The Writer, the Lover and the Diplomat: Life with Carlos P. Romulo 9789712731433

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The Writer, the Lover and the Diplomat

Beth, with her cocker spaniel Champagne, in her house in Dasmariñas Village, Manila in 2000

The Writer, the Lover and the Diplomat Life with Carlos P. Romulo

Beth Day Romulo David F. Hyatt

The Writer, the Lover and the Diplomat Life with Carlos P. Romulo Copyright to this digital edition © 2015 by Beth Day Romulo, David Franklin Hyatt and Anvil Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owners. Published and exclusively distributed by ANVIL PUBLISHING, INC. 7th Floor Quad Alpha Centrum 125 Pioneer Street, Mandaluyong City 1550 Philippines Trunk Lines: (+632) 477-4752, 477-4755 to 57 Sales and Marketing: [email protected] Fax No.: (+632) 747-1622 www.anvilpublishing.com Book design by R. Jordan P. Santos (cover) and Joshene Bersales (interior) Photos from Liana Romulo’s personal collection

ISBN 9789712731433 (e-book)

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Contents Preface CHAPTER ONE

La Côte Basque, 1972 CHAPTER TWO

“Not the General!” CHAPTER THREE

Champion of Peace CHAPTER FOUR

A Foreign Affair CHAPTER FIVE

“Popsy” Puts It to a Vote CHAPTER SIX

In the Company of Men CHAPTER SEVEN

“I Didn’t Know You Had a Daughter” CHAPTER EIGHT

Life on Covington Road CHAPTER NINE

A Different Kind of College Prep CHAPTER TEN

Beyond Oklahoma CHAPTER ELEVEN

A Writer’s Life CHAPTER TWELVE

Hollywood Days CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Give Me My Typewriter and Let Me Go!” CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Love on the High Seas CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“You Still Have Life In Your Face” CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The General’s New “Girlfriend” CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Diplomatic Life CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“You Can’t Kill a Weed” CHAPTER NINETEEN

The “Secret” Marriage CHAPTER TWENTY

The Writer, the Lover and the Diplomat CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Blonde “Cockers” CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“She’s My American Grandmother” CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Your Life Report CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Corregidor CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“Hey Wait, I’m Not Yet Through!”

Preface Two years ago I looked at a pile of autobiographical notes that I had been making, almost daily, for the past few years, and felt that “there was a book there somewhere” but also felt that I lacked the energy to sort it all out and put it together. As it happened, at that time an American writer, David Hyatt, came to interview me about material on Carlos P. Romulo which he needed for a project he was working on. When he asked me about my next book, and I confessed that I didn’t know whether I could do another one, he offered to help, so I happily shipped off my piles of notes to his office in Virginia. And now, with a completed manuscript in hand, we have a book. And Anvil Publishing, the publishing arm of National Book Store here in the Philippines, has published it. I wish to thank Anvil Publishing, especially Jo Pantorillo, whom I dealt with for the contract. I am also grateful to Dulce Baybay, who I met years ago when she was researching articles for Reader’s Digest, and who helped me organize my personal files; Liana Romulo, the Romulo family archivist, who has provided photographs; and, last but not the least, my friends and family, who have enthusiastically encouraged me along the way. Recently I picked up a couple of chapters at random and read them, and found myself laughing out loud. I hope that you, too, find things to laugh about in this memoir. Beth Day Romulo “The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds.” — The Dalai Lama

La Côte Basque, 1972 CHAPTER ONE

I was nervous as I approached the revolving door to La Côte Basque, one of New York’s finest restaurants. It wasn’t the restaurant that made me nervous or the fact that I was alone or that the dinner event was in honor of George and Barbara Bush. I was nervous because I would soon be seeing an old friend whom I had lost touch with over the past twelve years: Carlos P. Romulo, war hero and peace champion and co-founder of the United Nations. It was the fall of 1972 and Romulo, who was back in town for the U.N. General Assembly, was hosting the dinner for George H.W. Bush, the American Ambassador to the U.N. who would later become U.S. president. I had been given an assignment to interview Romulo by the longtime editor at Reader’s Digest, Charley Ferguson. “Your old friend Romulo is in town and I’m sure he has another story. Go talk to him.” When I called, Romulo invited me to his dinner for Bush. “Come to La Côte Basque. We can talk afterward,” he said. I first met Carlos P. Romulo in 1957 when I was given an assignment by Reader’s Digest to write an article about his eldest son, Carlos, Jr., who had died recently in a plane crash. Romulo had already distinguished himself as a military leader, statesman, diplomat, journalist, and author. His list of accomplishments read like a Who’s Who in international affairs. He first came on the international scene during World War II when he rose to the rank of General in both the U.S. Army and Philippine Army. He was a trusted adviser to General Douglas MacArthur and served alongside him in the successful military campaign to end the Japanese occupation of the Philippines for which he earned a Purple Heart and permanent status as a true war hero.

