Diplomacy and Diamonds

by Joanne King Herring

  The night of the dinner, I carried a Louis Vuitton bag filled with six bottles of Cristal rosé—one each for Charlie, me, Stevens, Wilson, and the marquess, the only guests. The reserve bottle was for me and Charlie if the dinner went well.

  Naturally, it wasn’t the champagne that swung the votes. These were brilliant men. They would never have voted for anything unless they truly believed it was important to America and the world. It was a pivotal moment in the fight. The next day the motion carried. The mujahideen in Afghanistan would be supported.

  During our trip around the world (France, Austria, Egypt, Israel, Pakistan, and the Venice film festival), Charlie and I were always a sensation as a couple. Wherever we went in Venice, crowds of people would follow us—they thought we were movie stars. At a restaurant as they snapped our pictures and asked for autographs, Charlie grinned and said, “You sign ‘Zsa Zsa Gabor’ and I’ll sign ‘Gary Cooper.’ If they want to think we’re movie stars, let’s give them movie stars. Make ’em happy.” So we did. Together we twinkled. But when you twinkle too much, you begin to burn.

  CHAPTER 22

  Bye-Bye, Charlie

  By the time we got home to Texas, we were both tired—and maybe just a little tired of each other. We were stars that shined together, but only in places where there was no previous baggage. At home, there were two different camps of friends and associates, and the twain did not meet. We ran into the schism again and again. Our worlds were simply too different.

  His friends did not like me. They called me “Princess T&T.” None of them could ever see his attraction to what they described as an “older woman” when he could go out with Miss Universe. With me around, they had no fun at all. There was no cursing, no ribald jokes, not much beer, and certainly no drunken Charlie to pal around with. I just couldn’t make it with the good ol’ boys. I cramped their style, and they wanted me gone.

  My friends were shaking their proper heads, frantic. Charlie did not fit in their world. “I hope Joanne doesn’t want to bring that Charlie Wilson,” they all whispered to each other when they invited me to weekends away. “We don’t know what we will do if she does.”

  They could never understand my interest in anyone who would want to go out with a twenty-five-year-old or a Miss Universe. But mostly, they thought he drank too much.

  How, after Bob Herring, could I be interested in this carousing drunk? (He wasn’t really a carousing drunk and I wasn’t a prissy and fun-squashing snob, but perception counts.) Basically Charlie liked to go out and drink and brag with the boys. It was not living the antics that he enjoyed so much. It was sharing them with the guys who, openmouthed, lived vicariously through his adventures. Charlie could tell a story better than anyone I ever knew.

  But he had this sweet, romantic side. One day he said, “Do you remember the first time I held your hand?” He told me the name of the movie and the exact moment when he took my hand. You couldn’t help but love him. My friends knew nothing of these moments, though. Our friends weren’t the only obstacle, however. Fun and games were fine, but both of us were feeling uncertain about our being married. We saw that being together all that time did not bring us closer as it had for Bob and me and would later for Charlie and his wife, Barbara.

  So after two whirlwind years, our romance crumbled like a stale cookie.

  I never saw Charlie drunk but once, and I did not contribute to his campaigns.

  I gave him a fund-raiser at my home, inviting heads of banks, Exxon, Chevron, and everyone I knew that he did not. Charlie had many outstanding contributors who liked and admired him, but there were plenty of others who did not. I hoped to help them get to know the real Charlie. He was so overwhelmed by this contingent of skeptics in my home that he got drunk and fell into his plate.

  It’s very hard to explain Charlie. He had many facets. George Crile wrote, “Very few were aware of the depths of [his] frequent depressions…. No matter what his inner mood, whenever the public door opened, the darkness disappeared, replaced by the bigger-than-life, can-do Texan.” Charlie was living with the masks of comedy and tragedy in each hand, ready to lift into place whichever face the moment called for.

  The weekend after we returned from Europe, he explained that he had other obligations to fulfill and might not always be available. In fact he was going to Florida for a New Year’s Eve date (he had promised long ago and was “obligated”).

