“I watched the camouflaged military jeep drive up with a soldier at the wheel and two more in the backseat… The moment we drove away from the Panama Hilton, the soldier sitting behind me slipped a blindfold over my eyes.”

And so begins the autobiography of Ambassador Eric M. Javits.

Son of attorney and author Benjamin Javits and nephew of former U.S. Senator Jacob Javits (R-NY), he has lived his own fascinating and fulfilling life, chronicled by his aptly titled book, Twists and Turns. Javits has had a unique window into international affairs. He has been blindfolded en route to negotiations in Central America. He was nominated and unanimously confirmed as U.S. Permanent Representative and Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and, later, to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague.  Despite the globetrotting, he’s always kept a keen eye on what’s happening here at home.

“My father was conservative, Republican. He wrote a lot of books and enunciated his principles very clearly to me growing up,” says Javits.

As the cycle all too often goes, the senior Javits experienced his own philosophical transformation as education and experience helped change his views over time. Javits recalls, “My father started out as a Socialist, and by the time he had to actually make a living, he was a Capitalist.”

Of course, in a family so involved in politics and policy in New York City, Javits had many opportunities to see the political system at work. The family became Republican when his father and uncle revolted against the political machine their grandfather was part of as a Tammany Hall ward heeler.

Like his father, Javits’ political views have evolved over time. He used to describe himself as a more moderate or liberal Republican, but he has realized that ever-growing government has the same effect on states as it does on individuals. Javits recognizes the deep attraction of accepting federal money “unless there is a group spirit to resist it, which is something I think SPN is in the best position to organize because you’re the communication network for this group of state governments. They won’t get together and they won’t be inspired as a group to work together without that kind of network knitting them together.”

When asked if there was a moment that crystallized his realization of the harmful effects of expanding federal government, Javits points to the man who inspired SPN’s own founding: “I wasn’t excited at the time by Barry Goldwater as much as Ronald Reagan. Deregulation was something that Reagan was very strong on. I think that basically allowed the states to get off the floor and begin to energize themselves.”

Javits sees an America where freedom is increasingly under assault and where the work of SPN and its thriving interstate network of leaders and organizations in every state is critical. “Strengthening the states is creating 50 allies against the federal government,” he says. “Each one does it in their own way, which is also an expression of freedom.”

As he surveys the political landscape, Javits finds something very special in what SPN does: “It’s something that no other organization that I know of can do as effectively because they’re all either think tanks or policy groups or even more limited, and they don’t reach out across all the states and knit them together. It just doesn’t happen except through SPN.”

Despite the challenges our country faces, Javits, who is now a grandfather himself, sees hope for the future of the country. “Freedom and liberty are the most exciting qualities that people can be inspired by, until they realize that that doesn’t come free.”

He’s committed to this fight for the long haul, with his partnership with SPN and a variety of leaders and organizations advancing the ideas of liberty.

“It’s a battle. It’s a constant battle,” Javits believes. “And I think the closer to home you wage that battle, the better off you are. SPN is waging it, I think, very effectively.”