As for me, I was a country girl from Indiana loving the idea of being “a New York writer.” I wrote books and magazine articles and never missed a deadline. In journalism, this is no small matter. Editors trusted me to get the job done on time. My reputation for reliability led to better and better assignments. My editors at Reader’s Digest told me to try to get an interview with General Romulo when he returned to New York for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. I wrote a note to the Philippine Embassy in Washington requesting an interview, with no expectation of a quick response. The General was serving both as head of the Philippine delegation at the U.N. and Philippine Ambassador to the U.S. The next thing I know the General himself is on the phone agreeing to talk to me and letting me know when he would next be in New York. (I later learned the General treated a reporter’s interview request as a priority in his busy life.) He told me to meet him for breakfast at 8 a.m. at the WaldorfAstoria Hotel, where he always stayed during his New York visits. On the morning of the interview, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t late, so I left my home in Chappaqua at 5:30. Romulo was the first diplomat I ever interviewed. He gave me his story in a fast forty-five minutes. My eggs got cold as I took notes feverishly, not wanting to miss any part of the story. The article practically wrote itself. “This was the easiest interview I ever had,” I later told my editors at the Digest. The article was published under the title “A Bridge of Helping Hands.” It was straightforward but emotional at the same time, and it won the high readership award for that month. I knew why it was so appealing. Romulo, who was first and foremost a journalist, knew exactly what I needed for a good story. He had worked as a reporter at the age of sixteen, and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1942 for a series of articles that focused on Japanese intentions leading up to the war. Despite moving on to a number of other careers, he never lost the ability to think like a reporter. When I first met the General, my husband was still alive and so was Romulo’s wife. I remember thinking at the time, “Gee, this is someone I would like as a friend.” So I was pleased when he made sure that we stayed in touch. The General believed in corresponding so we would write each other regularly. He liked

the fact that I was a writer. It gave us something in common, something tangible to build a friendship on.

Early in our relationship, he would read my books and I would read his and then we would exchange views on what each had written. But there was no initial romantic spark that I can remember. He once invited me to lunch at the Waldorf so I could meet his wife, Virginia. Romulo retired as ambassador in 1960 and returned to Manila, where he became president of his alma mater, the University of the Philippines. I lost track of him after that, except for an occasional Christmas card. I learned from news reports that he had become the foreign minister in the government of President Ferdinand Marcos in 1968. I later read that General Romulo had survived a near-fatal car accident in Manila in early 1972 but he still managed to return to New York for the U.N. session in the fall. And that’s how we both came to be at La Côte Basque on the evening of October 17, 1972. I paused outside the entrance, and considered why I was feeling so nervous. I decided it was the kind of nervous excitement one gets when meeting an old friend after a very long time. I wondered how life had changed him. Taking a deep breath, I entered and was immediately surprised to be greeted not by the General’s wife—which would have been proper protocol—but by his daughter-in-law, Mariles, who was acting as the hostess for the evening. When the General saw me, he rushed over and, ever the diplomat, made an effort to make me feel welcome. “You have matured and mellowed,” he said. “Really? What was I like before?” I asked, curious about his impression of me then. “You were attractive then, too, but—different. You hadn’t matured yet.” We spoke for only a minute before he returned to his duties as host for the evening. The dinner went well. I enjoyed the Bushes; they were easy, friendly people and were obviously good friends of the General. And I enjoyed the elegance of La Côte Basque, which the New York Times described as a “highsociety temple of French cuisine at 60 West 55th Street.” I didn’t consider myself “high society” but I liked the food and the restaurant’s atmosphere, with its murals of the French seaside and its tables covered with fine white linens and flowers of reds and yellows and blues. Frank Sinatra and Jackie Kennedy and many others considered La Côte Basque their favorite restaurant in New York. Later that night, I learned some important news from Romulo’s grandson, Mike: The General’s wife had died of leukemia four years earlier. In a twist of fate, Romulo and I were now both single. My husband, Harry, had died five years before. After the dinner, I sat down with the General for a one-on-one interview. The conversation flowed freely. So did the laughter. The General was openly warm and friendly and at his most charming. The years fell away. At one point, I found myself thinking, “What an enchanting evening!” But I also thought, “This is the stuff of movies. Kid stuff. Not the kind of thing that happens to older adults who are all too familiar with life’s hardships and heartaches.” I eventually pushed those thoughts aside and decided to just enjoy the moment. When the evening was over, I thought I would return to my writing life. But the General had other ideas and I soon found myself in the middle of an international romance full of intrigue and closely-held secrets and spies around every corner. Years later the General would tell his friends exactly when he decided he wanted to marry me. “When I saw her walk through the revolving door at La Côte Basque, the night of my dinner for George Bush.”

