How do we respond when government infringes on individual & religious rights?

The Interfaith Alliance forum at Joy Evangelical  Lutheran  Church January 8, 2008

Panelist Delphine Herbert, Marions for Peace:

How do we respond when government infringes on individual and religious rights?

There is only one way – with courage.  We must take a stand and act on our beliefs even if initially the whole world seems to think otherwise.  The greater numbers of our citizens prefer not to be discomforted and in fact do not see the now accelerating erosion of our constitutional rights as the current administration, with the acquiescence and complicity

 of our Congress, our economic structure and our media , presumes to monitor all aspects of our lives with  the  Orwellian Patriot Act which makes thinking for oneself a crime..

Americans not yet accessing the world wide web would be shocked to learn that US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and the UK-based Privacy International , in assessing 70 nations,  has ranked  the US with Russia, China and the UK as  among the worst in the world for invasion of the privacy of their citizens. The assessment is based on many criteria, including constitutional protection, the use of identity cards, data sharing between government agencies, and visual surveillance.

Right after 9/11 the author of the following words published in the New Yorker on 9/24/01 was excoriated as a traitor:“  The disconnect between last Tuesday’s monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing.  The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public.    …..Our leaders are bent on convincing us that everything is OK.  America is not afraid.  Our spirit is unbroken ……a robotic president assures us that America still stands tall.  A wide spectrum of public figures, in and out of office, who are strongly opposed to the policies being pursued abroad by this Administration apparently feel free to say nothing more than that they stand united behind President Bush…….the unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy. Those in public office have let us know that they consider their task to be a manipulative one:  confidence building and grief management.  Politics, the politics of a democracy which entails disagreement and promotes candor – has been replaced by psychotherapy. ”

The author was Susan Sontag, once president of American PEN, an organization devoted to the protection of freedom of expression for creative individuals. 

Truly free men cannot allow themselves to be cowed into conformity by the heavy fog of fear which clouds irrational response to danger.  The exceptional among us – the Dr. Martin Luther Kings, the Sojourner Truths, the Frederick Douglasses, the Daniel Ellsbergs, the Berrigans, rose to the call of history.  Now we have   Scott Camil, the Winter soldier who after serving as a gung ho Marine in Vietnam, had an epiphany in Detroit in 1971, transforming him into a powerful voice with Veterans for Peace. A homeless advocate, Clare Hanrahan, spent six month in Federal prison after protesting at the School of the Americas.  The Rev. Gwin Pratt, Presbyterian minister in Jacksonville, was arrested in the well of the US Senate last year for protesting against the war.  These voices defend your rights just as surely as does anyone wearing a military uniform.    But we who are more frail vessels hesitate.

Often, we simply don’t know what to do, where to start.  We mistrust our own ability to make a difference and we fear the censure of public recrimination.  We don’t want to appear ridiculous if indeed we are proven wrong.

Paul Rogat Loeb, in Soul of a Citizen, wrote “We never feel we have enough knowledge or standing.  If we do speak out, someone might challenge us, might find an error in our thinking, or an inconsistency – what they might call an hypocrisy in our lives……..we…..use the standard of perfection to justify our detachment.”   He went on to say that “social change always proceeds in the absence of absolute knowledge, as long as people are willing to follow their convictions, to act despite their doubts, and to speak even at the risk of making mistakes.”

It is hard for many of us to take a stand.  We all seek community – be it the community of family, church, tribe, interest groups or the universes of the intellect now expanding exponentially through the miracles of technology.  Thus there is a constant tension between the desire to appease our personal communities and the need for the expression of our innermost hearts and souls. 

Five years ago 150 people in Marion County joined with hundreds of thousands of others throughout the nation who lifted their voices against an unprovoked war by signing an open letter to President Bush which was published in the Ocala Star Banner on January 19, 2003.    It endorsed the words of national religious leaders of all creeds, beseeching the president to turn from the brink of war with Iraq as such action “will only sow more seeds of intense hatred, strengthening the extreme ideologies, and breed further global instability and insecurity.”  Two and a half years later when fear prevailed and patriotism brooked no challenge, only 80 would sign a similar letter.

