John R. Miller

John Ripin Miller, an American politician, was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1985 to 1993. He represented the 1st congressional district of Washington as a Republican. While in Congress he championed human rights in Russia, China and South Africa.

Miller served as the director, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons for the U.S. State Department, with the rank of Ambassador-at-Large, starting in 2002. He sought to increase public awareness of modern day slavery and nurture a world wide abolitionist movement with the United States in the lead. Miller resigned effective December 15, 2006, to join the faculty of George Washington University. He later taught at Yale University and was named a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Governmental Studies at the University of California in Berkeley.

Miller serves as a distinguished Senior Fellow in international affairs and human rights with the Discovery Institute.

Archives

The Man Who Could Be King

John R. Miller and Bruce Chapman
August 28, 2017
This lecture was recorded as part of Discovery Institute’s Gorton Series Lecture. Former U.S. Congressman John R. Miller discusses his new book The Man Who Could Be King, a historical novel about George Washington’s struggle over whether to heed the call of his officers to become king. Archived August 28, 5:00 pm Event Page at TVW …

The Man Who Could Be King: A Novel

John R. Miller
July 1, 2017
When young Josiah Penn Stockbridge accepts the position as aide-de-camp to George Washington at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, he thinks only of the glory and romance of battle. He is unprepared for the reality of America’s bloody fight for independence. The Continental Army is starving, underpaid, and dangerously close to mutiny, and Washington fights not just to defeat the British but to maintain order and morale among his own men. As anonymous letters by officers calling for revolt circulate through camp in Newburgh, New York, Washington must make a choice: preserve the young republic by keeping civilian control of the military, or reshape the new government by standing in solidarity with his troops and assuming greater power for himself. During one fateful week in …

Why Not a Free-Trade Pact With the U.K.?

John R. Miller
August 11, 2016
The most embarrassing moment I had as a congressman from the 1st District of Washington was in the 1980s when I paid a visit to the then-British ambassador to the U.S., Sir Antony Acland. At a time back in the 80s when the U.S. was considering a free-trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, I suggested a free-trade agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States. The ambassador gently informed me that while it might be a good idea, I was a little late — the U.K.’s membership in the European Union prevented such arrangements outside the EU. Britain, he politely told me, had been forced to cut back on its trade-preference agreements with Commonwealth countries when it joined the EU. The U.K.’s recent vote to exit from the EU creates a U.S.-U.K. trade opportunity anew. …

Guest: President Obama must press for human rights

John R. Miller
February 14, 2015
President Obama concluded visits with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and King Salman of Saudi Arabia with predictable news media queries about whether he had raised specific human-rights cases with his hosts. The president spoke in general terms about human-rights issues when in India and acknowledged he had not raised specific cases in either country, including that of the Saudi blogger who had received a sentence of 1,000 canings for “insulting” Islam. The president said he would raise human-rights cases with Saudi and Indian authorities on other occasions. Leaving aside the question of whether the commemoration of the death of a monarch is an appropriate time to raise such issues, the president’s actions, or non-actions, predictably raised the question once again of how …

FDR’s Failed Moral Leadership

Roosevelt was no humanitarian, despite what presidential historians say.
John R. Miller
December 4, 2012
A new book, Where They Stand, written by National Interest editor Robert W. Merry, shows that American historians consistently list Franklin Delano Roosevelt just behind Lincoln and Washington on their ratings of American presidents. A recent issue of Newsweek lists FDR as the top modern president. Years ago, the Schlesinger Presidential Poll even rated FDR first among all presidents. I believe these judgments cannot be sustained. Correcting them might help Americans clarify what kind of character they want in the presidents they elect. FDR was certainly influential. After all, even if economists on the right and left debate whether it was his stimulus policies or World War II rearmament that finally ended depression era unemployment, FDR certainly bolstered American confidence after the …

Afghanistan: Finally an Opportunity for Plain Talk

John R. Miller
March 26, 2012
The recent unintentional Koran burnings and the mass anti-American demonstrations and killings of four American officers have occasioned not only abject apologies from President Obama and our military commanders but the usual excuses from the American State Department and their foreign policy think tank friends. “We must work harder to gain the trust of our Afghan allies” goes the chorus. But what seems like a setback is not one — it is an opportunity for the United States to deliver a message to the Afghan government and, more importantly, the Afghan people. Imagine if President Obama said the following: These past weeks the American people have watched as thousands of Afghans have demonstrated against the United States and called for us to leave Afghanistan. …

Choosing Our Wars

John R. Miller
July 4, 2011

The U.S. military is the finest in the world. But it won’t remain so if we squander its resources.