“Not the General!” CHAPTER TWO

He paused one last time before sending the secret cable. He knew what he was about to report to the president would upset him. He knew it would cause a stir. An international scandal. If he had not witnessed it with his own eyes, he too would find it hard to believe. So he reread what he had written. He studied every word and concluded there was really only one way to say it: brief and to the point. So off the cable went to the president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos. “Not the General!” Marcos read the cable in disbelief. One of his spies in New York had just reported that his foreign minister was romancing an American woman, a writer, a journalist. “This can’t be,” Marcos said. “Any other member of my Cabinet I could believe. They’re in the their forties and fifties but the General is seventy-four.” Marcos always addressed Romulo as the “General,” the title of his choice, a title of profound respect. The year was 1972 and the oldest member of the Marcos government was indeed “caught” in an international romance—with me. Not long after that night at La Côte Basque, General Romulo asked me out to dinner. Just the two of us. It came out that I had lost my husband in 1967 and he had lost his wife in 1968. At the end of the evening, he asked me out again. And then again. And again. Romulo did nothing to hide his interest in me. We dated openly. I had not given any thought to whether our movements were being monitored. I was more interested in our movements on the dance floor. To my surprise, I learned that Romulo was a good dancer—and I loved to dance. “How did you learn to dance so well?” I asked. “Don’t tell anyone but I went to Arthur Murray,” he said. Romulo took me to some of his favorite restaurants in New York, including the Sign of the Dove. Unfortunately for us, the Sign of the Dove had become a popular high-end restaurant and the talk of the town. I didn’t think about it then but its popularity almost guaranteed that my relationship with the General was about to get more complicated. The Sign of the Dove was located on the Upper East Side and was owned by a curious man by the name of Dr. Joe Santo. Joe was a non-practicing dentist from Massachusetts who had taken all his money and invested it in New York restaurants, including Arizona 206, Yellowfingers, and Contrapunto. It was a high-risk move that at first looked foolhardy. Early on, the Sign of the Dove was described as “the restaurant New Yorkers love to hate.” The food just wasn’t good. So Joe went back into the kitchen himself and worked with his chefs to develop the kind of food he wanted to serve to the public. And Joe knew what he wanted; he had a great sense of taste. He also knew how to turn bad publicity into good publicity. Once the food suited his tastes, he reintroduced his restaurant to New Yorkers. Eventually, the New York Times upgraded the Sign of the Dove from zero to three stars, reporting, “elitist ‘foodies’ find themselves competing for tables with glamorous jet-setters, U.N. diplomats, and nouveau riche suburbanites.” A headline in the Chicago Tribune read, “It’s Been A Long, Hard Climb, But Joe Santo’s At The Top Of The Heap Among New York Restaurateurs.” At that point, Joe’s restaurants were bringing in $10 million a year. Not long after that first night at the Sign of the Dove, the General got word of the spy’s report to Marcos. It was clear that going out to dinner with the General would not be quite as simple and straightforward as I thought. I felt like our bubble had been burst, but the international tug and pull had just begun. It was a new dance that I was going to have to learn.

Champion of Peace CHAPTER THREE

I soon discovered the General was a much sought-after widower. I was not surprised. There was a lot to like. Romulo was a dapper and fastidious man and despite his small stature (he was 5’4”), he managed to dominate a room when he entered through a combination of self-assurance and great charm. He considered good grooming an adjunct to diplomatic life and took it very seriously. “A person who is well dressed is at ease and sure of himself,” he maintained. His clothes were all custom tailored. He would spend twenty minutes selecting a tie. Shoes must be shined before each wearing. This, plus his strong and winning personality, made him seem much younger than his seventy-four years. I was forty-eight but as I spent more time with him, I quite forgot about the differences in our age. One day he invited me to a luncheon sponsored by the Philippine-American Chamber of Commerce in New York, where he was to be the keynote speaker. When he was introduced, he received a standing ovation. He was yet to say a word and yet everyone already was standing and applauding. And the enthusiasm was real. He was obviously the crowd favorite. Every seat was sold out. I don’t know if anyone ever gets accustomed to a standing ovation. I do know that if you get a standing ovation before you even start your speech, you must feel more pressure to deliver, to impress, to excite the audience. How embarrassing if you’re introduced to a standing ovation and then receive only polite applause at the end, with everyone seated staring at you with that why-aren’t-you-off-the-stage look. But Romulo delivered. He paused for dramatic effect at the right times. He peppered his speech with humor. He lifted the audience with the right cadence and volume and rhythm. And when he finished, the audience rose quickly to its enthusiastic feet and Romulo walked down the platform to sustained applause. I was surprised and pleased to learn that despite his military background, Romulo was also famous as a speaker. He loved words. Here’s how he once put it: “Language has always seemed to me the most marvelous gift. Speech has been my treasure chest, and everything I have achieved in my life has been won by words.” After World War II, Romulo used his oratory skills as a champion of peace. He was elected the first Asian president of the U.N. General Assembly. He served multiple tours as the Philippine Ambassador to Washington, and was later honored in the Philippines as “the greatest diplomat of the twentieth century.” He worked closely with every U.S. president from Franklin Roosevelt on, and was among the rare recipients of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contributions to world peace, which also earned him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination and a United Nations Peace Medal. During the limo drive back to my apartment, he asked me what I thought of his speech. “You’re a great performer,” I said. “There are many orators but few good ones. You know how to work an audience. I’d put you up against Bob Hope any day.” Actually he reminded me more of Jack Benny, one of America’s top performers. Like Jack Benny, the General was so sure of himself he could use long pauses to build up a punch line. His speeches were serious in content, but he used anecdotes and jokes to keep the audience interested. Then, when they were laughing, he slipped them some important thought. (Wasn’t it Mark Twain who said you can tell people anything if you make them laugh?) The audiences loved him. In the early forties, he had crisscrossed the United States, speaking in 466 cities and towns to rally American support against the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. He was described by the New Yorker as “the hottest thing to hit the American lecture platforms.” After the Chamber luncheon, we started seeing each other more often. Romulo made it clear that his

