This week, in Washington, we are on heightened terror alert. Across the street from the World Bank on Pennsylvania Avenue, television trucks line the curb as police follow sniffing dogs. In front of the bank, TV camera crews set up for live broadcasts.
Living and working in Washington this summer has led me to reflect on how different the city was when I first visited it in 1959.
With my father at the wheel of the family Buick, we drove from Marblehead, Mass., to our nation’s capital, staying at the same hotel as a revolutionary leader and meeting the vice president of the United States.
We arrived at the Statler Hilton Hotel to find that Fidel Castro and an entourage of Cubans occupied the ninth floor, having traveled to Washington to seek United States support.
That evening Vice President Richard M. Nixon came to the hotel to give a speech, and my brother and I–5th and 7th graders at Marblehead’s Star of the Sea School–were determined to take his picture.
Snapping from afar when Nixon’s limousine arrived at the hotel garage, we knew we needed to get closer, so we waited outside the function hall where he was speaking. We heard applause, the doors swung open, and Nixon walked toward us.
Acknowledging us, he stopped, said a few cordial words and put his arm over my shoulder. My brother captured the image of Nixon in tuxedo and bow tie with me in my 13-year-old’s finest, complete with a bow tie, clip-on, of my own.
Emboldened by our success, my brother and I took the hotel elevator to the ninth floor to see if we could meet Castro.
When the elevator opened, two rifle-bearing Cubans in military fatigues blocked the door and conveyed with looks and gestures that we had reached the end of our brief trip.
On a different day, we might have met Castro. In 1991 I had a conversation with historian David Eisenhower, grandson of the president and husband of Julie Nixon. I told him about the encounters.
Nixon’s presence “wasn’t an accident,” Eisenhower said. “[President Dwight] Eisenhower had arranged to be out of town so there was no possibility of his meeting Castro. Nixon was there to meet with Castro and size up whether we should support him or not.”
The rest, as they say, is history. If my brother and I had gotten past those Cuban guards, we would have blundered into it.
In today’s Washington, it seems unreal that access to political leaders was ever that easy.
In June, I walked to work through Georgetown, stopping for lunch at a cozy Italian restaurant where the hostess seated me by a window.
I noticed a man in a suit wearing an earpiece. Outside, I observed his partner staking out a parking space directly in front of my window.
A black sport-utility vehicle pulled into the space to unload half a dozen agents. The SUV pulled into the intersection to block traffic while a second black SUV arrived. Another half-dozen people embarked in a cluster and marched into the restaurant.
Though I looked hard as the people passed within a few feet of me, I can’t say that I was able to identify the king of Jordan among his escorts. That was the idea. The group disappeared into the dining room behind me.
While finishing my iced tea, I saw a man enter the restaurant in front of me and place what looked like two small, black briefcases on the bar. He set his cell phone on top.
He walked toward the rear of the restaurant, out of sight. This was suspicious activity. My imagination went to work. If the briefcases contained explosives, I could be blown through the window along with the king of Jordan.
Several minutes elapsed. I was becoming scared. As I thought about leaving the restaurant to speak to the agent in the SUV, the man returned, retrieved his belongings and left.
Later, an agent came over to me to say, “I guess we’ve kept you entertained.”
In my relief, all seemed innocent. It did not occur to me to say anything about the mystery man and his belongings.
This week’s news that Al Qaeda operatives have been scrutinizing potential targets led me to wish I had.
The king of Jordan–our much-valued ally in the Middle East–might want to consider varying his dining habits. The hostess told me he eats at the restaurant often.
Forget the World Bank. A car bomb could do a number on an Italian restaurant.