The candlelight vigils and rallies which first attracted 75 people at the Ocala town square in January of 2003 now attract only a handful of regulars at our weekly street rallies.  Friction developed between those who wanted silent vigils and those who wished to voice their concerns about the immorality of a Pax Americana spread by the sword.    Many lost sight of the reason we came together – our rejection of an unjust and illegal war - not our personal stances on religious issues.   Mercy me,  if a street preacher said a prayer in the presence of an atheist.

In the local churches there were the perfunctory prayers for peace and the safety of our troops . But really supporting the troops by wanting them out of useless danger characterized one as a traitor. Just where were the strong voices standing publicly for the Prince of Peace? 

Many have mocked Marions for Peace for continuing our street rallies.  They don’t know that we read public repudiation of the war long before the politicians did.  Yes, it is hard to stand in 100 degree heat with the sun blazing in your eyes.  It is difficult not to respond in like manner to the rude and the uninformed.  But, while our numbers are small, the response from passersby has been at least 80% supportive right from the start.  And just before the 2006 election we were experiencing almost total and enthusiastic acknowledgement, leading us to believe that by our presence we were in fact giving courage to others by showing them that’s it’s alright to stand up against the status quo. There is a certain exhilaration gained both from standing with like-minded folk and from the grateful responses from the street. 

And yes, despite all the criticism that demonstrations large and small throughout the nation have accomplished little because of discord among the groups, peace people , through the power of the internet and the passion of personal commitment, have thus far stopped the administration from bombing Iran, an action which might indeed lead to world-wide conflagration.

Those who taunt Marions for Peace on the street do not realize that just about every man who has ever stood with us has served in the military, and many of the women have been nurses. Among our most faithful supporters have been:

The Rev.Mac White, retired Methodist minister, past president of the Marion County TIA  and lifelong champion of peace who marched in the civil rights protests in the 1960s;

George Newkirk, 89 year old elder of the Quakers, who until recently dragged himself to our rallies and vigils with his walker; Lee Wiggins, a retired VA nurse and her husband, Jerry Janiszewski, a design engineer who worked with the space program, Bob Zannelli, savant extraordinaire and nuclear engineer once associated with Admiral Rickover; Cynthia Merkey, former owner of a Gainesville bookstore; and Homer Detwiler, forest dweller, marathoner and member of the Marion County Chorale.    

But perhaps the most impassioned among us was Rex Weng, 86 year old veteran of the segregated military, whose heart broke each day as he learned of the latest casualties.  Now living with his daughter in California, Rex cannot understand why the black community does not see the need to stand with us since the war impacts minority communities so greatly.  Rex, who regularly protested alone against the Confederate flag still flying near the Marion County Commission headquarters, deems institutional racism and continuing gender discrimination as the two underlying reasons that multinational corporations for whom profit is the only god now  rule the world, crushing the good which globalization might otherwise bring to all mankind.  

Dr. Martin Luther King said that “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” I think this means that yes, we have rights but we also have duties as citizens to defend those rights.  How are you using your first amendment right to free speech?  Is fear of what others might think causing you to acquiesce to consensus thinking?  Or are you speaking out publicly – on the internet, in the papers, on the radio, in your churches and other groups – in the realization that killing anywhere, whether of body or of spirit, is the real terrorism of our times.

Yes, the winds of change are giving breath to the audacity of hope……..and perhaps the new thinking Einstein said we need to save mankind from extinction.                 `````

Review of Awakening with Mother Earth

Awakening with Mother Earth – Hearing Gaia Sing
By Fran Moeller Gatins

Our Mother Earth wants our souls to sing. She asks us to move beyond fear and forgetfulness into the light of universal hope and love. So saith Fran Moeller Gatins, who invites us to share her personal odyssey during which Gaia, mother of the ancient gods whose spirit is the very soul of our planet , chooses the author to become one of her “voices” in order to teach humankind that ancient wisdom is not incompatible with the evolution of our physical forms, our sacred structures and the ultimate essence of what we perceive to be the creators of the ever-changing cosmos.

This contemporary “bene gesserit” spent several years writing occasional “meditations” during travels in which she recorded her interactions with spirit guides as well as earth, wind, metal, fire and air before Gaia began the conversations in which she counseled that global shifts in paradigms do not necessarily consign humankind to obliteration if we retain a vibrant sense of openness to and respect for all manifestations of life past, present and future.

Change is a constant even for the goddess. She asks us to maintain our equilibrium through prayer, gratitude and forgiveness while we destroy old patterns of domination engendered by fear and unwillingness to listen to the truth-tellers in the quiet within.

