“Oh, I really wanted to meet you,” Aaron said. Though miles apart politically, we became friends immediately. I later saw him on the History Channel talking about this movie. His comments about me were so kind. Before we met, he had thought of me as a kind of Jezebel who used my Christianity as a ploy to promote myself. Now he seemed to understand the real me.
I was most impressed with Philip Seymour Hoffman, who had portrayed intelligence agent Gust Avrakotos, a fat, fiftyish, balding brunette. When he told me, “I’ve been dying to meet you,” I looked at him in utter disbelief, first that he would care to meet me and second because he was young, blond, and very attractive. I barely recognized him!
Attorney Dick DeGuerin told columnists, “I loved the movie. She didn’t say one bad word. But I wasn’t bluffing. We were going to sue!”
Fast-forward to our Houston premiere, by invitation only, we didn’t have a single star… but we had more fun than we had in Hollywood. It seemed the entire city wanted a peek at the way Tinsel Town had depicted our tale. There was fighting over the tickets! We had a thousand tickets and that wasn’t nearly enough. We even had to ration family.
Beautiful Kristi Schiller and her CEO husband gave a party beforehand at the River Oaks Country Club. One shouldn’t mention money, but the club told Posey Parker that it ended up costing thousands because of all of the people who crashed! The club couldn’t handle it, but the wonderful Schillers didn’t even frown.
Our town toppled Hollywood for sheer glamour. Everyone wore black tie, and Houston news anchor Jan Carson interviewed guests on the red carpet. The mayor of Houston, Bill White, spoke. He and his famous writer wife, Andrea, bless them, actually cut short a trip to Argentina to attend the premiere. Forgive me if I feel proud of my city and its people. They looked gorgeous—Texas women are, you know—and their husbands are hot stuff too.
We couldn’t help but laugh as we sat in the movie theater in our black tie and formal finery, munching on popcorn and sipping Coca-Colas. I wore my red sequined dress, which, much like my working diamond, is worn to make a statement. Tonight I was supposed to be a movie star, and so I dressed the part.
We didn’t know it then, but the film was to be nominated for five Golden Globes: Best Motion Picture, Best Performance by an Actor (Tom Hanks), Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Julia Roberts), and Best Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin). Philip Seymour Hoffman was nominated for an Academy Award as well.
Prompted by suggestions from the press, people began to ask if by supplying weapons to Afghan warriors, we had armed the Al-Qaeda terrorists. The short answer is no. A Stinger missile has a shelf life of only five years. Whatever weapons have been or ever will be aimed at the West by Islamic radicals didn’t come from “Charlie Wilson’s War.”
My larger response is this: You cannot predict future wars. You can only fight the enemy you face at the time. Who were our allies in World War II? The Soviets. We spent billions in aid rebuilding their nation and were still not able to avoid the Cold War. The charge linking me to 9/11 was particularly hurtful. All the work I did to arm the Afghan people against the Soviets was done with my heart. For years, I sacrificed everything to defeat the Soviets and to save Afghanistan. And now I was being blamed for attacks against my homeland. I was willing to give my life to protect my country, not destroy it.
We wanted to stop the Soviets from controlling Afghanistan, and we did. Or, as Charlie put it in his interview for the movie’s DVD, “[It] ended with the Soviet Army with their tail between their legs, in 1989, marching out of Afghanistan, a defeated army.” Charlie and I tried desperately to convince the U.S. Congress to spend a fraction of the covert war’s budget on rebuilding the country—to no avail. Thankfully, this was alluded to in the film.
I was so grateful to the Lord. He had interceded. He turned the movie, which could have been a disaster for me personally, into a glorious experience. God never ever lets us go down too far before He steps in. Still, a couple of (fictional) scenes from the movie continue to haunt me: the martini and the hot tub.
