Your majesty, Excellencies, titans of business - good evening. When I spoke to the American Chamber of Commerce in Stockholm a few weeks ago, I introduced myself as the new guy in town. In this group, I think that is still true. The Swedish American Chamber is 100 years old, the King has been reigning over Sweden for 33 years, and Ambassador Olson served more than three years in Stockholm. Even Gunnar Lund, who only presented his credentials to President Bush last fall, is senior to me in terms of service. So with the caveat that I am still new, I would like to offer a few observations on Swedish-American relations.

In my time in Stockholm, I have been struck by the difference between private attitudes toward the U.S., the things people tell me when we meet, and the official line, the things I read in the papers. America, I am told, is a wonderful country. Swedes love America. But I read in the papers that Swedes also hate our President, consider our foreign policy inept and naive, and think that our society may be fundamentally unjust.

What lies behind this split, this Jekyll-and-Hyde view of the United States? Are people just being polite to me when they say nice things?

In Gothenburg a couple of weeks ago, I put this question to a group of Swedes who had been to America on some of our U.S. government-funded exchange programs, the Fulbright Program and the International Visitor Leadership Program. Incidentally, Fredrick Reinfeldt took part in one of our visit programs in 2002. We try to identify up-and-coming leaders, and I guess we were right that time.

I asked this group for their opinions because they had all spent time in the U.S. What they said to me was…lagom. America, they said, is not a lagom nation. I'm assuming that everyone here knows this word. If you don't, then you should ask a Swede to explain it to you. As I understand it, lagom means just enough, pleasant sufficiency, not too much and not too little.

A related concept is the law of jante. Again, get a Swede to define it, but the law of jante basically says "don't think you're somebody, don't think you're better than anyone else."

If you take this idea and apply it to American politics, or American foreign policy, you can see why we might have some trouble. American foreign policy is not lagom and does not follow the law of jante. Especially since 9-11, but really, for most of the last century, the U.S. has said "we will do what we have to do, we will lead even if few will follow, we will stand out by our actions and our words."

That same day, during my visit to Gothenburg, I saw one of the things that binds the U.S. and Sweden together. I visited the House of Emigrants. The House of Emigrants is located in the old customs house, and it's the building through which more than one million Swedes passed on their way to America during the Great Migration of the 19th and 20th centuries.

I stood on the top of the Stair of Tears, or where the stairs once were. The emigrants came through the customs house, stopped on the quay for a prayer, a short service of parting, and then they stepped onto this stairway. When they did that, the realization hit that that were leaving, that they were probably never going to see their parents or friends again. And the tears would come. That's why it is called the Stair of Tears, and it was for me very moving to put my feet in that same place. It really makes you think about the Great Migration, which had a very profound and positive effect on our two nations, but which entailed sacrifice and pain at the personal level.

I have reached these initial conclusions about how our societies are related, how we are unlike and also what connects us. And I think we need more people out there, helping us understand our differences and reinforcing what we common. I think we need are more Ambassadors - more Gunnars, more Lyndons, more Mike Woods. That's where this group comes in. You, the members and supporters of the Swedish American Chamber of Commerce, probably did not succeed by accepting just enough. That won't work in the business world, at least not in America and probably not in Sweden either. But to be successful in Sweden, I would imagine, you have to recognize where your customers and clients are coming from. You have to understand lagom and the law of jante, recognize that there is a lot of good in both concepts, and plan your public relations, your marketing, maybe your whole business model, accordingly. So I hope that you will try, always, to be Ambassadors. Help Americans understand Sweden, help Swedes understand America.

I know I am supposed to be brief, so I want to mention one more thing. One more big thing, actually. I've decided One Big Thing that I want to accomplish as the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden. And I hope you'll want to help me with it. I want to achieve a technological breakthrough in alternative energy. Not me, personally, you understand. I'm not a scientist, not an engineer. But I have told my team at the Embassy that we are going to mobilize ourselves behind the idea that the U.S. and Sweden can cooperate to achieve a breakthrough that will allow both nations to reduce our dependency on fossil fuel and contribute to a cleaner environment. I just learned today, in fact, that Sweden was producing cellulosic ethanol as early as 1908. Production went under after World War II when cheap oil became readily available. Well, the time for alternative fuels has come again, and I want us to work together not just in this one area, but on a range of technologies.

This objective has a lot of parts to it, a lot of different aspects, and there is room for a lot of participation. I'll be around tomorrow and will be happy to discuss it further.