Former Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury and White House Chief of Staff James Baker III, spoke to a standing-room-only crowd in Foxcroft School's Engelhard Activities Building on Monday, April 27. On the eve of his 79th birthday (the audience sang, the surprised former Secretary smiled and blushed) Baker spoke at length and took questions for nearly half an hour from some 450 students, parents, and distinguished guests attending Foxcroft's annual Alison Harrison Goodyear lecture.

Baker's prepared remarks, delivered in honor of 1945 Foxcroft graduate Anne L. Armstrong, touched on Ms Armstrong's record of national service and her long history of leadership in an era in which leadership roles for women often required taking by storm.

In both prepared and off-the-cuff remarks, he covered a cabinet-member's check list of current affairs, including foreign policy issues and the stumbling economy.

Foxcroft students came prepared with a long list of often pointed questions. Baker spoke to them all with genuine grace and style, including an improptu, onstage, whispered, question-clarification conference with a student who'd asked a particularly insightful question about government policy and the roots of war and peace that Baker had not been able to hear.

Noting that he disagreed with much of President Obama's approach to domestic affairs, Baker praised the new President's approach to foreign policy, his intelligence and style. He defined leadership simply: as "knowing what to do" and then "doing it."

Asked to apply those standards to the Bush administration, Baker focused on the "execution" side of the equation, with special focus on problems with the war and diplomacy.

Democrats and Republicans in the crowd spoke highly of both Baker's performance and his truly generous contribution of time and energy on Foxcroft's behalf.

James Baker came to Virginia prepared, and with few if any exceptions, his audience seemed to agree with Foxcroft's Head of School Mary Louise Leipheimer, that his presentation was "magical."