Since the movie came out, I have been invited to speak at various functions. In one case, I was making a speech to a group of outstanding businessmen who were taking me very seriously. The host, a devout Muslim, approached me and said, “I have never been in a liquor store in my life. I have never served liquor in my house. But I went myself to the liquor store to buy the ingredients to make you the perfect martini with two olives.” With a flourish, his eyes sparkling with delight that he could give me such an appropriate gift, he served the drink in an oversized martini glass.
I looked at him blankly.
“From the movie! It’s your martini with two olives!” he explained.
He had gone to so much trouble and had put so much thought into his gesture that I would have drunk the martini if I could have still made my speech afterward. But though his disappointment was sad to see, I had to confess that I rarely drink, and never martinis.
Incidents like this prove to me that even the minor scenes from the movie were treated as gospel by movie audiences. So to put to rights another piece of movie fiction, I must tell you that I never in my whole life called anybody a “slut,” especially “Charlie’s angels” (the women who worked in Charlie’s office). They were ladies—all of them, and they were precious to me, real friends. Not one ever stepped out of line or had a fling with the boss or any of his friends. They observed Charlie’s love life from afar, and Charlie, no matter how tempted, would never have played fast and loose in the office. He was too smart.
Charlie would not have picked up a constituent’s daughter, either, as the movie claims. Why commit political suicide with the guys who voted for you when there are always other choice ladies to court?
I do not want to dwell too much on Hollywood license because it really is necessary. To write a script from a nearly six-hundred-page book is a feat, but some things have to be implied through pictures or in speech that’s measured in seconds. That’s why they included Julia’s famous scene in the bikini—they said they wanted to imply that I could still compete with Miss Universe. Mostly, the filmmakers wanted to make a movie about a serious subject that could make us laugh—and they succeeded.
I am so glad that Charlie got to be there at the premiere. When he had his heart transplant, I knew that the future was not certain. Dr. Michael DeBakey, who had done the operation and who was in my mind the greatest genius I’ve ever met, said that very few people who receive a heart transplant live beyond two years. I felt the clock ticking at the premiere, less than one year after Charlie’s transplant, and a tremendous sadness crept over me.
On February 10, 2010, I received the call that Charlie Wilson had passed away.
Nothing prepares you for when the door closes and someone you loved is actually gone. As I prepared to say my good-byes, Congressman Jerry Lewis called. He had served with Charlie on the Ways and Means Committee and had been a very real bipartisan hero. A Republican from California, he supported Charlie, a Democrat, right down the line in his fight for Afghanistan funding in the 1980s. In fact, his gorgeous wife, Arlene, was responsible for Tom Hanks and Tom’s partner, Gary Goetzman, even knowing about the book Charlie Wilson’s War.
The evening of the day Charlie Wilson was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery, Jerry Lewis and the whole Appropriations Committee wanted to honor Charlie with a celebration on Capitol Hill with his special friends and members of Congress. Jerry and Arlene called me personally from Washington to invite me. I thought it was a touching salute and I certainly wanted to be among his grieving and admiring friends.
Grace Nelson, the beautiful wife of Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), went with me. She and her husband had arranged a meeting with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, whose members had graciously agreed to stay after work to meet with me to talk about Afghanistan. This was important, something I had dreamed of having an opportunity
to do, but I was not going to let anything interfere with honoring Charlie. They understood and arranged their schedules to help me meet all my commitments.
My friend Paul Erickson (who had arranged for me to speak in Washington on the same platform with Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and Newt Gingrich) gallantly offered to go back to the hotel to get our Afghanistan plan paperwork to present to the committee.
When we entered, I was immediately surrounded by friends, and we hugged and remembered the “Charlie-isms” that made him so much fun. It was a warm, wonderful moment.
I will always remember Charlie as a patriot and admire him as a great man of strength. George Crile mentions many times in his book that Charlie desperately needed me at that time in his life to bring out the greatness that was in him. The truth is, after grieving my lost husband and casting about for my life’s direction, I needed him too.
