Diplomacy and Diamonds

by Joanne King Herring

  But I learned that in a battle between economic development and a country’s cultural traditions, tradition wins. So while international designers clambered for Pakistani fabrics, the Export Promotion Bureau decided that it could not be responsible for producing the items on a timely basis. New demand would upset the stream of income the bureaucrats had constructed.

  Still, while I was working with the villagers on the designer project, I became well-known in Pakistan, and the people liked and approved of me. Zia sent me by plane or by car to the villages and with great fanfare I would be introduced: “Mrs. Herring is here!” People lined up by the hundreds to see me. I was doing a man’s job in a man’s world, so… I had to become a man. And that’s what they made me. Pakistani officials just started calling me “sir.” I began to attend meetings with maybe one hundred businessmen and no women in attendance. Everybody addressed me as “sir,” and I was given a seat of honor. When they called me on the phone, they would say, “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir.”

  By now, I had become the consul of Morocco too. How did I become the consul of two Arab countries? It must have been the finger of fate… or was God again in need of a laugh?

  Bob and I had been invited to Morocco for a New Year’s celebration by the king’s sister, Princess Fatima Zohra, and her husband. Her younger brother, Prince Moulay Abdullah (a well-known international playboy), was having a grand party in his specially built playhouse, which was fashioned after a Texas saloon. The Moroccans thought it novel in the extreme, but I felt at home. Black tie in a saloon was fun, especially as the prince chose me as his dinner partner.

  The next night was the essence of Morocco. Musicians played and belly dancers swayed as course after course was placed before us. Moroccan food is fabled, a combination of French and Arabic, known to be one of the great cuisines of the world. It was served traditional style on huge, gleaming brass trays. Guests sat on tooled cushions surrounding the trays, on priceless Oriental carpets in silk-draped tented rooms… it was pure One Thousand and One Nights, come true.

  Charles Fawcett was the darling of the whole Moroccan royal family and a special friend of King Hassan II. He had decided that I should meet the king to discuss the communist threat. I had no idea that with this simple invitation, Charles would set in motion a series of momentous events. I had several intimate dinners with Charles and various princes and ministers, who were looking me over to see if I was worthy of His Majesty’s time. Women were not on the A-list in any way, shape, or form, in terms of seeing His Majesty. As a direct descendant of Muhammad, Hassan II was considered almost holy. Of course, I was moved from one event to another without knowing I was being judged. Behind the scenes, Charles was pushing every minute, and I had Bob’s stellar reputation to support me.

  One morning Charles Fawcett proudly announced that Bob and I had been vetted sufficiently to have a few minutes with His Majesty. For anyone to gain entrée to the king was considered equivalent to climbing Mount Everest. But for a woman to be included? Well, that was a peak beyond. Suffice it say, His Majesty gave few audiences.

  We went to the palace, where King Hassan personally greeted us across acres of green marble bordered by sculptured fountains and arches. He led us to a beautiful, very minimalist salon. The décor was severely elegant, what one would see in a slick avant garde magazine. There was not an Arab element anywhere except in the tradition of serving tea. The silver service was a work of modern art, pure Mies van der Rohe. This was no ordinary king steeped in tradition, but a very modern monarch who played a crucial part in world history. He constantly acted as a balancing force among the Arab countries and the West. He understood both, and his brilliance and diplomacy are legend.

  He was also extremely fit and handsome. He and his brother caused many a heart to flutter until he assumed the throne. At the time Bob and I met him, when he was king, he did not attend many parties and never included women when entertaining. When His Majesty gave a party, men and women were separated, and the ladies were not received.

  I was intimidated by this honor, but I was sure that it was Bob that he wanted to see and thought that, by a miracle, I was allowed to tag along. The fifteen-minute audience stretched into two hours, during which His Majesty talked mainly to me. I was staggered.

  When we returned to the hotel, standing in front of our suite was the chief of protocol of Morocco. He bowed to me, not Bob, and said, “His Majesty would like you to become the consul general of Morocco in America. You are the only government official his majesty has ever appointed personally. He usually leaves that honor in the hands of his ministers. You will be the only U.S. consul.” He smiled, expecting me to swoon. That I didn’t was a miracle.

  At that moment I could have chucked Pakistan with its terrible problems and poverty into the cool Mediterranean! Oh, how I wanted to say yes. Instead I took a deep breath and said, “I am honored beyond anything in my life, but I am the consul general of Pakistan and thus am obligated to them. I am desperately sorry, but I must decline.”

  The minister staggered as if he had been shot. “you must… His Majesty said…” He could not continue. No one said no to His Majesty!

  “Perhaps I could serve both countries,” I said. “But you must ask His Majesty to request this, because I could not.” The minister shook his head and went away. That night His Majesty had a dinner given for us which I was told I must attend. We explained that we had a flight at seven p.m. and thus must send our regrets.

  “Impossible,” said the minister. “This invitation is from His Majesty. The plane will wait!”

