This was an invading army, yet Grant actually complied! He burned every other building in the town (and even stole her husband’s tombstone) but never set foot in Great-Great-Grandmother’s bedroom. Good thing too. That’s where she hid the family’s treasures!
When the newspapers first started writing about me, believe me, they checked out whether I really was related to George Washington. I was, through his cousin Catherine and his sister Betty. My favorite story involves Betty.
In 1776, the Marquis de Lafayette was coming to her house for dinner, and Betty knew he would be expecting spirits. The war’s embargoes had caused shortages of everything, though, including liquor. Betty considered the tiny amounts of liquor left in her remaining bottles. She combined them and poured the mixture into a cut-crystal glass, to which she tied iridescent cock feathers, to make it more festive.
“A cocktail!” cried the delighted marquis.
Legend has it that Betty’s fancy creation was the first cocktail ever served.
“Uncle George” Washington was used mercilessly by my family to teach me how to behave properly. I constantly heard “Uncle George did this” and “Uncle George did that.” I tried to measure up to his high standards. There were many—too many—but I did my best… until the day my grandmother handed me a scrub brush and said, “Uncle George always washed out his own bathtub.”
Her credibility crumbled. The maid had just quit.
There were many lessons I did learn from the legend of George Washington—a sense of duty and the necessity for sacrifice, for instance. Over and over I’ve made choices between my children, my family, my job, and what I felt called to do. People considered only the public side of my life and what was written about me in the society pages. But fun has often played only a small part in my life. I have always had a sense of responsibility, and even amid the seeming frivolity, when I’m using often underrated or dismissed social tools, such as good manners, I usually have a serious goal in mind.
George Washington could charm anyone, but it frustrates me that no one ever writes that about him. Instead, he is always painted as a dignified, rather boring figure. History records that, in reality, he loved music, parties, and dancing. He was the best dancer and the best horseman in Virginia. He loved having fun. He was not the stiff, dull man that is often portrayed. How could a bore be twice elected unanimously to serve as the army’s commander in chief and the president of the United States?
Washington had important help from the French in winning America’s independence. Perhaps the French did it for political reasons—every country does—but without them, America could not have won. They provided troops and money at a crucial time, when Washington’s army had not been paid in more than a year and his men were deserting daily. The French fought the naval Battle of the Chesapeake—no American ships were even in that battle—without which there would have been no victory at Yorktown. Yorktown was the decisive battle of the American Revolution.
Washington convinced three important Frenchmen—the Marquis de Lafayette, Admiral Joseph de Grasse, and General de Rochambeau—to help our fledgling country, a treasonable offense! But he got these French men to support his American Revolution. They risked their reputations, fortunes, and lives because of Washington’s magnetism and his dream of freedom, equality, and opportunity. Ten years later, in the French Revolution, they lost everything except their heads.
I have become involved in Afghanistan again, a nation not too dissimilar to what our own was when George Washington was alive. The war machine of the Soviet Union was defeated by this small nation the size of Texas. We helped the Afghans then by supplying weapons and support, but not one American soldier died in that war. Though we owed the Afghan people a huge debt afterward, we left them a war-torn country, wounded and dying. That’s when the terrorists (the Taliban and Al-Qaeda) moved in. And that’s why I am now working to rebuild Afghanistan—to win the peace that that country, twice torn by war, so richly deserves. I want to help revive that country’s strength so that its people can stand up—and defend themselves so our American soldiers can come home.
CHAPTER 3
Duckling with Dyslexia
My parents always taught me that money doesn’t matter. “What matters,” they said, “is who and what you are.” There was always enough money. But many of those with whom I grew up were people of enormous wealth. My parents, William Dunlap Johnson and Maelan McGill, came from nice families, but both were orphaned and adopted by aunts and uncles with no children. One uncle was the founder of Gulf Oil, and the other owned hundreds of acres in Houston, which became Memorial Drive—so nobody starved. Isn’t it interesting that two orphaned children each had a childless aunt and uncle longing for children? See how God provides? And God provided me with a wonderful family.
Our house was on three and one-half acres on Kirby Drive in River Oaks, an elegant neighborhood. Ultimately, an Arab prince bought it.
There were no sidewalks because nobody walked anywhere. Nobody but me, that is! I had to walk to school. My family thought it was good for me. Other kids had chauffeurs and maids to drive them to school. Our family had a chauffeur and a maid too. But they never treated me in the style to which I thought I should become accustomed. It didn’t really matter how I arrived at school, though. No one paid me any attention, anyway.
I was tall—the tallest child, male or female, in the class. I had black hair, slanted brown eyes, and high cheekbones, which would serve me well later. But on a young child, such bones were not pretty. My mother, a ravishing redhead with aqua eyes, tried to make me feel good about my drab coloring. “Oh, I always wanted a child with black hair and brown eyes,” she’d say. She was kind, but I knew the truth: I was a little mouse.
