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Esalen History International Relations 1981-1987: six conferences on "Citizen Diplomacy" organized first by James Hickman and subsequently by James Garrison. During the first of these conferences, Joseph Montville coined the term "track-two diplomacy" to refer to private-sector initiatives between Soviets and Americans that supplemented formal diplomatic channels. Participants: James Hickman, Joseph Montville, Jay Ogilvy, John Marks, Michael Murphy, Dulce Murphy, Peter Schwartz, and David Harris. The first conference provided John Marks with his primary inspiration for the creation of the NGO Search for Common Ground in 1982, which now has offices in Washington, Brussels, Amman, Bujumbura, Gaza City, Kiev, Luanda, Monrovia, and Skopje. This group engages in creative conflict-reducing and bridge-building activities in many of the world's most troubled zones.
1982: pioneered the first spacebridges, allowing Soviet and American citizens to speak directly with one another via satellite communication. These spacebridges inspired subsequent satellite teleconferences between Soviets and Americans, including an ongoing Congress-to-Supreme Soviet teleconference.
1983-1987: four conferences, entitled the Erik Erikson Symposia, on the political psychology of Soviet-American relations with career diplomat Joseph Montville and psychologists Erik and Joan Erikson. Participants: the eminent historian James McGregor Burns, diplomat Joseph Montville, John Mack, Charles Lindbloom, political psychologist Vamik Volkan, theologian Harvey Cox, psychologist Erik Erikson, philosopher Sam Keen, and psychologist James Hillman. Many participants were members of the Political Psychology Society and through Andre Melville, prominent Soviet delegate to that society, their reflections on the psychodynamics of the relationship between the superpowers were transmitted to high levels of the Soviet bureaucracy. Effects: 1) James Blight attended one meeting and was inspired to take a similar psychodynamic approach to the Cuban missile crisis, which resulted in several books and a PBS documentary. 2) Joseph Montville edited a special edition of the Journal of Political Psychology called "A Notebook on the Psychology of the U.S.-Soviet relationship." 3) John Mack, a Pulitzer Prize-winning psychoanalyst at Harvard, set up his own research center called The Center for Psychology and Social Change, influenced by Esalen work. 4) Vamik Volkan, professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia medical school, created the Center for the Study of Mind and Human Interaction at UVA.
1983: co-sponsored a conference entitled "Faces of the Enemy." Speakers, including Sam Keen, Ashley Montagu, Robert Bly, and Soviet diplomat Valentin Berezhkov, discussed the psychology and politics of enmity, propaganda, and projection. Keen's book Faces of the Enemy, destined to become a classic in the field, was influenced by this conference.
1984: meetings between Dulce and Michael Murphy and the leaders of the Soviet Writers' Union eventually led to its joining the International Pen Club.
1985: helped create the Association of Space Explorers with astronaut Rusty Schweickert, the first forum in which Russian and American astronauts and cosmonauts could share their experiences in space and their hopes for the future of space exploration.
1985: signed one of the first agreements between an American private-sector group and the USSR Ministry of Health, brokered by Dulce Murphy. This agreement facilitated work in the areas of health promotion, productivity in the work place, and non-pharmacological methods of treating disease and stress.
1986: co-produced a spacebridge on Chernobyl and Three Mile Island with the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the USSR Academy of Sciences.
1986: major delegation of Soviet writers toured the United States under the auspices of the Soviet-American exchange program.
1987: convened a conference on "Sino-American Dialogues on Social and Economic Transformation" led by James Garrison.
1988: hosted Academician Abel Aganbegyan for his first visit to the United States as one of Gorbachev's chief economic advisors. This led to the development of a management training program in Moscow with senior executives from across the Soviet Union.
1988: sponsored the first Russian conference on psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), an interdisciplinary field concerned with the relationship between psychological processes and the functioning of the immune system. Inspired by Dulce Murphy, this conference led to productive Russian-American collaborative research in the field and to a follow-up conference, held in 1991 at Leningrad's Institute for Experimental Medicine.
1989: coordinated, in conjunction with the United States-based International Center for Economic Growth and Moscow State University, a conference called "Entrepreneurship in the World Economy."
1989: hosted Boris Yeltsin on his first trip to the United States. Esalen arranged meetings for Mr. Yeltsin with President Bush, former President Reagan, and many leaders in business and government.
1990: conducted the Furth Ruble Prize, an international competition for the best proposal offering a practical solution to the question of ruble convertibility in international trade. Award recipients were chosen by a panel of Soviet and American scholars, including Abel Aganbegyan, Joseph Brada, Ed Hewett, and Nobel Laureate Wassily Leontief.
1992: organized a conference in Moscow to address the resurgence and persistence of neo-Bolshevism in Russian society. Russian and American participants confronted the Bolshevist mentality and discussed ways to embrace democratic pluralism rather than totalitarianism.
