Once or twice I got a clandestine high sign from the people we were talking to that we had to move on, that I had to get him going.
In grade school they had a place on our report cards “Claims no more than his fair share of time and attention in the class room”. Bill would have gotten a bad mark there.
When we reached Honolulu my e-mail came back on. I received an e mail from [my] Sister Nan [Ellis] along the way. She had been watching the TV coverage of our trip. Her message was one line that said, “He’s still claiming more than his fair share.”
I guess the TV coverage reflected that he was “on” a lot. But I did not mind this a bit. On many things he is much more au courant than I am, and besides I soon realized as the trip got underway if we got in a bind for things to say or answers to be given to questions it was reassuring to know that “he was deman!”
Clinton went out of his way not to criticize the President. He talked about the generous commitment of the USA, of our effective military support, of the money the private sector had given. I was a little unclear on his new mission for the UN that starts after he and I report to the President on March 8th.
He talked about it all along the way. At times he talked about raising money from other nations. At times he mentioned helping to guarantee that the money is prudently used. . . .
The trip of tears:
I have never seen such devastation. We started off in Thailand at Phuket. Many of the big resort hotels in Phuket are still in operation. But soon after we boarded our helicopters we began to see the real ravages of the tsunami. Many buildings were flattened. Only rubble and cracked up foundations remained. Those left standing had been gutted.
We flew to tiny Takua Pa then drove to Baan Nam Kem village. We chatted with some kids. We watched the building of some new fishing boats, the fishing fleet having been totally demolished. We saw first hand the good being done by U.S. AID43 workers and NGOs of all sorts.
But it was not until the next day when we landed in Aceh (pronounced Ah-chay) [Indonesia] that we began to feel the human side of this tragedy.
Our helicopter made several turns over the hardest hit area. Where there had been hundreds of private homes, there was nothing. Much of the rubble and debris had been cleared, the bodies removed; but I kept thinking what this must be like for the families. Mostly fishermen they lived by the sea, living humbly in tiny homes, but at least they were safe and free to make a living.
Now as we walked from the chopper a few hundred yards to our briefing point we went through lines of people. The old and the young, men and women, all lined up to watch as we came in.
The saddest part for me related to the little children. I saw one father holding his 6 year old son’s shoulder. He was standing, emotionless, just holding his boy and staring. I asked the translator with us what exactly had happened to him. His wife and several other of his kids were all killed, only this one boy alive, with him, at his side.
On and on these tales of sadness went. Kids watching their parents drown, tales of fear, tales of hopelessness. It was so moving and so desperately sad.
Of course the victims had lost all their clothing. I noticed that many had on dirty tee shirts, often with U.S. company logos or sports team logos.
I saw no latrines, though I was told latrines had been dug and were kept sanitary by dumping lime into the pits.
I was told some would not eat the fish beginning to be caught again because the fish might have eaten off the dead bodies, some of which were still being recovered.
Way down in the Maldives 3,000 miles from Aceh the Maldivians told me bodies from Indonesia had been recovered, identified by dog tags or credit cards.
At Aceh most of the body recovery was finished—the bodies taken to a central burial place and buried before everyone was overcome by the ghastly smell of decaying flesh.
The Indonesian official with whom we traveled to Aceh told me how grateful they were for the work and presence of the U.S. military.44 At every stop this was mentioned to me. The Marines, for example, would enter an area, get out in the mire and the muck and start cleaning up, often working side by side with the locals.
As we surveyed the devastation I wondered what it would take to bring about total reconstruction. The task looks so daunting, so impossibly difficult.
I was impressed by the presence and grit of U.S. AID workers. They were right in the mix helping with temporary housing, with clean water, with restoring some hope to the little kids. These are dedicated, compassionate Americans, men and women who obviously care. They will never get proper credit, but I think they are in these villages because they truly care and truly want to help.
On our first stop, Thailand, I was greeted at the airport by Thailand’s first lady, Khunying Shinawatra, the wife of my friend Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. I had met Thaksin on several occasions in Bangkok long before he was elected, shortly after I was dis-elected (new word). He has just come off of a huge electoral victory, his party getting a clear majority, and now he is in absolute control of the parliament. This was the first time that any party had absolute control and the first time, perhaps in history, that a Prime Minister finished his first term and then would go on to win a big victory in a national election.
Thaksin gave a lovely dinner for us at a resort hotel which had escaped any damage from the storm. He invited several of his key Cabinet people to join us. The food was good. The company was good. But all of us were dead tired and our lids were heavy.
Thaksin, like the rest of the leaders we met, expressed sincere gratitude to the USA for our relief support.
All along the way people commented on how unique and wonderful it was to see Bill Clinton and me, men of different parties and different views, working together on this relief and recovery effort. They seemed genuinely grateful.
The second country we visited was Indonesia. We met the new President, in Medan, a town about half way between Jakarta and Aceh. I was impressed with President Yudhoyono. He told of his plans to guarantee that the goods sent to help his people would actually get to the people. He would fight to see there would be no rip-offs, no corruption. This is important because the American press, as is their wont, now seem addicted to the feeling that graft and corruption are rampant in the relief and reconstruction work.