Use this very conversational, well written and buoyant diary as a practical and poetic guide to living with the sacred in our everyday lives through a “spirit of curiosity, adventure and delight, even playfulness” as we join our Mother Earth in the hero’s journey to awaken our relationship with the universe.

"We were dancing on a volcano" Joseph Gatins

Make room Margaret Mitchell. A real-life refugee from the potato famine spawned a dynasty in which his son was among the Madoffs of his day, gaining notoriety and the attention of the Feds a hundred years ago as a wheeler/dealer stock trader known on Wall Street as a “bucket shop man.” His oldest son, in turn, transformed himself into a pillar of social and entrepreneurial respectability on Peachtree Street aided by Atlanta’s adulation of his French wife, the “Comtesse.”

Their son, Francis, the author’s father, joined the circle of American expatriates living in Paris between the great wars during which time he fell in love with a beautiful aristocrat from Colombia. As a French military prisoner of war responsible for opening cattle cars arriving at a death camp in the Ukraine, Francis was witness to the horrors of the Holocaust while his mother played a significant role in providing succor through the Red Cross to those unable to escape Paris during the Nazi occupation.

Once the reader negotiates the initial introduction to the bewildering number of Josephs and Egles , the fact-filled pages fly swiftly through one hundred and forty years of the triumphs and tribulations of this indomitable family which has survived wars, tenuous marriages, the ebb and flow of their finances and the scourge of alcoholism. Through it the women of the family were sustained by the certitude of their strong and rigid Catholic faith.

This searingly honest and well written family history will be my Christmas gift to my most cosmopolitan friends, many of whom now also are “dancing on a volcano” of global uncertainty.

RAYMOND BARRY HERBERT, DDS
Raymond B. Herbert broke the” surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God” on May 22, 2009. A pilot, a sailor and a dentist, Ray was born in the Bronx on April 25, 1942 to the late Ethel Bayuk and George A. Herbert. With his younger sister Geraldine (Stinson Wise), the family moved to South Miami where Ray attended Coral Gables High School. After undergraduate work at the University of Florida, Ray obtained his degree as Doctor of Dental Surgery from West Virginia University in Morgantown in 1966. His career included positions in both private and public practice interrupted by a long hiatus caused by serious injury to both legs in an automobile accident in 1979 upon his return from a year in Guatemala.
Ten years later he resumed work in Pinellas County until offered the position of Senior Dentist at the South Florida Reception Center in Miami. He also served at dental offices in Gainesville, Key West, Live Oak, Ocoee, Mt. Dora and Winter Haven. Plagued by continuing medical problems, Ray and his wife retired to Ocala in September of 2000.
In 1970 Ray won the I-26 North American Sweepstakes for the longest tyro glider flight in region 5 (280.0 miles), a record which still stands in any class according to the I-26 Association, terming it “a truly remarkable flight” which has “stood the test of time.”
This kind and gentle and generous soul was a Unitarian, a Democrat, a ham radio operator (K4QKE), a Navy veteran and a lover of classical music who built his own harpsichord. He leaves behind his sister, many Bayuk cousins and his beloved pets Odyssey, Maxie and Joy as he sails “the high untrepassed sanctity of space.” Ray is the love of the life of his wife, Delphine Blachowicz Herbert.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama

January 15, 2009

Monday we celebrate the birthday of a man of peace, a man who did much more than dream and voice platitudes even when other ministers, both black and white, first quavered, and a large segment of our population branded Martin Luther King Jr. a “communist,” that once most damnable of appellations, for speaking out against injustice and violence against the oppressed both here and abroad.

With a biracial man and his wife now moving into a white house built by black slaves, and their young daughters enrolled with other children of privilege in a Quaker sanctuary, part of Dr. King’s dream is being realized.

Yes, the great civil rights leader went to the mountain top and saw the promised land, a land in which little black boys and black girls join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. But today’s little children still must surmount even greater peaks in the mountain ranges beyond integration – the peaks representing war, pestilence, famine and death , the peaks even now patrolled by the four horsemen of the Apocalypse who ride among us as munitions manufacturers, diseases decimating millions each year which could be controlled for pennies per capita, exploding poverty as the seeds of the earth are deliberately sterilized for profit, and lastly, the primordial lust for power in the DNA of many of our “leaders” which renders our fragile planet subject to war without end..

