Spoken from the Heart

by Laura Bush

  From Paris I jetted to Moscow to attend Lyudmila Putina's first book festival, which was devoted to children's literature. The Russian press called it the "Festival of School Libraries." When Lyudmila invited me, she asked that I bring along several American children's book authors. I selected two writers whose books were among the few American children's books that had been translated into Russian, R. L. Stine of Goosebumps fame, whose own ancestors had emigrated from Russia looking for freedom in America, and the teen thriller writer Peter Lerangis. Rounding out our delegation was Marc Brown, best known for his chapter books about Arthur the aardvark. At the festival R. L. Stine helped Russian children write a scary story about a boy named Mark and his father's ghostly car. With Marc Brown drawing on a giant paper wall, the Russian children "created" a make-believe creature built from all different parts of the animal kingdom and invented a fairy tale. To the assembled school librarians and other invitees, I spoke about the need for families to turn off the television and read, and confessed my fondness for scary stories and mysteries and also Harry Potter. I added that to celebrate books is to celebrate freedom as much as it is to have fun.

  Vladimir Putin joined us for lunch afterward, and he told me, "I heard your speech, and I saw that you had to mention freedom."

  Lyudmila was particularly proud that her first book festival was what she called "legitimate." The attendees, nearly all women, were school librarians who had been selected to come to Moscow through an essay contest. They were not there because of family or party connections; none was, as Lyudmila put it, "a provincial governor's sister-in-law." Both Lyudmila and I very much agreed about the importance of education, and how difficult it is for books to compete with television, computers, and video games. The final night I was there, Lyudmila hosted a beautiful performance of the ballet Don Quixote at Moscow's enchanting Bolshoi Theatre.

  In Washington, on Saturday, October 4, I hosted the third National Book Festival and then, two days later, a state dinner for the president and first lady of Kenya, Mwai and Lucy Kibaki. On October 10, at a speech in downtown Washington to the National Association of Women Judges, I was thrilled to tell them that Shirin Ebadi, the first female judge in Iran, had won the Nobel Peace Prize. "There can be no justice in the world," I told them, "unless every woman has equal rights." It saddens me that, in the twenty-first century, this point is one that still needs to be made. I think of our own lives and then of the lives of the women in Afghanistan and in Iraq. That day I spoke to the judges about how Iraqi women who came under political suspicion were "tortured, or raped, or beheaded. Some of Saddam's militiamen carried ID cards listing their official assignment as 'violation of women's honor.' Iraqi men were allowed to kill female relatives for supposed slights to the family name." By 2003, three out of four women in Iraq could not read. Over 60 percent of all Iraqi adults were illiterate. For the literate, Saddam had also succeeded in banning many of Iraq's best writers and poets. Free speech was nonexistent; the Iraqi secret police were known to sit in classrooms to monitor what was studied and what was said. By contrast, American soldiers solicited donations of school supplies from their friends and families for Iraqi children.

  We can and should debate all American wars, but can anyone truly say that the world was a better place and Iraq a better nation with Saddam Hussein in power? Or that it would not have become a full-fledged terrorist haven? And then there are the unanswerables. What, for instance, would the world have said if, in 1999, the United States had invaded Afghanistan? But had we done so, might the World Trade Center be standing today, its offices and observation deck crowded? We will never know. The world does not operate according to the principles of "what if?" All leaders make choices, and no one can say for certain what would have happened had a different path been taken. For myself, I prefer to stand against oppression, to stand, with George, for freedom.

  In late October I was in Asia with George, stopping in Japan, the Philippines, and then Thailand, where we called on King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit. During our brief stay, I visited an AIDS treatment clinic and met a young girl, shunned by her family, who came alone for her medicine. In Bali, Indonesia, the scene of a recent terror bombing, the security was so tight that our delegation staff was not allowed to walk in front of the buildings. Every entry, for us and for them, was through a back door. Ships and submarines hovered off the coast.

