The nolle was greeted with approval by the over 85 percent of the American people who said they were suffering from Trial of the Millennium–related exhaustion.
The Ethics Panel of the District of Columbia Bar Association convened to determine whether there had been ethical violations sufficiently grievous to warrant disbarring Boyce from continuing to practice law. The hearings were closed but were reported in the press to be “heated.” There was a certain amount of harrumphing on the nation’s editorial pages about the “ridiculous” spectacle of lawyers declaring each other morally unfit.
On the eve of what was said to be a “close” vote, Boyce himself, in a brief statement given on his front steps while holding his infant daughter, announced that he was retiring from the law, as he put it, “to improve humanity by reducing the number of lawyers by one.”
“Won’t you miss it?” asked one reporter.
“You mean, honestly?”
The United States v. Van Anka lasted less than two weeks. Nick Naylor, Babette’s publicist, held press conferences every afternoon after the day’s proceedings, to say how enormously satisfied the Van Anka camp was with how it was all going. A number of famous actors testified on Babette’s behalf, as well as the Israeli defense minister and two former prime ministers. It took the jury five hours to find her guilty of perjury. The judge (not Judge Dutch) sentenced her to one and a half years in a minimum-security facility near Los Angeles, so that she could be near her agent. She’d be out in four months, pounds thinner and looking fabulous.
Her divorce from Max was complicated by the fact that Max was now a fugitive from U.S. justice living in Indonesia and Switzerland. Though not a divorce attorney per se, Alan Crudman represented her in the matter and, after ingeniously—as even Boyce admitted—managing to attach the assets of his offshore holding companies in the Netherlands, brought him to a bargaining table in Taiwan and to a settlement that was described by the Financial Times as “a lulu.”
Wiley P. Sinclair disappeared once again and then several years later was given Chinese citizenship. His behind-the-scenes maneuvering to help China win sponsorship of the Olympics came to public light when he was decorated by the Prime Minister and awarded the title “Hero of the Revolution.” He is said to live comfortably in Beijing and to maintain a summer residence in Hangchow. Occasionally, dressed as an elderly Chinese woman, he travels to Las Vegas.
Some thirty-eight books have been written so far about the trial, sixteen of them by the jurors. Juror Number Eighteen is generally considered to be the least tedious.
Judge Dutch Umin received plaudits for his handling of the Trial of the Millennium. He declined President Harold Farkley’s nomination to the Supreme Court, saying that when he reached retirement age, he planned to accept an outstanding offer to be curator of the Institute for Dutch Still Life.
Harold Farkley was overwhelmingly defeated in his bid to be reelected president, confirming in everyone’s mind that he was fundamentally second-rate and that he never would have achieved the number one job in government had it not been for the fact that his predecessor had died in, as one columnist put it, “pathetic” circumstances.
His opponent ran on a platform of restoring dignity to the White House. He announced that his first piece of legislation would be the Lincoln Bedroom Protection Act, barring presidents from turning the once sacred second-floor room overlooking the South Lawn into, as he put it, “a by-the-hour motel for political donors.”
He also pledged to reduce the size of government.
Acknowledgments
I am once again in the debt of Dr. David Williams, MC, USNR. Compliments and duty, Sir!
Steve “Dutch” Umin of Williams and Connolly was patiently and endlessly helpful and so far has yet to submit a bill. Let the record show that he finally threw up his hands over my implacable legal solecisms and should not be held accountable thereunto. Thereof? Whatever.
Before he got mad at me for something I wrote about his client, Monica Lewinsky, Plato Cacheris provided the spittoon.
C. Boyden Gray bought me a shad-roe lunch and chuckled at the idea, a reassuring sound from a tough grader and Establishmento.
The combined hourly bill of these three distinguished attorneys, a sum equivalent to the gross domestic product of the sultanate of Brunei, is worth it, so if you have killed anyone or swindled shareholders or fought with the Taliban, call them. They’re in the book.
Lincoln Caplan of the Yale Law School’s journal Legal Affairs, in whose pages some of this first appeared, showed once again that he is a peerless editor, to say nothing of friend.
Thomas Jackson gave precociously good advice for a young man.
John Tierney was as ever generous with his wisdom and enthusiasm.
Thanks, also, to the keen eyes of Gregory Zorthian and William F. Buckley Jr.
Special thanks to Sona Vogel for her relentlessly superb copyediting and fact checking.
President George “41” Bush kindly provided certain details of life on the second floor of the White House residence.
Affectionate thanks, once again, to Amanda “Binky” Urban of International Creative Management. Again, if you have killed someone or swindled stockholders or fought with the Taliban, call her—after you call the lawyers.
I am again in deep debt to my editor, Jonathan Karp of Random House. This is our fifth collaboration. He has now said “no” 1,278 times. But this makes it sweet when he says “yes.” Thank you, my very dear Mr. Karp.
Last but never leastly: wife Lucy, daughter Caitlin, and son Conor, who put up with the author. Once again, I am left wondering why anyone would marry a writer or want one for a dad.
And finally the faithful Hound Jake, who barked at everything.
—Blue Hill
September 9, 2001
About the Author
CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY is the author of eight previous books, including Thank You for Smoking and Little Green Men. That would make this his, what, ninth? He is editor of Forbes FYI magazine and has contributed more than fifty “Shouts and Murmurs” to The New Yorker. He is also credited with bringing about lasting peace in the Middle East and with alerting NASA to significant problems with its Space Shuttle Automatic Re-entry Guidance System (SSARGS), thereby sparing several square blocks of Raleigh, North Carolina, a very unpleasant surprise. He is a regular contributor to Martha Stewart’s Inside Trading magazine and informally advises the government of Argentina on debt rescheduling. He is the 2002 recipient of the Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence but has yet to actually receive it. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his saintly and long-suffering wife, Lucy, two children, and faithful Hound Jake.
No Way To Treat a First Lady Page 27