Dr. King was a man of peace but he was not a man of fear. He was jailed 30 times for leading nonviolent efforts against injustice He spoke out against the pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities that mark so many of our public discourse. True, you and I are far more frail vessels, but working together we helped elect Barack Obama, another transformational figure in our nation’s history.

Now Barack, like Dr. King, is asking us to develop a kind of “dangerous unselfishness” by working in community for the common good. As the world collapses around us, how can we recapture the ability to “work unceasingly to uplift this nation that we love to a higher plateau of compassion, to a more noble expression of humanness?” Through service to others, through the “audacity to hope” that one’s seemingly meager efforts may make a difference.

Wendell Berry wrote in The Hidden Wound that the urbanization of our population has deprived us of the competence of knowing how to take care of ourselves. People used to be skilled in the art of making do and subsistence living off the land. . But with the relocation of most of our population to the cities, Berry writes that our ability to do things was replaced by the ability to buy things based largely on our subservience to modern incarnations of the company store. This dependency, along with our self-centered gluttony and greed, has led to the collapse of the worldwide economic system, impoverishing not only our bodies but our souls as well.

But today there is a great awakening to the fact that our world is not working. Not only are there wars on four continents but the very earth itself is rebelling against our short sighted rape of its riches as the seas rise and the oxygen producing forests disappear.

Many people now see that they must adapt. They must become the change that Obama calls for. Service to others, not lives of tepid comfort in our little boxes of urban isolation with an occasional bone thrown to the needy, must become our greater aspiration.

Martin Luther King Jr. was cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. He wrote in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail that “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. . . Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”

Barack Obama extended Dr. King’s words when in Berlin he said he was a proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world. Let’s help him and ourselves by making sure that the world we leave our children is better than the world we inhabit today. In other words, think globally but act locally with vigor and courage. The light and love you radiate toward others will become the light which drives out darkness, hate and fear as together we climb the mountains encircling a promise of peace and justice for all..

Cipro, Levaquin and my shattered left ankle

Cipro , Levaquin and my shattered left ankle

-thanks Public Citizen, CNN and Google

My left ankle shattered about 10 a.m. Saturday, April 5, 2008. I have no memory of the event.

I last remember sitting back in bed to finish the newspaper. During the period I cannot recall, I apparently was able to function despite what must have been intense pain as my husband found me screaming on my bedroom floor. Upon becoming aware of my circumstances about two hours later in the ER at the Ocala Regional Medical Center with my left foot extended in an unnatural position (“ fall injury with severely displaced distal ankle fracture”), I asked to speak with my husband. The attending nurse said I had already done so three times and neighbors later reported that I had spoken to them as the ambulance took me away. I had no difficulty recalling telephone numbers during and following my black out.

After an x-ray, CT scan and MRI of my brain along with a cursory interview with a neurologist (Dr. Nieves), the surgeon (Dr. Nirav Gupta) put a plate and a couple of screws in my left ankle the next day. Operative report describes procedure as “open reduction and internal fixation of lateral malleolus and medial malleolus ankle, left side.”

Following my hospitalization and several weeks at the TimberRidge rehab center, I insisted on seeing another neurologist in an effort to determine just what precipitated this event so that I wouldn’t again injure myself or possibly others should I be driving at the time. The second neurologist (Dr. Jose Gaudier) did an exhaustive interview (with my husband present) and ordered a carotid artery examination and an EEG of my brain. Again, nothing abnormal was found.

On July 9, 2008 I heard Dr. Sanjay Gupta report on the links between Cipro and broken tendons and other injuries the day after the FDA issued its “black box warning.” Public Citizen had requested such a warning in August 2006 and Dr. Gupta said on his broadcast that doctors have known about the dangers of the drug since 1992. The FDA approved Cipro for use in 2000 and Levaquin in 1996. None of the doctors who’ve seen me have mentioned, suggested or even implied any causal possibility between use of Cipro and/or Levaquin and the injury I endured. Moreover, after googling the drugs and ankle injuries, I found that there are literally hundreds of personal reports of injury similar to that which I have.

Despite a predisposition to avoid unnecessary drugs, I had not earlier connected repeated use of Cipro and more recently Levaquin to my accident. I simply ascribed the following to stress as a caregiver for an extended period.

