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Chapter 7 Lindbergh’s Bed In June 1981, Vice President Bush made back-to-back trips to Europe and East Asia, trekking through eighteen time zones in the space of nine days. He was careful to wait until after Secretary of State Haig had been to the same countries, so as not to spark another secretarial explosion about Bush’s intruding into “his” domain. The first stop was Paris, where the new president, socialist François Mitterrand , had just put four communists in his cabinet, to the considerable annoyance and concern of the State Department. Although a senior officer from State assured the VP a few days before our departure that no statement on the subject would be made before or during his visit to Paris, I told Pete Teeley that the treacherous Haig was not above deliberately embarrassing Bush with such a statement. This trip was special for the thirty-five-year-old me in that it was my first time in France, despite having been a French student in high school and college. Wednesday, 24 June 1981 Under a system that combined seniority and chivalry, I was the last to get lavatory privileges in the forward cabin of Air Force , entering as we descended to land at Orly. I threw on a white shirt just as the plane drew up to a wide, thick red carpet bracketed by two long lines of sword-wielding soldiers. It was quite impressive. US ambassador Arthur Hartman (a polished professional diplomat) came aboard for a final briefing before the VP and Mrs. Bush disembarked. We in the official party all shook hands with Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson and went down the corridor of troops into the Pavillon d’Honneur. There GB delivered a formal arrival statement to a press corps restricted to a balcony off to the side. He was of course asked about yesterday ’s decision by President Mitterrand to take four communist ministers into his government. The VP smilingly replied that it would be inappropriate to comment on such an internal matter before speaking with French leaders. The weather in Paris all day was overcast and humid, not the best con- lindbergh’s bed 63 ditions for a first visit to the great city, but I was delighted to take her as I found her. The French gave the VP “intersection control” that compared with what we get in any American city, and we streaked into the heart of Paris on brick streets past famous landmarks like Les Invalides and clusters of gawking Parisians. The motorcade ended at the sumptuous ambassador’s residence at No.  rue de Faubourg St.-Honoré, a townhouse of rococo splendor built in the early nineteenth century by a Franco-American family from New Orleans. The housekeeper and social secretary, a Mme. Cardonay, welcomed us and showed me to my quarters, a suite overlooking the residence’s park-like gardens . It is named the Lindbergh Room because it contains a bed in which the great aviator slept after his historic flight in . (He probably just barely fit.) The rest of the staff is staying at the ultra-posh Crillon Hotel, not far away on La Place de la Concorde. Alas, I fell on the junior side of the cutoff for the meeting with Mitterrand and had to see the motorcade leave for the Elysée Palace without me. Though this was regrettable, I couldn’t complain, because it gave me a little free time in Paris—about forty-five minutes, in fact. I set out on a fast hike down the Champs Elysées toward the Arc du Triomphe, detouring to take side streets leading to the Seine. The Eiffel Tower, poking suddenly upward, looked flat and alien against a bright white sky. Perhaps this little disappointment is just as well, for it underscores my favorable initial impression of Paris as a city of human scale at street level. I walked along the river under a lovely arcade of tall leafy trees before finding a street heading straight back to Faubourg St.-Honoré. There I entered the grounds of the Elysée, a building of crisp classical design with a pebbled courtyard. The Garde Républicaine, at stiff attention in their tall feathered helmets, drew swords up to the tips of their noses as Mitterrand escorted Bush out to the short front steps. Mitterrand appears a quiet, introspective man who would pass unnoticed in the streets of any French town were he...

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