Bill and I did 3 major network morning shows from the Maldives and we were repeatedly asked how we knew the goods would reach the people for whom they were intended. The truth is there is no guarantee. There may well be incidents of stealing or cheating, but it is important that the recipient countries set up mechanisms to guard against corruption. Another truth is that our mission is to raise the private funds to help, but we do feel obligated to impress on the various officials with whom we meet that the whole world will be watching to see that integrity and honor prevail as the reconstruction effort unfolds.
From Thailand we went on to Sri Lanka.
We were given a lovely coat and tie dinner by Sri Lanka’s President Kumaratunga. The dinner was held in her house which had once been the colonial Governor’s mansion. We had drinks in the spectacular garden, and then went back into the mansion for dinner.
Clinton’s staff told us that he was dead tired and asked that we help get out of there by 10 PM. That was fine by me. The meal was served nicely and quickly, so by 9:50 we were finished. We had been told that the President had originally wanted us to stick around until midnight but was agreeable to a 10PM departure.
She got up and gave a very short and very nice toast. I was next—short and sweet. President Clinton was next—short and sweet. But when it came to getting out of the room it was a different story. He stopped and chatted and explained things to official after official. When he got to the final exit he engaged President Kumaratunga in a long discussion. Leaning up against the exit wall he went on and on. Clinton’s entourage was clearly upset.
But President Kumaratunga seemed to be taking it all in and enjoying it.
As for me, I had s
aid my goodbyes, and trying to accommodate the Clinton staff’s desires, I loitered about making clear we should be in the cars. Hand gestures and shrugged shoulders did not help.
When President Clinton finally emerged and we climbed into our car together, he said, “George, you owe me big time for getting us out of there a lot earlier than we expected.” I thanked him profusely. And I said nothing more. You cannot get mad at the guy. I admit to wondering why he can’t stay on time, but when I see him interacting with folks my wonder turns to understanding, with a dollop of angst thrown in.
I think his staff is scared to death of him. He never bawled them out in front of us, but on the very last time together when we were doing our live TV broadcasts from the Maldives I heard him turn on his aide and take a huge bite out of his ass. It had to do with whether the mike for TV should go down through his shirt and out the bottom of the shirt or whether it could be hooked on the back.
But at that juncture he was very tired. Let’s face it when tired you get angry more easily. Yesterday, for example, I had typed up about 8 pages of my letter to you, and damned if I didn’t lose them. The computer ate my own home work. I was doubly po’d, and I am afraid I let my grumpiness show; but I took it out on IBM and on myself not on Tommy or Jean.45 Fatigue will do that to a guy, especially when he is sure it is the computer’s fault not his. Well, probably!
(Side bar: I have now written 2,747 words, 11,834 characters, make that 14,524 characters with spacing, 53 paragraphs and 276 lines; so, dear Hugh, if this Think Pad now digests my work I will exit with no chute this Air Force’s special mission Boeing 757; but first the IBM Think Pad will go sailing out into these clear Pacific skies only to fall to its just reward.)
Back now to Mission Tsunami.
It is said that the Sri Lankan coast was hardest hit of all. We did not get to go to the place that was pounded the hardest, but we saw plenty of damage.
We stopped in a little village where the people’s houses (shacks) had all been destroyed. They were living in tents. They had nothing. They had lost everything.
I was touched by one group of school children. The kids were sitting on the dirt crayoning pictures. The teacher had told me that this was therapeutic for them. That if they could draw about what they had seen and draw about their fears and maybe even hopes it would be good for them.
In Thailand I had been given a crayon picture showing a head out in the sea. The little girl who gave it to me had lost her mother. Now in Sri Lanka I was seeing the same kind of art as the kids showed me their drawings. Helicopters dropping supplies. Fishing boats hanging from trees. Huge waves. Dead fish. Hands held out to help.
These drawings were so powerful, such vivid reminders of the trauma that had seized their lives on that fateful Dec. 26th day.
We saw the water purification system developed by IT&T, an American company. Though the small purification devices could not handle huge amounts of water the machines were cleaning up filthy looking water and making it potable.
I saw U.S. AID workers that had moved right into the rubble with the Tsunami’s victims, and many had been there since the beginning of the recovery. We heard of the hard work of the U.S. Marines who had come, cleaned up the major debris, and then departed, thus earning the gratitude of the people and eliminating any fears that some officials might have had about the U.S. military coming in the first place.
There is so much sadness, so much grief; and yet there is hope.
Our fourth and final stop was in the Maldives. This island paradise looked pristine from the air as we landed on a tiny airport island but a mile or so from Malé, the capital. We were greeted by President Gayoom, the long serving leader of this tiny country. He showed us a film of the huge waves striking some of the many islands that make up the Maldives.
We then went by fast boat over to Malle, a 15 minute boat ride on the lovely sea this country is famous for. We were given a good briefing. In one large room at the convention center were the many, various departments dealing with recovery.