Before my Father died May 1, 2005, I experienced difficulty stepping out of bed because of pain on the bottom of my left foot. I could not even go to the bathroom without wearing shoes. . More recently I have had trouble standing at peace rallies and walking my dog. I also have felt faint at various meetings and luncheons. . Occasionally the pain on the bottom of my left foot upon getting out of bed recurred. I simply chalked up these episodes to my exhaustion in caring for a disabled husband who is unable to contribute much to running the household and to my activities in the community. Fatigue has been a constant in my life for many years along with shortness of breath and general lassitude.

During recent years I have taken Cipro fairly frequently for recurring urinary tract infections. Last November when an infection did not respond to Cipro my internist, Dr. Jose Roman , sent me to a(n) urologist, Dr. Paul Jo, who prescribed Levaquin.. Because the infection had persisted and I wanted to rid myself of it, I took the Levaquin DESPITE the fact that I experienced considerably more severe pain on the bottom of my left foot than I ever had before. Since Dr Jo gave me a prescription with 12 renewals (?) I took Levaquin again when a UT infection recurred yet again in February, I believe.

In the months just prior to my accident I also experienced several very brief transient surges in my brain like flashes of electrical charges – basically the left rear quadrant as I recall. Then about a week or ten days before the accident I had an earache on the left side which later extended into my left jaw . I’ve had good dental care and the only thing wrong with my mouth is that a crown has fallen off a tooth. But my husband, a disabled dentist, said there was no cause for concern as it could not be a source of infection since it had a root canal. Nevertheless I went to see a dentist, Dr. Stephen Dunn ,on March 27, I believe. Dr. Dunn, after taking new x-rays, concurred with my husband’s assessment. However he said that if the pain continued he would send me to a neurologist in case I had trigeminal neuralgia. I was first to return to Dr. Dunn about ten days later. After reading about trigeminal neuralgia online and because the pain had subsided, I knew I had not experienced this disorder. The accident occurred before I was able to return to the dentist.

Please note that I was again taking Levaquin for the recurring urinary tract infection.. . When I got to the rehab center the attending physician (Dr. Gabriel Umana) put me back on Cipro because he said that it was the standard for UT.

I’ve since had much outpatient therapy but still am not able to walk well and the foot/ankle remains in large part immobile ( like concrete as one therapist observed), swollen with scarring and a protrusion on the right side where the screws were inserted. Surgeon who I see again July 24 opined that injuries such as mine take 9 months to a year for recovery although he acknowledged that the ankle will not ever be entirely normal. My surgeon and the therapists said that any injury to the foot is the most difficult to recover from (worse than hip, pelvic fractures) because the foot bears the weight of the entire body.

Although I am now 72 years of age, my parents were long-lived. They both walked every day with my Father even mowing the lawn up north until he was 98. My Father died totally competent just three weeks short of 100 and my Mother died at age 91 of breast cancer which had metastasized. Thus I have expectations of living another 20 years or so, especially given the fact that I have always been well fed, have always had good medical attention and have never indulged in personal excesses of any kind. Dr. Roman, our internist since moving to Ocala in September of 2000, has always authorized routine checkups and appropriate tests for whatever ailment I may have had over these years including a bone density test just months before the accident.

I have learned that there is an array of drugs which were used effectively for urinary tract infections before Cipro and Levaquin were put on the market. Apart from the pain and disruption to both my husband and my lives and the psychic and financial costs involved thus far, I am most appalled at the prospect of circumscribed use of my legs for the rest of my life . I hobble around the house, I can’t garden as I used to and my golden retriever breaks my heart by bringing me her leash for a walk.

I suddenly am old.

Delphine in a Persian Wonderland

You don’t have to leave the United States to experience culture shock. Just go to Washington and find a job on Embassy Row.

You might wind up, as I did , spending all your waking hours almost totally immersed in another culture while working for a glamorous

Middle Eastern ambassador whose lavish parties and playboy persona captivated the city for a number of years.

Ardeshir Zahedi, the Shah of Iran’s last ambassador to the United States, anticipated the Reagan era by mixing aging Hollywood legends with a medley of Washington insiders, international sophisticates and all-American heroes including leading quarterbacks and media megastars.

Despite revisionist reports after the revolution which deposed the Shah in 1979, almost anyone who was anybody considered an invitation to

the Imperial Embassy of Iran more exciting and desirable than one to the White House. Official Washington flocked to parties where women, perhaps for the first time in their lives, enjoyed compliments and courtesies of the kind that now occur only in historical novels. They took it all at face value while their husbands happily acceded to any business boons born of an economy bursting from the profits of the sky-rocketing price of oil.

