Chris Herbert - The Dictators of Westchester County

 

On the first day of my new job as the vice president of a public relations firm in New York City, the office manager showed me to my new office. I had a view of Broadway, and I could even see a sliver of Central Park. My colleagues, they all sat in cubicles outside my office, and they had degrees in things like Communications. I was convinced that they thought of me as a fraud, which I was. 

 

During my job interview, I'd explained to my new bosses that I had absolutely no public relations experience. In fact, I had written my master's thesis on the Italian colonization of Libya. [audience laughter] But my new bosses explained to me that they had found my resume and they were interested in me, because I had experience speaking Arabic and experience living in the Middle East. Although the only reason I had that experience was because when I was in college and I wanted to take a new language that wasn't European and Japanese and Chinese were at 08:00 in the morning, Arabic was at 1:30 in the afternoon. [audience laughter]

 

But I started to realize that if I kept my studies up, there would be some job opportunities for me, although I had never considered public relations. But during my interview, my new bosses were selling me on the idea that I could create more positive change through public relations than I could through policy making or politics. So, I'm at my new job and I'm called into my boss's office and I'm told what my first task is going to be. I'm in charge of the United Nations visit of the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. [audience laughter] And that visit is in about six weeks.

 

So, just to back up for anybody who isn't intimately familiar with global politics, [audience laughter] Muammar Gaddafi was the dictator of Libya for 42 years. He rose to power in 1969, and he quickly became an international pariah, because he used his nation's oil and gas wealth to fund international terror organizations like the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines, and the Irish Republican Army. He was also closely linked with the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie bombing, in which 273 people were killed.

 

So, positive change through public relations, [audience chuckles] Muammar Gaddafi. They didn't quite fit in my mind, but I asked my boss what he thought I should do first, and he said, “I should go to the Libyan mission.” By that, he meant the Libyan mission to the United Nations on East 48th Street. So, I make my way across town, and I enter this drab concrete building. And looming above me is this massive portrait of a young Gaddafi atop a magnificent white stallion. [audience chuckles] He's glaring down at the lobby, and it looks like it's been transported right out of the 1970s. It has low orange couches, and plastic tables, and a green carpet that's bordering on shag. [audience laughter] 

 

My contact at the mission is an American woman named Nicole. She has on these large dark sunglasses. She looks a little bit like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis until she takes off her glasses, and I realize that she's probably even younger and less experienced than I am. And she tells me three things. First, this is very important in all situations, I am to refer to Gaddafi as His Excellency, Brother Leader Muammar Al Gaddafi, Leader of the Revolution. [audience chuckles] Next, I am to find a place for Gaddafi to stay in New York City. And any luxury hotel suite on the east side of Manhattan will do. And third, I am to find a place for the tent. The tent. 

 

Well, I'd actually heard about the tent. It was a bit of a gimmick, and it played to Gaddafi's roots. It was a large Bedouin tent, and he would meet with dictators, sorry, meet with dignitaries when he went to-- [audience laughter] He would meet with dignitaries when he went to foreign countries. For example, when he went to Italy, Berlusconi allowed him to erect his tent on the soccer field near the Coliseum. And when he went to Russia, Putin allowed him to erect his tent in a park next to the Kremlin. So, I thought, well, how hard could this be in New York City? [audience chuckles] I asked Nicole if she had a particular location in mind, and she said, "I don't know, Chris. Just rent Central Park." [audience laughter] 

 

Well, I'm able to take care of the first task pretty easily. I book the presidential suite at The Pierre Hotel. Done. And a few days later, I'm back at the Libyan mission for a meeting with Nicole, and the Libyan head of protocol, and the secret service agents who were assigned to Gaddafi's detail. Now, the Libyan head of protocol was a man named Noori. He looked like he'd walked out of a budget 1970s gangster film. He had on a maroon three-piece polyester suit, and he had high-heeled boots, and a glass eye that stared at me [audience laughter] from behind his blue-tinted glasses. When I went to shake his hand, he patted me on the stomach instead. [audience laughter]

 

Now, the secret service agents, by contrast, were very quiet and professional. And we all sat down at the table, and the first thing that Noori said was that The Pierre Hotel was no good. Apparently, Brother Leader was afraid of heights, and he wouldn't go in elevators. And he said that I had to find a ground-floor luxury suite [audience laughter] in Manhattan. I tried to explain that that wasn't a thing here. [audience laughter] And Nicole interjected, saying, "This is why we're paying you, Chris. Make it happen."