Eventually, I grew into my bone structure and looked better. After my first divorce, I wanted a new look and a new life. I experimented with every color and finally decided to see whether blondes have more fun. Miss Clairol and I settled on blonde as my “natural” hair color. When people said I looked enough like my friend Eva Gabor to be her sister, I was flattered beyond belief. The sister of Zsa Zsa, Eva was the Hungarian actress who was known for her role as Lisa Douglas on the television show Green Acres.
But that was many years in the future. As a kid, I was quite plain. I was also skinny at a time when women had to be plump to be considered pretty, like Jane Russell, the icon of my generation.
And I was dyslexic. There are a thousand ways to be dyslexic, but, basically, it means your eyes play tricks. You read letters backwards. Numbers jump from column to column, changing the line of figures completely. You can’t read or add what you can’t see. Even today I often have to dial a phone number several times because the numbers keep jumping. When I type the word “had,” it comes out “dha.”
When I was a child, teachers and parents knew nothing about dyslexia. Undiagnosed children with dyslexia often become shy, defeated, or class problems. They are punished for “not trying.” When I was baffled in class, it was scary and humiliating. I’d try so hard but would almost always get the wrong answer. Before I went to school, my mother had read the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Bible to me. She knew that I had understood what she was reading. So when I did poorly in school, she realized that I was not dumb and kept right on challenging me. My mother’s belief in me helped me succeed despite this handicap—which prepared me to wage war against conventional thinking in my future.
When I was ten, we sold our house in town and moved to five hundred acres about ten miles from Houston. It was our family’s “country home,” and it was a copy of Mount Vernon, with a ballroom and a beautiful stable, replicas of those belonging to the governor’s palace in Williamsburg, Virginia. Five generations of us lived in that house near Houston.
One morning while getting ready to ride my horse, I felt something hard hit my leg. “Daddy!” I shrieked. “A snake!”
John, the stable manager, began to run toward me, but, to my horror, my father stopped him. “Kic
k it off!” he told me.
I felt betrayed. I could not believe my indulgent father was not coming to my rescue. I kicked it off, expecting a hug.
Then he said, “Kill it!”
“How?” I wailed.
“That hoe against the tree,” he directed. I grabbed it and brought it down hard on the snake, my heart pounding. The snake was dead.
“Rattlesnake,” my father commented. “Good work.” Then he calmly walked off.
Only later did I realize that it was a harmless king snake—and he knew it, too. Daddy upgraded it to give me confidence. He always said, “Children need to experience success or they won’t realize their full potential.”
It was a harsh lesson, but it worked. From my ten-year-old perspective, I had just single-handedly killed the most poisonous reptile on the face of the earth. I really needed that feeling because my classroom humiliation left me with no confidence. My father was teaching me that whatever happened, I could handle it.
“Never give in to fear—it interferes with winning,” he often said.
Winning came naturally to William Dunlap Johnson. He lettered in every sport, was first pick for pro football one year (over future Olympian Jim Thorpe), was the first All-American in the Southwest Conference, was elected to the honor society, and was voted “most popular man” and “most likely to succeed.” As captain of the football team at Texas A&M University, to inspire his teammates he refused to wear a helmet. In the 1922 Cotton Bowl Classic (which in those days was as big as any one of today’s New Year’s Day bowl games), he scored the winning touchdown—barefoot! Fear and failure were (and are) just not done in our family.
Loneliness helped me overcome dyslexia by making me a voracious reader; many people who have dyslexia often have difficulty and discomfort reading, but practice makes perfect. As a young girl, I taught myself the joy of constantly learning new things. I gobbled up all kinds of books in the family’s formidable library. Then my uncle sent me a state-of-the-art record player along with his classical music collection. The music helped me appreciate the great composers, while the reading awakened an interest in history. Mine was a self-education in the classics at the ripe old age of ten! I thought that was quite sufficient.
But my father and mother obviously decided that if I wasn’t pretty I should be educated. My father taught me when, where, and why. My mother taught me how. Later in life, my parents’ lessons helped me in ways I couldn’t have predicted: first in the building business with my husband, next in my television career, and finally when I visited the great palaces in England, France, Spain, and Italy. At the time I desperately needed to fit in.
My father’s sessions on art, architecture, and design were relentless and thorough. His tutorial continued for two years… and I hated every minute of it. (There was a difference between teaching myself and having my father force me to learn.) Without realizing it, however, I was acquiring knowledge and experience that I would return to again and again in the future when I had little else and needed those lessons. Another tool in my toolbox!
My mother instilled in me manners and the social graces to dress, talk, and dine appropriately. She even taught me the proper way to eat fruit with a knife and fork. She seemed to know everything that I would need to know as an adult when I was in lofty surroundings, however, not quite everything.
Years later, in the shah of Iran’s palace, when I looked around for the small knife traditionally used to put caviar on toast, it was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the toast. So I looked around and thought the only utensil that seemed appropriate was a fork, only to notice belatedly that the other guests were eating their caviar with a small spoon that I had only seen used for demitasse coffee. When they saw me use a fork, however, they immediately picked up their forks and joined me, making no issue at all of my ignorance. Their silent support was the most genuine example of manners and hospitality I have ever seen. But that was far in the future.
My first death knell came the year I was ten.
