Bill Wanlund's Worth Noting: Bill Clinton in Berlin

One summer morning in 1994 my wife Martha and I stood on Friedrichstrasse in what had been East Berlin, not far from the former Checkpoint Charlie. Without moving we counted 19 high-rise construction cranes on the urban horizon. The infamous Wall had been peacefully breached almost five years earlier, and, while pockets of distrust and animosity were still evident on both East and West sides, the cranes suggested that Berlin was already back in business.
 
Saluting Germany’s expanding economic power was one reason President Bill Clinton had decided to come to Berlin in July 1994; another was to solidify America’s relationship with its European allies: Reunited Germany was already positioning itself as the big guy in Europe; Clinton was saying, in effect, “he’s with me.”
 
The Clintons’ trip to Berlin (First Lady Hillary came as well, with her own agenda) marked the first POTUS visit to an undivided Berlin in a reunited Germany. Berlin had always been Germany’s historical capital but by 1949 the Cold War had broken out, Germany and Berlin divided into East and West, and the West German government decamped to Bonn – LeCarre’s “Small Town in Germany” (and Beethoven’s birthplace). It remained the seat of government in 1994.
 
At the time I was the press officer for the U.S. Embassy Office in Berlin, Washington’s name for something more than a consulate but not quite an Embassy. The public affairs highlight was to be the President’s speech at the Brandenburg Gate on Pariser Platz in central Berlin, and the White House press office wanted a CROWD. President Reagan’s 1987 “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” speech, also at the Gate, drew 25,000 people. President John Kennedy gave his 1963 “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech in a downtown neighborhood to a crowd wildly estimated at between 120,000 and 500,000. The Clinton White House advance staff envisioned an event attended by 100,000 – 200,000 Berliners: posters and handbills advertised the speech around the city, German radio played White House-prepared PSAs with popular U.S. rock musicians urging their “Berlin fans” to come to Pariser Platz “to hear my President.”
 
Cut to Day Of: In the end, a respectable crowd – not hundreds of thousands, but maybe 25 or 30 thousand –gathered in Pariser Platz. The Berlin Wall had been painted and graffitied (Western side only – Easterners risked being shot if they got too close). Berlin Polizei had temporarily run off the entrepreneurs hawking Soviet medals and other paraphernalia – and colorful pieces of the real Berlin Wall (tip: If the paint’s wet, don’t buy it).
 
The head of the White House advance team was Mort Engelberg, a Hollywood friend of the President who advanced many Clinton visits and was a master of the advance craft. The Pariser Platz speech was the signature event of the Berlin trip, and Mort had timed it to begin at 1:07 p.m. (Why? Because that would be 7:07 a.m. in New York, after the commercial break for the on-the-hour Today show newscast: Mort had arranged with NBC to carry Clinton’s speech live.)
 
The scenario: Clinton would be meeting with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in the nearby Reichstag building. The two leaders would leave the Reichstag at 1:00 and walk with their wives about 850 feet to the platform from which Clinton would deliver his remarks. At a normal pace, it’s about a four- to five-minute walk.
 
But Kohl was not known for his land speed, and Clinton was content to adjust his pace accordingly. As time clicked by, Mort began to look concerned; then, really concerned. He was standing out of camera range, in the shadow of the Brandenburg Gate, watching the party approach, no doubt mentally ticking off the precious seconds while gauging the distance the principals had yet to travel. Finally, he couldn’t stand it. Mort started to wave, then began windmilling his arms, silently but wildly imploring arguably the two most powerful men in the world at the time to “hurry the (heck) up – the Today show, y’know?”
 
Giving no sign of having noticed Mort’s gyrations, Kohl and Clinton reached the platform steps, climbed them, and Kohl introduced Clinton - at 1:07 pm. Mort, suddenly calm, leaned against a stone pillar of the Gate, watching the proceedings. He would have been smoking, had there been someone nearby from whom he could cadge a cigarette.
 
My job was to supervise the press operations at the various events, which usually involved a stand for the “pencil press” – print reporters covering the event – and two stands for TV and still photographers. John and Elke, my superb Berlin local staff members, augmented by terrific PD FSOs imported from nearby European posts, filled our media staffing requirements. Supervising this team was essentially “set it and forget it” – just make sure each media site was staffed and site officers knew when they had to be there.
 
That left the White House media filing center as the chief remaining press responsibility, which I had put in the hands of an American FSO. The bulk of that work came before POTUS and the travelling press arrived: ordering tables, chairs, phones, coffee; confirming electrical hookups, video editing spaces, etc.; on the night before, all was in order.
 
Tuesday, July 12, was the official visit day. My personal master plan was to start at the filing center, then be driven to the first photo op, watch the event, then leapfrog ahead of the official party to the next event, and repeat, to arrive at Pariser Platz for the speech scheduled for 1:00 pm. That way I could watch the entire visit package unfold – clever, no?
 
No.
 
6:00 a.m. at the filing center, just a couple of reporters writing or phoning; no site officer. This was bad: It’s a given that the filing center would be staffed continuously, until the President and the press plane had left. I couldn’t reach the site officer by phone, so  I started walking between the filing tables while pondering my next move.
 
Then I spotted a pair of legs. The torso was under a table. I waited a minute, then nudged the nearer foot. Signs of life! – the foot belonged to the site officer. He’d been working all night after being on duty all day and decided to catch a quick nap – which had lasted until the foot nudge. I encouraged him to go to a real bed, then assumed filing center duty, where I remained, missing most of the Berlin program I had schemed to see, bummed but feeling virtuous, until the last journalist left for the airport.
 
I caught up with Martha and our two daughters who were with other Embassy Office families at the airport, temperature in the 90s, waiting for the Clintons’ meet-and-greet. Both Clintons were very gracious, patiently greeting every parent and child on the other side of the rope line. Hillary admired our then-almost 11-year-old daughter Liz’s Cubs baseball cap and said something hopeful about the National League pennant. Liz’s sister Annie, then 8 and wearing little pink glasses, told Bill she had written him a letter about saving the environment. He looked a little startled, and asked, “Did I answer it?” She assured him that he had; the President said, “Good – we try to answer our mail.” He turned to the next person in line, then turned briefly back to tell Annie, “Nice glasses.”
 
The U.S. Ambassador to Germany at the time was Richard Holbrooke, a notoriously brilliant and effective diplomat and negotiator, also known for frequently leaving staffers in tears. His Berlin staff aide was a junior political officer, whose family was also at the meet-and-greet. The aide was ready with his camera, waiting to photograph his kids with the First Couple. That wasn’t to be: Holbrooke snatched the aide’s camera, shot all the pictures left on the roll (none were of the aide’s children) then told the aide to get them developed (which he didn’t).
 
I had remained in the back of the crowd during the handshakes, but saw Holbrooke, frowning and scanning the crowd, looking like a ticked-off hawk. He saw me, scowled a little harder, and waved me up to him. This can’t be good, I thought, as I ducked under the rope line while imagining being reamed out in front of the Embassy Office families and the Clintons. “I want you to stand here,” he said – and by now I’m picturing a firing squad. “The President has to wait to board Air Force One. Just talk to him for a few minutes.”
 
Just talk to him. Right. But Clinton made it easy: Small talk about Arkansas (Martha’s parents lived in Hot Springs), Berlin, the weather, what a great visit it had been, and “I’ll bet you’ll all be glad to see us leave.” I answered, of course, “we’d love to see you, anytime,” then, never one to leave well enough alone, blurted out – “but not too soon, please.” The President laughed, and exited stage left, still chuckling.
 
Or was he grinding his teeth?