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        Hans J Morgenthau (1904-1980) was a great intellectual in this tradition in America. He founded the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in 1974 and served as its first chairman. As he defined and illuminated the national interests of the United States from the perspective of political realism, he became a seminal theorist of international relations. Accordingly, the National Committee's Hans J Morgenthau Award is presented in his memory to individuals whose intellectual and practical contributions to American foreign policy have been judged to be so exemplary in the tradition of Professor Morgenthau that they merit this singular award.

        Hans J Morgenthau was born in Coburg, Germany, on 7 February, 1904, the son of Dr Ludwig Morgenthau, a physician, and Frieda Bachmann Morgenthau. He took his early degrees at the Universities of Munich and Frankfurt. He practised law until 1930, and went to teach in Geneva in 1932. When Hitler came to power in Germany the following year, he decided not to return. He became a Professor of International Law at the Institute of International and Economics Studies in Madrid; then moved to the US in 1937 and became a naturalised citizen in 1943.

        Fluent in English, French, German and Spanish, Morgenthau held many teaching posts; the first was at the University of Kansas. Treated with contempt by his father, Morgenthau had to face anti-semitic hostility in Germany as well as in Geneva. Spain was a brief and happy interlude. He became a Professor in the University of Chicago in 1943 and never looked back thereafter.

        The fundamental intellectual seeds of Morgenthau's later intellectual brilliance and development were noticed as early as in 1922. When he was only 18, he clearly defined his mission with a clairvoyant vision in these words: 'To be able to work in the service of a great idea, on behalf of an important goal; to be able to commit every nerve, every muscle, and every drop of sweat to a work, to a great task; to grow with the work, to become greater oneself in the struggle with one's betters' and then to be able to say at the end: I die, but there remains something that is more important than my life and will last longer than my body: my work. That is my hope, which is worthy of tremendous efforts, that is my goal, for which it is worth living and, if need be, dying.'

        In 1951 he published his book titled 'In Defence of the National Interest'. In this book he bitterly criticised the contemporary and prevailing opinions regarding 'the evils of balance of power' in the field of international relations and the wrongly perceived and exaggerated role of the United Nations in creating such an equilibrium. Morgenthau felt that the United Nations was striving towards an idealism which was unnatural, unreal and self-serving. Morgenthau outlined the basic principles of his public philosophy in the opening lines of this book: 'It is often said that the foreign policy of the United States needs to mature and that the American people and their government must grow up if they want to emerge victorious from the trials of our age. It would be truer to say that this generation of Americans must shed the illusions of its fathers and grandfathers and relearn the great principles of statecraft which guided the republic in the first decade and —in moralistic disguise in the first century of its existence. The United States offers the singular spectacle of a commonwealth whose political wisdom has not grown slowly through the accumulation and articulation of experiences.'

        Morgenthau wanted his nation to learn some of its lessons which he categorized under 'forget and remember.' He wanted America to 'FORGET' the sentimental notion that foreign policy is a struggle between virtue and vice, with virtue bound to win. America should FORGET the crusading notion that any nation, however virtuous and powerful, can have the mission to make the worldover in its own image. On the other hand, he wanted America to REMEMBER that diplomacy without power is feeble, and power without diplomacy is destructive and blind. He wanted his country to REMEMBER that 'no nation's power is without limits, and hence that its policies must respect the power and interests of others'.

        The concept of 'Power' and the 'Nature of Man' remained the core and central themes of all his intellectual endeavours. Morgenthau has left behind him a rich legacy of various articles and books on politics and political science, of which 'Scientific Man vs Power Politics' and 'Politics Among Nations' are certainly his great masterpieces. The book 'Politics Among Nations' was soon prescribed as a textbook by the Universities of Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia. After 1950, he continuously sought 'to speak truth to power'. His truths were indeed truths about the human condition which remain, among the problems of the day, recognisable to eyes which may be very distant. Precisely this is what makes great thinkers.

        Dermeval Aires Jr has paid this tribute to Hans Morgenthau: 'As we read Hans Morgenthau's books on the great issues of American politics during the Cold War, we observe his sharp and fearless mind meeting extremely worrisome circumstances, which demanded responsibility and consciousness both from policy-makers and intellectuals. For their behaviour and their decisions could indeed ensue disastrous consequences for the whole of humankind. That was the setting of a unique era, superior in danger and complexity to all other previous ones. And Morgenthau was one of the few individuals who could understand its problems, rising up to the challenge of facing human nature in the eyes in such bleak days without subterfuges'.