Diplomacy and Diamonds

by Joanne King Herring

  In the meantime, I just slid along on the wave of love that came from those who sincerely cared about me and provided the material things that were really significant at the time. I had wonderful dinners brought by friends and I had my children, whom I loved, around me. These friends and family did the caring, necessary things to keep our lives going when I couldn’t.

  I remember thinking that I might need a full year to mourn Bob before I could ever appear in public, socially. I was repulsed by the notion of dating. I prepared for a quiet year of semi-isolation.

  Also, I thought that no one would ever want me without Bob. I thought I would be forgotten as a “nobody,” but at least one high-profile couple was watching from afar. I got an invitation from the Reagans for dinner at the White House in March of 1982 (about five months after Bob’s death). From utter despondency I thought, “If the Reagans think it is time for me to go out a little—I shall go.” I went without an escort. The press loved it, taking many photos, saying, “Joanne is back.” As the shouting and the tumult died and I boarded the flight back to Houston from Washington, I became despondent again. I left my sable coat on the plane. It had survived barrels in Afghanistan, but not a widow’s absentminded grief in America.

  In an effort to cheer me up, my thoughtful friend Lorraine, now Lady Palmer, said, “You are going to London with me, and that’s that!”

  “No, I can’t possibly,” I told her.

  But my mother packed my bag and they threw me on the plane. It turned out to be the best therapy in the world because I met so many new and exciting people who did not know I was a widow. No one asked me about Bob. It was wonderful not to have to relive his death every day.

  God must have known I could not face the future without this reviving respite, which I described in a letter to Bob and Mary Keenan, friends from Houston.

  Blenheim Palace

  Dear Bob and Mary,

  You have been so gallantly kind to help me through this terrible period and so kind to support me when gossip hurt me—thank you! I ran away to London because I simply could not stand that house another moment. Bob was everywhere and yet, nowhere. It began to dawn on me that he was never coming back, never going to be there… I felt as if I were being slowly lowered into a well and every day I was going deeper into a dark horrible place full of sadness and despair. I began to doubt myself as a person. My whole serenity was threatened. I have always felt so at home in Europe, so a part of my friends here. It was like coming home. I decided to leave in one day. I made no plans, called no one—just left. Christina and Emilio Pucci heard from their son that I was coming and came to chaperone me. All my friends called and set up dinners at their homes—why don’t Americans realize how badly widows (I hate that word. It reminds me of black, creepy crawly things that go bump in the night) need to get out of sad surroundings? Anyway, I had dinner with Prince Charles and Princess Diana the night before they announced publicly the great event [that she was pregnant with their first child]. The president of Italy was there. He and [his wife] Mrs. Fanfani invited me to visit them in Rome. The lord mayor of London gave me a dinner at Mansion House. The Marlboroughs invited me here to Blenheim. The Duke and Duchess of Argyll invited me to shoot in Scotland at Inveraray Castle. Henry and Kathy Ford, George and Lita Livanos, all have asked me to come and stay in San Moritz.

  Although I felt the stirring of new life and hope and the warmth of caring friends, I never finished or sent this letter. Black clouds still shrouded the sun.

  I was accompanied to the small private dinner at the Italian ambassador’s home for Prince Charles and Princess Diana by designer Emilio Pucci and his wife. Pucci was from a noble family dating back to the twelfth century and still lived in his palace like a king. Everyone’s credentials had to be special on this evening.

  Diana came in, radiant, smiling, and beautiful, wearing a magnificent gray satin embroidered dress with pearls. Charles was looking very pleased too. They walked around, holding hands, looking very much in love. This seemed to be a party of close friends, thus things were very casual as far as protocol was concerned. The women dipped a small curtsy and the men nodded, but it was nothing like the formal occasions where they had to appear regal every moment. They talked to everyone, including me, most cordially. It was a very special feeling to be in an informal setting with “the people’s princess,” an unrecorded moment in a life where virtually every moment was recorded by the press.

