We're Just Sayin 2022-02-13 16:54:00

Its crazy:  i cant get past feb 10th without some reminder that this is the day, 51 years ago… (impossible to actually write that number and believe it could be me..) that I was fruitlessly trying to talk my way on to a Vietnamese Army helicopte…

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We’re Just Sayin

 While this has become known as the Holiday Season, for a Jewish kid who grew up in the very Mormon outpost of Salt Lake City, we pretty much knew it as  the Christmas Season, with Hannukah and a few other winter holidays accompanying.  …

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Fifty Years On…

 I stumble a bit, me, the former Math major, when I try and do the ‘math.’  Last fall was fifty years:  I arrived in Vietnam in October 1970 following a two year stint freelancing for TIME in DC and Miami bureaus.  Frankly, I never …

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A DMZ Christmas 50 Years Ago

 Back in the early 1960s, in the wake of Sputnik and such fanciful terms as “the Space Race,” the “Missile Gap,” and Pupnik (Sputnik 2 carried a little Russian terrier named Laika), and, in the words of one of the old geezers (gee, he must have be…

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a Bad Trip…. They Just Keep Getting Badder Sometimes

Today was a traveling nightmare. It began with a trip to Middletown to buy peanuts. Peanuts have become a food source that I seem not to be able to go without, even for one day. Anyway, my trip was successful until I went west instead of east on route 17. When I passed the fly fishing museum it was clear I was headed in the wrong direction.  Did my GPS lead me home. Not a chance. After hours and hours of driving in a continuos torrential downpour, I saw a sign that said 17 east. This road took me back to exactly where I made the initial mistake. It was still raining.  All of this to say that I reflected about another memorable trip. Although it is over thirty years old, here’s a memo I wrote about that trip. It was addressed to my “White House Advance Team” (WHAT) hero, Harvey Buffalo.
  
     To:       Harvey Buffalo 
     From:  White House Advance Team  
     Re:  Changes required to make First Lady trip more                 appealing.        
the Abbey at Melk

     As you know the White House Advance Team (WHAT?) has been searching for event opportunities in  and around Vienna for the last six  days.  We have only four days left before the President arrives and not all the  decisions have been made.  Here are several things which I think show potential in terms of their   visual and political appeal — but are not without problems.   As always I need your help to resolve those problems.   I am confident that you, as my mother would say, can make it, “all better.”

