Dealer's choice--a potpourri of presidential encounters and near-misses

Part 1: From 'Hootenanny' band backup to handshakes in the crowd, Johnson to Obama

I saw my first President when I was 15 years old—from a distance, at a campaign rally—and then had a couple of closer encounters over the next half-century, culminating with a final successful handshake as a tourist in a crowd at the White House.

Lady Bird Johnson leads President Lyndon Johnson in Raleigh, October 1964. Courtesy N.C. State University Library

A handful of selected North Carolina high school marching bands were given a chance to pay tribute to a sitting president on October 6, 1964, when Lyndon Baines Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird, came to Raleigh’s Reynolds Coliseum. It was the last weeks of his reelection campaign against conservative Senator Barry Goldwater.

I was in my sophomore year at Dunn High School, some 40 miles away, and my band director, Ernie Black, managed to pull a few strings to get us on the list. We were drowned out, mostly, by the crowd noise of 14,000 well-wishers, but we still played as if they could all hear us—my clarinet input was, of course, drowned out by the brass.

The Technician, student newspaper at N.C. State University, later “described Johnson’s speech as a ‘hootenanny.’  Considering the great deal of traffic, media, bands, and other prominent political figures such as Governor Terry Sanford and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Moore, the newspaper’s characterization was quite accurate.” [For the uninitiated, “Hootenanny” was a short-lived musical variety TV show on ABC, featuring such popular groups as the New Christy Minstrels and other singers, including Trini Lopez and Judy Collins.]

If it did not quite reach the level of intellectual discourse offered by his predecessor, John F. Kennedy, at his famous October 1961 speech at Chapel Hill—or the outdoor crowd of 40,000 at Kenan Stadium—LBJ’s speech was nonetheless stirring, if more for its oblique reference to a famous atomic-bomb TV commercial, “aired only once, that depicted a nuclear bomb dropping, thereby suggesting that election Goldwater could lead to such an event.  Referencing that fear, Johnson said, ‘Peace is the most important word in the English language ... We realized that you could press a button and wipe out the lives of 300 million people and you cannot recall these lives.’” 

[See former UNC President Bill Friday’s recollection of the earlier Kennedy visit at https://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/L-0147/excerpts/excerpt_7104.html ]

At Reynolds Coliseum, you could barely see the President from the cheap seats, and the acoustics were more suited for a basketball game than Johnson’s high-pitched voice. All I really remember of the LBJ campaign appearance was gawking at the bulletproof plexiglass lectern shields around his platform—reminding everyone of the assassination of President Kennedy during a motorcade through the city of Dallas, Texas, a year earlier.

I never saw LBJ again, although as a freshman in college, I did watch his famous March 31, 1968, speech announcing his plans not to seek reelection. By then, of course, his popularity was so depressed by the failure of his ill-fated Vietnam policy that I recall it gave him a “bump” upward, however brief. Because I was a fan of his Democratic challenger, Gene McCarthy, I welcomed the announcement—shocking as it was. (I did have the distinct pleasure of meeting his gracious widow and daughter Luci Baines in Copenhagen two decades after I saw him in Raleigh—as a Foreign Service “airport control officer” during their brief private visit to Scandinavia, an encounter I described for readers last year.)

I did not get to meet Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, or Jimmy Carter during or after their tenure in office. But President Carter did come to Fayetteville, N.C., where I lived at the time, to visit his sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton—whom I did get to meet—and to attend a family wedding (I was not invited). So that was a close near-miss.

Fast forward to mid-October 1983, when then-Vice President George H. W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, visited the Caribbean island of Jamaica, and took time from a busy state schedule to greet U.S. Embassy staff in a receiving line. It was my first and only handshake from a Vice President—and, of course, future President—and took place in the last sunny days before the U.S. invasion of Grenada a week later.

Vice President George Bush gestures to Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga, 1983. Photo courtesy Daily Gleaner

I forget the official reason why he was really in Jamaica—other than to address the tiny nation’s friendly Parliament—but do remember that Prime Minister Edward Seaga was such a close ally of then-President Ronald Reagan that it almost certainly involved a closely-held heads-up tipoff for the military incursion, code-named Operation Urgent Fury, in which Jamaican troops were soon involved. That was not public knowledge, of course—no one really expected the invasion, which came a week after Bush left Jamaica.

As a low-level consular officer, first tour, I was not privy to any official negotiations. But looking back, pure coincidence seemed much too unlikely; U.S. alarms had been ringing for months over the “deteriorating” situation within that unlucky island’s Marxist-inspired government.

And the formal declaration by OECS [Organization of Eastern Caribbean States[ on October 22—or three days after Bush left Jamaica—”that Barbados, Jamaica, and the United States intervene militarily in Grenada” to resolve the situation seems, in retrospect, further proof. [You can check out details from the Joint History Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/doctrine/history/urgfury.pdf .]

I did not get to shake hands again with President Bush eight years later when he visited our much larger Embassy in Singapore, where I was then posted, but we still did our best to welcome him. Unfortunately, his trip there in January 1992 was more often remembered for its connection to the unfortunate incident a week later in Japan, in which he was suddenly stricken with violent nausea at a state dinner, which we referred to privately as the “rowf heard ‘round the world.”

I assure you it was nothing he ate in Singapore—but more than likely, something unfamiliar at the intervening stop in Seoul, South Korea.

* * * * * * *
I have told readers before of my missed opportunity to shake hands with President Ronald Reagan just before a White House state dinner (for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak) in January 1988. Back then, I was a press officer, seconded for a night’s duty as an assistant to Mary Masserini, the indefatigable press liaison in the State Department’s Protocol Office.

Mary Masserini, my good friend and one-of-a-kind human being, pointing the way. Public domain photo

I am by nature an inordinately shy guy, and momentarily lost my nerve, when at the conclusion of a “mixer” for the President and foreign press representatives, we staffers were offered a chance to shake hands and introduce ourselves. The lesson I learned was easy: when given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, jump at it. I hesitated and the window closed.

The Reagans and Mubaraks at the White House, January 1988. Photo courtesy Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation

I did try to make amend years later, when former President Reagan’s coffin lay in state at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in June 2004. Although I had left the Foreign Service six years earlier, I had the time, so I did stand in line for hours to pay tribute to the Commander in Chief whose signature adorns my commission papers from 1983. Sorry for the “slight,” sir. Our political differences aside, I simply revered him for the office he had held—and still regretted failing to acknowledge that 16 years earlier.

Longtime friend and Chief White House Usher Angella Reid, December 2016. Author’s photo

A dozen years after Reagan’s death, I was back at the White House, this time as a guest invited by a longtime friend, Angella Reid, still serving as Barack Obama’s Chief Usher and Residence Manager, to enjoy the Christmas decorations in December 2016 as a private citizen. Margaret and I were thrilled to go, along with our close friend since Jamaica days, retired Foreign Service Officer John Clarkson.

The visit was a lot of fun—perfect weather for December, plus terrific food at the buffet—but the highlight came when the President and First Lady appeared to greet the crowd wandering through their residence. We were given the chance to extend our hands through a human maze, of sorts—the crowd was crushing by then—so Margaret and I did it, and finally got to shake the (unseen) hand of a sitting President, Barack Obama. He was about to leave office, and I knew this was my last chance…

My late, great friend, John Clarkson, at the White House with us, December 2016. Author’s photo

I have finally left the Washington metropolitan area for good, so it is unlikely that I will ever have the occasion to encounter another sitting president—or even a former President—but if I do, believe me, I will not hesitate to shake his or her hand. (With one possible exception …)

Next time: Outdone by my wife and mother