Helena

It is 2009. I am sitting in“Cafe Organica,” my coffee shop of choice in Helena, near Reeder’s Alley, a restored pioneer section of town. A piano piece is playing softly in the background, the high notes strung together, the tune vaguely familiar, classical. My son is with me, visiting from Las Cruces.

“Organica” is reserved and elegant, in a European bistro-style, with small, round, black onyx tables. An expensive Italian espresso machine stands behind the counter, and large, white porcelain cups are hanging from wooden ceiling racks. The coffee bar counter is also polished onyx. The walls are plaster, soft lavender. Some of the windows have art glass, others hold potted plants with red blossoms which look like poppies. David, the proprietor, makes new espresso for us, replacing the cup of old that he had initially offered. It is quiet. We are the only customers, even though it is approaching noon. We are journaling, something we started doing together on previous vacations in Santa Barbara.

A cool breeze comes through the screened open window next to us. Through the window, I can see some pines and small birch trees and, closer up, some small fruit trees just outside, facing Park Avenue running by us. There is no traffic. Blue skies and white clouds peek behind the green hills rising a few blocks away. The lower part of the hillside is covered with light green grass, clear of trees, perhaps due to past fires. Higher up, it is forested.

Directly across the street, built on a large park-like area, are some dark brown stained, Swiss style, chalet condos. The grass there is a lush green. There has been a lot of rain lately. There are medium sized Blue Spruce, my favorite trees. I brought Charles here so he could see the nice chalet apartments, in case he ever wanted to live in Helena. I never mentioned that to him, just noting in passing how nice those apartments were. He probably knew.

I ask Charles what date it is, for the journal entry. He says August 6. I am reminded of Hiroshima. It should be more of an issue, I tell myself, more recognized, perhaps a siren should go off for five minutes as in Japan and everyone stop what they are doing and get out of their cars in remembrance. Truman would have disagreed. My mind wanders to Tel Aviv, where, once a year on Holocaust Remembrance Day, everything stopped, and everyone got out of their cars. This takes my thoughts to Israel in 1976 and Charles’ mother.

Tel Aviv, my first tour, just married, is a bit of a dream now. The good memories are of falafel stands in Jerusalem, of falafel with French fries crammed inside, eating while dictating cables in an embassy car with driver on the way back to Tel Aviv, or sitting in the living room of Moshe Dayan’s house, carrying messages, meeting planes at night carrying the Assistant Secretary, carrying letters from President Carter to Begin, being in Jerusalem at the King David hotel for Sadat’s arrival. It is trips to the Negev, and the Mediterranean beaches, and to the kibbutz on the Sea of Galilee. It is the bright sun, temperate climate, and olive groves, the old town in Jaffa, weekends at the UN hotel in Gaza, hearing morning calls to worship from the minaret, the Embassy’s Plaza hotel penthouse suite in Jerusalem, overlooking the Mount of Olives, the outdoor cafes with humus, pita, and schwarma in Arab restaurants, lights shining on the stone walls around you at night, the beautiful nights and smell of the sea. It is “R and R” in Cyprus at a hotel with trellises overhead in the garden where you lunch before walking to the beach in Limassol. It is the weekends snorkeling and camping on the beach in the Gulf of Eilat, directly across from Saudi Arabia, whose coastline you could barely see, from the village of Nueba, the camels braying, the Arab vendors, the braziers and the baklava. It is the unforgettable feeling of landing in a new country on your first tour overseas, seeing new streets and exotic sights on the way in from the airport and coming to your white stucco house in the old garden area of Kfar Sherimayhu, an original German Jewish agricultural settlement with farms dating from the 1920s.

But, there were down sides, the terrible pressures of work, the demanding Ambassador, the consular work, the mistakes on the job, the broken friendships with Israeli friends. But, you had a lot to look forward to. A new start with Russia for your next assignment, a child on the way. You were to be in the Russia club, the elite, your life’s dream. You were in over your head in Tel Aviv, but then you had always risen to the occasion. Your days in the office were ones of waiting, standing by, reading the Ambassador’s traffic, sorting it and prioritizing it. You proofed his cables and arranged meetings and cars and sat in on meetings. You worked long hours, including Saturdays, hurting your marriage and furthering your career. You had the advantage of feeling part of a great cause, Camp David. She didn’t. She could write, but no one took it seriously at the time. But, you were in over your head, and soon discovered that. You didn’t have the staff officer skills and the confidence.

David, the waiter, comes back to our table to see if we want more espresso. Charles seems to be writing quickly, solidly. I look back out the window, my mind returned from 1978 Tel Aviv. Looking out the window again, silver and white clouds behind the hills are now being pushed out of the picture, to the north, by gray clouds. The wind pushing the clouds is coming from the south, from Yellowstone.

Bozeman:

I wander into the local Holiday Inn restaurant for breakfast, two eggs, over easy, biscuits and gravy. The good waitress brings strong coffee and leaves the thermos. She also brings orange juice without asking. She is efficient, in her 60s, a bit gruff but accommodating. I have just dropped Charles off at the Bozeman airport for a 6:30 a.m. flight, so I am a bit groggy, thinking of him on the flight to Denver.

At the table next to me, two men are talking, probably local professors from their conversation. I hear bits and pieces. They are discussing exchanges with Russia on fisheries. The one with an accent is doing the talking about Russia. My ears perk up.