     1.  The  arrival site is a touch boring.  Just a plain  old airfield/tarmac without any character.   I thought some decorations would be nice.  But please, nothing standard. People get so tired of the same old arrival.  You know — black landing field, chain link fence, airplane as backdrop, flags, and lines of soldiers  for color. Uniforms, and soldiers with weapons  are alright but it’s always the same, same, same, same, same, everywhere we go.  My imagination appears to be on hold,  my brain is temporarily empty,  and my sense  of  drama has been  drained and  beaten into submission by the bureaucrats.  Please  please please please please, (if I appear to be whining your perception is correct and it’s always worked in the past so don’t make me search for another approach,)  see what you can come up with.     
     2.   The street in front of the Ambassador’s residence is very  narrow.  As you know, everyone who has ever met the President in their whole life — even casually, will  be staying  with him in that residence.  At one  point there will be five  motorcades arriving and departing.   Unfortunately, the motorcades include buses.   It is  going to be very difficult to manipulate those hundreds of cars and buses.  Since we know absolutely no one will be willing to forgo a vehicle , there’s bound to be some dreadful accident unless the street is wider.   Please see what you can do.     
     3.   There is a little church in a little village about twenty five kilometers north of Vienna.  I think it’s north,  it may  be south,   (I’ll  check  before  you  make  the  trip.)  North or south it is incredibly picturesque.  I believe it’s known as the Abbey in Melk.  It seems a perfect place to spend a few hours — local  color,  villagers in costumes,  children presenting the Mrs. with flowers — and this wonderful meaningful church with ions of historic  value.   Here’s the  problem .  There are several bodies, they call them Relics, decomposing in the church.   At first I didn’t know what Relics  were.   The  only Relics Jewish people have are antique cars and their parents.  The guide was, however,  kind enough to explain  that these Relics were decomposed and preserved old bodies.  To be honest it was incredibly  gross. There are alot of these moldy old bodies incased in glass and on display.   We of the Jewish persuasion bury our dead.  We do it in  the ground where they can rest in peace and so no one can bother them.  I feel sure no one wants to see even a tastefully decomposed Jewish person and I would venture to guess that no one wants to see a decomposed Christian person either. No matter how important they used to be.  
I think it is safe to say that Mrs. President is among those no ones.  It seems unnecessary for the Austrians to have left these decayed and rather unattractive  bodies laying around  a perfectly lovely church spoiling the  view  for  all  the tourists.  Anyway, I’m not sure how to explain a 55 minute drive to see “person dust”. Furthermore, if she is asked what she thinks about them what does she respond. “Oh I just love to look at dead people. I can remember once Jimmy took me to a wake for our anniversary.   It was just as wonderful as it could be. Of course that body was newly dead.  I have always prefered to see bodies which were decomposing for hundreds of years.”     
     Could  you  find  a way to cover or rearrange them  without causing an international incident?    
     4.    New problem, same church.  Needs to be lit for cameras and photo ops.  The people who are in charge of the church seem a little reluctant to disturb anything, to make any changes.  Even when I explained that the lights were critical to the success of the picture, the trip, the Presidency,  they were not particularly interested — they muttered something about Philistine — but I know you can make them understand.  
     5.   We will need to pave the vineyards outside of Durnstein.  Ordinarily they would provide us with good color and a good visual we find in this instance it is best to use the space they occupy for press platforms.   
     6.   You will need to install 400 or 500 yards of escalator in order for the First Lady to have the best possible view of the countryside.      
     7.  Along the Danube there are many beautiful sights.  There is, however, a bridge which is a terrible eyesore.  We need it removed.  We might consider using it in lieu of the escalator if we turn it on its side and put it up against the mountain.   We do not wish to appear wasteful.   If constructed correctly it could also alleviate the problem of the nude bathers.  Then we  wouldn’t have to move her from one side to the other side of the boat during the trip.  
     8.  The sun will need to be moved so as not to interfere with the perfect picture in the courtyard at Durnstein.  It need not be an enormous move — just enough to have the sun at the rear of the press platforms which have been provided.
     The first time I met Harvey I knew I was in the presence  of Advanceman greatness.  I was working in Paris on a Presidential Advance.  Harvey was sitting in the corner surrounded by paper. He was the control officer and had all paper, all the numbers, and all the answers.   None of the White House Advance Team were paying any attention to him because he was the dreaded  Foreign Service Officer (FSO).  FSO’s are usually not popular with political appointments and visa-versa. (It’s the same attitude National political people have about local political people).  While it is true that FSO’s don’t know everything it is also true that they some information  about the culture in which they  have been submerged for years — foreign or domestic.  The fact that Harvey had all the paper and all the information and all the cars, cables, keys and money, should have sent a signal to all the very important representatives of the  President of the  United  States, that Harvey was the key to the trip.  It did not. But he immediately became my  best friend.  He knew how to get things done.  There was no request too large or too stupid  —  on these trips there is always an abundance of stupid.  Anyone who was aspiring to do great Advance would have recognized Harvey’s greatness immediately.   As I said, there was some flood of stupid — but certainly a drought of great Advance.    
     There are a number of qualities necessary to make  a  great  Advance  person.  The  most important of which is  achieving the impossible.  In my mind there have  been only two extraordinary advancepeople.  Count Potempkin and Harvey Buffalo.  There have, of course, been better than good Advance people, exciting Advance people, and imaginative Advancepeople,  but Harvey and the Count were in a  class all by themselves.      
     Just for a few fleeting moments let’s pretend it is Russia in the late 1700’s. The reign of Catherine the Great will provide us with a backdrop for the incredible talents of Count Potemkin.  Advance, was not really a career in the 1700’s. One had a career as a military person, as a diplomat court jestor, or perhaps royalty.  One did what the Empress wanted them to do. Potemkin, however,  was also able to get her to do what he wanted her to do. 
     He was not born royalty.   His meteoric rise to  Countdom was preceeded by some mundane positions — chief Procurator of the Holy Synod, (the  supreme body for dealing with  church matters), military paymaster, and an officer in charge of two detachments of Horse Guards.  Let’s cut to the quick,  By 1770 he was in St. Petersburg having an affair with her highness.   Even in those days when one has an affair with one who happens to be the Empress, it did give one certain priviledges not extended to the average employee. 
     A personality sketch of the Count, while not complete is interesting. For example, we know he was not an “early to rise” kind of guy.  But we also know that once up his energy was endless. He resettled the Cossacks in areas where he could  watch them; moved peasants, prisoners, army deserters and serfs to areas which needed to be populated and developed; banded  together  new  armies; and orchestrated the trip for which he became famous — Catherine’s journey accross Russia to visit what we now know were “Potemkin’s villages”.     
     Let’s pretend, for a brief time, it’s 1790 and Larry King has decided to  interview the Count.
     Larry: So Count, you and Cate had a pretty long journey. That was quite an accomplishment for you wasn’t it ?  Can you give us some highlights while its still fresh your mind.        
     Count:  Well, yes it was Larry.  You know Catherine and it took a long time to convince her that it was a good idea.  She  didn’t understand why she needed to see so much of Russia.  She  did, after all, have people she paid to see it for her.   Empresses are not good at understanding why they should be the   slightest bit inconvenienced.      
     Larry:  But you did convince her, how?    