  After dinner as we all stood in a group, they announced that they were expecting a baby—their first! Diana tilted her head as she was famous for doing and looked pink. Charles smiled proudly like any happy young father-to-be. It was a terribly sweet moment. This momentous announcement had not yet been revealed to the press. It came out the next morning, but we were the first “friends” to know. (Of course, I was not a real friend; I just happened to be there). Everyone felt honored with the news and shared genuine joie de vivre for the next generation of British monarchy.

  It was a sparkling moment, but it died quickly upon my return home to Texas to face the grim reality of life without the only man who had ever understood me and valued me for who I really was. We had only nine years.

  A short while after returning from England, I was jogging to get ready to go skiing (so that I wouldn’t break my leg). When my unleashed dog hit me from behind, my leg twisted. All I could think of as I was falling was, “This leg is going to break.” And it did—in three places. The doctors were not sure it would heal or ever be straight again. I was once more faced with being crippled for life.

  As I was adjusting to the cast on my leg, the fog was beginning to lift over my new financial landscape in a world without Bob Herring. The scenery wasn’t pretty. The most recent Houston energy bubble had burst just before Bob’s death. My personal finances took a hit. I was solvent but not the sixth richest woman in Texas, as described in George Crile’s book.

  My only real assets were two pieces of real estate that took tens of thousands of dollars to operate but that I couldn’t sell. I was responsible for my two boys, my mother, and retired nanny Reverend Stevens.

  My longtime friend John Loeb became ambassador to Denmark and decided to have a great party to celebrate his arrival. It was to be the gathering of the year in Scandinavia. Even the Danish queen would be in attendance. The invitation arrived in February for the party in June. “I can sit here and feel sorry for myself, or I can go to all these marvelous places to which I am invited, crutches and all,” I said. “If the crutches do not bother my host, they will not bother me.” I accepted every invitation I got.

  I was afforded these fabulous trips and events through the generosity of friends. As for my broken leg, though it was hard for me to learn to depend on others, even in the smallest ways, my son Robin quit his job and saved my life by accompanying and assisting me. He has saved me many times over the years, and I cannot think of him without a surge of gratitude. With the party in Denmark looming, however, I knew I had to learn to go on my own.

  At about the same time, I was named to the list of Women of Distinction by Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, Alabama, in the company of some of the most fascinating women of our time: broadcast journalist Barbara Walters, actress Bette Davis, Helen Boehm of Boehm Porcelain, fashion designer Carolina Herrera, the Duchess of Bedford, Countess Anne d’Ornano, and the mayor of Deauville. I attended. However, I felt I shouldn’t spend the money frivolously.

  To my delight, the Houston Natural Gas Board offered to send me and Robin to Alabama in the company plane. Pierre Cardin then gave me a dress. I felt like Cinderella. God played fairy godfather, giving me my coach and my dress, waving His magic wand over everything. While I oftentimes still felt alone, He was always there making things work.

  Friends began flying me around in private planes and surprised me with exactly what I needed (including crutches made from Lucite—they became my “ball crutches”). When Bob died, I had assumed life as I knew it was totally over. I had little money, n
o position, nothing to look forward to. Yet God provided for every need and even found noteworthy places for me to shine enough to find my self-worth, which had been so deeply buried under grief and despair.

  On my way to John’s party in Denmark, I stopped in London, with my sweet friend Lorraine, Lady Palmer, pushing me around as usual. We stayed with her friend Salah Hawila. He was very rich and wanted badly to enter the closed door of the British aristocracy. Lorraine suggested he host a party for us in Mark’s, the city’s poshest club.

  Salah invited the cream of London society, and to my delight, all of them accepted. The blue-blooded guest list included the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, the Maharani of Jaipur, the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, the Duke of Marlborough, and a token Yankee, the American ambassador.

