The Savage Way: Successfully Navigating the Waves of Business and Life

Chapter 5

My Journey Deepens

One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them.

—Virginia Woolf

My Crossroads experience made me more fully appreciate how much Howard had opened my intellectual curiosity about the world beyond America’s shores. I could trace my development to a collection of my undergraduate courses and the gifted and dedicated professors, like Rayford Logan and William Leon Hansberry, who taught them. But once back from Africa, I had little more than a week before starting another journey that would bring me closer to my destiny of international finance and being a man comfortable practically anywhere in the world.

My first year at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University was about to begin. It was September 1962. I was living with my wife, Beryl, and our infant son, Eric, in the 22 Bryant Street house with her aunt and uncle. I was ready to focus on my studies and take my understanding of international issues to an even higher level.

I quickly realized that I could not have made a better decision than to attend graduate school at Johns Hopkins; SAIS, as most people referred to it, gave me an in-depth understanding of the forces that drive international relations, namely international politics, economics, culture and language, and its requirements were rigorous.

The school’s location—on Massachusetts Avenue near DuPont Circle in the heart ...