David Speedie: A high-achieving Scot who made his mark on world

ANDREW Carnegie’s philanthropy is well known around the world. Libraries, halls and even public parks in his native Dunfermline testify to that. What’s less well known is his opposition to war and the legacy he left to promote global peace and understanding.

The Carnegie Council of New York stands at the centre of that work and integral to that organisation for decades was an unassuming but high-achieving Scot, David Speedie.

He chaired the Programme on International Peace and Security from 1992 to 2007 and was then Senior Fellow on US Global Engagement at the sister organisation, the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs from 2007 to 2017.

His tenure there covered the fallout from the collapse of the Soviet Union and saw him involved at the highest levels in international affairs and domestic American politics – making him well-known or even on first-name terms with many international leaders and senior politicians across the globe

Born in Stirling in 1946, David Speedie grew up in nearby Bridge of Allan, and was the archetypal Scottish lad o’pairts. His grandfather was a Sergeant Major in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders but when he died, his father, also David, required to give up a legal apprenticeship and take employment as an electrician.

Marrying Catherine from the Hamilton area, life wasn’t easy for the family, with business failures and numerous house flits. But despite that, both he and his two brothers would all be high achievers. He was the first in the family to go to university when he went to St Andrews to study English Language and Literature, and needless to say gained a first-class honours degree.

A postgraduate degree and some lecturing at St Andrews was followed by a Kennedy Scholarship to Harvard. There he studied alongside the likes of Mervyn King, the former chair of the Bank of England, and from a selection panel chaired by the philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin. It was on this early sojourn that he met an American girl, Eveline, who he would marry and be his lifelong partner until her death in 2016.

A brief return to Scotland saw him lecturing at Telford College during the day and at night at Saughton Prison. Evidence if ever there was that David had no airs or graces and could mix easily in any company. The rank for him, as Burns said, “was but the guinea’s stamp”.

Returning to the US, he briefly worked for the British Embassy in Washington DC before moving to Philadelphia, becoming the city’s director of cultural affairs.

However, then moving to the Carnegie Council, it was there that he found his forte, striving for global peace and understanding. Working his way up from being a programme officer in the Co-operative Security Programme to being the programme chair.

These were both interesting and dangerous times, stretching from the dark days of the Cold War to the fractious world following the Soviet Union’s collapse. Arms control as weapons of mass destruction threatened humanity, followed by regulating and monitoring nuclear and chemical stockpiles, all as new fields of conflict evolved.

David humorously recalled meetings in The Hague on Chechnya. Noting that he was Scottish, the Chechen delegation, dressed in full battle regalia, told him that their leader Maskhadov was a huge fan of “Braveheart” which had just gone global and he had seen it 10 times. David sagely advised that it wasn’t the example to follow.

As the world’s focus changed, David was moved from being – as he described it – a “Sovietologist” to becoming project director on Islam and special adviser to the president of the Council.

Upon his retiral, he remained involved in peace and politics, writing, lecturing and on the board of The American Committee for US-Russia Accord which sought to lessen tensions between the two great powers. He also assisted the efforts of Rust Belt Rising, a Democrat organisation which sought to get the party and movement back and reconnected with its grassroots.

Though settled in the US, David never forgot his native land, retaining both his accent and an affection for football throughout his life. His uncle Finlay Speedie had played for Rangers but he was friendly with George O’Neill, a former Celtic player who had also moved across the Atlantic.

David had been the Labour agent when Sir Alec Douglas-Home was parachuted into West Perthshire and Kinross to become prime minister. In his later years, though, he became a great supporter of Scottish independence, facilitating Alex Salmond’s talk at the Carnegie Council and being wise counsel to myself and others in the Alba Party.

David passed away in North Carolina on October 2, survived by his son David, granddaughter llsa and brothers Alan and Denis. As the US-Russia Accord website recorded: “Those who knew David will remember him not only as a brilliant man but as a decent and empathetic one.”

[This was first published in The Sunday National]