     Count:  I never really convinced her that she should see   the country.  I did convince her that it would be good press.   You know Larry,  we weren’t having an easy time of it.  I  don’t   need to go into detail but the news of Russia’s glory was getting the short shrift. So that’s what we set out to change.  You know how we did it?    A “DipDel,” we took a delegation of the international diplomatic corp with us and, of course, some  writers.  But the Dips did most of the reporting back to Europe.        Anyway,  selling  her on the idea of good press was a lot  easier  than selling her on the idea of visiting peasants.   She’s never had any real interest in serfs you know.  She thinks you’ve seen one serf, you’ve seen them all.  She’s probably right — they do  hardly differ in size, shape or the way they  dress.
     Larry:  Journalists are a tough lot. Do you feel you had some success with them.
     Count:  Yes Larry,  I do!  And  Catherine deserves the credit for that success.  She is her own best press chief. She spent a lot of time with the  diplomats and writers.  She made sure that before they reached a region they were properly  briefed.   They always got all the necessary information about the people and the culture the were about to encounter. She  really watched what they wrote home so she could correct any  mistakes they made.  Of course there were no mistakes but she still felt it was necessary to oversee the information that went  out.  She was very busy.  The trip cost us about 10 million rubles — but worth every penny.     
     Larry:  Can you give me an idea about what the daily schedule was like for the Empress?      
     Count:  Wake-up 6:00am. 6-7 she took care of all her correspondence.  7:00 was breakfast.  From 8:00-9:00 she had meetings with diplomats and couriers.  And then at 9:00  the travelling party departed on sledges for the next village or Russian highlight. At 2:00 they stopped for lunch and then back on the sledges.   At 7:00 they were  RON.  (Rest  Over   Night).     
     Larry:   Sounds  mighty tiring.   What were you doing while the journey was in progress.     
     Count:   Just making sure everything was on  track.   Checking the sledges, lighting places of glory, delivering food to lunch  and  dinner stops and of course making sure that there was the building material at each designated RON so the villages could be completed.     
     Larry:  When did you actually start planning for this journey?      
     Count:   I  guess it was about 1780.   It started during some visits I made to the south.  I wanted Catherine to travel to the Port of Kherson to see a village I had built.  We had done  some incredible things down there.  The south was inhabited by pirates  and bandits.   Generally speaking I have nothing against  pirates  and  bandits but I didn’t want them in Russia.   So I got rid of them.   In  all  fairness I gave them a choice.   I told them, “Remain here as pirates and bandits and die or help settle the country  and live prosperously.”  Anyway, most stayed and it permitted Catherine to annex the Crimea.
     I thought she  should  see  what we annexed so while  I  was there I met  with local authorities.  It’s always tactically important to meet with the local  folks.   I looked at sites, checked out places for festivities,  determined where we would do  horse changes,  and decided what palaces should be built for the  people traveling with us who needed them.      
     Larry:   How did you keep track of all that information?      
     Count:   I write things down.  By about 1784 I had a lot of terrific ideas.  So I put all my notes in order and sent a  guidebook directly to the Empress.  None of this  “from   Potemkin,  through  the Duke, to the Empress, the way the other   bureaucrats do it.   And I gotta tell you she was impressed. I  described towns and villages and districts she should visit.  I included distances to be covered each day. I gave her maps and diagrams and all kinds of interesting information. Catherine  loved it.
     Larry:  So, by 1787 you were ready to go?      
     Count:   Yes.  Fourteen great sledges were at the palace door in January.  124 smaller sledges were to follow  and  40  sledges were kept in  reserve  in case of emergency.   Each of the big sledges was drawn by 30 horses.  The large sledges were the size of a house.  Catherine’s sledge had a drawing room,  study, library, and bedroom.  It took 30 horses to pull it. I had to be prepared to keep changing horses.   I guess I left about 560 horses at each station stop — as well as the blacksmiths,  stable boys, and carpenters to service  them.   
     Larry:   Sounds  like  lots of work.   What were  the  biggest problems you encountered?      
     Count:  There were no biggest problems — all the problems were of equal size. You know the weather in Russia is a bitch. In fact, before we boarded the galleys in  Kiev we were held up for weeks in a storm.  I’ll tell you  about the galleys in a minute.       The people were a problem.  When you invite all those foreign  dignitaries and writers it takes a lot more work then  people from  your own court.  These folks had to carry on their own diplomatic duties as well as report on the progress of the trip. You  know we took the Ambassadors from France,  Austria,  and England with us…  and they are fussy!   They expect to be treated like royalty. You can’t just shlep a Count or a Duke from  place to place.   They have to be waited on and catered to. I don’t have to tell you Larry, you know VIP’s.  To be honest Lar, the biggest problem was finding good help. You just can’t find  good help anymore.  For example, we had to repair and recontruct towns and villages.  Each one had to be different.  That was part of the picture we were trying to create — a Russia with great strength and diversity.  As I mentioned we  had to build galleys for the sea voyage.  And I mean Galley’s!  Seven huge red and  gold Roman galleys headed the procession.   Then, just like with the sledges, they were followed by seventy three galleys in an array of sizes.  It took three thousand sailors to man the  ships.  And I’m talking ships. They were beautiful, luxurious, enormous!  Each one has it’s own  orchestra.  The  orchestra on  Catherine’s galley was conducted by the maestro Sarti.  Can you imagine the maestro conducting on a boat.  It was fabulous.  But  he’s not easy I can tell you that — without telling tales out of court.  I  mean  we’re  talking  multitudes  here.  Just try and find a someone to repair a galley on a weekend.  But it worked and as a bonus we scared the hell out of the Turks.        
     Larry:   The  trip got good press but you personally took some pretty heavy hits, Count.      
     Count:   You mean the garbage that Saxon diplomat Helbig wrote.  I read it.  The part I found most entertaining was where he says everything was a sham.  The people and villages were all set-ups.  The concept of “Potemkins villages,” ridiculous. It was   flattering but not accurate. Just read the chronicles of Comte  de Segur and Prince de Ligne,  people who  actually travelled on the journey.   They’ll  tell you what really happened.  Truth is I make things look too easy.   It’s certainly not easy to do what I did but I do make it look easy.   Helbig also accused me of taking the three million  ruble advance and keeping it for  myself.  He  clearly does not understand the cost of travel nor the importance of organization.  I don’t want to waste your precious interview time discussing that envious bastard.  He was angry because we didn’t invite the Prussian Ambassador to come along.   I’ve heard they are more then just good friends if you know what I mean.
     Larry:   What would  you  consider the highlight of the adventure.      
     Count:  The  celebration  of Catherine’s 25th year as reigning monarch.  I built this fabulous house and garden on the banks of the river.  We prepared a banquet with national  dishes and wines I had  developed  – the white Sudak from the Crimea was especially good.  We had a concert and entertainment and as darkness fell 120 cannons fired salvoes to begin the fireworks display.  Launched thirty thousand rockets!   When Catherine went to bed I told her to look out her window at the mountain. And when she did she saw her initials spelled out on the mountain side, used 55,000 candle lights for it, just incredible!      
     Larry:   You’re pretty incredible.  Any plans for  the   future?      
     Count:  I’ve been on the road for a long time.  Right now all  I want to do is go back to the palace and rest.  Then there was some talk of extending our borders, settling  more territory, moving more serfs… the usual.      
     Larry:   I  know how busy you are Count and I appreciate  your taking the time to talk to me today.      
     Count:   I enjoyed it Larry . The next time we decide to go anywhere I’ll make sure you get an invitation.        
    