  But there was one guest, Heini Thyssen, whom I had always found very attractive, and for whom I felt a small connection. To my surprise, it seemed the feeling was mutual. I asked him if he was going to John’s party.

  “I will if you go,” he replied. Then laughingly I said, “Call John and say that you will accept only if you sit next to me.” I was teasing, but he did just that.

  Baron and Baroness Thyssen had a complex and shaky marriage. How shaky, I didn’t realize until later. The baroness was present only at “important” occasions, and absent from all others. Still, everybody wanted the Thyssen family. They were treated like gods, and I was soon to see why. Heini was good-looking, tall, and slim, the very personification of the Teutonic heroes in Wagner’s operas. He was so rich that he lived and was treated like a king. I could list what the family owned, but it would be easier to list what they did not own. Heini even had a factory and a lot in Houston that he had never seen—as well as the greatest private collection of art in the world.

  Heini’s sister Gaby (Baroness von Bentinck) was a great supporter of mine from the moment I met her. These older ladies are essential in this sort of society. They must support you, or you’re out. I had a sponsor like this in every country. Without them, no woman with neither position nor husband would ever have made it.

  The Duchess of Bedford put her arm around me and smiled knowingly. “I think you can get him if you want him,” she said.

  “Come with me to my villa in Lugano,” Heini suggested. I accepted with alacrity.

  I had enjoyed several visits to Blenheim Palace, but this… this was almost beyond fairy-tale dreams. His palace had been built by King Leopold of Belgium, the richest man in the world in his day.

  We were surrounded by the world’s greatest art—things seen only in art exhibitions or coffee table books. Even in bedrooms and bathrooms, there were world-famous Picassos or van Goghs. Any name, era, or field of art was right there in the room with you. On a later visit to Daylesford House, Heini’s English mansion, I saw a silver tureen casually sitting on the dining room table. Heini had just paid a million pounds for it, the highest price ever paid for a piece of silver. Photographs of it had been in the newspapers and slick magazines. I remember looking at it, astonished that he actually lived with and used these famous museum pieces. In Lugano, he had his own private museum where he kept the “really” good stuff. My imagination failed me at what earthly treasures Heini considered to be more precious than these “everyday” priceless household items. There were guards everywhere to protect this “Ali Baba cave.”

  Of course, Heini entertained ceaselessly. One couple I well remember was Prince and Princess Thurn and Taxis. She was one smart cookie. He was a plump, balding, difficult man with “mixed proclivities,” especially for men. She sat on his lap, kissed him on top of the head, and sang his praises to everyone to flatter him into “granting” her a child, a possible prince. She succeeded—she became pregnant.

  The princess wore the most outrageous clothes, which amused the prince vastly. She kept him entertained and happy at every moment, though it wasn’t easy. The moment he died, she changed her personality completely. She became a brilliant businesswoman, dignified and elegant.

  While the prince was still alive, they begged me to come to Regensburg, their fabled palace in Germany. I could not go, however, because I was tied to Heini’s “wishes,” and his wishes were that I should stay with him. There was never a moment for anything that was not rigorously scheduled. The curator of the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands visited. He had different guests every three days. As he had made a practice of marrying the most beautiful women in the world, he was constantly called by one former wife or another about unruly children. Children from his other marriages were all there too, jockeying for position. There was no stability anywhere; no foundation anywhere; no sense—just grandeur and high living and strict conformity.

  Home began to seem far away and rather nice. Life with Heini was all so complicated. There was so much tension in the air that I thought maybe, just maybe, the cost was a bit too high. There was no room for long walks in the spring mornings or deep conversations at night about foreign policy or anything I found interesting.

  Years before, I had said to his sister, my great friend Baroness von Bentinck, “I want to meet your brother.”

  “No, you don’t,” she said. Now I realized that she had a point.

  Both Heini and Gaby were supremely caring and very much worth loving, but theirs was really another world, and I was not sure that I could bring happiness there or find any for myself.