  When I looked surprised, he explained that I would have to be like the other girls now and expect that. “Expect what?” I thought. “Be like the other girls, indeed! I am not part of a relay team, Mr. Wilson. I run my own races, thank you. Go run yours!”

  He did. He went to Florida and I went to Jamaica. Thank goodness I had somewhere to go. It’s hard to save face sitting at home.

  Contrary to what people thought, he did not flirt with other women when he was with me. He gave me his entire attention. But when the romance cooled, he liked very much having other dessert plates waiting for him on the table. But I was not simply another dish on the buffet line.

  As he galloped into the center ring with his plumed ponies, I left the circus like a popped balloon, and it hurt.

  I had the craziest experience of my life in Jamaica. Remember, God has His plans, and He likes to laugh.

  I had been invited by the distinguished Mandell J. Ourisman family of Washington, D.C., which had provided most of the furniture for Jackie Kennedy’s White House and chandeliers to the State Department. They were Washington social lions, and they had the most glamorous house in Jamaica. Among the houseguests while I was there were “Lucky” Roosevelt, Reagan’s chief of protocol, and her distinguished husband, Archie. There were parties every night. I went with my bruised ego and my suitcase and proceeded to have a Demi Moore/Susan Sarandon moment.

  Charlie was off chasing young girls, so the Lord decided to help me through this by having young men chase me! It shook everybody. These were the young titans of the new cyberworld who had made millions overnight. They had yachts, private planes, and houses on the beach. They were sought after by every hostess. Understand, they were not chasing me with honorable intentions. They were only interested in a fling. “So what?” I thought. It was very good for my ego. At every party I attended I was surrounded by this elite young group, all vying for my attention. These were not gigolos. They had more money than they could possibly spend. It was a revelation and a resurrection for me.

  Of course, these guys were rather like children. The only thing they desperately wanted was what they couldn’t have. On New Year’s Eve, one jumped the fence, ran through three guard dogs, and came in the window. Fortunately, I had studied kickboxing.

  Their attentions did not end in Jamaica. One Brad Pitt look-alike followed me to Washington. I enjoyed flagrantly flaunting him in front of Charlie. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, you rat,” I thought.

  But “Brad’s” idea of healthy living was “a roll in the hay keeps the doctor away.” With that in mind, he burst into my hotel room, pretending to be room service. I literally had to jump over two beds, grab the desk chair like a lion tamer, and force him out. Leaning against the door, I heard the lion say, “I’ll return.” To myself I said, “I’ll return too… to sanity.”

  On the next plane, I was out of there!

  Charlie and the guys continued to call, but the price of all this high livin’, sportin’ life was just too high.

  I got a call one day from the CEO of Ling-Temco-Vought, a big conglomerate. One of his companies had underbid a job rebuilding the Pakistani railroad. They couldn’t finish it, so they left an unfinished railroad, tools, and equipment strewn all over Pakistan. Naturally Pakistan threatened to sue—big-time. The CEO said, “I was told you were the only person in the world who could fix this. Can you?” Remembering my lessons in corporate action and thinking, I did the math and figured that ten million dollars would probably finish the railroad.

  “How much do you think it will take to finish the job?�
�� I asked.

  “About ten million,” he said.

  I thought, “Bull’s-eye!” I could do this.

  Out loud I suggested, “You will never win a lawsuit with a government in its own country. It will cost millions and take years. This will hurt the price of your stock. Why don’t you give the Pakistanis the ten million and let them finish the railroad and go home free?”

  He mused, then said, “I’ll do that!”

  I called President Zia, and the CEO and I went to Pakistan and finished the deal in two days. I left rich! I couldn’t believe I actually got paid to do this. As usual, as I walked into the room, I said, “Mr. President, I am being paid for this.” I wanted to be clear and aboveboard with him always. This was the first time I was paid.