  Meanwhile, Great Britain was reeling from another kind of security breach when we arrived in November for an official state visit. The tabloids went wild with revelations that a reporter for the Daily Mirror had spent the last two months working as a "phony footman" inside Buckingham Palace. Among his duties was serving breakfast to the queen and Prince Philip; his last act before he resigned was to arrange fruit and chocolates in the Belgian Suite, the rooms we would occupy on our four-day visit. George and I were amazed at the idea of a tabloid spy, while my staff members were a bit in awe of the palace, each having been assigned her very own lady-in-waiting.

  We had a chance to explore Buckingham Palace, and the queen suggested that I go with my staff to watch the preparations for the white-tie state dinner being given in our honor. It was held in the palace's ballroom, which Queen Victoria unveiled in 1856 to honor the end of the Crimean War. At one end is a massive dais with golden columns and two royal thrones. We stood at the room's edge and watched as the royal staff walked on top of the perfectly set tables in their stocking feet, measuring tapes in hand, to check that each knife, fork, and spoon was perfectly placed at each setting.

  After well over one thousand years of kings in England, there is a rare perfection to royal events that is truly breathtaking. Even the queen's china is revered. I remember the American ambassador to Liberia telling me the story of the British evacuation from Monrovia in the 1990s, when Liberian rebel forces began advancing on the capital city. As British diplomats prepared to abandon their cliff-side embassy, they opened the ambassador's supply of champagne and announced that they must destroy the china. The porcelain was too heavy to carry out, and it is against British law to allow the queen's china to fall into enemy hands. With champagne flutes in one hand and plates and teacups in the other, everyone stood on the balcony and hurled the pieces onto the cliffs below.

  The royal family is not without its quirks. When Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, came to visit us, they requested glasses of ice before we began a long receiving line. The staff dutifully produced them, and the prince removed a flask from his pocket and added to each a small splash of what I presume was straight gin, so that they might be fortified before the hour or more of shaking hands.

  The night of the royal state dinner for George and me at Buckingham Palace, I donned a Carolina Herrera burgundy dress, a fitted velvet top over a tulle skirt. Barbara Bush had loaned me the "Bush family jewels," diamonds and pearls. The next evening we reciprocated the hospitality of the queen and Prince Philip with a dinner at the American ambassador's residence, Winfield House, where the ambassador's dog roamed freely through the room. He began barking as George stood to give his toast, and Cathy Fenton, our social secretary, was left to scramble to scoop up the dog and remove him from the room so he wouldn't howl or yap when the queen rose and lifted her glass. After dinner Andrew Lloyd Webber and a small ensemble performed in honor of the queen. Our last stop was Sedgefield, England, Tony Blair's childhood home and his longtime parliamentary constituency, the British electors who placed him in Parliament. There we dined at the Dun Cow Inn with some of the Blairs' oldest friends.

  The following week was Thanksgiving, which we were to spend at the ranch with Bar and Gampy and Barbara and Jenna, but for weeks I had known that George would likely miss our family feast. He was making a surprise visit to Baghdad to see the troops. I knew the exact moment he was supposed to land, and I immediately turned on the television to wait for the news. An hour passed. Then two hours. Still there was no film footage, no live feed. Late in the morning, I called the Secret Service agents' out
post on the ranch and asked, "Where's the president?" The agent in charge replied, "We show him in the ranch house, ma'am." I quickly said, "Oh, I'll go look again." The Baghdad trip was so secretive that even our own agents didn't know where George was. Condi Rice's Secret Service detail had spent the entire night in a car, with the motor running, outside our little clapboard house, where she usually stayed when she was in Crawford. They had no idea that she was on her way to Baghdad. A commercial plane in the sky that glimpsed Air Force One was told it was mistaken. When I did finally see the footage of George on television, I called Lisa Gottesman, the mother of George's personal aide, Blake. He was in Iraq, serving the troops from the chow line, alongside the president. I told her to turn on the television and see her son. She was in her kitchen making Thanksgiving dinner. When she looked at the screen, she burst into tears. Not because she was scared but because she was so proud of her son for having gone with George.