     There are no more counts or Harvey. Today everyone wants  to be the boss.   Everyone wants to be a humma humma before they learn to hum. 
     Just remember Phillipe de Segur’s  description of the Count, and if he had known him, of Harvey.   “He knows in a fantastic way how to remove every obstacle in his path and to discipline nature, shorten distances, disguise misery, dissipate boredom, and impart an air of life to the most sterile deserts….”
     Oh well, as my mother says “What is — is.”

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St. Vanguard’s Day, 2019

61 years ago. I can’t believe it. Who, amongst people I know, has any memory of something in 1958? Well I guess if you’re from the high school class of ’64, there are a lot of things which you remember. This weekend was one which is so full of a myriad…

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Politics: Then and Now – A Reflection on the 70s

I wrote this essay 30 years ago, and it still makes sense. It was written before President Carter’s trip to Vienna to meet Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev —  IRIS… (and yes, We’re Just Sayin….)
Hero Worship
  
     To:       Harvey Buffalo 
     From:  White House Advance Team  
     Re:  Changes required to make First Lady trip more                 appealing.        
     As you know the White House Advance Team (WHAT?) has been searching for event opportunities in  and around Vienna for the last six  days.  We have only four days left before the President arrives and not all the  decisions have been made.  Here are several things which I think show potential in terms of their   visual and political appeal — but are not without problems.   As always I need your help to resolve those problems.   I am confident that you, as my mother would say, can make it, “all better.”
     1.  The  arrival site is a touch boring.  Just a plain  old airfield/tarmac without any character.   I thought some decorations would be nice.  But please, nothing standard. People get so tired of the same old arrival.  You know — black landing field, chain link fence, airplane as backdrop, flags, and lines of soldiers  for color. Uniforms, and soldiers with weapons  are alright but it’s always the same, same, same, same, same, everywhere we go.  My imagination appears to be on hold,  my brain is temporarily empty,  and my sense  of  drama has been  drained and  beaten into submission by the bureaucrats.  Please  please please please please, (if I appear to be whining your perception is correct and it’s always worked in the past so don’t make me search for another approach,)  see what you can come up with.     
     2.   The street in front of the Ambassador’s residence is very  narrow.  As you know, everyone who has ever met the President in their whole life — even casually, will  be staying  with him in that residence.  At one  point there will be five  motorcades arriving and departing.   Unfortunately, the motorcades include buses.   It is  going to be very difficult to manipulate those hundreds of cars and buses.  Since we know absolutely no one will be willing to forgo a vehicle , there’s bound to be some dreadful accident unless the street is wider.   Please see what you can do.     
     3.   There is a little church in a little village about twenty five kilometers north of Vienna.  I think it’s north,  it may  be south,   (I’ll  check  before  you  make  the  trip.)  North or south it is incredibly picturesque.  I believe it’s known as the Abbey in Melk.  It seems a perfect place to spend a few hours — local  color,  villagers in costumes,  children presenting the Mrs. with flowers — and this wonderful meaningful church with ions of historic  value.   Here’s the  problem .  There are several bodies, they call them Relics, decomposing in the church.   At first I didn’t know what Relics  were.   The  only Relics Jewish people have are antique cars and their parents.  The guide was, however,  kind enough to explain  that these Relics were decomposed and preserved old bodies.  To be honest it was incredibly  gross. There are alot of these moldy old bodies incased in glass and on display.   We of the Jewish persuasion bury our dead.  We do it in  the ground where they can rest in peace and so no one can bother them.  I feel sure no one wants to see even a tastefully decomposed Jewish person and I would venture to guess that no one wants to see a decomposed Christian person either. No matter how important they used to be.  
I think it is safe to say that Mrs. President is among those no ones.  It seems unnecessary for the Austrians to have left these decayed and rather unattractive  bodies laying around  a perfectly lovely church spoiling the  view  for  all  the tourists.  Anyway, I’m not sure how to explain a 55 minute drive to see “person dust”. Furthermore, if she is asked what she thinks about them what does she respond. “Oh I just love to look at dead people. I can remember once Jimmy took me to a wake for our anniversary.   It was just as wonderful as it could be. Of course that body was newly dead.  I have always prefered to see bodies which were decomposing for hundreds of years.”     
     Could  you  find  a way to cover or rearrange them  without causing an international incident?    
     4.    New problem, same church.  Needs to be lit for cameras and photo ops.  The people who are in charge of the church seem a little reluctant to disturb anything, to make any changes.  Even when I explained that the lights were critical to the success of the picture, the trip, the Presidency,  they were not particularly interested — they muttered something about Philistine — but I know you can make them understand.  
     5.   We will need to pave the vineyards outside of Durnstein.  Ordinarily they would provide us with good color and a good visual we find in this instance it is best to use the space they occupy for press platforms.   
     6.   You will need to install 400 or 500 yards of escalator in order for the First Lady to have the best possible view of the countryside.      
     7.  Along the Danube there are many beautiful sights.  There is, however, a bridge which is a terrible eyesore.  We need it removed.  We might consider using it in lieu of the escalator if we turn it on its side and put it up against the mountain.   We do not wish to appear wasteful.   If constructed correctly it could also alleviate the problem of the nude bathers.  Then we  wouldn’t have to move her from one side to the other side of the boat during the trip.  
     8.  The sun will need to be moved so as not to interfere with the perfect picture in the courtyard at Durnstein.  It need not be an enormous move — just enough to have the sun at the rear of the press platforms which have been provided.
     The first time I met Harvey I knew I was in the presence  of Advanceman greatness.  I was working in Paris on a Presedential Advance.  Harvey was sitting in the corner surrounded by paper. He was the control officer and had all paper, all the numbers, and all the answers.   None of the White House Advance Team were paying any attention to him because he was the dreaded  Foreign Service Officer (FSO).  FSO’s are usually not popular with political appointments and visa-versa. (It’s the same attitude National political people have about local political people).  While it is true that FSO’s don’t know everything it is also true that they some information  about the culture in which they  have been submerged for years — foreign or domestic.  The fact that Harvey had all the paper and all the information and all the cars, cables, keys and money, should have sent a signal to all the very important representatives of the  President of the  United  States, that Harvey was the key to the trip.  It did not. But he immediately became my  best friend.  He knew how to get things done.  There was no request too large or too stupid  —  on these trips there is always an abundance of stupid.  Anyone who was aspiring to do great Advance would have recognized Harvey’s greatness immediately.   As I said, there was no shortage of stupid — just a drought of great Advance.    
     There are a number of qualities necessary to make  a  great  Advance  person.  The  most important of which is  achieving the impossible.  In my mind there have  been only two extraordinary advancepeople.  Count Potempkin and Harvey Buffalo.  There have, of course, been better than good Advance people, exciting Advance people, and imaginative Advancepeople,  but Harvey and the Count were in a  class all by themselves.      
     Just for a few fleeting moments let’s pretend it is Russia in the late 1700’s. The reign of Catherine the Great will provide us with a backdrop for the incredible talents of Count Potemkin.  Advance, was not really a career in the 1700’s. One had a career as a military person, as a diplomat court jestor, or perhaps royalty.  One did what the Empress wanted them to do. Potemkin, however,  was also able to get her to do what he wanted her to do. 
     He was not always royalty.   His meteoric rise to  Countdom was preceeded by some mundane positions — chief Procurator of the Holy Synod, (the  supreme body for dealing with  church matters), military paymaster, and an officer in charge of two detachments of Horse Guards.  Let’s cut to the quick,  By 1770 he was in St. Petersburg having an affair with her highness.   Even in those days when one has an affair with one who happens to be the Empress, it did give one certain priviledges not extended to the average employee. 
     A personality sketch of the Count, while not complete is interesting. For example, we know he was not an “early to rise” kind of guy.  But we also know that once up his energy was endless. He resettled the Cossacks in areas where he could  watch them; moved peasants, prisoners, army deserters and serfs to areas which needed to be populated and developed; banded  together  new  armies; and orchestrated the trip for which he became famous — Catherine’s journey accross Russia to visit what we now know were “Potemkin’s villages”.     
