WHO WE ARE
A FEATURE HIGHLIGHTING THE ‘OUTSIDE’ LIVES OF THE MANY VARIED AND INTERESTING MEMBERS OF THE CONGREGATION.

—by Lois Chazen

Before I interviewed Newton Bowles for this article, I read his book, The Diplomacy of Hope: The United Nations Since The Cold War. Published in 2004 by I.B. Taurus, the book received outstanding reviews and the entire printing sold out in weeks. The book reveals the breadth of Mr. Bowles’ knowledge and experience in UN matters and proceedings. He writes from the unique perspective of having worked at the United Nations under the administrations of all the Secretaries General, from Trygve Lie and Dag Hammarskjöld to Kofi Annan—likely a longer association with the UN than anyone else. His work started at UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund and continues today as Senior Advisor.For many years he was Program Manager for UNICEF International. This background provides great authenticity to Newton’s observations and conclusions about the UN’s past and future. Newton’s writing is concise and elegant, peppered
	Newton R. Bowles
with wit. This is a vitally important book that should be required reading for high school and college students. I was so intrigued by his views that I searched the Internet for other material he has written. Newton writes on a broad spectrum of UN related topics as representative to the UN for three Canadian non-governmental agencies (NGOs). The reports were written for The United Nations Association of Canada, which in collaboration with the World Federation of United Nations Associations published the book’s original edition in 2001. He is also representative to the UN for Pugwash, a group founded on the anti-nuclear manifesto written by Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell in the 1950s and for the Group of 78, Canadian citizens concerned with global peace and disarmament. UNICEF’s objectives in relation to the Millennium Development Goals listed in the UU-UNO article in this issue were mentioned frequently when I spoke with Newton. He said, concerning health care, that by the target date 2015, the death rate of children worldwide under five will be reduced by two thirds through education, prenatal care and immunization to eradicate preventable disease. Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are the areas most affected by HIV/AIDS. A massive attack on the disease and efforts to reduce the huge number of orphans resulting from this scourge have been launched. Marked reduction in the number of children exploited as child laborers, in child trafficking and in military service will be attained, and primary school education will be available and compulsory worldwide. Newton is enthusiastic about the Millennium Goals and Kofi Annan’s leadership role in them. “The goals set forth are attainable,” he said. He also concurs with the Secretary General’s proposal to review and readjust the structure and function of the Security Council and General Assembly to better suit a new world order. In the Report, Annan recognizes the importance of NGO’s and plans to encourage greater participation. Newton believes these and other recommendations Annan has made will build a stronger more effective world body. Newton’s office was at one time in the visionary group of buildings that comprise the UN World Headquarters designed more than sixty years ago by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Now UNICEF has its own building across the street from the UN. At one time, he traveled extensively for UNICEF. He continues to frequent the airlines to fulfill lecture commitments on a range of topics concerning the UN. During his distinguished career, he has received many awards and honors. He received Canada’s highest award, the Order of Canada, in 2002. World War II broke out while Newton was writing his doctoral dissertation on the History of Ideas at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. He was studying on a Johns Hopkins Presidents’ Fellowship that he had to forego, along with a career in academia, when he left the university to serve with the British War Services China Desk. In 1946, he spent two years assisting war refugees in China. He supervised 2,000 UNRRA relief workers who brought supplies across battle lines. President Franklin D. Roosevelt organized UNRRA, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, in 1943. The agency was a coalition of 44 nations pledged to assist World War II refugees. China was familiar territory for Newton. He was born in Chengdu, Szechuan Province, and spent his first ten years there. His father, an ordained Methodist minister who grew up in a college-educated family of farmers near Toronto, went to China in 1906 as a missionary. Rev. Bowles met his future wife in China. She was the daughter of a well-to-do Canadian family. She returned to Canada after a grand tour of Europe with family and decided to train as a nurse. A visionary, she set sail for China to care for the Chinese people injured and displaced after the Boxer Rebellion. This was a courageous decision, particularly for the time. Such independence was unknown in her circle. In the November/December, 1995 issue of Peace Magazine, Newton writes that peace cannot be maintained by soldiers in the field. In the article he argues that, “The biggest world problems,” must first be recognized and solved. The tantamount problems he presents are: 1) Poverty—especially in South Asia and Africa, 2) Uncontrolled population growth, 3) Environment—“reckless depletion of the world’s resources,” 4) Anarchy—“lack of an international legal system and enforcement mechanism,” 5) Tyranny—brutal human rights violations, 6) Xenophobia—“mass paranoia, the widespread cause of irrational behavior.” He continues, “The international community has begun to see these problems as the pervasive sources of conflict.” Moreover, he writes that experts are beginning to realize the psychological and pathological determinants that lead to war. In an address at Columbia University in March of 2005, marking the sixtieth anniversary of the United Nations he said, “The United Nations is built on whatever rationality there is in political life. Creating the UN was an act of faith in the face of bloody history. … Feeling responsible opens the door to hope and faith and compassion—the weapons of mass construction.” In June 2005, in a paper presented to the Academic Council on the United Nations System in Ottawa, Newton elaborated on the xenophobia/paranoia problem. Since the end of the Cold War, many civil wars have occurred, as, for example, in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. The faction leaders were shortsighted beyond and even within their national borders. They divided fellow citizens on the basis of ethnicity or religious, cultural and tribal differences. They committed horrific crimes against their countrymen. Now that an International Criminal Court has been established with Security Council approval, there will be an arena governed by international law to try and punish barbaric warlords. This development was enthusiastically received by Newton. Newton recalled a recent UN success, the eradication of Smallpox, substantially reducing the mortality rate for children under five. In part, this is due to funding from private sources such as the Gates Foundation. UNICEF, he said, routinely works in partnership with government agencies, other UN agencies such as the World Health Organization and NGOs. This includes academic institutions, foundations, corporations religious groups, and consultants. “The tasks,” he said, “are too large for one organization.” UNICEF and the United Nations remain a major part of Newton’s schedule but he has many other interests. The first thing I noticed when I entered his apartment was stacks and stacks of canvasses along the corridor walls. Naively, I inquired, “Are you a collector?” “No,” he responded kindly, “I am a painter.” Indeed he is! The work I saw was mostly abstract paintings and some watercolors, all very accomplished. “Painting is a lifelong interest,” Newton said. He has exhibited at galleries in the United States and Canada. Next fall, he expects to have an exhibition at the O.K. Harris Gallery in SoHo. Newton gave up long distance running at age seventy on the advice of his doctor because of knee problems. He is a voracious reader. His bookshelves are bursting with books on multiple topics. The living room of his terraced apartment has a grand piano that I suspect he plays well and in a corner near a window, is a racing bike he no longer uses. Since he gave up running, he works out at the 92nd Street Y. He is a published poet and admires the work of Robert Lowell. Known to his intimate friends and family as Rowell (his middle name), he uses Newton in his professional life. He claims to have been “allergic” to church most of his life. He confessed that his values and conduct are rooted in the Protestant ethic and for this, he owes much to his parents. Last year, he became a member of All Souls. It was his destiny. In 1970, he was married at All Souls by the late Dr. Kring, Dr. Church’s predecessor as Senior Minister, to his wife of thirty years, Jean, who sadly died a few years ago. One of his nieces, Lisa Presley, is a Unitarian minister. “All Souls has become an important part of my life,” he said. Fiercely independent, an original thinker, a man of many talents, clear thinking and witty in written language and in the spoken word, Newton Rowell Bowles is a gifted man—a model humanitarian and peacemaker.