“It’s Beth,” Mabel, my very
trusted and very large Puerto Rican secretary, bellowed. She was letting me know
that Mayor Giuliani’s executive assistant and my friend, Beth Petrone, was on
the phone. “Yes M’am,” I answered. “I loved your briefing,” she purred. I chuckled. “You say that about all my briefings,” I said. “I always enjoy
reading yours, they’re my favorites. But this one for John Major, might be your
best,” she complimented. “Well, he never travels and I love foreign policy and
never get to use my talents so this is as close as I’m getting. I’m really
looking forward to this meeting and the photo-op. Is he going to be on-time
today?” I asked. “I’ll do my best. But
we should be OK. It’s a light morning,” Beth answered. “OK, thanks. Alistair is
supposed is to call me later and update me on their end,” I informed her.
This was a big morning for me. I was going to meet the Prime Minister of Great
Britain, John Major. Alistair was Alistair Hunter, the British Consul General
in New York with whom I had become friendly in a prior job and arranged this meeting.
Alistair had told me many times what a Rudy fan P.M. Major was and how he
looked forward to discussing NYC’s crime reduction and workfare program
initiatives with Giuliani should the opportunity present itself either on their
side of the Atlantic or ours.
It was really surprising to me in the weeks preceding the meeting in what
emphatic tones Alistair would speak when talking of P.M. Major’s eagerness to
sit down with Rudy. At one point I said in a very New York way, “Hey Alistair, the meeting’s
scheduled, you don’t have to sell this.” “No, no,” he said, “he really is
extremely anxious for this meeting to take place; the Foreign Office mentions
it repeatedly.” OK, I guess Major really wants to meet Giuliani.
Part of my job required that when the Mayor met with any major elected
official, national leader, business tycoon, or foreign leader I was the one in
the Mayor’s Office who wrote the briefing. Sometimes I was not made aware of
this until the briefing book was being put together; minutes before he left for
the evening. But Beth knew she could always count on me to produce something at
least sensibly informative off the top of my head with little notice on some
disparate topic. Bear in mind this was before Google and the internet. I had written his briefings for his first meetings with Clinton, McCain, Forbes, Dole, even Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle.
I hadn’t written a long briefing. This really was going to be mostly Rudy doing
what Rudy loved doing which was talking about the City’s rebirth: Compstat, his
plans for Times Square, his ideas on workfare
and welfare reform, quality of life initiatives. P.M. Major seemed by all
accounts just happy to drink it all in.
Although mayors regularly meet with foreign leaders in their hotel suites,
Major had offered to come to City Hall. At around 10:00 AM Alistair called to
say that the Prime Minister had gotten very backed up. He had four back to back meetings and had more planned that afternoon. Would it be possible for the
mayor to meet with him in his suite at the Waldorf? I then made what would be a disastrous mistake
and become a life-learning moment. “I don’t see why not,” I said. I had my copy of Rudy’s schedule. I knew he
could easily go uptown. We were talking about the Prime Minister of Great
Britain.
Alistair was profusely
apologetic, “I don’t know how the day got this bad. He is very upset about this;
I want you to know that Russell. I want the Mayor to know that, too. The Prime
Minister wants this meeting to happen very much. He is anxious to meet Mayor
Giuliani.”
I responded, “I’ll call you
back, Alistair, after I call City Hall.” I dialed Beth and explained what had
transpired. She said she’d talk to him. I had a bad feeling. “It’s Beth,” Mabel
hollered. “He say’s they have to come here, he’s not going to the Waldorf,”
Beth informed me. “This can’t be a scheduling thing, he’s free, I have the
schedule in front of me. Is it a
protocol matter? He’s visited foreign dignitaries in hotels before.” “He didn’t
say,” she replied. I then asked, “Is he free? I’m coming over.” “Come on over,” she said.
I was pissed, nervous and embarrassed all at the same time. He was being bad,
petulant, Rudy - I knew that. That pissed me off. I was nervous because I was
pissed off and confronting him at the same time he was pissed - a bad mix. I
had to calm down. And I was embarrassed because I had made it sound to Alistair
like this could be easily worked out.
When I went into his office he was in his easy chair next to his couch reading
a folder. “Mayor, I need to talk to you about this John Major meeting,” I said.
“Yea, he needs to come here,” Rudy said. “Mayor, did you read my briefing? He
is a huge Giuliani fan. The British Consul General is a friend and tells me
that the Foreign Office sends him cables on your crime reduction program and
workfare and he has been looking forward to this meeting for weeks. He just got
really jammed up this morning and is apparently pissed
off at his staff that they fucked up this meeting so it has to move uptown. He
wants you to know how anxious he is to meet you. His staff mishandled this,” I
said trying to appeal to his managerial side.
“The meeting was scheduled
for City Hall, I’m not going to the Waldorf,” Rudy replied. I tried one more
tack - applying my own love and interest of foreign policy hopefully to him. “Mayor,
the Prime Minister has just spent the last few weeks meeting with Chancellor
Kohl, President Mitterrand, Clinton, the President of China, and a dozen other
world leaders. Wouldn’t you be interested to pick this guy’s brain as to what’s
happening on the world stage in real time with a major player and someone who’s
a fan of yours? Someone you could strike up a friendship with. Someone you
could bounce ideas off of in the years to come if we ever get a foreign travel
schedule together? I really don’t think he can get down here today.”