  Our soldiers were thrilled to see George, who served a bunch of them supper in the chow line, visited, and ate a Thanksgiving meal. But it was he who was most grateful. His was a small gesture. Their service, every day, was the large one.

  The December season was subdued that year. Every White House has had parties, even in wartime. The Lincolns hosted gatherings that lasted until the early hours of the morning. Eleanor Roosevelt installed an elaborate swing set on the White House grounds for her granddaughter's sixth birthday in 1933, during the height of the Great Depression. Lyndon Johnson ended the cycle of mourning for John F. Kennedy with a spur-of-the-moment decision to invite Congress over for a Christmas party. Layers of black crepe were removed and evergreens and poinsettias placed around the house. The kitchen rushed to prepare food and, at Johnson's request, mixed gallons of spiked punch.

  This year we knew that, in many homes, families were missing a father or a mother, a son or a daughter, who was fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. We held our annual children's party for military children who lived in or near Washington. Roland Mesnier, the pastry chef, displayed his cake-making skills, entertaining them with fabulous sweet creations. For our holiday theme, I chose "A Season of Stories," featuring favorite timeless storybook characters. The White House Christmas tree was decorated with storybook character ornaments that my mother-in-law had used over a decade before. There is great pleasure to be had in giving new life to old ornaments, just as many families over the generations do on their own trees. To adorn our annual card, I chose an image of the Diplomatic Reception Room, with a warming fire and George Washington above the mantel, painted by artist Barbara Prey. Our verse came from the book of Job: "You have granted me life and loving kindness; and your care has preserved my spirit."

  On December 13, a grimy, unkempt Saddam Hussein was found hiding in a hole in his hometown of Tikrit. We had hope, but we were wary. Next year, 2004, would be another year of war abroad. At home, it was a presidential election year.

  There would be no other political races after this one. Ten years after George had sought the Texas governorship, he would be running in his last election, this time for a second term as president. Come January of 2005, we would either be leaving or have four final years to serve. Some call serving in the White House a "burden" or a "sacrifice." The presidency can be, at moments, difficult, and in exchange for the enormous privilege of holding the office, you give up your privacy for a lifetime. But I believe it is a deep honor to be given the trust of the American people. For George and for me, it was a constant blessing to have the opportunity to witness, so often, the very best of America. I enjoyed this last campaign, with its enormous rallies and the chance to once again crisscross the country. I am grateful too to the tens of thousands of people who came out and cheered, to those who waited for hours to shake our hands on the rope lines and who said, "We are praying for you." I took strength and solace from their words.

  Spot, our beloved springer spaniel, died that winter. I was away when she suffered a stroke. The only humane thing to do was put her to sleep, but George waited for me to return, so that I too would have a chance to say good-bye. The evening before Spot was going to be put down, George lovingly carried her out to the South Lawn, on whose lush grass she had rolled as a puppy and where, even as an old girl, she loved to chase after balls. George laid her down and then got down on the grass himself, encircling her in the chill dusk with the warmth of his body and gently stroking her head for a final farewell. Spot had been born in the White House to Bar's dog, Millie. She was the only dog to live and die in the White House, with two different presidents.

  There was more private sadness to come.

  On Valentine's Day, I hosted a dinner for some of our old friends from Midland in the Red Room. It was a dinner for Cathie Blackaller, my old next-door neighbor from Hughes Street, who was dying of metastatic breast cancer. On New Year's Day in Austin, Regan Gammon, Peggy and Ronnie Weiss, Cathie, and I had met for brunch. I told them that I wanted to do a mini-Midland reunion at the White House for a few friends, and Cathie, who used to sneak around outside with me in our pajamas on sleepover nights back when we were teenagers, said, "Why don't you do it sooner rather than later?" I heard her words, and I organized it for Valentine's Day. There were fourteen of us, including Mike Proctor, George's childhood friend. Cathie came in a wheelchair, with her scalp wrapped in a scarf, and Ronnie pushed her around. I seated her next to George, who kept her laughing all evening. That weekend we went to art galleries and enjoyed Washington. It was to be our last visit. Cathie died in April, at fifty-eight years old.

