When former Czech president Vaclav Havel arrived at Columbia University to begin a seven-week residency, Julie Bosman reports, awareness was not exactly high. Gregory Mosher, the director of Columbia’s Arts Initiative, which brought Havel to the university, put it more bluntly. “They had no idea who he is,” Mosher said. “They heard the name and thought he was a hockey player.”
Not anymore. Havel, nearing the end of his residency this Friday, has successfully introduced himself to a group of students schooled in terrorism and 9/11, not communism and the Velvet Revolution. He has starred in lectures and discussions at Columbia, most notably with another member of what could be called the former presidents’ club, Bill Clinton, whose Harlem offices are blocks away from campus. Oh and he’s putting in lots of pre-pub miles in promoting his upcoming memoir, which Knopf publishes in May. Among the revelations? His change of heart on the Iraq War, which he once supported and now calls a “fiasco.” But when asked about his opinions of President Bush now, Havel demurs. “I will just say that you have the president that you elected.”