Diplomacy and Diamonds

by Joanne King Herring

  For a photograph taken at this lunch, my bodyguard was handed a Kalashnikov (an AK-47 captured from the Russians), but he had to give it right back to his superior, who needed it more than he did.

  My bodyguard was to save my life and my son’s too.

  The next day, I visited the women’s quarters. The women lived separately from the men in a camp made of ragged tents and shelters thrown together with packing cases or whatever large pieces of board they could find. Most had only thin rectangles of cloth that blew in the cutting wind.

  The women were as thin as shadows. The oldest, around thirty, had no teeth. The harsh life and meager food, combined with yearly childbearing, took its toll. Every one of them had lost a child to disease or malnutrition. Every one of them had seen friends and children mowed down by the Hind helicopters. And every one of them stood straight and proud, as determined as their men to fight to the last drop of blood.

  We wanted to film the terrain as part of the film, so we drove away from the camp, but the weather warmed up during the day and the sun felt so good that we traveled farther than we’d planned. We were standing on the side of a mountain when suddenly we looked up and saw a tiny speck. It was drawing closer quickly, and my brain just registered, “Oh, a helicopter.”

  Then I knew.

  This Russian Hind, with its armored belly and its cannons and machine guns, was coming to kill. It somehow knew where we were, or where to look for us.

  I thought, “I have brought my son to this, and now he might not live through it!” Besides the initial scare when we first arrived and the bitter cold conditions, up until that moment I had felt like I was on a great adventure, but not in a war. Being killed in a helicopter raid had never crossed my mind. Now we were facing it. I saw with clarity the gravity of my actions. What if my irresponsibility killed my son?

  My giant bodyguard grabbed me by the belt. I folded like a kitten in its mother’s mouth, and he stuffed me into something in the ground. Whether it was a hole or a rock crevice I am not sure. All I knew was that it was dark.

  I was too terrified to remember to pray. There was shouting and noise, the whirring thump of the rotor blades, and a sensation of horror and guilt. I didn’t know where my son was or if he was alive. I later learned he had been thrown behind some rocks and quickly covered with leaves.

  The helicopter did not stay long. It sprayed shots and moved on. We were too small a target. Most likely its orders were to decimate a village, and we happened to be in its path. It had not been hunting us.

  When they pulled me out of the hole, I shook uncontrollably for two hours. It was all so fast, unexpected, and horrible. That night I fell to my knees in gratitude.

  In the end, the documentary film we made had no red-carpet premieres. It was not entertaining—but it showed the truth. It caught the faces and the stories of the people whose lives had been destroyed by the Soviets.

  Robin was only a teenager when he filmed the Afghanistan warriors. Without my knowledge, he also lived alone with the communist guerrillas in El Salvador three times, bringing back footage and interviews to prove that the conflict in El Salvador was not a civil war but a communist revolution supported by Cuba and Vietnam. Robin is one of the few people who can say they’ve been shot at by both Soviet and American helicopters. He and Charles had led the first 60 Minutes film crew to the Afghanistan border.

  Charles Fawcett later showed the movie to large audiences in London, Paris, New York, Atlanta, Tokyo, Houston, and Rome. I would show it to Bill Casey, head of the CIA, Senator John Tower of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, countless members of Congress—Republican and Democrat alike—and all those in a position to help, including Charlie Wilson… which eventually brought about some pretty big changes in the world as we knew it. It was this film that Robin, Charles, and I made that would pique Charlie Wilson’s interest. Charlie would listen avidly as Robin suggested the Stinger missiles as a weapon to help the Afghans fight the Russians. He asked Robin many questions about the Afghans’ ability to fight the Soviets and prevail.

  But at this point all of that was in the future, and we were just concerned about getting our precious film safely out of Afghanistan. We jolted and bounced and staggered back to Islamabad.

  Upon our arrival, just to keep things interesting, President Zia decided to host a state dinner for us.

  I had no clothes to wear, and Robin and Charles didn’t either. Robin still considers that dinner the most embarrassing experience of his life. Our Western clothes had all disappeared. Our Afghan attire was hardly appropriate, and besides, it smelled bad and was infested with fleas.

  A Pakistani friend, Miriam, wife of General Habibullah, loaned me a beautiful salwar kameez (a long tunic over pants). I went out to buy some panty hose, but the locals had never heard of panty hose. The only thing available was stockings, but I had no garters or any way to hold them up. I tried to twist and knot them, but they eventually drooped and sagged around my ankles. The only purse I had was a Louis Vuitton satchel that I had dragged all over Pakistan and Afghanistan. By now, my satchel looked as weathered as a World War II French Resistance carrier bag. I placed it on the coffee table as I sat with President Zia before dinner.

  “What is that?” the president asked, recoiling in horror. He motioned for a servant to sweep it away.

  “Oh, Mr. President!” I bleated. “Please excuse me! That’s my purse!”

  Zia looked at me like I’d been toting my personal items around in a sheep’s bladder, but he was as gracious as ever. “Ah,” he breathed to an aide. “Please take Mrs. Herring’s… uh, purse… to a safe place.”

