WHY BILL, BUT NOT MAGGIE?
Mark Almond is one Oxford lecturer
who resents his university's decision to give President Clinton an honorary degree
Oxford CILLA BLACK was recently rejected by the student body of Liverpool University as a suitable candidate for academic honours, despite the enthusiasm of the governing body for giving the hostess of Blind Date an honorary degree. Perhaps she should have put herself forward for an honorary doctor- ate at Oxford. Excitement is already rising at this ancient university about the impend- ing ceremony to honour Bill Clinton on 8 June, and there is no sign that this ancient university's students are revolting at the prospect.
Meanwhile, the dons can scarcely con- tain their enthusiasm at marking the return of one of the university's 'most distin- guished' visiting students, whose presence in Oxford and subsequent career seem not to have registered in the communal memo- ry until the year 1992. Only when he was on the threshold of the United States presi- dency was Clinton's brief stint as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford a quarter of a century ago dusted down for local consumption. Honorary degrees have a long and gener- ally low history. In many ways, to have achieved success without donning an hon- ourary cap and gown is a great distinction. Margaret Thatcher sailed close to the wind, but her reputation was saved by the Oxford dons themselves in 1985, when they reject- ed a proposal to award her the degree they are to bestow on President Clinton, by acclamation, so relatively early in his term.
Mrs Thatcher was rejected because of her alleged parsimony towards university funding. The dons also sneered at her for taking a Second (although it has to be remembered that Clinton left Oxford with- out a degree). Afterwards, of course, the dons suddenly woke up to the fact that they might have alienated private donors, who were more likely to respect her than them. To calm fears that the university's congre- gation was a hotbed of Spartism after Mrs Thatcher's rejection, an official reason was spuriously devised: that active politicians were unsuitable recipients of university honours. Universities, it was said, should recognise a lifetime of achievement.
This argument meant, of course, that Ronald Reagan could not be honoured even in retirement. It was left to the Oxford Union to grant him a platform. At the same time as Oxford University spurned Reagan, who did more for free- dom than most men in history, the univer- sity was regularly host to various East European apparatchiks. What hushed excitement there was among my fellow lec- turers, whenever a Polish deputy-minister told us how General Jaruzelski was doing the best he could. But it was the visit of a `And that one is of the Emperor with no clothes on!' member of Chernenko's Politburo to Oxford in December, 1994, which caused near hysteria among the academic commu- nity as well as many a tiff.
A vicious struggle broke out among dons here to get access to the presence of a real live member of an as yet unreformed Polit- buro. Unfortunately, the young Gorbachev, like Henry Ford, preferred to visit the British Leyland car works in Cowley, so the dons had to make do with tea with his wife, Raisa, in Christ Church. One late-comer was intercepted by Special Branch as he rushed towards her car clutching a parcel. Needless to say, it contained nothing more explosive than a present — apparently a book of photographs of some of the newer colleges.
At least Oxford somehow managed to avoid the mistake made by the University of Central London (then the Central Lon- don Polytechnic), which bestowed an hon- orary degree upon Elena Ceausescu, for services to science. Still, what with the Sul- tan of Brunei receiving an Oxford honorary degree along with President Senghor of Senegal, perhaps it is no surprise that the university did manage to waive its opposi- tion to authoritarians just long enough to give a musical degree to Herbert von Kara- jan, the conductor who joined the Nazi party before Hitler even came to power.
American statesmen have been hon- oured by the university in the past, but few of the Oxonian Clintonites seem to recog- nise the irony that the most recent grand panjandrum of American politics to be sim- ilarly honoured was Robert MacNamara. As Lyndon Johnson's Defence Secretary, MacNamara did much to popularise the term 'body count' during the Vietnam war. It was precisely the need to avoid service in Indo-China which brought Clinton to Oxford in the first place. MacNamara, of course, redeemed himself in old age by decrying Reagan's successful policies and thus making himself academically respectable here. The fact that the grass rarely grew again where he had trodden (from the United States motor industry via the Department of Defence to the World Bank) was of no account in the laudatio.
If a MacNamara could not arouse stu- dent demos, then there is little chance that Clinton will stir undergraduates out of their apathy. That's a pity, since there is a powerful argument that Clinton combines something of the personal or political vices of all his predecessors since John Kennedy without any of their virtues. Kennedy han- dled even the Bay of Pigs better than Clin- ton managed Mogadishu. Nixon seems forthcoming in retrospect. Carter was reso- lute, and Ford and Bush masters of fluent syntax by comparison. Yet only Clinton bags Oxford's big prize — apparently just for getting to the top. Instead of being awed, academics ought to keep their criti- cal distance.
President Clinton's presence at the D- Day commemoration is an ex officio obli- gation, although what Clinton's presidential reaction would have been to the casualties on Othaha Beach can easily be imagined. A President who backed off in Somalia after two helicopters were shot down would not have tangled with the Waffen SS in Normandy. But if D-Day vet- erans are obliged to put up with sharing the beaches with a veteran of avoiding tough decisions, especially the draft, it is not clear why Oxford University should feel obliged to honour him now. What has his presiden- cy achieved so far? Worse still, what fresh disasters and embarrassments lie in store?
Once Oxford was sufficiently grand in itself for the great and good of the world to be proud to be associated with it. Now that has changed: Oxford hopes to gain respect by being associated with a celebrity. Clin- ton is President of the United States, which is the acme of fame, and it does not seem to matter what kind of president he will turn out to be. For a few hours, his glory and troupe of accompanying television cameras will light up Oxford — while after- wards dons will dispute jealously who stood longest in his shadow. One hopes their moment of glory will not be spoiled when they learn that the Honorary Degree Com- mittee at Yale University, when faced with not one but two prominent candidates both Bill and Hillary Clinton are graduates of Yale Law School — decided to abstain altogether. Perhaps Yale — a younger institution after all — has not yet had time to acquire the necessary number of syco- phants in its faculty.
Mark Almond teaches history at Oriel College, Oxford. His book, Europe's Back- yard War, is published next month.
Previous page