1992: played an instrumental role in a conference, held at the Vatican in Rome, to raise awareness of the emotional and physical needs of people with disabilities.
1993: hosted a major conference at Stanford University, entitled "Toward the Further Reaches of Sport Psychology," in which prominent coaches, athletes, and sport psychologists from the former Soviet republics and the United States discussed current trends in theoretical and applied sport psychology.
1994: The Russian-American Center became a separate 501 c-3, although it remains in close collaboration with Esalen.
1994: sponsored an ethnic conflict resolution conference in Washington, DC to influence the political climate in Russia. Civil liberties and civil rights in a democratic society were addressed.
1995: continued to work with Chernobyl Children's Project. With assistance from TRAC, children from the areas affected by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and American peers worked together to develop new skills, confidence, and lasting personal relationships.
1995: sponsored twelve Russian teenage tennis players from Russia’s Far East for tournaments with counterparts from the United States Tennis Association NorCal and the National Junior Tennis League.
1996: sponsored fourteen high ranked young tennis players from Northern California to the Russian Far East to compete with their counter-parts in Khabarovsk and Vladivostok.
1996: conducted a leadership conference at Esalen, Big Sur, California, which developed alternative scenarios for the future of Russian- American relations.
1996: initiated a program with Lindisfarne Press to publish English language editions of major Russian philosophers, including Solovyov, Berdyaev, Bulgakov.
1996: participated in the Forbes Management Forum of Management and Policy in San Diego. V. Pozner, Mark Garber, Jay Ogilvy, Dulce Murphy – Vladimir’s speech titled – "Russia: American’s Blind Spot" was the theme of TRAC’s panel presentation to several hundred business managers.
1996: established the Library of Psychological Literature at Moscow State University.
1997: began the Historical Reflections Project. Filmed interviews with Russian and Americans who have participated in important ways in the transition from the end of the Cold War to the beginnings of democratic governance and a free market economy.
1997: inaugurated the First Benefit Conference week entitled Russian-American Dialogues at Esalen Institute. A highlight was the lecture by Russian scholar Valentin Berezhkov who talked about his personal experiences during the war years. He was Stalin’s interpreter and was present at many of the major meetings, including Tehran, with Stalin, Hitler, Roosevelt, Churchill and other world leaders that changed the course of world history.
1997: published the first in a series of monographs entitled Future Scenarios On Russian-American Relations. These scenarios highlight the risks and opportunities inherent in possible post Cold War outcomes for Russia and the United States.
1998: sponsored the second annual TRAC Benefit Conference. The theme was "Russia in Crisis," held in Pebble Beach, California.
1998: sponsored a summer salon in Moscow at the Kapitsa Dacha (country house) that continued work on the Historical Reflections Project and the Memorial Library of Psychological Literature.
1999: co-sponsored the third annual TRAC Benefit Conference with the Global Business Network (GBN), a world-wide organization that specializes in futures research and scenario planning. The program theme was "Futures For Russia." All presentations were filmed for inclusion in the archive of our Historical Reflections Project.
1999: developed a project with Abamedia on its Historical Reflections media project, which includes a TRAC website, film interviews with major contributors to Russian and Russian-American oral histories, and archival research that will eventually become part of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
1999: co-sponsored the "Ballet Beyond Borders" project with the Russian Cultural Fund in Moscow. Leading Russian and American dancers of the San Francisco Ballet toured the former Soviet Union, performing in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Donetsk, Ufa, Kiev, L’viv, Alma Aty, Tallin and Vilnius.
2000: dedicated the Viatcheslav Loutchkov Library of Psychological Literature on September 19 at Moscow State University. The American Ambassador James Collins, the President of Moscow State University, and other prominent Russian academicians spoke at the event.
2000: organized a lecture by TRAC Board member Mac McQuown at the Academy of the National Economy in Moscow to an important group of Russian Bankers and Investment Specialists.
2000: psychologist and author Gordon Wheeler and Esalen Institute founder and chairman Michael Murphy lectured to students and faculty at the Moscow State University Psychology Department.
2000: helped coordinate the inaugural program to Russia of Students of the World (SOW), a project developed by Duke University students to immerse themselves as curious, eager and open architects of the future.
2001: sponsored a conference in early October, soon after the September 11th disaster, with an interdisciplinary group of Russians, Americans and Central Asians, to promote solidarity between Russia and America, to eliminate terrorism and address Muslim conflicts with the West.
2001: participated in the first phase of an exchange of computer technologists and archivists from Russia, at the University of Texas in Austin, and at the headquarters of Abamedia, in Fort Worth, Texas, the home of the Russian Archives Online (RAO).
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