  I had fabulous invitations in London, so I decided to celebrate my success. On the way, the plane stopped to refuel in Dubai. Before Dubai became the grand citadel of finance, it was merely a great shopping stop. Everything on earth was for sale on the cheap.

  I debarked from the plane “just to look.” Is there such a thing? Not in my lexicon. I always find some enticing bargain for which I suddenly have a desperate and immediate need. I simply must buy it. After all, I might never pass this way again. I believe this is called “impulse buying.” I considered it Texas frugality. So I bought something “divine” at a price so low it was “a shame” to leave it.

  It was a watch. I thought it very elegant. Its broad gold band resembled a stylish bracelet rather than a watch, and the workings were indiscernible at its center. I was quite proud of it, as I had never seen anything quite like it. I thought it would be the perfect accessory when I attended the opening of Parliament in London. It almost got me locked in the Tower of London.

  The Hall in the Palace of Westminster is quite small and invitations are extremely limited and very much prized. I had given great thought to my ensemble—my Chanel suit that Coco herself had chosen and given to me in 1969. “These colors will be perfect for you,” she said. It was a purplish tweed—very subtle. “I want you to have this to remember me,” she said (as if I could ever forget).

  I was divine, or so I thought that crisp winter day in 1984 at the opening of Parliament. My lordly host was sitting with the other aristocrats in their ermine-trimmed robes, their consorts in tiaras.

  Oh, such elegance! No one does it like the Brits. They know how to create moments of magnificence. Each new session of Parliament features the royal procession in all their finery traveling from Buckingham Palace to the Houses of Parliament by state coach, which, of course, is gold.

  Inside, the royal family members, led by the queen and Prince Philip, glided down the aisle with only a red velvet rope to separate them from the guests. They were closely followed by Princess Diana and Prince Charles, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward, and Princess Anne, then the Duke and Duchess of Kent, followed by the Prince and Princess Michael of Kent (my special friend). It was a passing parade of utter grandeur, which, due to security, is no longer possible. The space is so narrow that one could touch these gloriously costumed and storied personages if one dared. The queen wore her crown and the robes especially made for just such pomp and circumstance.

  It was a storied, privileged moment… until the solemn stillness was suddenly broken by “Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam, where the deer and the antelope play…”

  “Home on the Range,” the world’s corniest and best-known western song, was inexplicably filling the rarified air of the Houses of Parliament. Everyone’s eyes widened in utter disbelief, then horror. Everyone looked at everyone in insulted outrage. You could just imagine what they were thinking: “How could anyone possibly, possibly dare… It was simply not to be borne! An outrage, never to be forgiven and never to be forgotten. Off with the heads of the perpetrators, and soon please!”

  The queen herself was directly in front of us at that moment. Even she, who is never at a loss, could not help glancing in the direction of this offending noise. This could not be happening at the opening of Parliament. It just could not.

  I joined the crowd in looking around disapprovingly. I, too, was mortally offended, seeking the culprit. Alas, all horrified gazes were fixed upon me.

  Great balls of fire! It was me! The watch! It crooned away, and, horror of horrors, I did not know how to stop it. I desperately punched everything in sight, but there was nothing in sight to punch. The watch simply had no buttons anywhere. I could not slink out unobtrusively because there were so many around me. Obviously silence was not an option.

  Suddenly the crowd melted around me, and a way was opened for me to leave. No one wanted to be seen anywhere near me.

  The second chorus of “Home on the Range” began to play as I fled. If looks could kill, this book in your hands would never have been penned.

  I made it outside with my watch still singing—but my composure was in tatters. “Fortunately,” I thought, “no one knows me.” Otherwise, I would have made Britain’s “most wanted” list for sure.

  Three gentlemen ran out behind me. The British are so wonderfully kind. They took my hands, patted my back, and tried to comfort me by saying ludicrous things like, “No one really noticed”; “It happens all the time”; “It made that stuffy old ceremony bearable.”

  Their best words were, “We will take you home. Where are you staying?”