intentions were serious. The only thing standing in our way was President Marcos who was still stewing over his top diplomat’s romance with “the American.” Our relationship was not public knowledge but to Marcos it was an international scandal waiting to happen. He saw it as a potential threat to his government’s ability to negotiate a new military base agreement with the U.S. He was adamantly opposed to it and he wanted it to end. Avoiding a showdown with President Marcos was not an option. In this test of wills, I wasn’t sure how the General would be able to withstand the direct and determined pressure from Marcos. But I was soon to find out.

A Foreign Affair CHAPTER FOUR

“You have to come to Manila,” Romulo said. “It’s the only way. The president will like you. He’ll get more comfortable with the fact that you and I are a couple. It’s our best chance to change his mind.” Our relationship was still a closely-held secret in the Presidential Palace in Manila. The General had introduced me to some of his American friends in New York. (They liked to call him “Rommy.” He liked to joke that I was his “foreign affair.”) But that was about it. There had been no media reports, no media attention. So our romantic relationship had not become an international issue in the Philippines. To give me some cover on my first trip there, he suggested I take on an assignment as a reporter and write a story about why Marcos had declared martial law. No one from the Western media had yet interviewed the Philippine president on this subject. But I was not quite ready. It wasn’t until January of 1973 that I flew to Manila for a three-week assignment that included separate interviews with the President and Mrs. Marcos. My interview with President Marcos was a cover story for Saturday Review World. The Ladies Home Journal wanted me to get a first-hand account of the recent attack on Imelda. In December of 1972 Imelda had been handing out plaques at an outdoor awards ceremony when one of the award recipients suddenly lunged at her with a bolo—the long, carved knife, which looks like a machete, and used by farmers to cut sugarcane. Imelda had crossed her arms to protect her heart and neck, thus saving her life. Security guards eventually killed her attacker. The entire bloody scene was captured on live television. Her arms still bore deep scars when I saw her. Since then, she has been haunted by the prospect of assassination. During my first visit to the Philippines, I made a quick tour of the islands and spent every lunch and evening with the General. One afternoon he took me to the beautiful San Agustin Church, located within the ancient Walled City (Intramuros). Built in 1589, it’s the oldest stone church in the Philippines and is nicknamed the Wedding Capital. It was here that Rommy asked me to stay in the Philippines and marry him. (He later told me it was the same spot where his father proposed to his mother.) He explained that, as foreign minister, he would need the permission of the president. “And if the president doesn’t approve?” I asked him. “Then I will resign,” he answered firmly. Marcos was so disturbed by the news that he closed himself in his office and took no calls. He was lost in deep thought for some time before sitting down at his desk and composing a long, handwritten letter to the General. He pointed out why this was the worst time to propose such a union. He reminded his minister of foreign affairs that the U.S. military bases in the Philippines were up for renegotiation. This was a critical juncture for the Philippines and for Philippine-U.S. relations. It would not be appropriate for the Philippine foreign minister suddenly to take an American wife. “Any concessions you make to the other side our people will blame you and say it is because of her influence,” he warned. Marcos compared the General’s situation to that of King Edward VIII of Britain who abdicated the throne in 1936, so he could marry the American socialite and divorcée Wallis Simpson. But the General did not back down. We were at an impasse. The General would not give me up and the President would not give up the General. If ever a situation called for a compromise, this one did. Since I was the “free agent,” I suggested that I return to New York, get a contract to write a book on the Philippines, and then come back. I would live in a hotel and pursue my writing profession, but I would be close to the General and serve as his

constant companion, hostess, and eventually—when history permitted—as his wife. Marcos didn’t like it but he agreed. Who knows? He may have thought the General would “come to his senses” eventually and the whole matter would go away. I suspect this was what he was hoping for. In the meantime, Rommy and I were resigned to keeping our marriage plans secret. We had to be patient. Now that we had worked out suitable terms with the Philippine president, the General said the next step was to consult with his family and seek their support.