     Let’s pretend, for a brief time, it’s 1790 and Larry King has decided to  interview the Count.
     Larry: So Count, you and Cate had a pretty long journey. That was quite an accomplishment for you wasn’t it ?  Can you give us some highlights while its still fresh your mind.        
     Count:  Well, yes it was Larry.  You know Catherine and it took a long time to convince her that it was a good idea.  She  didn’t understand why she needed to see so much of Russia.  She  did, after all, have people she paid to see it for her.   Empresses are not good at understanding why they should be the   slightest bit inconvenienced.      
     Larry:  But you did convince her, how?    
     Count:  I never really convinced her that she should see   the country.  I did convince her that it would be good press.   You know Larry,  we weren’t having an easy time of it.  I  don’t   need to go into detail but the news of Russia’s glory was getting the short shrift. So that’s what we set out to change.  You know how we did it?    A “DipDel,” we took a delegation of the international diplomatic corp with us and, of course, some  writers.  But the Dips did most of the reporting back to Europe.        Anyway,  selling  her on the idea of good press was a lot  easier  than selling her on the idea of visiting peasants.   She’s never had any real interest in serfs you know.  She thinks you’ve seen one serf, you’ve seen them all.  She’s probably right — they do  hardly differ in size, shape or the way they  dress.
     Larry:  Journalists are a tough lot. Do you feel you had some success with them.
     Count:  Yes Larry,  I do!  And  Catherine deserves the credit for that success.  She is her own best press chief. She spent a lot of time with the  diplomats and writers.  She made sure that before they reached a region they were properly  briefed.   They always got all the necessary information about the people and the culture the were about to encounter. She  really watched what they wrote home so she could correct any  mistakes they made.  Of course there were no mistakes but she still felt it was necessary to oversee the information that went  out.  She was very busy.  The trip cost us about 10 million rubles — but worth every penny.     
     Larry:  Can you give me an idea about what the daily schedule was like for the Empress?      
     Count:  Wake-up 6:00am. 6-7 she took care of all her correspondence.  7:00 was breakfast.  From 8:00-9:00 she had meetings with diplomats and couriers.  And then at 9:00  the travelling party departed on sledges for the next village or Russian highlight. At 2:00 they stopped for lunch and then back on the sledges.   At 7:00 they were  RON.  (Rest  Over   Night).     
     Larry:   Sounds  mighty tiring.   What were you doing while the journey was in progress.     
     Count:   Just making sure everything was on  track.   Checking the sledges, lighting places of glory, delivering food to lunch  and  dinner stops and of course making sure that there was the building material at each designated RON so the villages could be completed.     
     Larry:  When did you actually start planning for this journey?      
     Count:   I  guess it was about 1780.   It started during some visits I made to the south.  I wanted Catherine to travel to the Port of Kherson to see a village I had built.  We had done  some incredible things down there.  The south was inhabited by pirates  and bandits.   Generally speaking I have nothing against  pirates  and  bandits but I didn’t want them in Russia.   So I got rid of them.   In  all  fairness I gave them a choice.   I told them, “Remain here as pirates and bandits and die or help settle the country  and live prosperously.”  Anyway, most stayed and it permitted Catherine to annex the Crimea.
     I thought she  should  see  what we annexed so while  I  was there I met  with local authorities.  It’s always tactically important to meet with the local  folks.   I looked at sites, checked out places for festivities,  determined where we would do  horse changes,  and decided what palaces should be built for the  people traveling with us who needed them.      
     Larry:   How did you keep track of all that information?      
     Count:   I write things down.  By about 1784 I had a lot of terrific ideas.  So I put all my notes in order and sent a  guidebook directly to the Empress.  None of this  “from   Potemkin,  through  the Duke, to the Empress, the way the other   bureaucrats do it.   And I gotta tell you she was impressed. I  described towns and villages and districts she should visit.  I included distances to be covered each day. I gave her maps and diagrams and all kinds of interesting information. Catherine  loved it.
     Larry:  So, by 1787 you were ready to go?      
     Count:   Yes.  Fourteen great sledges were at the palace door in January.  124 smaller sledges were to follow  and  40  sledges were kept in  reserve  in case of emergency.   Each of the big sledges was drawn by 30 horses.  The large sledges were the size of a house.  Catherine’s sledge had a drawing room,  study, library, and bedroom.  It took 30 horses to pull it. I had to be prepared to keep changing horses.   I guess I left about 560 horses at each station stop — as well as the blacksmiths,  stable boys, and carpenters to service  them.   
     Larry:   Sounds  like  lots of work.   What were  the  biggest problems you encountered?      
     Count:  There were no biggest problems — all the problems were of equal size. You know the weather in Russia is a bitch. In fact, before we boarded the galleys in  Kiev we were held up for weeks in a storm.  I’ll tell you  about the galleys in a minute.       The people were a problem.  When you invite all those foreign  dignitaries and writers it takes a lot more work then  people from  your own court.  These folks had to carry on their own diplomatic duties as well as report on the progress of the trip. You  know we took the Ambassadors from France,  Austria,  and England with us…  and they are fussy!   They expect to be treated like royalty. You can’t just shlep a Count or a Duke from  place to place.   They have to be waited on and catered to. I don’t have to tell you Larry, you know VIP’s.  To be honest Lar, the biggest problem was finding good help. You just can’t find  good help anymore.  For example, we had to repair and recontruct towns and villages.  Each one had to be different.  That was part of the picture we were trying to create — a Russia with great strength and diversity.  As I mentioned we  had to build galleys for the sea voyage.  And I mean Galley’s!  Seven huge red and  gold Roman galleys headed the procession.   Then, just like with the sledges, they were followed by seventy three galleys in an array of sizes.  It took three thousand sailors to man the  ships.  And I’m talking ships. They were beautiful, luxurious, enormous!  Each one has it’s own  orchestra.  The  orchestra on  Catherine’s galley was conducted by the maestro Sarti.  Can you imagine the maestro conducting on a boat.  It was fabulous.  But  he’s not easy I can tell you that — without telling tales out of court.  I  mean  we’re  talking  multitudes  here.  Just try and find a someone to repair a galley on a weekend.  But it worked and as a bonus we scared the hell out of the Turks.        
     Larry:   The  trip got good press but you personally took some pretty heavy hits, Count.      
     Count:   You mean the garbage that Saxon diplomat Helbig wrote.  I read it.  The part I found most entertaining was where he says everything was a sham.  The people and villages were all set-ups.  The concept of “Potemkins villages,” ridiculous. It was   flattering but not accurate. Just read the chronicles of Comte  de Segur and Prince de Ligne,  people who  actually travelled on the journey.   They’ll  tell you what really happened.  Truth is I make things look too easy.   It’s certainly not easy to do what I did but I do make it look easy.   Helbig also accused me of taking the three million  ruble advance and keeping it for  myself.  He  clearly does not understand the cost of travel nor the importance of organization.  I don’t want to waste your precious interview time discussing that envious bastard.  He was angry because we didn’t invite the Prussian Ambassador to come along.   I’ve heard they are more then just good friends if you know what I mean.
     Larry:   What would  you  consider the highlight of the adventure.      
     Count:  The  celebration  of Catherine’s 25th year as reigning monarch.  I built this fabulous house and garden on the banks of the river.  We prepared a banquet with national  dishes and wines I had  developed  – the white Sudak from the Crimea was especially good.  We had a concert and entertainment and as darkness fell 120 cannons fired salvoes to begin the fireworks display.  Launched thirty thousand rockets!   When Catherine went to bed I told her to look out her window at the mountain. And when she did she saw her initials spelled out on the mountain side, used 55,000 candle lights for it, just incredible!      
     Larry:   You’re pretty incredible.  Any plans for  the   future?      
     Count:  I’ve been on the road for a long time.  Right now all  I want to do is go back to the palace and rest.  Then there was some talk of extending our borders, settling  more territory, moving more serfs… the usual.      
     Larry:   I  know how busy you are Count and I appreciate  your taking the time to talk to me today.      
     Count:   I enjoyed it Larry . The next time we decide to go anywhere I’ll make sure you get an invitation.        
    