Caviar and champagne flowed freely in salons whose gilded walls and chandeliers suggested Versailles. And in the Persian Room, a vaulted chamber with a ceiling of a million miniature mirrors, a single lighted candle could transport one on priceless carpets through prisms of magical infinity back to the nights of Scheherazade.

But more seductive were the Iranians themselves. The ambassador’s charisma was of the first magnitude and his aides easily beguiled with courtly charm and chivalrous solicitude. Any every woman, no matter her age or visage, was “beautiful, beautiful” mainly because the ambassador could not remember her name. Soon I found myself writing love letters to women all over the world, often regaling members of the staff with my flights of poetic fancy.

But one had to remember that these parties never were without purpose. This was a working embassy which functioned as the principal public relations arm of the Pahlavi dynasty. Internally, it was much like a miniature royal court in which flatterers and prevaricators often prevailed. Standards which pertained to westerners did not apply to Iranian nationals.

Embassy guests would recount stories of the Ambassador’s kindnesses and humility, not knowing of the terror he inspired among the Iranians whom he often devastated verbally. Thus “tuqui’a” or dissimulation

Was not considered duplicitous, merely a prudent means for survival.

It wasn’t easy for a woman from small town USA who, despite a number of years overseas with the U.S. diplomatic service, was still fairly puritanical and politically naïve.

However, as a “local employee” one quickly became an in-house expert on everything from procurement to press relations. Since I could find my way around the yellow pages and knew the difference between a credit and a bill, my reputation was very soon secured. My greatest coup occurred when I was able to obtain a part for the Shah’s yacht which had eluded the rest of the staff for almost two years. The ruler of Iran may have been Kings of Kings, Light of Lights and Center of the Universe to the Persians but the Florida shipbuilder refused to tolerate the imperiousness of the demands of his vassals.

Soon I was dealing with the White House and the Congress and the State Department and the press and every businessman and charlatan who wanted a piece of the oil action. My politicization progressed rapidly. I read the newspapers with amusement and increasing cynicism as there often would be a significant disparity between the information I had and that a reporter thought he had. Even the most knowledgeable journalists found their vision clouded by relationships which too quickly became too intimate.

While it was fascinating to deal with the outside world, the greater challenge came within the embassy. It was there that one paid for the opportunity to observe the movers and shakers and shysters without.

Morning logistics were an exercise in non-western inefficiency. As a foreigner, I never was given a key to the ambassador’s suite despite the fact that I spent many long hours alone. Though I usually arrived a few minutes after nine, neither the Iranian social secretary nor the official in charge of the ambassador’s anteroom would be expected for another half hour or so. Thus every morning, it seemed, the telephone operator would have to send for the wonderful Italian houseman to open the door. Oftentimes he had to be awakened because if the ambassador was in town, he would have had to remain available for the private parties at the Residence next door, parties which, I was told, often lasted until early morning.

I would begin reading the newspapers in order to anticipate anything which might require attention. Members of the staff would telephone or appear to bow and inquire about the ambassador’s “mood.” Zahedi’s

mood determined the tenor of the day for some hundred and twenty people. Of that number, perhaps a dozen or fewer actually would cross his path but ramifications of his disposition reverberated throughout the building.

The ambassador would convey to “his people” his first instructions of the day. Who was to be sent caviar, who flowers or perhaps a small gold coin, a “Pahlavi”, for the hospitality of the evening past. Cars had to be dispatched and the chauffeurs given detailed instructions on how to find, say the White House or the Capitol, even if they had been there just the day before. Patience never was one of my strong suits but the good nature drivers voluntarily gassed up my Camaro during the oil crisis of 1973-74 (?) , saving me from the long lines which countless other Americans endured.

If the ambassador was in town, the office I shared with Jaleh Yazdan-Panah was transformed into a maelstrom of mayhem. The comings and

Goings from his office and the hangers-on sitting nearby in order to rise and bow should he chance to pass meant working in a vortex of cacophonic volume as Farsi-speakers generally conversed only at the top of their lungs. The administrative officer to whom I had reported for the first six weeks or so once accused me of having no “taruffe,” the Farsi word for courtesy, because when I was on the telephone, I would sometimes turn my back in an effort to hear when three or four people spoke to me simultaneously while a dozen others continued their conversations in the background.

