John Pearson ’01, a Protocol Officer in Washington, D.C., helped coordinate President of the People’s Republic of China Hu Jintao’s recent visit to the United States on 20 April 2006. As a Protocol Officer, Pearson arranges visits of world leaders to the United States, working under the official representative of President George W. Bush ’64. After graduating from Phillips Academy, Pearson went on to attend Hamilton College. There, he laid a foundation for a career in politics, majoring in Government and Communications. He wrote his senior thesis on Presidential Communication Strategies. During his junior year at Hamilton, Pearson interned at the White House Office of Political Affairs. After his internship, Pearson was able to begin interviewing for jobs with the Administration immediately after graduating from Hamilton College last May The Phillipian spoke to. Pearson to hear his inside perspective on recent political occurences, as well as to learn about his experiences after Andover. What exactly is your role as a Protocol Officer? I work in the office of the Chief of Protocol (COP), who is basically the president’s personal representative to the rest of the world, especially foreign dignitaries when they come to the US, or foreign ambassadors in the US. The COP represents the president in a number of fashions, whether attending various events with these world leaders, or making sure their visits to the US go without any problems. Our office coordinates with the Secret Service and the White House to make sure they have appropriate levels of protection, and that the world leader gets to where he needs to be in a timely and safe fashion. What are your main responsibilities? I’m assigned to various world leaders. For example, the King of Jordan [Abdullah II] was here a couple of months ago, and I was assigned to his visit. I worked closely with his staff and the embassy in Washington. We made sure he did everything he needed to do, and was prepared for his meetings. [I did] basically anything that went into planning the visit. Recently President Hu came to the White House. Were you involved with his visit? Yes, our office was actually heavily involved with his visit to the White House. We did everything from making sure that when he arrived in the US he was greeted at the airport. We made sure he was happy, and that he had enough rooms at Blaire House, which is the president’s official guesthouse. We made the attitude and atmosphere as positive as it can be. What was the purpose of President Hu’s visit? The purpose of any world leader’s visit is to highlight the good relations between their country and the country he or she is visiting, and also to focus on anything that needs some tweaking in the relation. Like if they don’t agree with our policy of free speech, we’d try to find some common ground. An activist interrupted President Hu’s speech, do you know why exactly this occured? The protesters were actually protesting Falun Gong, a movement in China against the supposed human rights by the Chinese government to quell free speech. And she was just protesting the various human rights policies that she disagreed with. Although she was a legitimate member of the press, we obviously didn’t know she was going to protest. She was basically yelling at the top of her lungs in Chinese and English, telling him what she thought of his policies….Making a scene, in an other words. What were your experiences like at Phillips Academy? Well, they were very interesting. I was in Stearns all three years. I was also on the tennis team and football team. Football actually won the championship my upper year. I definitely had a lot of fun at Andover. Did you always know you wanted to be involved in politics? I’ve always been interested in the presidency and presidential power, but I never thought I’d get involved in politics in the same way I am now. But yes, current politics has always been a passion of mine. How did Phillips Academy help you prepare for your current career? PA taught me to study hard and to keep my eye on the ball. It taught me to be able to multitask, which is vital especially in politics where things can happen at the blink of an eye and you need to be able to react quickly.