  “Claridge’s,” I sniffed. I knew one of them a little, but I really would not have cared if they had been Jack the Ripper and his brothers. I wanted away from there.

  There was a brief moment of silence. Biting their lips, they looked at me. I looked at them. And then we were unable to contain our laughter. They literally doubled over, almost hysterical.

  “Where in the world did you get that? Why choose that awful tune?” one said between gasps. I couldn’t answer through peals of laughter.

  The British are gallant, so fortunately the story did not circulate… and neither did the watch.

  Execution was the only solution.

  “… and the skies are not cloudy all day…” played cheerfully as we threw the shining offender into the murky water of the Thames. I like to believe that at that moment, in her royal finery in front of Parliament, the queen felt a twinge of a smile.

  My next trip to England was a dream come true.

  I sometimes have trouble sleeping at night. I wrestle with the day’s unfinished problems and think of the same things, over and over.

  “This has got to stop,” I said as I saw circles forming under my eyes, but what could I do? I decided to pull a black shade over unpleasant thoughts and think of something wonderful, something that could never happen… a dream that could not come true and never would… a total fantasy. It worked. I thought of never-never land and went to sleep.

  What was my never-never land, the thing that could never happen?

  When Prince Philip married Elizabeth, the soon-to-be queen of England, he was considered the perfect fairy-tale prince—six foot four, blond, blue-eyed, and slim, with perfect military bearing. He was known to be smart, full of new ideas, educated, and charming. Every woman in the world was a little in love with his image. No matter how many handsome men, movie stars, or princes came and went, he was my dream of what a prince should be.

  “I shall dream of waltzing with Prince Philip at a private party at Buckingham Palace,” I thought. Never in my life did I dream that would ever come true.

  I was chair of a benefit to restore the Old Vic Theatre in London. Prince Talal of Saudi Arabia accompanied me to the event and said, “Joanne, how much money do you want to raise?”

  “About a hundred thousand dollars,” I said.

  He sat down and wrote me a check for the entire amount!

  The royal family was very grateful and invited me to a small private party given by Prince Philip. There were only fourteen people invited, most of whom I knew well.

  It helped that I had met the prince’s best friend and aide and spent a few evenings at Annabelle’s, Londo
n’s most exclusive club, with him. He probably had a lot to do with my invitation, and because of him, I would get to have a more intimate chat with His Highness than was usually permitted on these occasions.

  The night of the party, off I went, thrilled and excited, hardly breathing. I was actually going to meet the (literal) prince of my dreams who had helped me drift off to sleep so often. As I entered the palace grounds, I passed the famous Buckingham Palace guards, who are known for never changing their expressions. It has become a game for tourists to entice them to change expression. To my knowledge they never have. They have endured water thrown in their faces and all manner of indignities, but never once have they lost their composure. They keep their pact to remain stoic out of respect to their sovereign majesty. They are legends.

  I drove proudly into the courtyard of the palace, feeling very elegant and very grand—only to find that I was not expected! A puzzled gentleman (the butler to the royal family) came to the car, bowed gracefully, and said very gently and kindly, “Madam, I rather think the party is tomorrow night.”

  On the way out, the stoic guards lost their storied calm and laughed. For a moment I was nonplussed; then I laughed too. I returned to Claridge’s and in the bar I met my friends Heini Thyssen and Armand Hammer (who also loved rollicking with the royals), where I regaled them with my misadventures.

  Cinderella was too anxious… but at least I hadn’t left a glass slipper. I tried again the next night after my dress rehearsal: same dress, same car, same entrance. The guards recognized me and smiled in welcome. I could tell they wished me well. The butler came personally to get me. It seemed the whole night was smiling.

  I floated up to the private quarters of the royal family, ready to meet the prince of my dreams. I felt the warmth of friends all around me. I was presented to the other guests, most of whom I knew very well and who had come to England just for this party. Armand and Heini were there, as was the former king Constantine of Greece.