     There are no more counts or Harvey. Today everyone wants  to be the boss.   Everyone wants to be a humma humma before they learn to hum. 
     Just remember Phillipe de Segur’s  description of the Count, and if he had known him, of Harvey.   “He knows in a fantastic way how to remove every obstacle in his path and to discipline nature, shorten distances, disguise misery, dissipate boredom, and impart an air of life to the most sterile deserts….”
     Oh well, as my mother says “What is — is.”

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a Christmas Eve story…

About four years ago I received a message from my agency office that someone had called, and was inquiring about somehow getting a print of a picture I did Christmas Eve 1970 – an improbable forty eight years ago. I was on my way then to Alpha 4, the old Con Thien basecamp up on the DMZ, now manned by Army instead of Marines, and on the way, stopped in Phu Bai to get the chopper north. As it happened, it was the day Bob Hope and his band of merry makers were performing a USO show for the 101st Airborne Division, and I stuck around long enough to make a few pictures. Among those photographs was a group shot of a mass of guys in fatigues, the faces of the audience of soldiers, all cheering the show in front of them. In the front row are a couple of senior officers, but it’s mainly a collection of hundreds of faces of grunts. It’s a picture for which I’ve often thought “how can I find some of these guys?” I was a terrible reporter in those days (and still am) and almost never wrote down anyone’s name/hometown/age, etc. In the magazine world you could skate by with a good picture and a broad undetailed caption. That has remained one of my great regrets over all these years.
In the note I got, there was a phone number in Illinois, asking me to please call back. Because it’s kind of a pain to get prints made, and takes a lot of hands-on time from someone in the office, we generally don’t get into selling prints other than in the art market, which is, at least, monetarily worthwhile. So it becomes a kind of low priority. I called the number and reached Terry Knox, and got the story of how he found the picture. He first asked to verify that I was really the guy who shot the picture at Phu Bai… and when I said yes, he started crying, and weeping openly.. it was very moving. It’s been so infrequent that I run across someone who was actually where and when I was in a place that it really hit me, too. It felt like the telephone equivalent of reaching our hands out and holding on to each other.

