Chapter 27: Like an Egyptian

THE WEEK IN ISRAEL and Cyprus heralded the kind of work we would have for the coming months. We got to spend Saturday, Groundhog’s Day, with the family, but Sunday, Adrienne arrived for a two week stay. I was glad she could be with Anna, Patricia, and the children, but Ronda and I spent only Sunday night with her before we went back to work and flew to Ankara, Turkey on Monday.

We were briefed by the ambassador and gave him a rather large packet that we’d picked up from our Monday morning courier. Ronda’s and my bags were heavy with correspondence on this trip. The ambassador gave us his return packet and reported much the same that we had heard in Cyprus. Turkey had been persuaded by Lyndon Johnson to refrain from invading Cyprus. Persuasion being a kind word for being threatened by Johnson to withhold all aid if Turkey faced the opportunistic expansion of the USSR. But the ambassador warned that the threat would not be sufficient to hold them back if a Greek enosis regime rose to power. Turkey was ready to launch an invasion at any time.

After training on Tuesday, we flew to Adana. Wednesday morning, we met with the consul general and then installed equipment and trained the operators. It was Thursday morning that our schedule was tight. Early in the morning, we flew east to Damascus, Syria. Negotiations were far advanced with the Syrians to mutually recognize the country with an exchange of ambassadors during the summer. Our role was merely to land long enough to refuel and hand our packet off to the chargé d’affaires, then get out of there. We were in Istanbul by nightfall.

Friday morning, we installed equipment in the consulate, which was an incredible building—among the most beautiful in a city of beautiful architecture. It was one of the few times we wished we simply had more time to stay and explore. As soon as the training was complete, our crew was waiting for us at the airport and we took off for home, arriving after dark.

We had a slightly more relaxing time at home when we received word Monday morning of a change in the schedule that would allow us to wait until Wednesday to leave on a three-day trip. We were happy for the extra two days in London, as Adrienne was still there and we all wanted time to celebrate Ronda’s twenty-fourth birthday on Monday.

Early Wednesday morning, we flew to Budapest and met with the ambassador there for dinner. Once again, we stayed in the chancery.

“The Hungarian border leaks like a sieve,” the ambassador said. “There are places along the Austrian frontier where you can simply walk from one country into the other without being challenged. That’s thanks to a world-wide shortage of razor wire. Sadly, the traffic is limited by random checks that round up anyone not authorized to be in the area. They are imprisoned. It slows things for a couple of weeks and then it gradually picks up until the next round-up. Many people loyal to Cardinal Mindszenty have left to seek him out in Vienna.”

We trained the technicians on Thursday morning and flew directly to Sofia, Bulgaria.

This is where our visit had been truncated, allowing us the extra days in London. Our superiors had determined that Bulgaria was too firmly in the hands of the USSR to leave sensitive equipment and materials in the rather poorly defended chancery. So, we did no installation or training. Instead, Ronda and I set up the camera and issued IDs for all employees of the embassy. It took all afternoon, so we spent the night and then flew out first thing Friday morning to return to London. Only three days, but exhausting.

Adrienne had consented to stay in the apartment with us Friday night so we could all be together. Ronda and I were pretty tired, but there was something about our mistress that revived us. Entering her soft wet folds as my wives loved on us was just the perfect end of a stressful week.

Going to the airport with her in the morning was more difficult.

I waited at Heathrow until the flight from Chicago arrived and greeted my parents when they got through customs. We took a cab to the apartment where they were immediately surrounded and hugged by Toni. Don’t ask me how one little five-year-old can completely surround and hug two people. It was obvious, though, that she really missed her Gampa. Gamma, too, but the focus was on my dad.

Mom didn’t mind too much, since she had Alex to hold and make a fuss over as the rest of the family tried to get hugs as well. We finally got a chance to rest and just enjoy our time together. On Sunday, Old Auntie cooked a big dinner for us and we celebrated Alex’s first birthday.

My daughter was a year old. Where had the time gone? I was sure I wasn’t spending as much time with Alex as I had with Toni, even though I’d been in my first year of college and living in a different city at the time. My daughter was already twenty-two pounds and over two feet tall. We could use the word ‘tall’ because she was vertical as often as she could be. She was cruising around the room and had already mastered Toni’s method of standing next to something with one hand on it while she danced with her shoulders moving back and forth. Toni was sure she could teach Alex to twist and worked with her daily.

“Mommy. Daddy. Mom Ronda. Mom Anna,” Toni said as she led Alex by the hand and touched each of us. “Gampa. Gamma.” She paused and looked at her sister, holding Alex’s hand to her chest. “Sister Toni.” Then she touched Alex’s chest and said, “Sister Alex.”

