Cropsey, Adobe House Adopt Stance To Help Orphaned Children by Gary Tischler Back in the days when he was serving presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush on defense matters, Seth Cropsey probably didnít picture himself bringing balloons to orphans in western Romania. Yet he was in his office at the American Enterprise Institute, the conservative think tank in downtown Washington, D.C., where he is a visiting fellow, pulling out pictures of the children like a proud dad. ìThis is Flavius,î he said, pointing to a picture of a small and lively looking dark-haired child. ìHis mother had named him Zorro at birth, but we thought maybe he shouldnít be burdened with that kind of pressure.î The children are orphans, toddlers living in Adobe House, in the villiage of Santana, Romania, a special project for children selected as babies from a state-run orphanage nearby. It is run by the Adobe Foundation, of which Cropsey is the founder and president. ìThe idea is to have the children adopted, hopefully by Romanian couples,î says Cropsey. Americans have adopted one of the children. ìThis is not a reflection on the professionalism or the effectiveness of the state orphanage in Romania,î he said. ìItís a cooperative effort. A way to help. They have a tremendous burden, and they do a fine job. What Adobe House does is to help a number of orphans where they can be eventually adopted while they live in less-crowded conditions and have constant care. We run a summer camp here for the children in the state orphanage every year.î Still, Cropsey wasnít a likely candidate to be spending so much time with orphaned children, Romanian or otherwise. He became involved when he was a professor at the Marshall Center, a NATO educational institution where former Warsaw Pact military personnel and foreign service officers were taught in the ways of democratic institution-building. ìI loved teaching there,î he said. ìIt fit in with what I firmly believe, which is that democracy is the best, most effective form of government man has ever invented and that its potential in the world is a positive, good thing.î His resume is a kind of roll call of defense, global and foreign affairs activities. It is a portrait of a man used to thinking in terms of regional, international and global strategies: director of the Heritage Foundationís Asia Studies Center, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations in the senior Bush administration, working to strengthen American special operations capabilities. For six years he was deputy undersecretary of the U.S. Navy, working on decentralizing and reducing bureaucracy, defense burden sharing with U.S. allies, Navy special operations and national strategy policy. He has also been assistant editor of the Public Interest and has written for Foreign Affairs, Commentary, The National Interest and the Wall Street Journal. This is the resume of a serious man, whose interests encompass large arenas of the world. When it comes to children, there are important issues in the details. ìObviously, the Adobe House is the flagship project of the foundation,î he said. ìBut weíre involved in other things, working on projects with the orphanage, with people in the village. Itís about paying staff, about getting central heating.î Cropsey originally became involved when he was in Germany and was asked to help a Romanian child with medical needs. He met the boy, and soon he was asked to visit his village, which he did. ìItís a nice drive from Germany down to Romania, ì he said. ìThis villageóitís 16,000 people actuallyóis close to Hungary. Itís called Santana, or Sintana, depending on which signs you read.î European businessmen had already leased some homes there. ìI thought it would be good to have American, private participation,î Cropsey said. In a way, he has found a route to match his philosophy and thinking to what heís doing with the Adobe Foundation. ìThis is a good thing to do and a way to show that we want to participate and share and help out wherever we can,î he said. ìItís not just about governments and global issues. Itís a projection of the best of our values. At this level, we can show a presence by doing this.î We, in this case, is Cropsey as a kind of Father Christmas presence whenever he visits, which is often, Cropsey as fund-raiser as at a recent event at the Embassy of Romania, Cropsey as something more than a defense thinker. ìI liked these kids right away,î he said. ìIt was quite an experience for me. Still is. I think I was a little surprised that I became involved like this, at least initially. But I love teaching, and this has elements of that. But, well, I like the children.î At the American Enterprise Institute, ìI write. Everybody writes here.î He shares an office with Ron Perle, another defense intellectual of note. There are books on defense and a poster on in international conference and a poster of two cellos. ìI play some,î he said. In his desk, though, are the pictures of Flavius, Alexandru, the twins and Laura, at the readyóthe heart of the matter. Gary Tischler is the arts reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.