“Popsy” Puts It to a Vote CHAPTER FIVE

The Romulo family lived in a sprawling compound in Manila that reminded me of the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port. The General’s three sons, their wives and his eldest son’s widow, plus ten grandchildren, either lived there or nearby. When you add the staff of housekeepers, gardeners, cooks, guards, caretaker, and drivers you end up with a very lively compound. In addition to the main house, there was a series of apartments, all of which were surrounded by walls. Before I left Manila to return to New York, the General called for a plebiscite among his ten grandchildren to determine whether I should come back and live with them. At first, I thought it a perfectly charming idea. I figured the General’s force of character would win the day. But what if it didn’t’? What if “Popsy”—as the grandchildren liked to call him—had less control over his young troops at home than he did on the battlefield? What if I was voted out before I was ever really in? It was one thing to appeal to the president of a country. It was quite another to put your fate in the hands of children. Children have an honesty about them that’s so appealing—unless you’re the one to bear the brunt of their honesty. Still, it was supposed to be all in fun, although the more I thought about it, the less sure I was. After all, I had not had that much time to get to know the family or for them to get to know me. I wasn’t sure how much time the General had put into influencing the outcome either. I also was not that accustomed to being the center of attention. At heart, I was a shy country girl from the American Midwest. But the General believed in democracy at all levels. Who was I to object? And I certainly appreciated his innovative way to introduce me to the family. Besides, it would be good to know what they really thought of me. So Popsy put the question to the grandchildren and, in the end, they all voted yes, except for ten-yearold Rowena. “Why?” he asked her. “Because you are going to marry her anyway, so there is no reason to vote,” she answered. I smiled. Her logic was unassailable. After the vote, seven-year-old Anton handed his grandfather a note. Here’s what Anton wrote: “There are three things wrong with Beth Day: 1) She’s too young to be my grandmother; 2) She’s taller than Popsy; and 3) She don’t even know me yet.” Despite these thoughtful observations, he still voted yes to the question of whether I should come live with them. As I left Manila, I was feeling good about my first trip to the Philippines. Lots of good things had happened in a short period of time. We had negotiated an agreement with President Marcos and I was returning to New York with the support of the Romulo family, although I obviously had some work to do to win over Anton and Rowena completely. While I was in New York, preparing to return to the Philippines, the General stayed in constant contact. As usual, he had to travel quite a bit. Wherever he went, he said he made it clear to his hosts that he missed me. At a dinner in Hong Kong, his host set a place to the General’s right that remained empty throughout the meal. When it came time to offer a toast, the host offered one to “the lady whom you wish were here tonight.” In Pattaya, Thailand, a beach resort where official conferences are sometimes held, the General ordered a special telephone line installed just so he could make his daily call to me in New York. At a meeting of the U.N. Security Council in Manila, the General failed to hear a question directed at him. “His mind is in New York,” Marcos teased.

“No, sir,” the General corrected him. “My heart is in New York. But my mind is here.” I wrote him regularly. Once when he was complaining to me on the phone that he was lonely, I remarked with uncharacteristic coyness, “My letters kiss you for me.” There was a moment’s silence. Then he said drily, “Well, they aren’t that good!”

In the Company of Men CHAPTER SIX

While I was back in New York, I had time to think things over. Here I was, a middle-aged woman who didn’t think she would ever find love again, preparing to move halfway round the world. Here I was, a successful New York writer, who had no qualms about pulling up stakes, leaving behind all that I had worked for and embracing a new country and a new culture. Here I was, a country girl from Indiana, ready to embark on the adventure of her life in the Far East. I felt a sense of exhilaration and anticipation. I looked forward to the prospect of living and working at the intersection of journalism and diplomacy. As I made preparations for a permanent move to Manila, I thought back to my childhood and what in my background had prepared me for this. It all started with my father, Ralph Feagles. He was the biggest influence in my life, the one who instilled in me a keen sense of adventure, the one who (no matter what) always had time for me. Even when he was repairing something, I was the one who held the flashlight trained on his work because, as he put it, I was so “steady.” I enjoyed doing adventurous things with my father. He set up a shooting range at the back of our barn where he would sometimes take my brother, Bob, and me out for target practice with a revolver, where my “steadiness” paid off. I didn’t find it difficult to hold the prescribed stance long enough to fire off a clean shot. Later, in high school, I joined the Rifle Club. When I was thirteen, after we had moved to Oklahoma City, my father used to take me hunting. My dad had permission from a local farmer who owned a huge tract of land with open fields about five miles from our home in Oklahoma City. We were allowed to hunt wild jackrabbits, not the warm and fuzzy Easter-bunny types but the ones that farmers consider a nuisance, the kind that can jump high in the air and make for challenging targets. I can still remember the first time we went hunting. The fields around the farm were silent as I zeroed in on the jackrabbit. I held the 410 shotgun steady and squeezed the trigger gently. Suddenly, the shotgun blast shattered the serenity. My target frantically zigged and zagged before disappearing in the distance. I had missed. And I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn’t too keen on killing things, although I did manage to shoot an occasional wild rabbit. What I enjoyed most was walking the fields with my dad. I didn’t even care much whether we found game because I already had what I wanted: his company. As far back as I can remember, even when we lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where I was born, I was always more attached to my father than my mother, despite the fact that he traveled a great deal and was only home a few days at a time. When my father would come back to Fort Wayne from his trips (he kept an office at an engineering equipment company in Indianapolis but never moved the family there), I would follow him to the master bedroom to watch him unpack his bag. He would usually bring some sort of gift—it might only be a package of gum, but it made me happy because it meant he thought about me while he was gone. I remember one wall of my dad’s study at our house in Fort Wayne was covered with moose and elk heads, and a black bear rug on the floor. At first I was frightened by the rug’s head—a snarling, openmouthed face, ready for attack. Even the tongue had been carefully preserved in a coating of wax. But I got used to it. I liked seeing my dad in his study, with its serviceable roll-top desk and a standing safe, because it meant he was home. I have always found it easier to talk to men than women and I have always felt comfortable around men and I have always had easy, pleasant relationships with men. I’m sure this is because my relationship with my father was so strong and positive. It colored my attitude toward men. I spent so much more time with my dad and my brother (who was four years older than me) than I did my mother or grandmother. My dad’s world was target practice and hunting (both of which I enjoyed) and chores around the house (which I also enjoyed). In contrast, I felt bored and out of place when I tagged along with my mother on her forays to teas, receptions, and speeches at the “Women’s Club.” I was not interested in discussions of fashion, gossip, or even recipes. So I never felt like I had anything to contribute. I liked to talk about natural things, animals and places, and as I grew older, I became increasingly interested in current events, foreign policy, and international politics. Back then, these were not the kind of subjects that interested the women in my mother’s circle. My mother’s world was tea parties and women’s clubs. I didn’t get around to having close women friends until I was in my fifties. It was then that I came to value the very special relationships with interesting women.