  We knew all of the same people, did many of the same things, and belonged loosely to the same “tribe.” But I am first an American. They were very European. I missed my home and my children. Where would they have fit into this “mixed society”? There were too many misplaced children already.

  God showed me the heights and the price that must be paid to be there. He showed me that the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. He taught me not to sell my soul for money or high living. Once you have experienced it, you learn that you drink from one cup at a time. You can drink just as well from cracked crockery as you can from gold, and the cracked cup is much easier to care for. You don’t cry if you break or lose it, and no one will kill you to get it.

  I stopped yearning for great wealth with all its heavy burdens. It seemed clear to me that the palaces and princes own you, you do not own them. A prince can take a palace away with a snap of his fingers. Palaces require undying care. The glamour is all on the outside.

  As the grandeur began to fade, I realized that there was no freedom there. Heini was king. I left without regret and went home happier than I had been in a long time. I was beginning to take charge of my life and enjoy it in whatever manner God chose. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was learning to make it on my own. This was a big step—and I took it in a cast.

  God did a thorough job in rehabilitating me. Back home, I suddenly found more invitations and men willing to escort me than I could handle in my still fragile condition. I was haunted by what I call flashbacks, sudden memories of beautiful moments of the life I shared with Bob Herring. They left me haggard and saddened almost beyond my ability to recover and go on. I sometimes dreamed that Bob was alive, and then I wakened to the sickening awareness that he would never be there again.

  God had said I would be all right; thus, the kindness and attention from friends continued. God never fails us. He even sent Senator John Warner of Virginia (I was his first date after his divorce from Liz Taylor). This was recorded in the supermarket tabloids under the headline “John’s Woman.” My mother saw it in the beauty shop and practically fainted.

  “How could you appear in such an article?” she said.

  “Mother, they don’t ask.”

  I was many things, but never merely someone’s “woman.”

  I think maybe God broke my leg so that I would not have real problems “out there.” “Out there” is what I call being single and a target for a roll in the hay in exchange for dinner. Men seemed to expect a return for the “luxury” of a plate of food and a cocktail. It is a horrible situation, which God knew I simply was not strong en
ough to handle at the moment.

  Frankly, I was never strong enough to handle it. I almost stopped going out because I hated coming home to the inevitable fracas surrounding “payback” at the front door. Today, being available for sex and being single seem synonymous.

  Fortunately my boys and mother lived with me, which gave me an excuse. After being refused, many dates never called again. These expectations are the bane of a woman’s existence today. Even if you pay for your own dinner, men still seem to expect sexual favors at the end of the evening. I was too unwary and dumb to suggest picking up the dinner check myself as a deterrent to these racing hormones, but I would today in a New York minute if I were on the dating circuit. Now I’m on the friend circuit, of course, so it doesn’t come up.

  I needed someone I could trust, just a male friend with no interest in me other than friendship. A man with so many female distractions that he would never target a poor woman on crutches.

  CHAPTER 21

  Laughing Again… with the Wildest Man in Texas

  Congressman Charlie Wilson had been on the periphery of my life for a long time. I did not realize how much or how often he was there until I sorted through old photos looking for those most pertinent to this book. He seemed to always be somewhere in the background. Wherever Bob Herring and I went—Houston; Washington, D.C.; New York—Charlie was there too.

  I thought that Bob introduced us, but Charlie said no, that he had seen me many years before at KHOU, the television station that aired my show. He said he never forgot me.

  I was so in love with Bob Herring that I never thought of another man while I was married to him. I certainly noticed Charlie; you would have to be dead not to! I knew—as we women often do—that he was attracted to me. But I was sure it was the same sort of admiration that I felt for him.

  Not quite, as I was to find out.

  After Bob died, Charlie sent me two dozen yellow roses on Valentine’s Day. My heart was so bankrupt, I barely glanced at them and never thanked him. He couldn’t understand this. He was Charlie Wilson, every girl’s dream come true!