For a month my mother suffered a fever of 106 degrees caused by a strep infection of the blood. At that time, nobody survived this illness, let alone survived a month with a fever of 106. The only hope was to find a survivor who carried the blood cells that could cure her. The family sent out urgent newspaper and radio messages. Hospital records were searched. At last, a donor was found. By God’s miracle, Carlton Speed lived in Houston! His blood saved her life. I was to become wary every time a new decade arrives. Every ten years, without fail, my life has been marred by eminent tragedy.
At the time, the family sheltered me from knowing how serious her situation was. When I learned the details later, I shuddered. If my mother had died, you would not be reading this book. She never gave up on her little ugly dyslexic duckling. In fact, her recovery from that strep infection may have been inspired by the loss of her own mother when my mother was only twelve. She was a child of wealth and privilege in Dallas, a student at “the” Highland Park Academy, but life as she knew it ended when her mother contracted tuberculosis in an age with no cure. She died slowly, horribly—in front of my mother’s eyes. My mother’s father, a spoiled playboy, sold their house and left with all of the family money, abandoning his son and daughter.
My mother’s brother (twenty at the time) quit college to raise her until she was eventually adopted by her aforementioned aunt and uncle, and he later became editor of the Associated Press.
This experience led my mother to vow that she would never abandon her children. Not even disease could force her to break her vow. Without her, the ugly duckling in the story might never have had a chance to become a swan.
CHAPTER 4
Swan with Swain
At age twelve my looks began to change. “I love her bone structure,” Paul Gittings, a renowned photographer, told my parents. His close-up of my face won an international contest. Suddenly, people thought I was okay.
With the ensuing attention my confidence grew and my life changed. Stories emerged that are still told today.
Lloyd Hand, who became chief of protocol for President Lyndon B. Johnson, loves to tell the story of “One-Step” Joanne as a teenager. He says he remembers stepping onto the dance floor where the boys were lined up to dance with me. As soon as one boy danced one step with me, another would cut in for his turn. After each cut-in, I’d squeeze the boy’s hand and whisper, “Come back.” And he would!
Today, it’s hard to imagine life in the late 1940s. Kids then accepted and followed the rules, which were strictly enforced. Parents were very protective. For example, each generation had a dance club to which you had to belong, or you were out. In Houston, members were carefully vetted by the parents, who were some of the city’s most influential people. The club I belonged to, Merrymakers, existed solely to introduce children to each other in the hopes that the “right” marriage into the proper family would materialize. The children dated from among this group or not at all. That’s just the way it was back then. Parents wanted to give their offspring the world with a fence around it. It isn’t possible, of course, but they tried.
At dances, the chaperones sat in stolid elegance against the wall. They resembled Mount Rushmore—never uttering a word but never taking their eyes off of us either. My mother insisted that I introduce myself to the chaperones like a “lady” should. I was the only child at the parties whose mother demanded this. I dreaded it, since the “cool kids” never talked to the adults, but I did it.
Over the next forty years, these parents (there were different ones at each dance) never forgot my good manners whenever I saw them. This tiny courtesy opened many doors for me and taught me the value of having the support of older people of position and power. They often act like a machete, cutting away brambles from your path.
My father told me to befriend everyone, not just the popular kids. That’s how I found many smart and interesting friends—it isn’t always the football heroes and glamour girls who stand by you. I learned never to judge a book by i
ts current cover. Many “ordinary” kids go on to have extraordinary careers and lives.
I always remembered my own unattractive, unpopular years. My changed appearance didn’t eliminate the memories. But that time of my life helped me become a better, more compassionate person. To this day I enjoy helping the underdog.
But before I grew into that understanding, I sometimes handled my newfound gifts from God poorly. My new life was a gift from God, but I didn’t bother to consult Him on anything. I now turn to God first. “If it is Your will, please help me to accomplish this. If not, close the door,” I pray.
I have faced many closed doors.
We wonder why babies die. We wonder why we have wars. We wonder about the unexplained, the tragic, the incomprehensible. I know that God is not the source of these things. I also know we can’t control what happens to us. But we can control how we react. I so admire those who, by faith, have turned tragedy around and used it for good, changing the lives of others by their example.
When overwhelmed, we simply must walk on in faith, knowing that somehow this too will pass and that Jesus is there to walk with us into a better tomorrow. Time and again in my life, God has turned my tragedies into strengths that I would need in the tomorrows to come. Sometimes it takes years to see that, though.
World War II was raging during my junior high school years, but our little corner of Texas was largely untouched by the privations of war. My family did what our country asked. We moved into town to save gas. We tried to grow a victory garden, but nothing seemed to come up. We canned but couldn’t do anything with the canned vegetables because they were awful.
My father, an engineer, was working with McCloskey shipyards to develop the first all concrete boats. The Liberty ships were a success and were built, launched, and used toward the end of the war.
Another government edict was to invite servicemen for lunch. I did, to my mother’s surprise. Those eighteen-year-olds were bored to death with a thirty-seven-year-old woman and a twelve-year-old girl.
Diplomacy and Diamonds Page 2