The Arab Street Searches for George Washingtons

John R. Miller
May 13, 2011
With all the sympathetic commentary about the chances of setting up republican institutions in revolt-torn Arab countries, one point is so obvious that it is rarely mentioned: Founding leaders of newly democratized states must be willing to give up power. The Middle Eastern dictators who have been or are in danger of being overthrown largely came to power through revolutions, enjoyed initial popular support and mouthed democratic aspirations. Many Arab leaders, excepting the monarchs, followed the example of the United States in setting up post-colonial governments, establishing democratic constitutions, calling their governments “republics” and calling themselves “presidents.” President Ben Ali in Tunisia, site of the first revolt, had been in power for 24 years. …

How the U.S. Solved the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

John R. Miller
August 27, 2010
With the help of prognosticator John R. Miller — former U.S. ambassador-at-large on modern slavery, visiting scholar at the Institute for Government Studies at UC-Berkeley, and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute — we present this memo from the year 2016, which explains what misfortunes might have befallen the Middle East by then. SBU (Sensitive but Unclassified)                    February 20, 2016 Dear Madam Secretary: You have asked for my recommendation on how the United States should respond to the requests for admission into this country of hundreds of thousands of Israeli refugees. You have also asked for my review and assessment of the success of our Middle East peace efforts. …

Obama in the Coils of Foreign Opinion

John R. Miller
June 28, 2010
Pew Research has come out with its latest sampling of international public opinion, espousing the prevailing establishment view: that people in foreign countries like Obama and as a result like the United States — although perhaps not as much as a year ago — and that such opinion benefits us, especially in comparison with the era of George W. Bush. Pew’s own press release declared “Obama More Popular Abroad than at Home, Global Image of U.S. Continues to Benefit.” The New York Times story dutifully quoted Johannes Thimm, described as an expert on American foreign policy at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, that “…it’s remarkable that the general bounce back from the Bush administration in the …

Our Fading National Pastime

John R. Miller
April 6, 2010
The start of a new baseball season always comes with odes to the national pastime. But is it fair to say that baseball still deserves that description? Measured by popularity, participation or skill versus other nations, baseball is arguably an American national pastime whose time is past. Jacques Barzun, the French-born, American cultural historian, once wrote that “Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.” Today Mr. Barzun would have to refer his foreign readers to professional football or even automobile racing, both of which trump baseball in television ratings. Major League owners like to boast that attendance at their games, except for the recent recession, has increased. But with the disappearance of hundreds of minor league and …

The Wrong War

John R. Miller
December 2, 2009
President Obama has finally made up his mind on Afghanistan — sort of. The clear decision and explanation that would either give meaning and rationale to our troops’ efforts or lay the foundation for a reasoned withdrawal has been put off, yet again. It is almost heresy in conservative circles to say that changing circumstances — and not just President Obama’s indecisiveness — make it a good idea to start winding down America’s role in Afghanistan. This is heretical partly because of the noble instinct that if America goes into a war, she should finish it. It is also because the Left incessantly compares Afghanistan to Vietnam; we all realize how shallow this comparison is, so we seek to distance ourselves from the entire line of thought. But the time has come to study another …

Slavery in 2004

John R. Miller
July 2, 2003
Original article John R. Miller, the director of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, is former Chairman of the board of Discovery Institute Do U.S. sanctions move other countries toward progress on human rights? Of one thing I am sure: On the emerging human rights issue of the 21st century — modern-day slavery — the threat of cutting U.S. aid has brought forth efforts that will free thousands from bondage. That slavery exists as we enter 2004 may shock many. Nonetheless, slavery in many forms, particularly sex and forced labor, reaches into almost every country. Sex slavery affects thousands of women and children and has caused trafficking in human beings to become the third-largest source of money for organized crime, after the …

Former Discovery Board Chairman Speaks on New Human Trafficking Report

John R. Miller
October 4, 2002
Original briefing MR. MILLER: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Let me say just a few words and then we’ll get to your questions. More than reports, laws and documents, this is about people, people that have suffered. And for that reason, at this time, I’d like to just take two minutes to show you two public service announcements prepared by the UN with the financial support of the State Department. MR. MILLER: We’re trying to get these shown in as many countries around the world as possible. One quick amendment to those commercials. They were prepared several months ago. I think there is a 700,000 figure. The latest U.S. Government estimate is that 800- to 900,000 people are trafficked across international borders annually, including 18- to 20,000 across the United States …

Forced busing? You’re kidding

John R. Miller
January 19, 2000
A neighbor recently told my wife and me that the Seattle School Board was bringing back forced busing based on race for high schools. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, thinking back to how forced busing brought strife, flight, initiatives and lawsuits decades ago and how John Stanford refocused the schools on educating students instead of busing them all over. Our neighbor assured us she was not kidding at all. “The children in this neighborhood who have gone for decades to nearby Ballard High School won’t be going there anymore.” Now that got my attention. This was no longer an academic matter. I thought of all my friends and neighbors active in supporting Ballard High School over the years and I thought of our own son who in several years may want …