then, he just questioned me and said, 'I understand now why you want to take care of my money but what will I get out of this?' So then I told him that this is my concept for the foundation and how I want to remodel it. I told him about various elements, which have been incorporated, namely very strong international politics and not in the south. The foundation had a great many contacts in Czechoslovakia, in Hungary as this was still the outcome of our contacts during the dissident years. I immediately identified this in political categories saying that what was important was to have influence and contacts in the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Lithuania, Russia – that here there was a role for us to play. The southern countries, on the other hand, were all looking to the West and have equal chances of developing so it was a bit pointless.
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