The two giggled and Alex cruised over to Patricia chanting, “Ma ma ma ma ma.” Well, what could I expect. She only saw me on weekends.

It was only February and I was already looking forward to June when I could just stay home with my family for three months. If I was in the army and shipped off somewhere for a year or two without my family, I’m pretty sure I’d kill someone. Maybe the enemy.

It was good timing to have my parents visiting. Ronda and I had to go to work each day to receive our briefing and training on Egypt. We usually got home early, though, and could spend time taking the family on little excursions or just sitting and talking.

Dad had gained some weight. I won’t say he was getting fat, but he definitely had more bulk than when I’d seen him in the summer.

“I have a plum job,” he said as we were talking in the evening. “Doesn’t pay much, but I don’t do much. There’s a retirement home in Dekalb where they stow all the old people. They needed a young fellow like me to watch over the men and organize a woodworking shop for them. I haven’t had a place for my tools in six years, so I’ve taken a lot of them over there. The guys come in and do little projects. Some of them are experienced woodworkers and have things they want to work on. Some have never turned on a table saw and I have to watch to make sure they don’t cut off any fingers.”

“That sounds like fun,” I said. I learned a fair amount about general woodworking when I was young, but I was never Dad’s prize student. I did much better when it came to refinishing a bicycle or motorcycle.

“Oh, it is. I let the old fellows teach me things, just to keep them sharp. We repair furniture, build bookcases, and even frame pictures. I’m only fifty-eight and these guys are well into their sixties and seventies.”

“What are they going to do when you and Mom get transferred again?” We’d already talked about the idea that this was probably just a one-year assignment to test whether a student ministry was viable.

“I think I’ll leave the tools there. I’m tired of hauling them around from one barn to another just to store them. People might as well get some use from them. We’ve even talked about outfitting a garage over there and I’d move my mechanic tools into it. If you can think of any tools that you’d like to have, you should plan to pick them up before we move again.”

“Gosh, Dad. I can’t imagine you without a barn full of tools.”

“Your mother has taught me that the accumulation of things is not a requirement as we get older. Of course, she’s not going to donate her salt and pepper shakers to a museum, but I shouldn’t keep accumulating stuff. I was watching a late-night show on TV a while back—You know I don’t seem to need so much sleep these days unless it’s in the middle of the day. Anyway, there was a comedian on who talked about his stuff and I couldn’t help but see myself in what he was saying. It’s all just stuff.”

“Well, it should make it easier to move next time.”

“Yes, I’ll just be drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds,” he sang in a very rough baritone.

It was a good week. We found out Naomi had stopped for New Year’s on her way to training in Texas. Kat was there, too, and now Mom had seen three of her four children and two of four grandchildren. She was thinking they should save up their money and visit Deborah in Japan. I wasn’t sure how long Deborah and John planned to stay there, but maybe they’d be able to visit. I promised I’d stop and visit as soon as we got back to the states in June. Saturday, I rode in the cab out to Heathrow with them and waved goodbye as their plane left the ground.

Monday, Ronda and I were back at Southend-on-Sea. We had five passengers on this trip, so Nancy had her work cut out for her all the way to Malta. Our passengers were going with us to Egypt and were unhappy that we’d be spending Tuesday on the island of Malta, training the staff, and making sure the equipment was installed properly. The big event wasn’t until Thursday in Cairo and these guys were mostly observers and reporters. I certainly didn’t blame the Secretary of State for not wanting them with him on his plane. Besides, even though he was in London on Monday, he was making stops in Damascus and Tel Aviv before he arrived in Cairo on Thursday. I thought there might be a reason he was divorced. He didn’t seem to ever be home.

One of the reporters threatened to write an expose about government waste and talk about our plane being idle while we were in Malta instead of taking him on to Cairo. I told him flatly that we had the authority to leave him in Malta if he created problems. I wouldn’t have, of course. The folks we met in Valletta were really nice people. They didn’t need us dumping our rubbish on their island.

Wednesday morning, we flew on to Cairo and bid our guests good riddance. Every one of them felt they were more important than our mission and were shocked to find that both Ronda and I and the three crew members had black passports and breezed through customs when we landed.

We really didn’t have much to do on Wednesday. We couldn’t really do anything in the embassy until it was officially opened on Thursday afternoon. There was an American section that had maintained services in the Spanish embassy since diplomatic relations between the US and Egypt had been severed after the Six-Day War in 1967. The section chief met Ronda and me at the Spanish embassy and took our courier packets. My understanding from my meeting Monday morning was that this packet contained the final draft of the agreement between the US and the Arab Republic of Egypt along with instructions from the Secretary of State and the Ambassador designate.

