D.C.
Post #22: John Light, Marcel Acosta, Bruce and Vicki Heyman, William G. “Bill” Allman
John Light. Political Advisor. John called earlier this evening, remarking, “I hope you are writing things down.” It has been an intense workday. “In five years,” he said, “most of the figures we are dealing with will have moved on. You’ll be the one left standing, the only one who will remember how everything got done.”
A sunny afternoon for a tense summit, my boardroom aglow in light reflected from the Parliament. Addressing Canadian Heritage ADMs and political staff, John spoke of “despatch.” His 48-hour turn-around of approvals from Minister Baird for the NCC has been key to achieving on-time and on-budget successes.
Heritage, likewise, needs to process time-sensitive commemorations approvals with despatch. Having missed the federal budget window, he said, is a real headache. All agree on a concerted focus to get the desired monuments tracking to completion. Thus John’s steely determination is razor-focused on accomplishment. (13 April 2014, Ottawa.)
…En route to Washington and the National Capital Planning Commission. A conversation with Marcel Acosta a month ago set this in motion. Minister Baird will join us for part of the meeting. He flew in earlier to attend the Correspondents’ Dinner with President Obama. I suggested that we build on his travels as Foreign Minister to revive the NCC’s and NCPC’s network of capital cities.
…Afternoon walk with John Light to the National Portrait Gallery, Capitol Visitors’ Centre, Washington Memorial, and the National Gallery. Andrew Wyeth’s watercolours vivid, immediate and sensitive. John consoled an injured bird on the sculpture garden terrace, and afterwards elucidated various scenes in the religious paintings of Rubens. (May 2014, Washington D.C.)
Marcel Acosta. CEO, Urban Planner. The Plan for Canada’s Capital 2017-67 was given a unique launch over the past few days in Washington D.C. Its public presentation at the National Capital Planning Commission surely was unprecedented. The NCPC’s CEO Marcel Acosta hosted a lively discussion with me, the NCC’s Capital Planner Steven Willis, and afterwards with the audience. One man asked pointedly, “What is it like to plan a city where citizens do not fear for their lives at night on the street?”
Marcel arranged meetings for me with the White House, Blair House, and with District of Columbia planners. He recounted how D.C.’s 1910 building-height controls had been preserved in an epic struggle all the way to Congress. A natural diplomat, Marcel has weaved Frank Gehry’s Eisenhower Memorial through their capital’s multi-polar approvals process. (October 2015, Washington, D.C)
…Marcel and NCPC Board Chair Beth White along with Julia Koster arrived from Washington on Sunday. On Monday we had fine weather for a boat tour on the Ottawa River. Through their fresh eyes our cruise behind Parliament, the capital’s exact urban centre, was a wilderness experience due to the tree cover—dense, though not deep—on the surrounding riverbanks.
…At Rideau Hall for the presentation of the Governor General’s Awards. To Marcel’s delight, having worked with her early in his career, Cornelia Oberlander received the inaugural GG Award for Landscape Architecture. Daniel Jean, National Security Advisor, joined us for lunch and we talked design and security, how the NCPC has helped mitigate visual impacts of various White House security measures. Our American guests captivated the Capital Urbanism Lab audience that evening discussing DC’s planning outlook. (23 September 2016, Ottawa.)
Bruce and Vicki Heyman. Diplomats. At Mayor Watson’s private farewell lunch today for the Heymans we gather in the airy boardroom adjacent to his office. Geoff Green has cancelled, and someone else, too, because the Mayor’s Chief of Staff and the City Manager are stand-ins at the formally set table. Neither utter a word during the lunch, which also comprises Roland and Katie Paris, Laura Peck, the Chair of a Muslim association and his wife.
Reflecting on the first half of Bruce Heymans’ term as US Ambassador to Canada under Stephen Harper’s rule, the mayor smiles that it must have been difficult, conceding that the ex-PM is now more sociable out of office. “Steve,” as he was known back when Watson worked for the Speaker, had also been a staffer (MP Deb Gray’s only staffer): “the last person I would have expected to become Prime Minister.”
Bruce Heyman recalls skating at Chicago’s Millenium Park and taking a bad fall while shooting a video introducing his appointment to Ottawa. “If US-Canada relations go wrong,” he told PM Harper ruefully, “blame it on my concussion.”
Obama’s farewell address? “We watched it from Toronto,” Vicki nodded. “It was very emotional; we knew everyone there. Obama is tired after ten years 24/7; he didn’t expect to have to carry the DNP after the election.”