Bob Hope USO show arrives in Phu Bai (Terry Knox in red…)  1970  Christmas Eve

“Especially at Christmas time,” he explained, “I start to think of my friends who didnt make it back. The other night, it got to me again, and I got up in the middle of the night, and went to my computer. I typed “bob hope show phu bai” into google… and was taken to a page with your picture. I started to look at the picture, and realized I was IN it. I got chosen to go by the first Sergeant who did a lottery, and one other guy and I were the only two people from our base to go. I didn’t know anyone else in that crowd.” Spec 4 Terry Knox and I had a long conversation, and I promised to send him a print (I actually sent him 3 16×20” prints) and we hung up, each of us quite happy to have tried to close a tiny circle in our lives. Four months later, while I was on assignment in southern Illinois, Terry drove down and we finally met. Like the rest of us, he looks very little like the 23 year old version of himself in the picture, but the smile on his face, as we met, and hugged, was probably as broad as my own. In so many of the situations I have covered in my fifty years of taking pictures, I am the anonymous photographer, photographing anonymous subjects, and those rare times that we close those circles, it seems that a tiny bit of order has been added to the world.

  • Terry and DB  2015

photograph ©2018 David Burnett/Contact Press Images

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The Passage of Watergate Time

 

Fans of this page (both of you!) will recall how this reporter’s view of recent history is colored, overall, by a disbelief that He ( if I were President, here I would just write my name as if I were some 6 o’clock local anchor in the up and coming St. George, Utah TV market) could have actually been present at events of the last half century, especially the earliest ones.  They all seem like just a few months, maybe a year ago.  Life does have a nasty habit of starting out when you’re in your teens and twenties at a rate you can absorb, then, like a really bad ride at a travelling carnival, it begins to speed up just when you thought you were attuned to the velocity of life in front of you.  Thus, if you are someone who actually remembers the first year you had a television, and your parents watched Adlai Stevenson give his first acceptance speech live to the nation,  those numbers, the ones you can’t believe are YOUR life, just thrash you around like a protective terrier would a small rodent, illicitly caught in the grain elevator. (Yes, that is what terriers were apparently originally bred for.)  

And so it was, that cleaning out a large scale IKEA bookshelf over the weekend produced a number of surprises.  Not shocking, really, just little measures of a life which had mostly been dedicated to capturing what was happening in our world.  For years, with my aspiration to be a Time-Life photographer filled at a relatively early age (I was 20 when I got my first internship at Time … too young at the time to even have a couple of martinis at Duke Zieberts with the D.C. crowd after an LBJ welcoming ceremony)  I spent the better part of five decades chasing events in many parts of the world (not all: never made it to Antarctica, and there are huge gaps in my Asia and Africa coverage…) and for the most part, following the ritual of finding a plane headed to New York or Paris, with my film on it.  We have become so spoiled in the last 15 years, with instant everything, that the toxic nature of this short-term, instant gratification (how gratified, really?) is not going to be truly understood by the citizenry for years to come.  Shooting film meant your job never ended until, to quote my long time buddy Jean-Pierre Laffont, “I see the plane with my film flying over head …” to whichever editorial stop it might be, usually NYC or Paris, the two main axes of photojournalism for the last fifty years.   In those days, if you were on a political campaign, you’d packet up your film in a heavy envelope and leave it at the front desk for a messenger to fetch, and head directly to the bar, where you might actually run into someone working for the campaign who could give you a heads up about tomorrow’s work schedule.  With today’s obligation to edit and process on the fly, it’s rare after a long day shooting that  you aren’t cooped up in your hotel room, trying to edit and tone pictures which will fly out on the wifi system that night.  It’s certainly quicker than film, but it’s a helluva lot less fun.  And all the obligations which accompany those deadlines mean you never really have time to just ponder.  

Pondering was one of my favorite elements of photojournalism.  Essentially, we are always trying to understand the logistics battle of how  we get our camera in the exact spot necessary, and at the right moment, that all we have to do is compose, and shoot.   But those answers never come easy, and you have to really think about what your options are, and what you have to do to make that magic moment happen. Much of it, true, is something you see on the fly, but so many times, thinking ahead about what is happening, or going to happen, makes a huge difference in your work.  Anticipation is a gift.  You just need that time to ponder.  It pays off in the end. 

The accompanying picture (Washington DC, summer 1973)  is by that same French friend, Jean-Pierre Laffont.  JP has been living in New York since the late 1960s.  We met at the first Nixon Inauguration.  I forget the exact moment, but I was a young freelancer, having just been out of college, and in DC a couple of months, and JP was the GAMMA photographer in New York, covering the USA for that then new, and ground-breaking agency.  GAMMA was really the first news agency to operate on the theory that there are enough places to sell and license the work, if only we have the confidence in our photographers, and let them operate “on spec” following their own judgement.  It really solidified the idea that photojournalists were journalists as much as photographers, relying on their inate skills as artists, con men, bullshitters, and business mavens, to get to where the pictures were happening, and send film of said events back to the base, in this case, Paris.  After a nasty split amongst the partners, a number of the GAMMA staff left to form a new agency, SYGMA, and it was with SYGMA that JP spent the next forty something years based in New York, covering the world. (He has published two wonderful books of photographs:  Photographer’s Paradise: Turbulent America 1960-1990 and New York City Up  and Down (https://preview.tinyurl.com/y742hxw5)  I more or less took up the GAMMA slot for the next couple of years, before leaving to start Contact Press Images (www.contactpressimages.com) in New York.  One of the first big stories I covered for GAMMA in 1973 was the Watergate Hearings and the beginning of the unravelling of the Nixon administration.  Every day had a wild new twist as witnesses came to the hill, sitting in front of folksy old Senator Sam Ervin (ever the ‘country lawyer’), the country, and the world.  One of the most explosive days of testimony came when John Dean, who had been the one to tell  Nixon there was “ a cancer growing on the Presidency…”   came with wife Maureeen (soon to be known by all as “Mo’ Dean.”)   I was one of the photographers trying to make some kind of picture of Dean that day, and I was surrounded by some of the best.  Looking back now, I see so many of the Washington world who have since died, but whose presence made me, a young guy fairly new at this game, try and do better than just merely showing up.  When you look a t the talent in that room, and realize how widely viewed their pictures would be over that year, it gives you pause.  There are a few I don’t recognize, but many I do: Daryl Heikes (UPI), Tim Murphy, Joe Silverman (Wash Star)  (standing behind me), ME (GAMMA), Committee Counsel Sam Dash in the dark suit in the distance, Gjon Mili (LIFE – tall in the grey suit, the man who did things with early strobes we all marvelled at, even years later), Stanley Tretick (confidante to Presidents from Kennedy to Carter), Harvey Georges (amazing that we can identify someone by their hair – AP), and Wally McNamee (lower right, Newsweek.)  I think WashPost photographer Jim Atherton, (the guy who could, and often did,  walk into a hearing room where you’d been sitting on your knees for two hours, look around for about a minute, make a half dozen snaps, and walk out of the room, having handed you your very own lunch, an hour before the lunch break) might even be in this picture. I know he was in the room. In my dreary picture of Dean with hand raised for swearing in, Atherton had, alone, snuck behind him and popped up for just long enough to get the anxiious faces of the Senators. Such was the talent in that room, in this picture from 45 years ago.  Forty five years, and none of us alive today can imagine it was really that long ago. Like so many things it feels so fresh, so recent, so real.  We have our pictures to remember our lives, and photography, above all, is about memory.   Thanks, JP. And yes, I’ll get a haircut.