The guides we were assigned were two of the staff we’d be training whenever we could get into the embassy on Thursday. They happened to be a couple and we got along well. They’d been in Cairo for five years and spoke the local dialect, so they were able to help us get food, explain various customs and dress codes, and take us on a tour of the hot locations.

I was surprised the temperatures in what was obviously a desert weren’t as hot as I’d expected. It was just like a nice summer day in Stratford, maybe seventy or seventy-five degrees. Bonnie and Carl made sure we got out to see the pyramids and the Sphinx just before sunset. I’d been snapping pictures like any tourist, and decided this would be a perfect place for a new picture of my sweetheart and partner.

We talked it over and Carl scouted a location where we’d get some good sunset pictures and where no one was currently around to obstruct our view. Or to view our obstruction. Bonnie shielded Ronda while she rearranged her outfit, dropping her shawl and pulling her blouse down so her shoulders and hair were exposed. I got several photos of my luscious wife looking totally edible.

Bonnie and Carl had us out at the airport early Thursday morning to pick up the equipment and materials in their car. The embassy was not officially open, but we managed to deliver the equipment and secure it. I carried the keys in my own courier pouch.

I’d had Josie go out and get me a bunch of keyrings with the logos of popular American cars. She sent them to the embassy in London over the holiday and we put the keys to the equipment on a keyring to give to our techs around the world. They got a kick out of it and there was nothing about it that identified it as the key to a Polaroid ID 3 system.

Most of Thursday was spent waiting for the arrival of the Secretary of State and the conference opening the embassy. It wasn’t until four o’clock in the afternoon that the cars with the Secretary of State and the Egyptian Foreign Minister pulled up to the American Embassy. Ronda and I had been stationed just to the left of where the cars pulled in, in front of the railing behind which the press contingent was located. I was at the edge of the group of embassy employees and their families. We watched the American flag raised on top of the embassy.

Ronda and I reconstructed the very short speech of the Secretary as well as we could after the event, but I didn’t have access to any of the television or radio recordings that were made.

The reestablishment of relations between Egypt and the United States is not just a practical move on the platform of international diplomacy. It reflects a long history and it reflects an even longer future.

The Egyptian Foreign Minister made an equally short speech, noting a long history of good relations between the US and Egypt. I’d have to say it was a cautious celebration. The doors of the embassy were unlocked and we were allowed in with the security unit and the two dignitaries. Of course, cleaners had been through the entire embassy to make sure it was in sparkling condition and I took photos of the brief receptions. During the reception, the Secretary took a call from Washington and confirmed that the Egyptian Embassy in Washington DC had also been opened. I guess that was why the ceremony in Cairo was so late. It was a seven-hour time difference to DC. Both embassies had been opened at the same time.

Most people had cleared out by five o’clock. The Secretary was on his way to the airport to fly back to Damascus if what I was told was correct. We talked to Bonnie and Carl and decided to go out to dinner and start training first thing in the morning, instead of hanging around an empty chancery until nine or ten at night.

We had an interesting passenger when we took off Friday about noon. He was a member of the British mission, returning to London. We had a good conversation and a couple of drinks. Nancy served us a nice meal she’d prepared at the chancery, and we spent a good bit of the trip in the conversation grouping getting Arthur’s take on the events.

“If I may say, we spend our time in this entire region trying to keep a lid on the powder keg. If I had my way, we’d line up Sadat, Arafat, Meir, Assad, and all their advisers up against a wall and...” he glanced around, then shook his head. “I’d spray them all with fire hoses until they cooled down. The only one in the region with a bit of sense is King Hussein. And no one listens to him.”

“You’ve been around the area quite a long time?” Ronda asked.

“Here and there. Five years in Israel until the Six-Day War. Two years in Jordan and two in Saudi Arabia. Egypt for the past three plus.”

“You don’t appear to be that old,” I said.

“I probably started about the same age as you. You’re still learning about how the world works. I’ve grown sick of it. Stay in diplomacy for long enough and you’ll realize the world is populated by idiots,” Arthur said, his bitterness clearly showing.

“We’ve seen evidence of that already.”

“You take this region. People would have you believe there are Arabs and Jews. But that isn’t exactly true. The United Arab Republic fell apart after the Six-Day War. Egypt isn’t the same as Syria. You have Palestinians occupying the West Bank and Jerusalem. The term ‘Palestinian’ could as well apply to Jew as to Arab. It’s basically just homeless people in the Middle East. Israel claims Jerusalem is theirs because it was built by their King David. That was three thousand years ago! And until 1945 there had been no Israel for nearly two thousand years. But now, they claim a sovereign right to something that isn’t even remotely like what they dream of.”

“We saw some of that on Cyprus, too,” I said.

