Living History Unknown (best books to read fiction .txt) 📖

about issues such as minority rights, environmental damage and flawed election procedures and to criticize the government’s attempts to terminate and criminalize their work.

Of all the world leaders with whom I have met privately, only two have acted in ways that I found personally disturbing: Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, who giggled incessantly and inappropriately while his young wife carried on the conversation, and Meciar, whom I met later that afternoon at the Government Offices. A former boxer, he sat on one end of a small couch; I sat on the other. I told Meciar that I had been impressed with the NGOs at the Concert Hall, and the important work the groups were doing. He leaned toward me and, in a menacing tone, constantly clenching and unclenching his fists, ranted on about their duplicity and traitorous challenges to the state. By the end of our meeting, I was wedged tightly into the corner of the couch, appalled at his bullying attitude and barely controlled rage. The Slovak people voted him out of office in September 1998, with considerable help from the NGOs, which mobilized the electorate to vote in favor of change.

All of the countries I visited wanted to discuss their potential membership in NATO, and in Hungary I discussed its prospects in a private meeting with Prime Minister Gyula Horn. I favored NATO expansion so I tried to be encouraging. I also met with Hungary’s President Arpid Goncz, a heroic figure with the distinction of having been on the wrong side of both the Nazis and the Communists. A playwright like Havel, he was the first President elected by Hungarians as they made the transition to democracy. As Goncz welcomed me to the large house that served as a presidential residence, he confessed that he didn’t know what to do with all the rooms. “It is just my wife and me,” he said. “We only use one bedroom. Maybe we should invite lots of people to live here!” Goncz, white haired and humorous, looked like a fit St. Nicholas. His demeanor became serious when we discussed the Balkans, and he voiced the fear that Europe, and indeed the West, was in for a long struggle with ethnic conflict. In what turned out to be a prophetic comment, he warned about Islamic extremists and argued that the same expansionist impulses that had led the Ottoman Empire to the gates of Budapest in the sixteenth century were again thriving among Muslim fundamentalists, who rejected the secular pluralism of modern democracies and the freedom of others for religious belief and women’s choices.

People often wonder how much freedom I had to tour the cities I visited and whether I could go anywhere without my Secret Service escort. For the most part, I traveled in motorcades and was surrounded by agents. But in Budapest I had the rare treat of going to the famous Gundel’s Restaurant where I ate in the garden, lit by hanging lanterns, serenaded by a violinist. And then, on a gorgeous afternoon, I had a couple of hours free to see the old city on foot. Melanne, Lissa, Kelly and Roshann Parris, a top-notch advance woman from Kansas City, did their best to disguise themselves as tourists. My lead agent, Bob McDonough, the only agent to accompany me, did the same. I wore a straw hat, sunglasses and a casual shirt and slacks, and we took off down the city’s narrow streets, past shops, public baths and into the neo-Gothic cathedral. The only giveaway was that the host government insisted on “protecting” me while I was in their country, so two Hungarian security agents―wearing dark suits and thick-soled shoes and carrying weapons―

walked several steps ahead. We had been out for more than an hour before an American tourist yelled from across the street, “Hillary! Hi!” My cover blown, people started gawking, waving and yelling greetings. I shook hands and said hello and resumed walking for several more hours.

Later, we were greeted by a young American couple who asked if they could be photographed with me. The man was in the Army and stationed in Bosnia. He knew I had visited months before and was eager to tell me his experiences. “So far, so good,” he said in a classic American understatement. Meeting this earnest young man and his wife brought to mind President Goncz’s fears about a future filled with conflicts, and I wondered what lay ahead for them and all of us.

KITCHEN TABLE

I’m a pushover for big, stirring ceremonies, and the opening moments of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta on July 19 were as good as it gets. Bill declared the games open to a fanfare of horns and cymbals, followed by a soaring operatic chorale that enveloped the tens of thousands of athletes and spectators packed into Olympic Stadium. Muhammad Ali, shaking from Parkinson’s disease, steadied his right arm and held up a blazing torch to light the Olympic flame. It was an unforgettable moment for the world and for the ailing champ.

The celebrations turned to horror a week later when a pipe bomb detonated in Centennial Olympic Park, near the games, killing one woman and injuring 111 people. Bill condemned the bombing as “an evil act of terror.” I laid flowers in the park, near the site of the attack.

Within days of the bombing, the FBI named a part-time security guard, Richard Jewell, as the likely suspect. Jewell, who had first been called a hero for discovering the pipe bomb, struggled to defend him self against the full weight of the accusation. For months the media staked out his home and broadcast twentyfour-hour coverage. Finally, in late October, Jewell was exonerated, and the bombing was ultimately linked to Eric Rudolph, a fanatic anti-abortion activist believed to have escaped into the Appalachian wilderness, and never caught.

The Olympic bombing brought an unsettling end to a summer marked by tragic events, including the crash of Flight 800, a passenger jet that went down in the Atlantic after taking off