William R. Richardson: “This is a great honor for me, especially when I see so many friends. I served 14 years in the House, and I think I have…”

“This is a great honor for me, especially when I see so many friends. I served 14 years in the House, and I think I have served with about 70 percent of you... But really, in my 14 years, I felt that through this travel is where you get to know people from both sides of the aisle, where true bipartisanship... whenever we bonded together on some of these trips... she could not understand why there were such differences between the two parties, when as Americans we were very much together. Let me just say that at the United Nations, it is a challenge. But if I brought some skills to the United Nations, they were skills that I learned right here as a Member of the House, skills of negotiating, of relating to each other... This is where you learn to negotiate and deal with people and cut deals and relate and extricate things from somebody else. At the same time, the camaraderie, the collegiality we had as Members, is something that I know we will never forget. So I am very humbled in getting this award.”