“Thank heaven I’ve never been sent there. There’s a base with 20,000 Brits on Cyprus. Do you think they’ll be able to keep peace if war breaks out between the Turks and the Greeks? The only reason they are there is to keep an eye on the Suez, and they do a remarkably poor job of that.”

Ronda and I glanced at each other and excused ourselves to our table seats where we started jotting down as much of the conversation as we could. Probably nothing, but these notes like all the others would go to our courier when we met him in England.

We headed for Prague, Czechoslovakia on Monday afternoon. We only had one embassy to install and train, but our orders were to stay and observe for two days and then report back. We’d get back on Thursday.

At first glance, I’d have thought the American Embassy was the least secure building I’d seen in my travels so far. Its entrance was on the street and visitors had to line up on the street to await admission. However, it was soon obvious that the street entrance was to an interior garden from which access was possible. On the street, two Czech police officers stood calmly making sure no one attempted to enter without being called.

The embassy was a palace built in 1715 and sold to the US in 1917. Other buildings were butted right up against the palace. The inside was exactly what you might expect a palace to look like. We were met by our guides and they told us a bit about the place as we took the equipment to the consular section of the embassy.

“After the Germans were expelled from the Sudetenland on the western edge of the country, the furnishings were confiscated by the Czech government and distributed to estates around Prague, including the embassy and the ambassador’s residence. You’ll see it when you move over to Petschek Villa. Most of the embassy staff resides in that complex of mansions, including our visitors,” Emily said.

“It’s all so beautiful. I didn’t expect anything so opulent in a communist country,” Ronda said.

“And you won’t find it in lower levels of society. It’s funny how the estates of nobility and capitalist magnates seemed to find their way into the hands of the government and its associates, like embassies. On the other hand, you will find the underlying current of society is possibly the kindest and happiest in Eastern Europe.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“When Alexander Dubcek took power in Czechoslovakia in 1968, he had some lofty goals for making their country better. It was called the Prague Spring and people were filled with hope. Then the members of the Warsaw Pact, directed by the USSR, invaded to put a stop to the capitalist movement in the country. A case of if they are miserable, we should be, too. But the country as a whole is still more prosperous than most of the bloc,” she said.

“Why is that?” I asked.

“I’m sure you’ll get a full briefing from the ambassador when you meet for dinner this evening. Basically, Prague and most of Bohemia and Moravia, even under the Germans, was deemed to have no strategic or industrial importance. As a result, neither the Germans nor the Allies bombed it to hell. The infrastructure is intact. You’ll note the street outside the embassy was paved in cobbles two hundred years ago and is still in perfect condition.”

The ambassador’s residence was just as spectacular as the chancery. The house was built by Jewish coal magnate Otto Petschek in 1929. But it wasn’t just the one mansion. The Deputy Chief of Mission lived next door, where the Petschek grandparents lived. On the other side was the staff house where most of the embassy staff lived.

We were given rooms in the deputy’s home and the crew stayed in the staff house. There were no guest rooms in the ambassador’s residence. Ronda and I got a chance to freshen up and change clothes, and then were escorted to the ambassador’s residence. I’d specifically been asked to bring my camera and take many pictures. Ronda was given a list of guests for the ... I guess the event had no specific designation. It wasn’t dinner, though there was plenty of food for us. It wasn’t exactly a party, as there was no festive atmosphere. It was more like a social gathering and the ambassador, deputy chief, and consul general circulated among the guests, frequently in small groups. Our escort frequently pointed out photos that should be taken, and helped Ronda in identifying who was in each picture.

People began to leave and we were escorted back to our room.

The next day, we did the usual training and installation in the consular section of the chancery. This was one of the embassies in which there was a clear division between the consulate and the embassy sharing the same building. All visa, passport, and US citizen services were a part of the consulate. It had the most traffic and was located on the ground floor. Diplomatic activities were above. That included government to government meetings, trade negotiations, a military attaché, public affairs, and cultural activities.

Our students took us to a small café, where we had Fazolová, a hearty bean soup. Then we were handed off to the deputy’s secretary who escorted us to our meeting with the ambassador and the deputy. We handed off our packets for each of them and I prepared to take formal portraits of the two.

“We will have responses for these dispatches ready for you tomorrow evening,” the ambassador said. “I would suggest you spend the day as a tourist.”

“A tourist, sir?”

“Yes,” the deputy agreed. “I’ve arranged a guide for you. Mikel will show you the best places in Prague and will tell you what you can and cannot photograph. You should see the Prague Castle and the Basilica of St. George. You know the story of St. George and the Dragon.”

“And you really must see the statue of good King Wenceslas,” the ambassador added. “Make sure that is on Mikel’s list. As well as the clock.”