  That evening Charles, Robin, and I were the shabbiest group that had ever passed the threshold of the president’s house. No one raised an eyebrow or allowed a look of shock to cross their faces. Had I been in a tiara and resplendent clothes from head to foot, I could not have been treated more elegantly than I was, wearing a borrowed outfit with my nylons puddling around my ankles.

  At dinner I was seated at the center of a long table as the guest of honor. The first course, an elegant soup, was served by white-gloved waiters with tall, snowy turbans with pleated fastenings that looked like beautiful fans. The military leaders’ uniforms looked like something out of an exotic movie, every crease knife sharp, every gold button gleaming.

  After the soup was served, I waited for Mrs. Zia, as hostess, to signal the dinner’s commencement by raising her spoon, but she did not. No one moved. We sat and sat and sat in lovely silence as the soup cooled.

  After several “centuries” of polite waiting, with the guests in their finest regalia staring blankly ahead, it crossed my mind that maybe in this country, the guest of honor was supposed to start the dinner. If I was wrong, it would be a great embarrassment in a country where manners had been passed down from maharajas and British viceroys.

  “Oh, Lord!” I prayed silently. “Please let this be right!” I trusted that God knew about manners in all cultures. Timorously, I lifted my spoon.

  For a moment nothing happened, and I prepared to die for the second time that week. Then, without changing expression, the guests reached for their spoons and began to eat.

  Another bullet dodged.

  Once we were back in the States, movie people and Universal Studios tried to buy Robin’s film. They called almost daily, as did news organizations all over the world who wanted to get footage of battle scenes and a genuine helicopter attack. He wrestled with allowing them to use it, but as we had so little contact with these film reps and the first script was rough, Robin was concerned that it might be edited and used in ways that would be detrimental to the Afghan cause and the upheavals fomenting in Pakistan.

  CHAPTER 20

  When Dreams Die

  The two most momentous events in my life struck within a week of each other in December 1979. One would rip at my heart, the other give purpose for my last days. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that month led to what has become a lifelong war to win pe
ace in Afghanistan. The attack on my heart began on Christmas.

  Bob and I had the best Christmas morning of our lives in 1979. It was warm and wonderful, everything Christmas should be.

  Christmas afternoon, Bob suddenly said, “Call Denton. I don’t feel well.” He felt nauseated. I called our best friend and the best man at our wedding, the famous heart surgeon Denton Cooley, who lived just behind us.

  Denton raced over. “He’s my best friend, he’s sick, and I don’t even have a stethoscope,” he said, apologizing with tears in his eyes. As a surgeon, he didn’t carry one like a general practitioner would.

  Refusing help, Bob retreated to the bathroom, and then we heard a crash. He had fallen. Denton immediately called an ambulance and rode to the hospital with him.

  After virtually every consequential doctor in Houston had examined him, they said, “We have good news and bad news. You do not have heart trouble. The bad news is you have lung cancer. But there is a treatment that’s been effective.”

  We had older friends who had been diagnosed with lung cancer and lived for twenty-five years after surgery. We did not realize for almost a year, though, that Bob’s was the most virulent of all lung cancers and that it was also inoperable.

  During the first year of Bob’s diagnosis, we were convinced that he was treatable. He worked, I traveled, and we soldiered on. But near the first anniversary of his diagnosis, the monster roared, and I became a full-time caregiver. Bob began a special treatment program in which he was completely isolated in a germ-free atmosphere. I stayed outside on the other side of the window from morning until night. Again, I abandoned everything, even my children, to stay by his side. Just as he appreciated my traveling with him when he was well, he now told me how much it meant to have me there with him when he was sick.

  We tried every new method of treatment known to man. I even took him to Mexico, where there were claims that they had cured lung cancer. I brought him home on a hospital gurney. Ricky and Sandra di Portanova found a doctor in Switzerland who was experimenting with interferon. Mary Lasker was one of the country’s best-known advocates for medical research and its funding. Her institute had cornered the market on interferon to use for research. This great lady said Bob could have as much of the interferon as he needed.

  The doctor from Switzerland had a delicate form of interferon that had to be handled by a doctor in-flight. It was against the law to prescribe it in the United States because it had not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. I got on the phone with every significant medical man in Houston, but not one would let me use this new formula. I screamed and wept for hours with the doctors, until finally they couldn’t take it anymore. They figured Bob was dying anyway. The drug was administered, and it did change the number of cancer cells in his blood, but it was too late.

  I know Bob must have been in horrible pain, but he never once complained. He never said he hurt; he never said anything, except “I love you” every time I walked in the room.

  I truly felt at the time that Bob was more worthy than I to live. I actually prayed that the Lord take me instead of Bob, and I meant it. One afternoon I got down on my knees beside my bed and said, “Lord, I have believed—against all unbelief, against every diagnosis, against every doctor—that if I believed enough you would save Bob. But now I cannot go on. I need to know… are you going to take Bob?”