“What must Canada do during President Trump’s first one hundred days?” Bruce glances around the table. Roland feels that the risks are manageable, there are checks and balances, and we are lucky that Canada is not an immediate target. Ivanka Trump knows and likes Canada, and Donald has had reasons to visit.
I recall Obama’s advice to Parliament last June, his chiding Canadians to bear their share of defence spending, wondering if this is a Trump theme we ought to heed? Bruce suggests we stop carping that our 1% of GDP is ‘a better percent’ than other NATO members’ 2% and instead “re-jig your figures to show 2%!”
Vicki, tearful, has difficulty letting go. Bruce describes their family’s divided opinion at Thanksgiving: should he and Vicki accept any extension of their mission by the Trump Administration? During Vice-President Biden’s visit he advised them (accurately) that no offer would come, but if so, Bruce should accept it.
The mayor has pulled out the stops today: baby organic greens with poached pear, goat cheese mousse, candied nuts with apple cider vinaigrette, the main course is 24 hr braised beef short rib with mushroom sauté, wilted spinach and potato purée with cheese, served with braising liquid, and the dessert is vanilla panna cotta with port stewed cherries and short bread. A Niagara Riesling and a Baco Noir, 2014. Laura Peck tweets photos throughout. (13 January 2017, Ottawa.)
William G. “Bill” Allman. White House Curator. An excellent martini, alone at the centre of the cavernous Trump Hotel atrium in Washington. Uniformed staff greatly outnumber the handful of customers for its multiple bars and restaurants. Riot barricades outside. The usual DC watering holes busy as usual, but not here. Middle-America trickles through, quickly looking up, uneasy with the scale and opulence, then shuffles out of the handsomely converted Old Post Office. Fox on both giant video screens (though up or down the dial one would find hostile commentators parsing impeachment prospects).
At Blair House this afternoon, the Curator pointed out the chair in which Donald Trump had practised his inauguration speech a month or so ago, his grandchildren racing around him. The First Lady was interested in the provenance of the historical artifacts. Today a clean-up was underway. Israeli PM Netanyahu had only just decamped after a four-day stay with a large working entourage. Piles of newspapers, press clippings, a cognac cork on the carpet.
Among both residences’ staff, evident warmth for the private Trump family, but DC itself still in semi-shock, wondering if the regime can sustain itself.
The main bar is backed by a twenty-two-foot-high monolith of see-through glass cases filled with empty cut-glass decanters—an odd motif. I’ve texted photos to Léa who predicts this vast room will be filled people within a matter of months.
Earlier today, Bill Allman, the White House Curator for four decades, met me in its elegant Library. The transition from the Obamas to the Trumps last month was harried, partly due to the Obamas’ daughters’ prolonged presence during the Inauguration but also because the parade was shortened. In all, the staff had but four hours to affect the changeover, including installing larger televisions, some on new walls. President Trump prefers portraits to landscapes, thus more of the former now grace the walls of the Oval Office.
Asked about ‘international gifts’ he pointed to a cuirass and scabbard in a glass case above my head, a gift from General Lafayette honouring George Washington, presented posthumously during the Marquis’s triumphant tour in the 1820s.
“The Churchill bust,” I asked?
Bill chuckled. “Well, that’s a convoluted story.”
Tony Blair visiting George W. Bush in the early 2000s had offered the bust on loan not knowing that the White House already had one cast from the same mould. The loaner sat in President Bush’s Oval Office until President Obama substituted Churchill’s effigy with that of Martin Luther King. After the election, the Winston Churchill Society requested of Trump that their namesake be restored to the Oval Office, also unaware that an original was already in the White House collection.
Now the old warrior is back on view and Blair’s loaner is on its way back to England.
Bill kept his pre-election commitment to host me despite the tumultuous events of recent weeks. With the tact and discretion of an Official Residence’s veteran, he defends residents’ privacy, making livability and comfort as important as museal, heritage and curatorial imperatives. Nervous of academic expertise, his committee of advisors comprises leaders of DC national cultural institutions.
Exiting the White House, he accompanied me around the crescent to Blair House. Passing the arc of open-ended canopies, news cameras positioned with the White House facade as their anchors’ backdrop, we were blasted by the glare and heat of television lights, the surreal intensity of peak-world-media attention. (21 February 2017, Washington, D.C.)