Home > Berlin, Meet William Timken
By Charles Hawley in Berlin
America’s new ambassador to Germany, William R. Timken Jr., introduced himself to Berlin’s press corps on Tuesday. While many in Germany have been critical of Timken’s big business past, Hurricane Katrina was talking point number one.
In September 2001, one of newly appointed German Ambassador Daniel Coats’s first official duties was to accept German aid and solidarity offered in the wake of the devastating terror attacks in New York and Washington.
Fast forward to this autumn, and it looks like the drama of four years ago is being re-enacted. On Tuesday afternoon in Berlin, the new US Ambassador to Germany, businessman William R. Timken, Jr., held his first press conference in his new post and, as Coat’s did before him, spent much of it addressing the latest catastrophe to hit the United States: Hurricane Katrina.
"Yesterday," Timken, 66, said to the gathered journalists, "I passed on a letter from the president, addressed to Chancellor Schröder, thanking the German people and the German government, on behalf of all Americans, for their assistance in the ongoing relief efforts in the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina." Specifically, he was referring to Germany’s having opened up it’s strategic oil reserves for the US and the sending of two Airbus jumbos chock full of food and other supplies to the Gulf Coast.
In a way, the disastrous diversion was heaven-sent for Timken. After all, his appointment to Berlin has not exactly been uncontroversial. For one, many Teutonic eyebrows have been raised by the impression that Timken only got his job by being one of President George W. Bush’s many "Super Rangers," a somewhat hokey Bushism designating those who have raised at least $300,000 for the Grand Old Party.
More sensitive for many here in Germany, however, are the allegations that Timken’s company, Ohio-based roller-bearing manufacturer The Timken Company, profited massively from protective tariffs which kept European competitors — many of whom are based in Germany — out of the American market. Jürgen Geissinger, president the European Bearing Manufacturers Association, complained in late July about the appointment. "Timken, one of the biggest beneficiaries of a trade policy that violates (a 2003 WTO ruling), has been named ambassador to a country whose businesses suffer as a result of this policy."
But on Tuesday, there was little mood to skewer Timken for his four-decades worth of big business background. Instead, reporters gave him free rein to toe the Washington line which has, ever since Bush’s back-slapping visit to Mainz in February, sought to emphasize the health of trans-Atlantic cooperation. The cooperation agreed on by Schröder and Bush, said Timken, "has created the umbrella under which we will do our work." He also sought to emphasize the decades of friendship that have characterized relations between the US and Germany.
Given the deep differences between the US and Old Europe on the Iraq war, the effort at patching up the hard feelings still seems somewhat forced. And on Tuesday, some of that friction seemed just below the surface. Last week, the German Minister of the Environment Jürgen Trittin wrote an opinion piece heavily criticizing US environmental policy — suggesting that US’s comparative inaction on global warming had contributed to the strength of Hurricane Katrina — even as the storm’s victims were still suffering greatly. When asked about climate change, Timken said, "I would hope people are far more concerned about the people suffering, who have lost family members and houses, than about getting into scientific arguments that go on and on."
Timken was nominated as US Ambassador to Germany on July 19 and was sworn in on Aug. 15 to take over his first-ever diplomatic posting.
Asked whether he felt his financial support of Bush’s campaign played a role in his appointment, Timken said he felt eminently qualified to do the job. Perhaps revealing a bit of political greenness, however, he then went on to actually answer the question. "Obviously," he said referring to Bush, "if I hadn’t been involved in politics, I wouldn’t have come to his attention."