  And it did. A commercial flight with two hundred very angry passengers waited until eleven o’clock that night so that we could savor a leisurely dinner. As we boarded the plane, the outraged, weary passengers indicated that impaling us on the nearest fence should have been obligatory. Fortunately we boarded first and exited ahead of the impromptu Moroccan lynch mob.

  Two weeks later, some very displeased Pakistani diplomats reported that I was to serve both countries as consul general. At the time I thought back to a friend who had married into a multimillion-dollar business family from another country. I asked her, “Are you going to wear the saris and the national costume?” “No,” she said, “I’m an American and I don’t know how to wear them. I’m just going to wear what I’ve always worn.” I related to her experience: I had been given many caftans, and walking in them was very difficult for me. The Moroccan ladies looked enchanting in them. They knew how to hold their caftans, while I just stumbled along trying to imitate them, but I looked like a bundle of laundry. I soon realized that you had to grow up knowing how to wear a caftan. In Pakistan I tried saris and they fell in my soup. Thus I decided, rather unwisely, to always dress as an American and to wear exactly what I wore at home—which was not always considered correct in either Pakistan or Morocco. The Moroccans were more liberal, though, and didn’t seem to care.

  The Pakistanis seemed to understand that my motives were pure and that I had never taken a dime in all the years of work and mountains of time that I had invested in their country. Still, some tried to bribe me. I don’t know who was behind it—perhaps those who wanted to discredit me. Or perhaps it was those who wanted to control me. I’ll never know. I should have told the president, but I just ignored it, as I did most insults.

  This is what happened: I had an appointment with an army general whom I had never before met. He looked me straight in the eye and asked, “How would you like to have a little Swiss bank account?”

  I said, “I would like that very much!”

  “I think that can be arranged. Would you be open to that sort of thing?” he cajoled.

  I had no intention whatsoever of accepting his bribe. I had made a promise to myself and to Pakistan that I would never take a penny for my services until I could see that my efforts were actually helping to raise the people out of poverty. So I said, “I cannot take anything but a thank-you.” The look on his face was the most astonished I’ve seen be
fore or since. He simply could not believe that I would turn down his offer.

  In another unfortunate incident, two Pakistani ladies that I worked with took my designs and products to Saudi Arabia and sold them for thousands. They made a mint, while I never made a penny. In their defense, they tried to get me to join them. I said, “Remember, this is for the poor. They must make money before we do. I expect that to take five years. I keep my promises.” But they did not, and they didn’t give a penny to the poor villagers who should have received the money. They pocketed it. It was like a kick in the stomach to me, but it was a great lesson: I should have had contracts for these people. I lost that round but continued hoping for success, which I knew would come slowly, if at all.

  The people I was working to help were so poor and isolated that their villages had no roads in or out. No one even had a bicycle. They had no electricity, so they certainly had no radio or television (so virtually no contact whatsoever with the outside world) or anything we consider necessities.

  That’s why their interpretation of my careful instructions on how to copy and embroider a handkerchief did not strike me as unusual. They knew how to do the work, but they didn’t understand why it had to look exactly like the original I gave them to mimic. When some of the handkerchiefs turned up in odd shapes, often with three corners, I gently pointed out that the handkerchiefs must have four corners. They looked at me and said, “Why? You can still blow your nose on it.” There was no arguing that!

  I have never forgotten the handkerchief story. It taught me how far we had to go in this closed world and how little we understood each other. Our lives were so vastly different. (The American poor would be considered Pakistan’s rich.)

  In what became another unsuccessful attempt to foster capitalism in Pakistan, I also tried to help the country’s small businessmen. I told them, “You aren’t making enough money because you don’t have the means to advertise your products. The boxes you are using are not attractive. Presentation is everything when you’re selling.

  “You don’t have any money to export because you have to pay an agent in whatever country you’re exporting to. You don’t have any money for anybody to solicit business for you abroad.

  “Why not form consortiums of five men in different types of businesses and pool your money to advertise and share transportation costs and the cost of an agent in another country to market your products? All of that is necessary to participate in world trade. This is needed or your business will not expand.”

  I started a box company whose sole purpose was to provide boxes to small businesses. By mass-producing the same box, but in different sizes, we made the process more efficient, cheaper, and faster. I envisioned the boxes being covered in shiny paper resembling black patent leather to make them look professional and attractive. The merchants could buy them to hold their products and customize them by adding their business name on top, along with a seal of gold, silver, or bronze. I hoped the idea would give the businessmen an incentive to get a gold seal on the box, which would mean, “top-of-the-line, quality products.”

  All of my work was in vain. At first the men thought my ideas were great. Then they looked at each other and said, “Why should I help him?” They had never tried collaboration and it was so foreign to them that they rejected it. Unfortunately, I faced this sentiment regardless of whom I talked to. The people were just not ready for Western ideas.