We had been soul mates in our desire to save our country. Together we had united Washington in a bipartisan effort. As long as I live, I will cherish that in my heart—to see senators, congressmen, cabinet secretaries, the CIA, and all caring governmental officials in power actually working together without grabbing a television mike and telling everyone what they were doing. This was a true covert operation. Thirty years later, not one of them had tried to take credit. To me it was the greatest expression of patriotism I had ever witnessed. I was sorry more attention was not given to Jerry Lewis and the Republicans who fought so valiantly beside Charlie and Gust and me. I begged George Crile to mention Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Jim Baker, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, CIA director Bill Casey, and others in Charlie Wilson’s War, but he chose not to. Make no mistake—it was Charlie who got the money. It was Charlie’s war. He won it. But he could not have done it without the Republicans.
Afghanistan would be threatened again with totalitarianism, this time under the mask of religion, and plunged back into war. But this time I would have to fight without Charlie.
CHAPTER 25
Afghanistan… Again
When the premieres were over, I was tired—tired of the press, tired of the process, and tired of me and my past. It was time for me to relax in my hammock, listen to the mockingbird that sings in the night, and enjoy being with my grandchildren and my dog.
This was not to be. Daily e-mails, calls, and letters poured in begging for help for Afghanistan. “Surely you want to help?” No, I didn’t. I was like Scarlett running from the hospital, sobbing and saying, “I can’t take any more pain.” I couldn’t bear to think about the children with no arms, the result of the Soviet butterfly bombs, which looked like toys and attracted children, and which the New York Times kept saying never existed. Whenever I think of them I shiver and want to roll up and die of the pain I saw all around me in Afghanistan, endured with more courage by this gallant, forgotten people than most Americans are ever required to feel.
So what am I doing in Afghanistan again? It is all the fault of Esther Coopersmith, doyenne of Washington society, and Caroline Firestone. However Caroline, the daughter of a railroad magnate and widow of businessman and philanthropist Leonard Firestone, was the main culprit. She has dedicated her life and fortune to saving Afghanistan. A selfless, beautiful woman and a fearless advocate, she’s a Democrat, and I love her, but I may never forgive her for pulling me back to Afghanistan.
She pulled me back in with this story: A father, weeping, explained to her during one of her trips to Afghanistan that he had to sell his son to keep his other children (all sixteen of them) from starving. He told her he was selling him to a Muslim boys’ school, where the child, fifteen, would have plenty to eat and be educated. The father understood that he would never see his son again, and this broke his heart, but he did it so his other children could live. After the father left, the person telling the story to Caroline turned to the buyer, who she suspected was not a mullah (teacher), and said, “What are you really going to do with the boy?”
“I am going to sell him for his eyes,” said the man, a trafficker of human organs.
When Caroline told me this story, I said, “No parent should ever have to make that choice.”
I went back into Afghanistan with everything I had—which, frankly, wasn’t much.
All of the things that got me in the doors of power before were now gone. It had been more than twenty years since the whoop-de-do happened with Charlie and Afghanistan, and two decades is a long time in Washington. Most players’ memories are short, so I am a has-been, hardly in a position to push a plan to save a country.
“Do you know anyone or anything about Afghanistan today?” inquired my buddy Posey Parker, who selflessly joins me in everything.
“I knew a dead ambassador who was said to be a crook on the side,” I replied.
That wasn’t very helpful, so I needed to reach into my toolbox again. What is happening there? What do the people of Afghanistan need? What do I have that can help?
First I needed to find out why, even with money pouring into Afghanistan, nothing is changing. The Taliban is attempting to reform and has found some support there, and I needed to know why.
Well, if you’re hungry, the Taliban might give you food. If your child needs an operation, they get it for you. When choosing a government, which one would you pick? If my family members were starving, I would choose the one that feeds them.
But then, too late, these needy people would realize that they have opened the door to the Taliban again. Too late they’d realize that they paid for necessities with their freedom.
