Diplomacy and Diamonds

by Joanne King Herring

  At last his aide led me to the prince, who bowed elegantly and smiled. He was all I ever dreamed he would be. By now you know that I like to play, especially with significant people. We chatted for a while, and then I said, “Do you know that you are my fantasy?” His eyes opened wide and he turned quite pink! I quickly explained my dream sequence and how I put myself to sleep dreaming about the impossibility of waltzing with him at Buckingham Palace.

  Standing tall and straight he said, “By all means, let us waltz.” And we did!

  The next day his aide called and said that the prince had thoroughly enjoyed the evening. “I did not think anyone could make him blush,” he said. “He loved every minute of it.”

  Ah, the end of dreams. There was nothing else impossible to dream about.

  God so enjoyed all of my misdemeanors that He decided to give me every small thing I could ever want. I felt sad. I had no wish to become a friend of the prince. He was a one-night stand in fairyland, but I do miss my dream…

  When I returned to reality, Charlie and I were able to help each other once more. Charlie and I wanted to thank the Saudis for their much-needed financial support in the war. We decided that a Washington, D.C., party was in order, only this time, I threw the party on my own—not with Charlie or Bob Herring. This time, it was just me.

  Everyone wanted to meet the new Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar. He was a jet pilot, a famous wit, and a towering force in the Arab world. However, it was not so easy to honor him. Like most Middle Eastern royals, he liked to entertain at home and rarely accepted invitations elsewhere. He was very reclusive. In fact, one powerful senator had a dinner in his honor, and the prince failed to show up.

  Just getting him to come to a party in his honor was a tall order, but tall orders are a bit of a specialty for us Texans.

  The press said that the guest list for that party has never been duplicated. They should know—they covered them all for years to come. We had all of President Reagan’s cabinet, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the commandants of the army, the navy, and the marines. We had the most significant ambassadors of the day and important congressmen and senators—all in one room on this one night. People couldn’t believe it.

  The New York Times sent its top writer, Charlotte Curtis, to cover the party. Then Diana McLellan, the oh-so-fun columnist for the Washington Times, wrote another article that I thought so witty I couldn’t choose between the two. For the first time these ladies did not write the caustic comments that they were famous for.

  I want to share them with you because they are a true history of the time, written as it unfolded.

  When you read them, I hope you’ll chuckle and feel that you were there.

  Why was the party significant? It established me as a single woman able to operate in Washington by myself. For the first time in my life, I was established as a person on my own, not Bob King’s wife or Bob Herring’s wife or Charlie’s woman of choice. I was me. I was a person who could think, who could talk, who could analyze, who could actually get things done on my own without a man.

  Copyright © 1984 The Washington Times LLC. This reprint does not constitute or imply any endorsement or sponsorship of any product, service, company, or organization.

  This put me in the position of being sought after by the biggest companies in the world—and they wanted to pay me high figures as a consultant. They needed my help for the access I had to consequential world figures. This was a time when I was being valued like a man in a man’s world. They were not interested in me and my slinky dresses or my dancing ability or my conversational expertise. They were interested in my ability to analyze and to put together business deals. You must remember that I lived in an era when women were classified as society figures, secretaries, glamour girls, “wives of,” and volunteers—no matter what their education, expertise, intellect, or ability. I was thought of as a stellar, productive volunteer who could get things done that others could not. I was respected and admired. But nobody had ever offered to pay me for my expertise—except the Pakistani general who offered to bribe me and the Pakistani women who wanted to use me to make money. You can’t imagine what a window these legitimate offers opened in my life. In astonishment, I thought, “Maybe, just maybe, I could legitimately be called ‘sir.’ ”

  The night of the party I wore my 1972 black gown with the fur bottom that I wore in the show in Spain with Charlie. Charlie put his hands on my shoulders and said reprovingly, “That is the same dress I’ve seen before.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s high-necked, long-sleeved, and clingy. To hell with the dress. I love you. Let’s try again.”

  “Charlie, darling, it’s too late. And I don’t want to spend every day in the gym! I want a real life with someone who loves me for who I am, not how I look.” (Charlie had once said, “Please don’t get fat.”)

  “But I do love you for those reasons,” Charlie declared. “The only real problem is you scare me.”

  “Charlie, you’re too much.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Down the Rabbit Hole

  Charlie was thrilled with the success of our evening on the night of the Bandar party. He looked at me very seriously and said, “Do you want to try again?”

  I looked at him as someone wonderful and very special and said, “No.”

  That chapter of my life was ended. Perhaps for the moment he wanted to rekindle the flame, but in reality, he liked his life of chasing girls and drinking beer with the guys. We both needed to move on.

  But there was one more unexpected chapter. Many years later, but before he finally married, Charlie had a heart attack. He came to Houston for treatment. “Please come,” he said. “I really must see you.”

  I was married at the time, and I was also afraid of my husband Lloyd’s jealousy.

  “Please,” said Charlie. “This may be the last time I see you.”

  Of course I went.

  Charlie took my hand, looked at me seriously, and said, “Let’s try again.”