This is typical of Bozeman, connected to the world, a university town. Michael Keaton was at Plonk Restaurant last night. Ted Turner has a ranch here. California license plates are not unusual, with Big Sky Ski Resort and Yellowstone down the road. International architectural and engineering firms, linked to Korea and Japan, are located here, so are Ernest Hemingway’s grandson, James Salter’s son, and Harry Bertoia’s daughter. You can get the New York Times daily. BMWs and Audi’s predominate. Outsiders are everywhere. Bozeman is contemporary modern lodge, steel and stacked stone, architecture, high tech, set against beautiful mountains to the north and the front range in the southern distance. Its downtown is old Montana small town, masonry buildings, one main street, but with a wide variety of upscale products and boutiques and coffee shops and independent bookstores and vintage watches and fly shops. It, and Whitefish, are the Montana versions of Aspen, Jackson Hole, and Sun Valley.

At the table, a third man joins the professors. He is the business type who does the legwork for the professors, apparently just back from Moscow. He tells his frustration at dealing with the Russian officials.  I smile, it is so familiar.

I think of my years in Vladivostok and the similar frustrations, operating in a cloud. I could help these Bozeman businessmen. I am thinking of my Foreign Service colleague, David Ackerman, and our three years starting a new consulate in the Russian Far East. Dave and I knew what was true. You had to have a lifetime of experience, and knowledge of the language and history of Russia, to make correct judgments, which were often intuitive. There was little to rely on since Washington was also winging it. It was a new Russia and confusing, but we had the benefit of extensive contact with the average Russians. We knew how things in Russia really worked out in the provinces.

We knew we had to gain trust. We knew not to promote a lot of USAID studies that delivered no resources or money, and only offered advice and promises. We knew not to support less than upright American businessmen criss-crossing Russia searching for partners. We knew not to preach too much. We knew to keep the post “open,” more like a trade mission, and to avoid Russian intelligence provocations. We knew the Russian public was watching us for keys to behavior, for clues to right and wrong as seen in the West, and, therefore, we knew to support local democrats and shun former communist leaders who were unreconstructed. We knew not to be friendly with a regional governor who was getting over his private joke on us, wearing a “Zek” hat—like the Gulag prisoners wore—on Human Rights Day. We knew to help Japanese, South Korean, and European firms getting started in Russia, even if they were potential competitors of American firms. We also knew that there was no age dividing line between reformers and old thinkers, that fifty year old former communists could be brought around if given a stake in the new system. We knew that an intellectual newspaper editor whose newsprint spouted anti-American propaganda could be brought around. Being a true intellectual, not just a member of the Academy of Sciences, he would be inclined to change. His instincts would be naturally liberal.

We knew the good guys from the bad, and could spot the former secret police, now businessmen. As western role models, we also knew the importance of smiles and of Western behavior, open, unafraid, and free. But, we knew when to put on the mantle of authority, to ride in the back seat to meetings with the governor, who would respect authority, otherwise riding up front with the driver, like the American common man. We knew how not to smile in negotiations. No, not everything could be worked out with smiles and positivism. We knew the relationship between the provincial governors and Moscow ministries, and how far the latter could push the local authorities under Yeltsin. We recognized the hard-line communists, the power elites, and the former governor, our bete noir, and we understood how communists and “Soviet men” like him despised weakness, were ruthless, and understood power and how to use it. We knew some democracy had to be crammed down from above, via Yeltsin. We knew what to say, what lines would resonate with the public regarding former empire (“you don’t need it anymore”), the Cold War (“lets not go back and try to survive it again”), and Russian corruption and crime and poverty (“America also is not perfect”).

We knew that Peace Corps programs to promote business were a bit unrealistic, but we knew Peace Corps volunteers rubbing elbows with Russians would make a difference, so we asked for volunteers. We knew there was some good in the old system with its welfare net, and that social democracy was perhaps better suited to Russia in transition than laissez faire capitalism of the U.S. We knew the Russians were proud and that assistance had to be identified as mutually beneficial and a two-way street. We knew the importance of (USIA) cultural exchanges, that the battle was over culture and for the youth. We knew that the resistance to reform was ideologically based and not just a matter of battles over turf and money, or to protect Russian parastatal business interests. We went public, doing television interviews and talking about our lives in America, traveling frequently around our consular district, bringing in Martha Graham dancers, hosting U.S. Navy ship visits, organizing hospital-to-hospital exchanges, etc.. We knew where to put our effort. We knew the importance of winning over our local Russian employees.

We knew to avoid the new oligarchs emerging. We knew the importance of symbols, to refuse properties that had KGB histories. We knew the importance of building strong ties to the Japanese consulate, giving us more clout. We knew not to drive by an election rally for a nationalist hard liner in order to gauge his popularity. We knew not to tolerate bad behavior by a consulate driver. We knew to build ties to the Russian Navy commander to get a new consulate building when all else was failing. We knew not to accede to being escorted by armed guards through a defense plant which we were touring. It was a matter of principle. We knew when to support a democratic Mayor in his struggle with a hard-line governor, even if it encroached a bit on Russia’s internal affairs and got in the newspapers. But, we knew how far to go.

We knew to demand that visiting USG officials stop by the Consulate while visiting an our district. We knew to keep certain American charitable organizations (CRS) and Peace Corps at arms length from the Consulate for their own independence. We knew how to respond when one regional governor refused to meet with a visiting American Senator. We knew to avoid playing up indigenous local separatists in a visit to the Yakutsk (Sakha) Republic. We knew how use reciprocity to get our Consulate building, not releasing their building in Seattle first…

The waitress brings my bill. I ask for a glass of water and a paper cup to take some coffee with me. I take my pills, leave a tip with the check, and stand up, gathering my journal, taking a glance at the men at the next table as I leave. The one with the accent, older, looks Eastern European. He has a bit of that European formality, old school, Polish I decide.