  As I had several times before in my life, I felt a flowing across my consciousness: “I am going to take Bob, but you will be all right.” Those words were not comforting to me. I was very willing to give my life for Bob’s. I did not see how I could go on without him. It would have been easier for me to die than to continue living without him. But from that moment, I knew that the Lord was going to take him.

  My dreams were haunted by visions of what my life would be. How could I carry on? How could I manage? What would happen to me and my children? I had no preparations whatsoever for “carrying on.” No one in my life had ever prepared me for actually running my own affairs—not my father, not Bob King, and not Bob Herring. I had never bought a car on my own. I had rarely even paid bills. These thoughts hovered over me like a black cloud. My whole future and my children’s would depend on whether I could learn.

  Bob went into remission, came home from the hospital, and never left the house again.

  Bob left me the eleventh day of October in 1981. When he died, the pain was so terrible that I went into shock. His children handled the funeral, and I am happy that they could and that they did exactly as they wanted. This has always given me comfort.

  I did not even go to the viewing. His family had this time for themselves. The funeral is a blur, though I know that Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, did the service.

  Several important media businesspersons came to the funeral, including John Kluge, a television entrepreneur, and Vogue editor Shirley Lord, who was married to the editor of the New York Times. Even my friends from France came.

  That day, my dear friend the gorgeous Margaret Williams, the queen of Houston society and the head of a huge foundation, wanted to help. “What can I do?” she asked.

  “Well,” I said, “some important people flew down from everywhere just for Bob’s funeral. Could you possibly have them for dinner at your house?” Naturally, I didn’t want to be seen anywhere, but I had to do something for these gracious visitors. Margaret was not prepared to host such a gathering, so she took us to Houston’s top restaurant.

  I couldn’t ask Margaret to host my guests without being present myself, so I went, hoping no one would see me. Of course, everybody saw me. Can you imagine what the newspapers said about that? “On the day of Bob Herring’s funeral, Joanne Herring, John Kluge, and the wife of the New York Times editor went to dinner at Tony’s”… or words to that effect.

  On top of that, Marvin Zindler, who did TV exposés, was there to cover the funeral. He wanted to honor Bob because, like everyone, he admired Bob so much. I recognized the gift, so I thanked him personally.

  During the next few weeks, flowers from Bob’s admirers covered the house, even the stairs. More than a thousand letters and cards of condolence arrived, many handwritten by heads of state and titans of industry. But my grief was so strong, I believed that if I read those kind letters, I would die. I stuffed them into designer pillowcases and threw them all away, unopened.

  People thought that was a horrible thing to do. Even my friends couldn’t understand why I did it. They were surprised that I had not appreciated their outpouring enough to respond. Of course I loved them for caring, but there was nothing to respond with. I was like an empty shell—functioning, but feeling only pain and inadequacy. I regret throwing the notes away now. Now I could read them and appreciate and cherish them. But at the time, I did what I felt I had to do to survive.

  The first two people who came the morning after Bob died were businessman and politican Robert Mosbacher and Houston socialite Joan Schnitzer. Denton and Louise Cooley sent me meals for three days after Bob’s death, when I couldn’t even think about feeding my family.

  I was horrified that one week after my husband died, men started coming to see me with marriage proposals. I could not believe they thought that I would be interested in somebody else at that point—or ever. One man even tried to kiss me. I looked at him—he was a dear friend who just was not thinking—and said, “I just lost my husband. Do you think I could possibly be interested in anything like that?” I even had an Arab prince visit, a stranger to me. He had just heard about me and said, “You would be perfect for me.”

  I needed to take care of myself and my family, but really I just staggered around, not knowing what I was wearing or even my name. Words passed over me. I was haunted by Bob’s absence. Surrounded by hundreds of friends, I was utterly alone.

  I remember the most comforting message I got during the time of Bob’s illness. The French ambassador, Claude de Kemoularia, said, “Joanne, we are not going to talk about Bob. We will do that
later. Right now, we want to talk about you. How do you feel?” During Bob’s whole illness, the only other people who ever asked how I felt was Robert Mosbacher, who called me daily, and the di Portanovas. They gave me the strength to get through the torture of those eighteen months, and they stood staunchly beside me after Bob’s death.

  Tears pour down my face today as I write about this. I didn’t cry then. The pain was so awful at that time, I couldn’t. But now I want to share what comforted me.

  So many say, “If there’s anything I can do…” Then there are those who don’t ask, they just do. Instead of empty words, they gave me great comfort by doing.

  Of course, food poured in. It looked like a delicatessen in the kitchen, just overwhelming amounts of food. I needed someone to take charge, and my friend Marilyn Wilhelm did, thank goodness. I remember her saying, “This is terrible; all of this food just sitting here. All of these people are here. Where are the silver trays? Take this; make it look beautiful.”

  People think they want to be alone when a loved one dies, but they don’t. I did not think I could bear to see people, but it actually helped.

  Every night my boys and my goddaughter Isabel, the daughter of the Count de Bourg-Bozas, would get movies, the funniest ones they could find. She and my kids were young, but they thought, “What can we do to help?” They did help. We didn’t talk about the movies; we just laughed. It gave me time to come out of the shock.