 

Well, it was during this meeting that I learned some of the details of the tent, specifically that it was 23 feet by 39.5 feet and 10 feet tall at its apex. And that allowed me to fill out a special events permit application with the New York City Parks Department. [audience chuckles] So, there are a number of boxes on this permit application, like, yes or no. Will you be using open flames? No. Will you be amplifying sounds? No. Unfortunately, there was no question like, will you be erecting a structure for dictators to meet with dignitaries? [audience laughter]

 

The next day, I get a phone call from the New York City Police Department. Apparently, the Parks Department was a little uneasy with my application, and they'd passed it on along to the police. [audience laughter] And the sergeant on the other end of the line informed me that he had summarily rejected my application. So, my boss and I decided we would look a little farther afield, perhaps just north to Westchester County, where there was privately owned lands and we thought maybe we could rent a house and Gaddafi could stay in the house and then pitch the tent on the lawn.

 

So I call around to some real estate agents and one of them calls me back. She tells me that her client is getting cash poor and knows that we're in a bit of a bind, so he's probably going to charge more than we have in our budget. But the house is perfect, so we should check it out. So, Noori and Gaddafi's son Mutassim, and I, we make our way up to Bedford, New York. The house is perfect. It's a beautiful, magnificent stone mansion with large, thick stone walls, and a huge lawn that has plenty of room for the tent. 

 

The real estate agent pulls me aside and she wants to know who I'm working for and I ask her to show her cards too. So, I start and I say I'm working for His Excellency Brother Leader Muammar Al Gaddafi, leader of the revolution. [audience laughter] And she tells me that she's working for Melania and Donald Trump. [audience cheers and applauses] 

 

And I have to tell you, my initial reaction was, “But this house is so beautiful.” [audience laughter] Well, the next day, Trump's lawyers fax me the contract. It's about $100,000 for a week of rent. I sign it and I'm thrilled, because I have accomplished my two impossible goals. Ground-floor luxury with room for a tent. [audience chuckles] And a week later, I'm at the JFK Cargo Terminal. I'm unloading Gaddafi's tent from a cargo plane and we're putting it into a U-Haul. And by this point, I knew the press was onto us, so I arranged for a decoy U-Haul to leave the airport first, so the press would follow that one. So, we went unharassed up to Bedford. When we arrived at Melania and Donald's house, there were 20 Libyan workers waiting to erect the tent. They had even purchased a baby goat for the celebration when Brother Leader arrived.

 

So, that night, I'm trying to go to sleep, but my BlackBerry starts exploding because apparently somebody had tipped off the press. There were all these aerial shots of Gaddafi's tent in Donald Trump's lawn. [audience chuckles] Trump was denying knowing anything about it. The town of Bedford didn't want Gaddafi in their backyard, so they were threatening to issue a criminal summons against me, because my name was on the lease. And the next day, I'm at the office, my phone rings. I say, "Hello," and the voice on the other end of the line says, "Yes, this is Donald Trump." 

 

My initial reaction was one of panic because I thought he was going to sue me, like this was a landlord-tenant issue. And instead, he continues and he says, "People are saying there's something huge going on at my house. [audience laughter] But listen, we can put this all behind us. I just need you to set up a meeting with me and Gaddafi. I'd like to discuss real estate and business deals with him in Libya." So, I freeze. [audience chuckles] I had been arranging the most intricate details of where to put an international pariah in Manhattan, and what to do with this superfluous tent. And the addition of Donald Trump to the equation was more than I wanted to handle. [audience laughter] So, I passed the phone to my boss.

 

Well, in the end the tent came down and the town of Bedford retracted the criminal summons against me, thankfully. And Gaddafi ended up staying on the ground floor of the Libyan mission, where a luxury ground floor suite was hastily put up for him. The next day, he gave a 100-minute-long speech at the United Nations where he listed off a number of illogical demands including an inquiry into the assassination of JFK, and then he gave a frustrating interview with Larry King that, well, I arranged that. And the next day he flew off to Venezuela where he met with Hugo Chávez. I am told that there was no problem erecting the Bedouin tent in Caracas. [audience chuckles] 

 

Donald Trump made off pretty well with a six-figure sum for the use of a house that we barely spent time at. I think the goat was the biggest winner of all, because when Gaddafi never arrived at Trump's house, the goat was donated to a petting zoo. [audience laughter] As for me, I lasted only three more weeks in public relations. [audience laughter] I decided it was probably time for me to find a line of work that didn't involve tents or dictators. Thank you.