My mother, Mary Anna, was the younger daughter of the third wife of a well-to-do farmer in West Virginia. When he died, his widow moved the family to Indiana to live near her brother. I don’t know whether my mother ever finished high school but I don’t think she did. I do know she never went to college since this was a sore point between her and me. She regarded me as a “know-it-all college girl.” She felt insecure about her own lack of formal education and background—she had worked as a saleswoman in a department store before she married. She tried to cover it up by acting grand. But she was unjustifiably pretentious. She was a frustrated actress who could sound so affected when she spoke. Imagine a woman from West Virginia trying to sound British. One of her more annoying comments still rings in my ear, “Betsy dear, would you fetch my glawses?”

“I Didn’t Know You Had a Daughter” CHAPTER SEVEN

I still remember the time I was visiting home and my mother introduced me to some of her friends. “Why Mary, I didn’t know you had a daughter!” one of her friends said. I was dumbstruck. I was in my thirties and had published five books and yet my mother had not so much as mentioned the fact that she had a daughter. Wouldn’t you think a mother would be thrilled with her daughter’s accomplishments, at least enough to mention them to her friends? Or better yet, at least mention she had a daughter? But she didn’t. How could anyone be that self-centered? To this day, I wonder about her attitude toward me. Did she have such a competitive streak in her that she didn’t want her daughter to go too far in life? Or was she just so self-centered that she wanted nothing to distract from her? I always left my mother’s company feeling exhausted. I never understood why until I came across Dr. Shafica Karagulla’s book Breakthrough to Creativity in which she introduces the term “energy sapper.” I was interested in what Dr. Karagulla had to say because she had a reputation as a visionary who saw the world as it is, as opposed to the way people pretended it to be. Here’s how she describes the effect of an energy sapper, also known as a “psychological parasite”: A person in a sapper’s company feels unaccountably exhausted and irritable and just wants to escape. But then when you escape, you feel guilty and you return—only to feel exhausted and drained again and you have to get away again. This was the pattern of my relation to my mother. I could never understand why I felt so exhausted after a few hours with her. I would become snappish. Then, if possible, I would run away, and eventually feel remorseful and return. “As soon as the victim of the sapper has escaped and starts to feel better,” writes Dr. Karagulla, “she looks on her recent behavior as rather unreasonable, blames herself for being irritable with no apparent cause. A kind of self-imposed penance causes her to go back again, determined to be cordial. Then, she is drained again, irritable again and guilty again …” The energy is pulled from the weakest area of your body. In my case, it must have been my stomach. I always suffered indigestion around my mother. I don’t want to suggest that my mother was all bad. She wasn’t. To her credit, she made sure my brother, Bob, and I had a chance to see live theater when any Broadway company was on a road tour that included Fort Wayne. She wangled a part-time job in Fort Wayne where she did advance publicity for traveling shows, in exchange for free tickets. She also did “play readings” for ladies’ groups, in which she read all the parts—in the elocution style she had learned as a girl. I’m sure this contributed to her penchant for speaking in an affected manner. She even appeared two or three times on stage in local theater productions until my father’s disapproval put an end to it. I was disappointed in his reaction, although I suppose it would have been a common one among husbands of that era—acute discomfort to see their wives parading around on stage. So my mother was destined to be a frustrated actress without much recourse. But I liked to see her up on stage. I liked to see her in nice costumes. I liked the way she was well made up, looking prettier than she did in daily life. The first time I saw her on stage (I must have been seven or eight) I delighted the local audience by shrieking, “That’s my mom!” Throughout much of her life my mother remained devoted to the arts, especially the Fort Wayne Ballet, and her work earned her a touch of immortality. Unfortunately, it came a year after she died. In 1973, the Performing Arts Center of Fort Wayne invited me to attend a special performance of Giselle which was dedicated in the memory of my mother. I was handed a brass marker with my mother’s name on it and asked to choose the theater seat where the marker would be placed in perpetuity. I was touched by the dedication and the statement issued by the Ballet Theater: “The April 28 performance of Giselle will be dedicated to the memory of Mary Anna Feagles, the first president of the Ballet Angels. Mrs. Feagles helped launch the Ballet Academy and was instrumental in making the Fine Arts Foundation a reality. She was one of the first actresses of the Civic Theater. She founded the annual tour bus to Stratford, Ontario, for the Shakespeare Festival, and she served as the

