High life
Presidential dinners
Taki
New York What impressed me more, however, was the fact that Nixon not only conversed in fluent Spanish with the myriads of Jimmy's staff, he inquired about their childrens' schools, remembered details of those he had met before, and was cheered by the working poor when he went around to bid them goodbye.
I became a friend of Nixon's after his resignation. He was among the first to write to me while I was in Pentonville, a letter which not only cheered me up enor- mously, it also gave me cachet among the screws and cons. It is not every jailbird that gets letters from ex US presidents.
After my escape — actually I was let out early for impeccable behaviour — Nixon had me for dinner. Dining in his house in New Jersey was a lesson some of our nou- veaux riches ladies who lunch could use. He served wonderful wines, had the most courteous of servants, and spoke at length and so articulately on weighty subjects, he always left us spellbound.
The last time I spoke to Richard Nixon was after Pat Nixon's funeral. He rang me to thank me for something I'd written and we chatted away. If memory serves, he expressed yet again admiration for our own Paul Johnson. As far as I'm concerned, Watergate was a coup d'etat, with the coup de grace administered by two self-satisfied
hacks. History will not remember it, and the only mistakes Nixon made were those of the heart, trying to protect over-zealous flunkies.
If Nixon was a delight to dine with, Jimmy Carter was er, less so. During my one dinner with the peanut farmer, I was among television types, who drank only H20. So, I emptied all their wine glasses and, alas, got hog whimpering drunk.
Afterwards I collared Jimmy and demanded to know the following: if a crack dealer who dealt to children was permitted one vote, how many should someone who provided jobs, was law-abiding and did not live off the state have? Carter fled to the loo.
My two other presidential dinners were both disasters. President Pompidou of France had me to dine at the Elysee Palace with my first wife, but just as we sat down to an intimate dinner for 16, the footman behind me dropped a white fish sauce all over me, one that besmirched my magnifi- cent tailcoat and also made me stink of you- know-what for the rest of the evening.
The other was a regular occasion with the present Greek supremo, while in exile in Paris, Constantine Karamanlis. After dining we went to see War and Peace, the four-hour Russian version. Karamanlis is deaf and cannot read French. I had to translate reading the subtitles. People became very irate. During the battle of Austerlitz, we were finally thrown out.
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