  I kissed him on the cheek and said, “What do you mean? Charlie, I’m married! It’s too late.”

  “I was crazy,” he said, referring to the girls he had wanted to date. “But so were you! We can make it this time. Give us a chance.”

  I squeezed his hand and walked away. Memories can play tricks on us, letting us remember only the good while we forget the bad.

  Ours had been a good, productive chapter in each others’ lives. We had trudged through some very trying times, through the hails of bullets from all manner of enemy fire. He will always have a special place in my heart. I hope he saved a place for me in his.

  I was happy with my life as it was. After the Afghanistan adventure with Charlie, I began working, taking on the consultancy of several major corporations. Mainly I was traveling around the world at other people’s expense, staying in their marvelous châteaus and island retreats. I was always packing to go somewhere and often couldn’t remember where I had been the week before.

  Returning me to reality, my mother said, “You need to get married.” Today parents say, “Get a job.” My other-generation mother thought jobs were for others. In her book, marriage was easier. (It isn’t.) My mother looked at my successful life alone as meaningless. The clock was ticking. I was fifty-five.

  She had noticed me taking on the responsibility of maintaining my excruciatingly expensive house full of family and staff and a constant stream of houseguests. She realized that this could not continue forever, and she was concerned. At the time I was not lacking in husband contenders, but she knew the day was not far off when the cupboard would be bare. I quaked at the thought and began to think seriously that she might have a point.

  Soon afterward, I got a call from multimillionaire Lloyd Davis. He had just sold his private electric company and his telephone company. No one ever thought that anyone could challenge AT&T. Lloyd broke the monopoly by starting a cell phone company, which became Sprint.

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nbsp; He had the toys: a plane, a house in the Bahamas, and a yacht. Each husband had given me something significant. Bob King had given me a private railroad car that had belonged to the Vanderbilt family. It was a magnificently decorated and restored dream. The only thing was—it cost as much to run as a jet plane. (It ended up getting stolen and stripped of its beautiful furnishings. I gave the husk that was left to charity.)

  Bob Herring brought into my life the use of the company plane. We used it for business only, but we always combined business and pleasure. With a plane you could have dinner in New York and wake up in Paris for breakfast, which left Bob still fresh enough to do business.

  Lloyd had a plane, too, and a yacht. He was slim, attractive, and much sought after by women. He built a house in the Lyford Cay Club outside Nassau, with his yacht parked outside. He was the talk of the club. They called him “the bachelor.” (There were twelve rich widows for every man on the island, and young girls flocked around.)

  He wanted his Bahamian housewarming done properly to ensure his place in this close-knit upper-echelon enclave. It was known as one of the most snobbish clubs in the world.

  He knew Town and Country had done an article on the club. The magazine had used me as its centerfold, so he invited me to serve as hostess for his housewarming. I thought this was a great idea. I packed up my Louis Vuitton bag and everything chic I could find, and tripped out to his private plane feeling quite at home. The party was a big success, and Lloyd was thrilled.

  The next day, we took a group out on his yacht. Most of the ladies refused to swim so they wouldn’t “ruin their hair.” I dived into the water, not caring, which impressed Lloyd immensely. He fell hard.

  I was invited to the Winter Ball, at which Jacqueline Kennedy was hostess. Lloyd accompanied me. We danced all night and had a glorious time.

  When Lloyd read that Slim Aarons, a celebrity photographer covering the event, said, “Joanne walked in behind Raquel Welch and all the photographers were elbowing each other to get a shot of Joanne,” he was thrilled and bought all the photos.

  When he asked me to marry him, Lloyd said, “I know you have a big emerald. [Bob King had given me the stunning emerald.] I know you have a big diamond [the “working” diamond that Bob Herring gave me]. I want to give you the biggest, most beautiful ruby in the world.”

  Buying a big ruby is very difficult. A law established by the kings of Siam and Burma declared that any ruby over six carats belonged to the king. Thus, when any fine ruby was discovered, the dealers cut it so that it would not exceed six carats. Lloyd somehow snared a flawless fifteen-carat stone that was fit for a king. I deeply appreciate the lovely things that Lloyd did for me.

  Most of our friends were happy for us, but not all. Two who knew him well said, “Joanne, be careful. He has a dark side.” I remember thinking, “Oh, it will be different with me.”

  Our hand-painted wedding invitations of Bahamian hibiscus requested that everyone wear white. Later, a Neiman Marcus employee said that the store had never had so many requests for white ensembles in its history. The church was filled with guests wearing white; they were as beautiful as the decorations.

  People magazine, the television program Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and many other media outlets wanted to cover the wedding. We said no press, but the press covered it anyway by interviewing the returning guests.

  Lloyd liked buying me clothes and chose my wedding dress. It was white lace with a big lace hat with ribbons, bows, and ruffles, my signature look—which, after all these years, really bores me to death.

  The wedding was held in the Chapel by the Sea in Lyford Cay. People came for three days of frivolity, and then Lloyd and I left on a storybook honeymoon—a week on his yacht, called Wave Dancer, touring the Caribbean Islands.