first president of the Ballet Angels and contributed her talents until she was eighty.” Many friends of my late mother were in attendance. And given the wide publicity surrounding the event I was fairly certain they all knew I was my mother’s daughter. At least none of them acted surprised when they were introduced to me. I spent the first fifteen years of my life in Fort Wayne. It’s where I started high school (Elmhurst), and was co-editor of the school newspaper. My return attracted quite a bit of local press attention. I still have the yellowed copy of an old newspaper article, with a headline I found especially amusing: “Beth Day Refreshingly Alive.” The lead paragraph was quite flattering: “Beth Day is many things. Successful author of many books and articles; world traveler; intelligent conversationalist; a restless, hardworking Gemini; and a devotee of pretty, ultra-feminine clothes. But most of all, and perhaps best of all, Beth Day is ALIVE to everything about her.” Yes, the newspaper put the word “alive” in all caps. After that, I felt obliged to act more alive than usual so as not to disappoint. At that time, my latest book was stirring up a bee’s nest of controversy, mainly because of the title which the publisher insisted upon and which I never really liked. Here’s how the reporter put it: “Her latest book, Sexual Life Between Blacks and Whites, she admits has prompted both hostility and praise among the races. Describing the work as a kind of ‘pop sociology,’ supervised throughout the three years she worked on it by anthropologist Margaret Mead, Mrs. Day said the title can be misleading.” And then the reporter let me explain in my own words. “Actually, it’s a very serious book; I was trying to explain why we have the racial dilemma we have today in this country and of its origin in slavery. It’s a book written for the first time by a woman from this viewpoint, and I’ve had some educated black women say it’s the first time ever they’ve seen an honest book on the subject.” My return to Fort Wayne reminded me that it was my mother who gave me a love for theater. And even though my father had the greatest influence on me, I actually shared more of my mother’s values. She had more feeling for the poor and dispossessed than Dad did. (She worked with the Red Cross for years, in disaster relief.) My father was a committed Republican and my mother was a secret Democrat. She hid the fact that she voted for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I later became a democrat with a little “d.” My mother used to complain about how I was so stubborn, making it sound akin to blasphemy. When I annoyed her most, she would call me Clevo, her cousin of whom she never approved. Clevo Brisco Grey was a famous photographer in Fort Wayne. She was beautiful and free spirited. I always liked Clevo. She just did what she felt like doing. But my mother and her free-living cousin had sparred in their youth and never really got along. Now that I was in a relationship with General Romulo, with “secret” plans to marry at a yet-to-be-determined date, I thought about Clevo and remembered that she too had married a man from the Philippines. And as far as I remember she lived a happy life. How my father and mother ever got together baffled me. They first met while living in the same boarding house. They were young and single and both were working at the time. But it seemed like an incongruous match to me—the pretentious “Southern lady” and the plain-spoken farm boy from Kansas who had worked his way through engineering school and joined the white collar class. They had totally different interests. His idea of a holiday was to go big game hunting in Canada with his men friends. She loved tea parties, recitals and theater, and did volunteer social work with the Red Cross in her spare time. To my knowledge, they never took vacations together. I remember she told me once that her lady friends believed he indulged himself at her expense, spending “all that money” going to Canada to shoot moose and bear and elk. My parents were hardly babies when they married. When I was born seven years after their marriage, my mother was thirty-seven and my father was forty-six. There was nothing visibly amorous or sexy about them as a couple. She was a tall woman with brown eyes, a rather shapeless body, thin legs and straight black hair, which she wore in a bun. She had thin lips too. I can still remember sitting on her lap as a youngster and trying to pinch her lips into a softer target for me to kiss. My father, at about five feet nine, was a couple of inches taller than my mother. He was solidly built, balding, with square, capable hands and a surprisingly pretty, sculptured mouth. When I was in the fourth grade, an older and more experienced girl was regaling some of us younger ones about how men and women made love and the

different positions they took. I remember saying firmly, “Not my parents!” My mother never provided any information about sex or even menstruation. Like so many other girls, my first period caught me by complete surprise and, of course, it had to occur at a most inopportune time. I was in the middle of class in the sixth grade and I didn’t know what was happening and I was frightened. The female teacher bundled me out of the room. So I got my information about life and love through heresay, gossip, and books. And of course the natural world. I remember one day driving by a field and yelling to my father to stop the car. It was the first time I saw a stallion with an erection. I had no idea what that was. I turned to my father and said, “The poor horse is standing on a stick!” I later saw dogs copulating, and found the sight of the male dog, with its two paws on the back of the female, a subject for laughter, which is often the case with kids who live in the country. The worst thing I witnessed was a mother cat giving birth to a litter of kittens and then eating the one that died. I found that hard to reconcile with my image of pets as warm and friendly and affectionate. I still prefer dogs.

