Abba Eban, Israel’s former Ambassador to the United Nations and now a Labor Party member of Knesset, was one of five 20th century speakers recently elected to the International Platform Association’s Orator’s Hall of Fame. President John F. Kennedy led the 1983 list which also included Adlai Stevenson, Gen. Douglas Mac Arthur and William Jennings Bryan.
The five best orators in history elected last year were: Daniel Webster, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Martin Luther King.
When informed of his election to this prestigious organization, Eban quipped “You realize I am the only one still alive.”
The International Platform Association (IPA) was founded in 1831 by Daniel Webster and has been the professional association of those who run thousands of organizations which compose the American lecture platform. It claims a nation-wide bi-partisan membership of more than 5,000. Members of the Orator’s Hall of Fame are elected by a poll of the IPA. Edward R. Murrow was a former chairman and nuclear physicist Glen Seaborg is the current chairman.
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