  Predictably the box company ran up against the Export Promotion Bureau. The bureau did business with a box company in Switzerland and insisted that we use the same company. The Swiss are famous for everything from chocolate to finance, but in this case, design was not one of their strengths. The box venture, too, ended in defeat (and the Pakistani/Swiss boxes were awful!).

  The market mentality of these countries is “Nothing is done for nothing. If you want something, pay me first.” You might give alms to a beggar, but you don’t give him a job unless he can benefit you in some way. The bureau personnel were not offered a percentage, so they blocked the orders.

  My dream was shattered by what I call the “crust” of any developing nation. History has taught us that the crust is made up of the political potentates and the very rich families who often profit from selling goods at competitive prices on the open market, while gaining a sizable profit by paying workers a low wage. Under such a system, the middle class is often not allowed to develop—to break through the “crust” to a higher standard of living. Without a middle class, no country can ever be really self-sufficient and successful.

  As you know, in the United States, the middle class is a true force and the true source of our strength. Our wealth is derived largely from the industry and integrity of our middle class. One of the great tragedies of today is that so many countries in Africa, the Middle East, and South America, as well as China, communist North Korea, and Vietnam, suffer from the lack of a middle class. The poor are kept on low wages so that the rich and bureaucrats can make big profits. They do not allow the poor to break through the crust.

  It was this barrier that Pakistan could not break through, a barrier supported by people who would not profit personally from these plans to help the poor raise their standards of living by earning what they should.

  I truly wish there were more leaders like Zia to help with our mission today. He knew how to break through the crust. Zia was a revelation. He was a truly caring leader who wanted his country to rise, and it did while he was alive. I saw it, and you could feel hope in the air. Bhutto had entranced me with his charm but certainly was no hero. He became rich on the backs of his people. Zia, a humanitarian, was his complete antithesis and yet the world considered him a monster. Every single person that I sent to Pakistan to meet Zia came back with the same impression I had of him. I was determined to do everything I could to dispel Zia’s ill-founded “monstrous” reputation created by the Soviets.

  Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, and a host of other journalists begged me to get them into Afghanistan but didn’t want anything to do with the Pakistan president. I didn’t agree with everything Walter said, but, like all of us, I had a great affection for him. I said, “Okay, Walter, I will get you to Afghanistan, but you have to interview Zia.”

  “I don’t want to interview Zia,” he said. “He’s a monster!”

  “No, Walter, he’s not, and that’s the only way I’ll get you into Afghanistan,” I replied. I had to get him in through Zia anyway.

  “All right, I’ll do it,” he said.

  When Walter came back I sat next to him at a dinner party.

  “What did you think of Zia?” I asked.

  “I loved him,” Walter said. “But he lied to me about having the nuclear bomb.”

  “Walter, he is the president of Pakistan. He doesn’t owe you any explanations,” I said. “His only responsibility is to the people of Pakistan, not to you and your television network.”

  Zia told me that it was ridiculous to think he would ever even think of using nuclear weapons, except for protection. He laughed when he said, “India has a bomb, Russia has a bomb, and China has a bomb. All of them are twenty times bigger than I am. It would be ridiculous for me to even think of invading them. I just don’t want them to invade me, and they would like to very much!”

  As a last rejoinder, Walter said, “Well, you know, the Ladies’ Home Journal did a poll, and they decided that I had more integrity than God.” He looked like a little boy, telling me some marvelous thing someone had said about him.

  “Oh, Walter, you are wonderful,” I said. And he was. But the Ladies’ Home Journal’s belief in his integrity didn’t mean anything compared to the issues swirling around Pakistan and Afghanistan on the eve of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Even the wise Walter Cronkite failed to grasp how important my friend President Zia was going to be in breaking the Soviet bloc.

  CHAPTER 19

  Cross-Dressing in Afghanistan

  It all began one summer night in 1980, when I was sitting with Pak
istani president Zia ul-Haq in the living room of his little bungalow in Islamabad. I had been described as the queen of Texas (People), a Marilyn Monroe or Zsa Zsa Gabor look-alike (the New York Post), and the Texan who acts like a duchess (Paris Match).

  I was doing a man’s job in a man’s world, yet I could never escape these descriptions. The only time my intellect was ever mentioned was in Fortune magazine, and once by the BBC.

  So here’s one more description in those terms: I was blond and Presbyterian—a very unlikely confidante of the Islamic president of Pakistan. Zia was just about the most vilified man in the world at that time. The Soviets wanted him dead! He had revitalized Pakistan, and people were beginning to see changes. Pakistan was moving away from previous governments, where corruption reigned and hope had been squelched. I know because I saw it. Now, just as Pakistan began to rise, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Russian troops were poised on the borders of Pakistan, a heartbeat away from invasion.

  It seemed like Zia and I were just about the most unlikely pair in history to stand against the juggernaut of the Soviet Union, but we wanted the same world—one where people could be rewarded for their efforts and where prosperity had a chance. There were many comments about our relationship, but nobody understood it.