To list a few of the departments there were health, reconstruction, finances, planning for the future, enforcement to guarantee no rip-offs would occur. There were a lot of people on hand. One gets the feeling they have a solid recovery plan and are going to work hard to get it into play.
The devastation was mainly on islands quite a way removed from Malle, so we did not go see it. Instead we were shown what used to be and what, with proper help, can be in the future.
Following our briefing we drove around Malle and saw large crowds of people lining the streets we traveled. They were very friendly. No sign of anti USA sentiments in this mainly Muslim country—none at all.
70% of Maldives’ tourist hotels are up and running, but occupancy is way off for most people do not know they are open for tourist business. This is really hurting their economy as is the loss of a lot of their fishing boats. Maldives is a fishing country.
We had a delightful lunch in a very nice hotel on yet another island. Tuna is the fish their fisherman mainly make a living from, and we were served without a doubt the best tuna I have ever eaten.
Following lunch we did some CBS radio. This radio broadcast followed interviews on the 3 big network morning shows. The technology worked well and in rapid sequence we talked to NBC, ABC, then CBS.
We said goodbye to President Clinton and his party46 and jumped in a boat for the short ride to the airport. Soon our great Air Force crew had us in comfort and we were airborne, our trip to four countries so hard hit by the Tsunami now all wrapped up.
When we landed in Honolulu we were told our left engine had been leaking some oil; so we overnighted in the VIP quarters at Hickam AFB and then started on this final leg at 8 AM Honolulu time.
It’s been quite a trip, Hugh.
As I fly back I once again realize how very lucky I am, how many blessings I have to be thankful for. I think, too, of how many people are really hurting in this world while I live a life of comfort.
May God truly bless those poor people whose lives have been shattered by nature’s wrath.
All the best to you and yours. Continue to hold your family close, and I will do just that, too.
All the best from your globe
trotting, tired old friend,
GB
Once again the Presidents, current and past, came together to pay our respects to a departed world leader—this time for Pope John Paul II. I wrote this to Hugh Sidey.
April 8, 2005
Sitting here alone in the President’s bedroom on Air Force One, I find my mind reeling with memories.
The long term memories have to do with the joy I used to have flying on this great plane. Laura, I think in being very considerate and kind to me, insisted that she likes sleeping on the couch in the room office, so when I felt like a good nap after leaving the Vatican I climbed right onto her bed as did the President, while Laura slept on the office couch.
On the way over Laura felt horribly. Her face was almost paralyzed and she was in pain. Fortunately, after landing in Rome, the pain went away and she seems fine.
Let’s get my own 81 year old health out of the way. I seem to drip a lot on planes these days. This can be contained by certain types of anti-hists. But today at the service for the Pope, I found myself dripping like a waterfall. We asked a Vatican assistant to bring water; and lo a benadryl saved those around me from the constant honking and the dripping.
On this flight back the Doctor has given me some new stuff, so, as I type, I think things are much better. I caught a cold last night in the Principi hotel where we stayed. A fine hotel it is. It is owned by a friend of Aniello Lauro of the Splendide [Royal] Hotel at Lake Lugano. Robert ____ is his name.47 He came with my friend Aniello to our 41@80 festivities in Houston. The President and Laura stayed at Ambassador [Mel] Sembler’s residence.
There were two memorable events in the short time we were in Rome. The dinner last night given by [Prime Minister] Berlusconi was intimate and wonderfu
l; but of course the highlight was the funeral service for the Pope. Yesterday afternoon, Thursday, all the American Cardinals were invited to the Residence and many of them came.
Every single Cardinal said “We are so grateful to you for coming.” I think it must have meant a lot to them to have the three Presidents48 on hand . . . they said it again when they left.
The dinner with Italy’s charismatic, rich, and successful Prime Minister was wonderful. There were only about 8 people from our side at the table, the same for the Italian side. The food was fantastic. The best was the tri-color pasta. The President says he gets that every time he dines with Berlusconi; but, never mind, it was great. The place itself was very very special. The weather permitted a leisurely stroll in the manicured gardens, and the view of Rome was sensational.
I like Berlusconi a lot. More important the President likes him a lot. They see eye to eye on so many things and as they discussed other world leaders I could readily see they agree with each other about almost all the leaders they discussed.49
I am much more comfortable, having been out of office for a long time now, to be a fly on the wall and listen. It is not that easy for President 42. Bill Clinton loves to opine on world events and on various leaders with whom he had worked in the past. He has tons of opinions. Once again, he was very considerate of me in every way. He also agreed with the President on many if not most matters and he made clear he was not on the delegation as a critic of any kind.
Clinton pushes his health to the limits.50 After the Berlusconi dinner he met with Ukraine’s Yushchenko for another dinner. He stayed up real late, but to his credit he was on time for all our departures. Clinton is a fascinating character. He has opinions on everything—no matter what. He seems to have a great grasp of history’s events and people.
All the Best, George Bush: My Life in Letters and Other Writings Page 75