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RIP Wally McNamee, Our Pal

There are some people who you always know you can count on, no matter what. & nbsp;
They are not necessarily your best friend.You may not see them
for a day, a month, or a year.But you know they are always around.Wally McNamee was one of those people.Always good humored and always positive despite the seriousness of the situation. & nbsp;
A few months ago mutual friends invited us to visit with Wally one last time. & nbsp;
He was ill and his son had moved him from the Carolina coast to the & nbsp;
DC area to take care of hm. & nbsp;
Wally wanted to say goodbye to his photo friends and some of the people he wanted to see. & nbsp;
To fade your own mortality is a brave thing to do . & nbsp;
Anyway, His son brought him in a wheel chair attached to an oxygen tank and mask. & nbsp;
It didn & rsquo;
t matter, you could still see that smile even though it was partially covered by the plastic. & nbsp;
When you write about someone you loved you can only describe what they meant to you.So forgive me
for the & ldquo;
me & rdquo;
element.
Wally covered Presidential campaigns and the White House at a time when there were no cell phones, computers or almost any technology. We met on some campaign and continued to enjoy one another’s company beginning in the mid 70’s on some political trip.  It was hard working with the media because they did what they were supposed to do and as staff, we did what we were supposed to do — and often produced conflict.  The press, especially photographers, did not with a few exceptions, “have our backs.”  Wally was an exception.He was someone who not only saw the humor in what we were all trying to do,
but he was able to recognize when someone, be it a photographer, staff, or VIP, & nbsp;
was being an asshole. & nbsp;
And he always found a subtle way to
let them know that their behavior was unacceptable.Sometimes it was a little more forceful than words & mdash;
like the time a Russian photo thug was pushing us around, and Wqlly clocked him on top of his head with a fairly big camera. & nbsp;
The camera was not hurt. & nbsp;
And my favorite Wally story was when we were in France or China(they all start to look alike), and a 4 foot tall and 4 foot round pretend white haired female writer / photographer, couldn & rsquo;
t get past foreign security.No one ever knew how she got them, but she had permanent White House credentials.And she was always a pain in the butt.For example, when David & hellip;.never mind. & nbsp;
Anyway, she was trying to get through foreign security.They looked at her and even with White House credentials, they wouldn & rsquo;
t
let her through. & nbsp;
She saw Wally and begged him to help. & nbsp;
He thought about it
for a minute, pulled out a dollar bill which has George Washington & rsquo;
s picture of course, pointed to that picture, pointed to the woman, and the guard
let her through. & nbsp;
It is hard to explain how dear some of the people with whom you travel during these stressful times become to you.  You bond personally and professionally. We celebrated holidays, happy occasions, and sad times with the friends whose company was important and whose lives and family were intertwined with our own.  When you are writing about someone like Wally, it is impossible to express all the emotions you feel. But you, our readers, understand. 
Wally and Nikki.They were simple attached and it is hard
for me to mention one and not the other.This blob will include what I wrote about Nikki MacNamee & nbsp;
who was Wally & rsquo;
s wife and in a women & rsquo;
s group we started when, as newly arrived & nbsp;
young women in DC, we needed friends.Nikki died a few years ago and was missed by all who knew her. & nbsp;
Wally died a few days ago, it is hard to believe he and his wife Nikki are both gone. & nbsp;
Nikki was also a  star.  Politics and photographers were mostly what brought us together.  And that gave us opportunity to see one another outside the group –- which was also nice.  Usually we had a bite at whoever’s house and often go someplace for a drink. (those were not days we worried about drinking and driving because we never drank very much and we all lived within a few miles of one another.) There was one night when Nikki made a request of a biker bartender that we all laughed so hard we almost fell off our bar stools.  She wanted a Courvoisier and ice. It was hard to imagine that she actually expected them to have it, but it was what she wanted and expected.  The bartender looked at her as if she was speaking some foreign language and said, “we don’t have none of that,” and Nikki persevered.  “Well you must, it’s cognac and you must have cognac”.  It went on for quite sometime, until in frustration she said, “OK we are outta here, and we are not coming back.”  We were still laughing when we left.  Of course we are not coming back, we didn’t know why we were there in the first place.
Wally and Nikki were simply & nbsp;
loving, gracious, independent friends, and always up
for some kind of adventure.When you are married to a photojournalist, you have to be pretty flexible. & nbsp;
The best part
for all of us was that she and her husband adored one another. & nbsp;
It was wonderful to watch them together and to be a part of their lives.Rest in Peace my friends, we are comforted by the fact you are together again.
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