Commander United States Pacific Command, Admiral William J. Fallon to deliver Georgetown University's Peter Tali Coleman Lecture
March 21, 2006

Reprinted from Samoa News

WASHINGTON D.C. Admiral William J. Fallon, the Commander of the Honolulu-based United States Pacific Command will deliver the third Peter Tali Coleman Lecture in Pacific Public Policy at Georgetown University at 11:00 A.M. on Wednesday, April 5. Admiral Fallon, whose military responsibilities encompass the entire Indian and Pacific oceans, will speak on "Challenges in the Pacific Region."

"I am so pleased Admiral Fallon has agreed to deliver the Coleman Lecture this year," said Aumua Amata, daughter of the late American Samoa Governor Peter Tali Coleman, for whom the lecture is named.

"With a major worldwide redeployment of U.S. military forces in motion that underscores the increasing importance of the Pacific region in international geopolitical affairs," continued Amata, "Admiral Fallon's remarks will be enormously timely."

The Coleman Lecture, which is a component of the Georgetown Pacific Project administered jointly by the Foreign Service School's Center for Australia and New Zealand Studies and its Asia Studies Program, honors the memory of the late governor, a graduate of both Georgetown's undergraduate college (1949) and law school (1951).

According to the National Governors Association, Coleman, whose four terms between 1956 and 1993 made him not only the only governor whose service has spanned five decades, but also the second longest serving governor in American history. He died in 1997.

The Georgetown Pacific Project was established in the School of Foreign Service in 1998 with the assistance of the Pacific Basin Development Council, The Micronesia Institute and the Council of Micronesian Chief Executives.

An endowment was created through initial major donations from the governments of American Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands as well as Duty Free Shoppers, Ltd, and Mr. Robert W. O'Connor, a business executive with commercial establishments on Guam and Saipan.

Admiral Fallon's lecture will be the third in the Coleman series. The inaugural lecture was delivered in 2002 by The Right Honorable Misa Telefoni Retzlaff, Deputy Prime Minister of Samoa and Chairman of the World Bank's Small States Forum. Mr. Matthew Daley, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and the Pacific, delivered the second lecture in 2004.

DPM Misa's lecture was introduced by retired Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr., forman Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and former U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain. Admiral Crowe also is chairman of the Coleman Lecture advisory committee. Mr. Daley's lecture was introduced by then-Northern Mariana Islands Governor Juan N. Babauta.

A luncheon reception will follow the lecture, which will be delivered in the historical Old North Building on the University's main campus. The oldest building on campus, Old North has hosted thirteen U.S. presidents over the course of its existence, beginning with George Washington in 1797.