  Then we flew to Russia. It hadn’t been long since I had waged war against the Soviets. But Lloyd vowed to do things I hadn’t done with my other husbands. He suggested Russia since neither of us had ever been, and as it turned out, I loved the Russian people.

  At this point Russia was still under Soviet control, and only tour groups were allowed to visit. Our tour was through Rice University. The scholarly people on our tour thought they were going on an intellectual journey. They even hired a professor to instruct us in Russian history and the Soviet Union. They had no idea they would end up dancing with Russian strangers in a Moscow hotel and later in a disco yurt in the middle of the Gobi desert with the young people from the Moravian Ballet.

  Lloyd was a great dancer, I loved to dance, and the ballet loved dancing with us. As for those staying in the hotel with us, we shook Moscow up by cutting in on the local people and dancing with them too. By the end of the evening everyone in our group, plus the Russian diners, were laughing and dancing with each other, even though no one could understand a word anyone was saying. Think Tower of Babel and bubbly. It was hilarious.

  Our tour group hired an entire car on the Siberian Express to travel from Mongolia through Siberia and back to Moscow. There was no fruit on the train and, really, very little edible food—except caviar. You could have as much Beluga caviar as you could eat. We ate it on eggs for breakfast. We ate it alone and with pretty much everything else. It was divine—for a while.

  But we yearned for fruit. We saw some glorious melons rattling down the street on a horse-drawn cart. We followed the cart to the market, rushed to the vendor, and said, “Oh, what beautiful melons!” This darling man picked three, handed them to me, and said in broken English, “My gift to you, beautiful lady.” We tried desperately to pay him, but he absolutely refused payment.

  We later learned that those melons cost a fortune, as they were rarely available and had to be shipped thousands of miles. This dear man had given us a gift that I will cherish always. I call moments like these jewels for the heart.

  The Russians were wonderful people; they were simply enslaved. They knew it, and they yearned for the freedom of life in America, just like the Afghans and everybody else in the world.

  The Soviet officials knew very well who I was and put three KGB agents on the train posing as tourist guides. They accompanied us everywhere, but they didn’t know a thing about the tourist sites we visited or about Russian history.

  One morning I looked at them and I asked point-blank, “Are you KGB?”

  “Yes,” they said. “We have been sent to see that you are safe,” not exactly a believable excuse.

  They were very reserved and careful until they saw me relate to their people. The Russian people liked me, and I liked them, which softened the agents’ animosity. They realized I couldn’t be all bad. Once they began to soften, they told us more than they realized about life under communism. The Berlin Wall had not yet come down, and they were still under the full weight of their ponderous government-controlled world, so different from our free capitalistic country.

  The female KGB agent told us she was thrilled because her parents, an upper-class couple, were at last going to be able to afford a cheap Russian car. They had saved for thirty years, and finally it was going to be possible. Why did they have to wait so long? The Soviets did not allow access to banks or lending agencies; thus, you could not make a down payment on a large purchase and pay off the rest monthly. These hardworking people had to save their money until they had every penny, not just for the car itself, but also for the taxes and licenses and other requirements that the communists slapped on a weary populace.

  Imagine being relatively financially secure yet having to wait thirty years for a car or a house. Our KGB “hosts” thought the story was wonderful. We, on the other hand, were appalled and saddened that this was the only sign of greatness they saw in their government, which had been created supposedly for the people.

  Returning home from our honeymoon, Lloyd and I seemed ready to settle into a storybook marriage. I thought I would be happy. After all, a columnist had written, “I hear that when Lloyd proposed to Joanne, he said: ‘My goal—for the rest of my life—is to see
that you have a marvelous time every day.’ ” And for a time, the days did not disappoint.

  Lloyd had a 120,000-acre ranch in Rhodesia, which gave him access to the world’s most legendary gamekeepers. One of these men suggested that his son, a handsome twenty-year-old named Jim who reminded me of my son Beau, take us into an area where tourists were not allowed.

  One night, we were sitting around the campfire, telling stories, and Jim began discussing elephants—his life’s work and that of three generations of his family.

  “Elephant families are so devoted to one another,” Jim explained, “that if one of them is killed by accident or necessity, the rest of the family might grieve themselves to death.”

  Just a few days prior to our conversation, a tourist had been picked up by an elephant’s trunk, thrown down, and trampled to death. “What do you think happened with the woman who was killed last week?” I asked.

  “That’s rare,” Jim assured us. He speculated the woman had done something out of ignorance that threatened the animal.

  “Bull elephants look intimidating,” said our young guide, “but they are not particularly dangerous—unless there are females with babies. Then they will quickly kill you. They protect their young just like humans. Otherwise, they are so gentle you can walk among them.”

  My eyes widened. “Have you done that?”

  He grinned cockily. “Yes.”

  “Could we do that?” I asked.

  “Uh, sure,” he said, looking dismayed.

  “Let’s do it!” I said. “Could we go tomorrow?”

  “Well… I guess so…,” Jim agreed slowly.

  My horrified husband, silent until now, sat up straight and said in a strangled tone, “You can’t mean that.”