I had given it my best shot.
Rudy looked up. He was pissed and exasperated. “I am not going to this meeting.
That’s my last word on this.” I started walking out and said, as always, “Thank
you, Mayor.” As I exited to the outer office Beth asked what he had said. I
informed her and told her to do nothing until she heard from me.
I skulked back to my office thinking all the while, “Was I being a disloyal
aide?” Should I have told Major’s people “Hey, get your limey asses down here and
stop with your lame excuses!” My days are filled with being 100% true blue to
Rudy Giuliani; telling the rest of the world to buzz off if they don’t like
what he’s done or how we’re handling something.
And moreover I’m one of the
chief enforcers of keeping the agencies on-agenda doctrine wise. Everyone knows
my reputation is that of a total prick in defense of the Mayor at all times.
But this just doesn’t feel like that. The Prime Minister screwed up his
schedule, is pissed about it, and is essentially asking Rudy for a favor. We
portray ourselves as the
Yea, I wish it were Margaret
Thatcher instead of John Major. But I really didn’t think that was the point of
the argument and I did not think that was what was in Rudy’s head about this whole
matter.
Wouldn’t he want to sit down with him regardless of the inconvenience or the
perceived snub? Jesus, I would. How can you in any civil way say no to a man of
Major’s stature who is asking you for a favor? They weren’t playing us. For
Christ’s sake, I know the difference.
As I got back to my office the immediate issue became could I really make the
call and tell them that Giuliani would not go to his hotel? I lit a cigarette,
told Mabel to order me an early lunch, and started to pick up the phone to call
the Consulate. It was 11am.
At just that moment someone
rushed in and told me to put on the TV in my conference room. There had been a
shooting on the
Knowing Rudy Giuliani, I
immediately called over to the Mayor’s Office and got Beth. “Where is he?” I asked. “He ran out to St.
Vincent’s where they took the survivors from the bridge shooting,”
Beth informed me. I knew it. “We’re in agreement he can’t go to the Waldorf and
I’m telling Alistair that?” I asked her. “No way is he going anywhere,” she
agreed. “Thank you, Beth.”
I called Alistair immediately, but he was out. His executive assistant, Pauline
Weppler picked up. I began to explain about the emergency but she was watching
NY 1 and cut me off. “Of course, of course, Mr. Harding, this is terrible. The
Prime Minister will be terribly disappointed but we’re watching this tragedy
right now. Naturally the Mayor had to go to this.” “Thank you for understanding,”
I said.
We would learn that the dead boy on the Brooklyn Bridge
that day was Ari Halberstam. He was the victim of a madman named Rashid Baz who
claimed to be acting out against Jews due to an incident that had happened a
week prior on the West Bank.
After my very inappropriate first reaction, where I was thinking exclusively of
my own predicament, I would be reminded of Ari Halberstam’s death and the grave
events of that day, every day, for the next eight years. The exit I took every
morning to work was the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall exit, off of the FDR
Drive. It was subsequently renamed for Ari
Halberstam.
The larger lesson for me that day was one I would come to learn again and again
over the next eight years. Amidst the tremendous triumphs and the remarkable
accomplishments, I worked for a man who could be petty, parochial and churlish.
Given the chance to sit down and survey the world landscape with someone
currently shaping it, not to mention gain insight from his meetings with every
other major world leader, wouldn’t a serious, well rounded, person leap at such
a chance?
It’s just typical Rudy
Giuliani. The one no one ever sees. He would rather hang out with his gang, go to
a Yankee game, a cigar bar, or in later years, take off one day a week of work as Mayor (Fridays) to play golf. And his favorite;
sit on the porch of Gracie and smoke cigars. He will never have any interest in
the foreign affairs of this country. In eight years in and around the man I
never heard of him having a serious discussion on foreign policy. And no, I do
not consider throwing Arafat out of Lincoln Center a serious foreign
policy engagement. It was Giuliani petulance, first and last. It had nothing to
do with foreign policy. He was an uninvited guest and a terrorist. I supported that decision then and now. But it’s not dispositive of some great
vision.
Just as he has no interest
in foreign policy he also has no energy policy, farm policy, fiscal policy,
environmental policy, or monetary policy. During the presidential campaign look
at any survey sent out by a newspaper or an interest group
and look at the Giuliani answers. There either were none or were as vague and
nondescript as to be pabulum. He has no views on most issues and doesn’t care
to. The national press gave him a completely free ride on this because of 9/11.
In ‘93’ we would have been crucified by the NY press had we filled out surveys
like this. It would have generated news stories in and of itself.
It was the meeting with John Major in microcosm. It did not rise to any level
of importance to him. He would have rather sat in that club chair, done
paperwork, eaten lunch at his desk with Cristyne Lategano and handle another
day as Mayor. Same as every day. Meeting
an ideological kindred spirit, bonding with another leader, possibly making a
friend for the city - and for himself down the road - never occurred to him.
And most importantly, expanding his world view meant nothing. The point is not
what became of John Major - it might have been Tony Blair or Nicholas Sarkozy -
the point is a closed mind and few interests beyond the self interest. Incidents
like this go a long way towards explaining all that money spent and just a
single delegate.