How can we eat our dinner tonight remembering that father and the ghastly fate of his son? Still, what can we do? Charlie had asked Congress for money for just one school in the movie, and even his friends turned him down.
If the United States had implemented a Marshall Plan in Afghanistan (similar to the one that rebuilt Europe after World War II) after the Afghans defeated the Soviets in the 1980s, terrorism might never have gained a foothold in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
For the last thirty years of my life, I have been involved with the Afghans, a people not dissimilar to our own when George Washington was alive. The difference is that they don’t have what we had in fledgling America—strong and stable allies. We sent weapons to help the Afghans defeat the Soviet Union in the 1980s, but once the Soviets were expelled, we just left. We forget that not one American died liberating Afghanistan. The Afghans did it all. The Soviets, the greatest war machine in history, were defeated by a fierce local population living in a nation the size of Texas. And, at their moment of triumph and rebuilding, we cut off their aid. Afghanistan was a ruined nation that had won an enormous strategic victory for the United States, and we left them with no means of repairing or defending themselves. The people were starving, wounded, and dying.
So in 2009, I founded the Marshall Plan Charities—a Texas-based nonprofit corporation dedicated to “winning the peace” in war-torn Afghanistan. I like to think that MPC is uniquely positioned to complement the ongoing U.S. military operation in Afghanistan by rapidly and effectively redeveloping normal, healthy civilian life in hundreds of Afghan villages. I believe that through civilian aid we can transform totalitarian dictatorships into democratic allies.
An Afghan civilian population with clean water, sustainable food sources, basic health care, modern schools, and real jobs has no need for Taliban poppy fields or U.S. military protection. If the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan is to be deemed a success, we—America—must provide Afghan civilians with the basic tools of civilization so that a culture of self-reliance can permanently supplant a hopeless return to dependence upon a fundamentalist dictatorship. In the process, we can spare the world a breeding ground and staging area for international terrorism.
It is my conviction that Afghan villages can be restored only by following the Marshall Plan Charities’ holistic model of simultaneously introducing clean water, food, health care, schools, and jobs.
Toward this end, for two
years Posey Parker and I researched nonprofit aid organizations to find the most capable and most devoted to restoring this bleeding country, which Congress so callously abandoned in the 1980s. We have begun to assemble a series of private, nongovernmental organizations that have agreed to work together to provide these civil essentials—village by village rather than project by project.
We are about to combine—for the first time—the collective work of such NGOs as the Afghan school-building organization Central Asia Institute and former Goldman Sachs CEO Connie Duckworth’s Arzu (which produces everything from carpets for export to fuel for village fireplaces). Dr. Steven Kwon’s revolutionary soybeans (one bean yields forty-five new beans—enough for food, replanting, and export), which he acquired through his Nutrition and Education International organization, will be given even higher levels of support in MPC villages.
After 9/11 we asked the Afghans to fight the Taliban with us. All of the terrorists were training there, turning out leaders for more and bigger terrorist attacks. The Afghans fought to the death with us again.
Did we thank or help them? No! How would you feel if you were they? Would you trust us? Now they have nothing. They are literally starving. The water is bad. There are no jobs. Some 90 percent are illiterate. They have no vaccines. Malaria and dysentery are epidemic.
We could change the health of the whole country by helping them grow food and by cleaning up their water. Think: a polio vaccine costs fifty cents, a mosquito net $1.50. Yet few are available in Afghanistan.
That’s it, then. We have to feed and educate the Afghan people, give them water and jobs, and provide them with basic health care. There are nonprofit organizations that are doing it and have been doing it so successfully that they are being targeted and killed—not by the Afghan people but by the terrorists. Each nonprofit specializes in one of the five living essentials the villages must have: food, water, education, medical care, and jobs, simultaneously, to survive and get strong enough to fight for themselves.
Diplomacy and Diamonds Page 22