  On April 28, CBS News' 60 Minutes II broadcast the first images from a prison named Abu Ghraib outside Baghdad. They showed naked Iraqi prisoners being subjected to disgusting and degrading abuse by the American soldiers assigned to guard them. A New Yorker magazine article followed two days later with more gruesome images. I remember sitting with George over dinner as we did many nights upstairs in the White House, just the two of us, talking. George was nearly physically sick to think that any American troops could have behaved in this manner. He was angry too. "Laura," he said, "I have to know how this was ever allowed to happen and to make sure that it never happens again." There are times when the system of command fails, when soldiers fail their junior officers, when junior officers fail their senior officers, and when senior officers and their layers of civilian leadership at the Defense Department fail. Tens if not hundreds of people in authority across the system had not looked hard enough, had not done their duty. Suddenly the sacrifice, character, and hard work of more than 100,000 American troops in Iraq was being jeopardized by a few deranged men and women. It sickened and devastated both of us.

  After two years of meeting on mountaintops, in 2004 the G8 came to the United States. George and I chose to host the leaders of the world's largest economies on Sea Island, Georgia. I invited the presidents' and prime ministers' wives--including Cherie Blair, Lyudmila Putina, Bernadette Chirac of France, and Sheila Martin of Canada--and created a special program for them. Later G8 meetings would do the same; in Germany, Angela Merkel's husband, Professor Joachim Sauer, put together a seminar on G8 population demographics for visiting spouses.

  I took our group of wives bird-watching along a deserted beach, although they were most interested in seeing an alligator that made its home on the island's golf course. Lyudmila went swimming several times in the Atlantic's churning waves. The spouses' "work session" featured a roundtable and luncheon to which I invited Dr. Habiba Sarabi, the minister of women's affairs in Afghanistan; and two Iraqi women, the minister of displacement and migration and an Iraqi Fulbright scholar; as well as Paula Nirschel, the wife of the president of Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. Paula had become galvanized by the plight of Afghan women, and in January of 2002, she woke in the middle of the night with an idea, to start scholarships for Afghan women at U.S. universities. Within two years, eleven women from Afghanistan were studying in the United States on full scholarships, and Paula had raised the money to cover their incidental ex
penses. At the summit's conclusion, Bernadette Chirac told us that France would build a maternity hospital for women in Afghanistan.

  That spring Jenna and Barbara graduated from college, one day apart. We headed first to Austin for a celebratory dinner with Mother, Regan and Billy Gammon, and Jenna's friends at a local restaurant. The next night we were in New Haven, celebrating Barbara's graduation with a party at Dean Richard Brodhead's house--he was a friend and former classmate of George's. The only damper on the celebrations was George's nose, which he had scraped when his bike tire hit some loose soil and he toppled over. In all our photos, he is sporting a perfectly placed red mark. By the end of May, for the first time in four years, our girls came home to live.

  A couple of months before school ended, Jenna had written a heartfelt letter to her dad, saying that she wanted to work for him in this, his final political race. She told George that she was tired of "hearing lies about you," and she wanted to help others to see "the Dad I love." Both Jenna and Barbara signed on with the Bush-Cheney campaign. It was, they said, their first campaign and also their last chance to volunteer for their dad. They answered phones in the headquarters and flew with us to campaign stops. By the fall the girls were going out and giving speeches on their own. We had the magic of watching the race unfold through their eyes. The constant rush of a full-throttle presidential campaign was new for them. They had been little girls when Gampy ran; they had been college freshmen, adjusting to their new, independent lives during George's first White House race. Now they would tear up when crowds of ten or twenty thousand roared in support of their dad.

  Their friends came too. Many from Yale and the University of Texas moved to Washington to help on the campaign. Barbara would get e-mails from college friends with whom she had never discussed politics. They wrote, "I'm in New Hampshire" or "In New Jersey, campaigning for your dad."