The President and I

I have been to San Clemente. It is a few miles north of San Diego in Southern California. An old school friend of mine has a beautiful house overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I mention the fact because just the other night I watched the film ‘Frost and Nixon’, well, all bar the first 10 minutes. When President Nixon fled the Whitehouse in August 1974 he retired to his home, La Casa Pacifica, in San Clemente and it was there that the famous interviews with David Frost took place.

There used to be a wonderful old book store in Atlanta, called Oxford Books. Situated in Buckhead, the place was a mecca for bibliophiles. Unlike the giant and soulless chains of today, Oxford Books catered for the individual rather than the masses. It was staffed by people who knew and loved their books and who were anxious to extend their knowledge to like-minded individuals. The large circular building was crammed with every book, newspaper and magazine you could hope to find. In the days before the World Wide Web, ex-pats such as I found it difficult to learn about the events back home, wherever home happened to be. Oxford even had its own coffee shop, called the Cup and Chaucer, where one could while away lazy Sunday mornings reading the news from around the world. There was also an excellent video department with an extensive collection, including many of the older and more obscure films that never made it to Blockbuster or the cable networks.

It was at Oxford Books that I first laid eyes on former President Jimmy Carter. It must have been sometime in 1995. He was promoting his book, ‘Keeping Faith’ and a friend of mine, actually an ex-girlfriend, was standing in line to have him sign her copy. She was a fan of the man which was possibly one of the reasons our relationship foundered. Jimmy Carter, of course, was president when I was in the Rhodesian Army and it was he who did so much to undermine the country and to help ensure that the Marxist Terrorist, Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF came to power.

President Carter and his envoy, the African American Andrew Young, were universally despised in my country. The absolute failure by the former to grasp the consequences of what he was striving to achieve and the determination of the latter to rid the African continent of white civilization, rendered them beneath contempt. Anybody who knew or cared about the country could and did tell him what would happen and how millions of black Rhodesians would suffer as a result.

I suppose that every individual has his favourite and least favourite political leaders. Of all US presidents, Carter remains my least favourite. The sanctimonious arrogance of the man appals me to this day.

In 2002 I was again living in Atlanta when I received news of my brother’s precarious situation on the farm in Zimbabwe. I called him to ask how things were progressing. He held out the phone and told me to listen to all the drum beating and cries of the farm invaders that had surrounded the homestead. He was inside with his new wife-to-be and her children. The Land Cruiser had been loaded up and they were waiting to make a run for it. They did eventually succeed in getting away unscathed, but he never returned to the farm where he had grown up and where he had raised his own family.

My rage at the destruction wrought by Robert Mugabe and his so-called War Veterans, led me to write a letter to Carter in which I expressed my disgust with him and the policies he had enacted. I demanded that he acknowledge his role and that he apologise for the consequences of his action. I charged him with pursuing a course of action that was intended and served to win him appeal amongst black American voters with little real consideration given to the long term welfare of the people of Rhodesia.

To give him credit, Carter did respond with a hand written note on my original letter. He agreed that Mugabe was a dreadful man, but that ‘as Ian Smith was a ‘racist’, he had to go’. Even if that were true to the extent that Carter apparently believed it to be, the rationale that put a nebulous ideal ahead of the actual health, happiness and indeed very survival of the people he claims to have been helping still shocks me. One is reminded of the delusional Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness) in Bridge over the River Kwai. Never mind the consequences, the principle is all.

And what has this to do with President Nixon? At one point in ‘Frost and Nixon’, two American researchers working with David Frost in preparation for his interviews are discussing their personal opinions of the disgraced man and his role in history. One of them says of Nixon that he so despises him that nothing would induce him to show him the slightest courtesy. Yet, when a few minutes later they are both introduced to him, the researcher is so over-awed by the power and charisma of the former President that he cannot help but shake his hand. The moment reminded me of a time when I was flying from Denver to Atlanta. I was suddenly aware that my own presidential bête noir was walking down the aisle, smiling his toothy smile and shaking the hands of our fellow passengers. Despite my loathing of him, I could not help myself from extending my hand for him to shake it.