Basically each supplicant said “If we’re friends, you’ll do my project first.” Everything was put on a personal basis. So unless the ambassador wanted something specific, I had to establish my own priorities.

Because of the nonstop phone calls and the pandemonium which prevailed, I usually stayed after hours to do the correspondence in the silence which descended once the ambassador departed. In addition to the normal business of an embassy, I remembered birthdays, I wrote thank yous for thank yous. I sent out little gifts with a note to just about everyone the ambassador met on his extensive travels around the country.

And I became an excellent sleuth. For example, the ambassador might have met a woman in a green dress. He couldn’t remember her name, which party, which city, which date. So you play dumb and call around to chat with all his hostesses for the past few weeks.

Washington socialites themselves could provide a source of considerable amusement within the office. Jaleh would hear tales of women shopping for a dress with which to seduce the ambassador, . . hostesses would call us demanding dinner parties for 48 at the Residence when no more than half that number could be accommodated.

Upon the arrival from Tehran of one of the ambassador’s relatives, women besieged the newcomer with invitations under the assumption that he had special influence. In fact, the ambassador literally did not even glance in his direction for some two months, so furious was he at the behavior which occasioned banishment from the Imperial Court.

But bloodlines were always the bottom line so the malefactor suffered only psychic distress.

Iranians love to give gifts but they are not nearly as generous with information. If you knew something that no one else did, you in effect forced the ambassador to call upon you. My efforts to Americanize the place included the distribution of copies of correspondence to those who I thought needed to know, a revolutionary act at the time.

There was a clear distinction between the treatment accorded westerners and Iranians. Fortunately, I seldom had to deal with Iranians outside the embassy who may have traveled from California, Europe or even Iran to meet with the ambassador only to be kept waiting for days or never even seen at all. However, appointments with westerners, be they statesmen or students, were punctual to the minute unless the ambassador happened to be on the telephone with the Shah.

As a foreigner, no matter how much you gave of yourself, y ou were always the outsider, always the “ferenghi.” You never really were privy to what really is going on but you do the best you can given the information available to you at any given point in time. But if the Secretary of State doesn’t return the ambassador’s call, somehow it’s your fault. If the telephone lines are cut when the ambassador is speaking to Switzerland, it wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t answered other calls. The ambassador read people extremely well, but things mechanical were another matter.

Nevertheless I was never treated discourteously. Otherwise I would not have remained as long as I did. True, I resigned repeatedly but not because of the ambassador whom I came to respect and admire. Sometimes the internal machinations simply became too much of a daily struggle.

My penultimate resignation letter stated that it was too difficult for me as a woman in a Muslim environment and as a ferenghi who would never be trusted.

The ambassador’s response upon his return from Switzerland moved me deeply. I was summoned to his suite at the Waldorf Towers where he went over a few weeks’ backlog with me in the presence of his principal subordinates. They included the Iranian Consul General in New York City, the head of SAVAK in the United States, the representative of the National Iranian Oil Company and the Embassy’s Minister Counselor for Cultural Affairs.

When we departed the following day, I to return to Washington and the ambassador to Houston where his sister was hospitalized, he took me to the airport in his limousine, leaving the others to follow in another.

Soon after his return to Washington, Ambassador Zahedi called me to his office. He said he had decided to give me a private office directly above his own, with a staircase to be built connecting the two rooms. I also was to have my own assistant and I would be among those on Iran Air’s inaugural flight from New York to Tehran.

When this became general knowledge within the embassy, the friendship and respect of many turned to envy and hostility. My position as a conduit of the ambassador’s wishes was increasingly denied. One evening I went back to the kitchen to check on matters for the evening reception only to find myself locked out of my office upon my return.

A dam born of frustration and exhaustion broke and I left a furious letter of resignation on the ambassador’s desk. It began “I’m tired of working in this den of vipers….”.

Thus ended three years during which I had the privilege of working for a highly idiosyncratic but truly remarkable man whose loyalty to his leader was more profound than any I have ever observed. His cultural background, personal lifestyle and political imperatives were nothing like my own. But Ardeshir Zahedi’s humanity was immense and his behavior of much grander dimension than that of the world about him.

An astute observer remarked that I had allowed myself to be defeated by pygmies.