New NATO minister has an issue in Hatboro

Kurt D. Volker, the new American ambassador to NATO, has many things big and small on his mind these days: the Russian invasion of Georgia, the war in Afghanistan, and the fate of a quilt that hangs in the borough hall of Hatboro, Pa., U.S.A.

Volker, a career foreign service officer and a native of the Montgomery County borough, took over as America's representative to NATO last month, just in time for the North Atlantic alliance to become engulfed in an explosive crisis unfolding in the former Soviet state of Georgia.

"It's been an exciting time since I arrived here," Volker, 43, said yesterday in a telephone interview from NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

While Volker is negotiating with his European counterparts over a response to the Russian military actions in Georgia - NATO foreign ministers will meet Tuesday in Brussels at Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's request - Volker is keeping an eye on a smaller diplomatic brouhaha he triggered in his hometown.

On Monday, the Hatboro Borough Council debated Volker's request to borrow a 42-square-foot quilt depicting the town's historical sites so that it could hang in the ambassador's residence in Brussels. The work, which was stitched together by a Hatboro women's club in 1976, would be lent under the State Department's Art in Embassies program, which displays American works around the world.

"As ambassador to NATO, I will receive thousands of visitors per year at my residence," Volker said in a letter to the council. "In addition to being an honor (and great advertisement) for Hatboro itself, the quilt would speak to all our visitors about our country - our history, our pride, our diversity - and the fact that America is a nation built on the hope and hard work of good people in towns small and large."

Not everyone in Hatboro was enamored. Some members of the former Crooked Billet Women's Club, which created the quilt in an effort to save the building that is now the borough hall, expressed reservations that the quilt they put their hearts into making would be damaged during its overseas journey.

"I have nothing against Kurt. I watched him grow up, and he's a very talented man," said Helen Bevan, 75, one of 42 women who each stitched a scene in the quilt. "I just thought it should stay in its place."

The council is scheduled to vote on the request Aug. 25, and Bevan believes it almost certainly will agree to send the quilt to Europe. "I think it will go," she said. "I just hope it comes back."

For Volker, who attended Pennypack Elementary School and Hatboro-Horsham Senior High School, the quilt contains a lot of memories.

His mother, Thelma, stitched one of the panels. Volker thought the item would make an eloquent counterpoint to the image he said many Europeans hold of America as an aggressive, arrogant power.

"It just shows a nice side of America and starts a different conversation about what America is like," said the ambassador.

"It's not what people traditionally think of - it's not an Andrew Wyeth painting - but it's a piece of folk art, and it shows things about real people."

Volker's appointment to NATO is his first ambassadorial posting, but he has extensive experience in the diplomatic corps, mostly in Europe.

As a high school student, Volker was introduced to international affairs when his father, Ben, a math instructor at Bucks County Community College and a long-time member of the local school board, suggested he consider spending his senior year abroad in the Rotary Youth Exchange. (Volker's parents are retired to Florida.)

Volker spent the year in Sweden, learning a new language and experiencing a new culture. He was so taken with foreign affairs that, after graduating in 1982 and entering Temple University, he persuaded his professors to create a major in international affairs, combining studies in political science, economics, history and language. His coursework included a stint in France.

Volker got his master's degree in international relations from George Washington University, where he met his wife, Karen, who is also a diplomat. They have two daughters.

In addition to assignments to the embassies in London and Budapest, Volker served as a State Department Legislative Fellow in the U.S. Senate from 1997 to 1998, working on foreign-policy matters for Arizona Sen. John McCain "before he became much more prominent."

After his year in the Senate, Volker became the first secretary of the U.S. Mission to NATO, then spent two years as an aide to then-NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson.

He served four years in various positions at the National Security Council, and was on the small staff that helped Rice make the transition from national security adviser to secretary of state. Since 2005, he was principal deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs.

For the moment, he is occupied with the Russian engagement in Georgia.

"We've made it very clear, in a situation in which Russia is involved militarily in the sovereign territory of a neighbor, there can't be business as usual with Russia."