Life on Covington Road CHAPTER EIGHT

I was too young to remember the house in town and I never discovered why my parents chose a house in the country, the house on Covington Road. It wasn’t a farm but it had an orchard and a place for Grandma’s coveted vegetable garden, and a lawn big enough for a croquet set. There was also a barn with stalls in it, and they parked the car down there. There weren’t a lot of other children around. One day some wealthy friends of my parents stopped by. They said they had a riding horse that was being retired for a younger model and they thought maybe we would be interested in her. My mother said yes. It was the very best thing my mother ever did for me. Her name was Beauty. I know, it’s not the most original name but it did suit her looks and personality. She was a five-gated mare, sweet and even-tempered and she loved human attention. Whenever I was at outs with my mother, I would go down to the barn and into the stable with Beauty and she would nuzzle me affectionately, making up for the wounds inflicted by the outside world. I can still feel her soft velvety muzzle. I wish all little girls had a Beauty to go to when things get tough in the house. Beauty was my best friend. I spent most of my time with her. I curried her, fed her, saddled her, and rode her. I was not prepared for the night that she got loose and ran into the highway and was hit by a car. A neighbor came up to the house and got my father’s revolver which he always kept loaded in the bedroom. “Beauty’s leg is broken. We have to put her out of her misery,” the neighbor said. The worst thing that had ever happened to me up to that time was hearing the sound of that fatal shot. It was my first experience with a major tragedy. Nobody gave us another horse and we couldn’t afford to buy one. I’m not even sure I wanted a strange horse in Beauty’s old stall anyway. My friends today find it hard to believe that I was a loner as a child, that I was shy and that I was teased and bullied because I was fat. But that’s the way it was. Writing—and later journalism—were ways for me to get out of my loneliness. Books were really my life. That’s often true for shy people. I was always sitting in a corner reading a book or sitting under a tree reading a book. As to what I read, it was absolutely indiscriminate. My parents had their own library and then they inherited books, boxes of books, so many books they never looked to see what they were. So I would read a little bit of everything. Many of my memories of Fort Wayne center around books. There were books in most every house I visited. I was told later that Indiana has a reputation as a literate state and that was certainly my experience when I lived there. I’ve always had a strong love for adventure, at least as far back as I can remember. Most likely this developed after we moved to the country. But not all adventures are good ones. My mother tried to convince me that starting elementary school would be a wonderful adventure. But I was miserable. I started elementary school after we moved to the country house on Covington Road. There was a grade school about half a mile up the road, and the school bus conveniently stopped right by our gate. My mother took me to school the first day and I clung to her and cried when she left. I liked to tag along after my older brother which he allowed when we were alone but vehemently discouraged if he had friends with him. I was not the kind of girl who was popular with other girls. I had two friends, who were the result of inter-family connections. Helen, whose parents were separated, lived in town with her mother. And there was Barbara, whose own mother had committed suicide and who was being raised by a taciturn father and a businesslike stepmother. Since Helen lived in town and Barbara in another school district, our visits were arranged by our parents. It wasn’t an easy, everyday relationship, but it didn’t bother me much. I had Beauty and my brother and my books. Aside from my mother, the other major feminine influence in my young life was my no-nonsense grandmother from my father’s side. She couldn’t have been more different than my mother. She had been brought from her Kansas farm to live with us after my parents decided she was too old to live alone. She was small, sturdy, and plain spoken. And she was a hard worker. She used to say things like, “You can’t get a good night’s sleep unless you put in a good day’s work,” and, “If the horse fails, hook

yourself to the plow.” She believed you could tell the character of a woman by the wash on her clothesline. When I was a fat little kid and subject to teasing by my thinner classmates, Grandma taught me that age-old rhyme: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Which is about as far from reality as one can get. Grandma soon made her presence felt by digging a garden, putting up a sturdy clothesline between two elm trees, and building a “hen house.” My mother was horrified at the hen house but I loved the farmfresh eggs and the fried chicken. I wasn’t crazy about the laying hens that pecked me, or the sight of Grandma swinging her ax to chop off the head of a “fryer.” One time my mother traveled alone (I can’t remember why) and my dad and I had the house to ourselves, along with my grandmother. When we ate, he put out newspapers instead of a tablecloth on the table and we took turns washing dishes, while grandma did the cooking. It was simple and it suited me fine. My mother knew better than to complain too much about Grandma because she provided, in spades, a built-in babysitter. Both my brother and I liked our grandmother and didn’t mind the evenings when we were left alone with her, freeing my mother to attend concerts and parties. We even liked her cooking— although it tended to all be fried—chicken, beef, venison or whatever, it all got the same treatment. In the mornings, there were pancakes, or fried mush, which sounds ghastly but tasted good with maple syrup. Grandma’s maiden name was Hannah Jane Emerson. When I was in high school studying—among other things—American writers, I came across the American poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. I asked Grandma if he, by chance, was a relative. “Yes,” she said. “He was my father’s cousin.” I was enthralled. “Did you ever meet him?” I asked. “Yes,” she said noncommittally. “What was he like?” She thought a moment and then scowled. “Mean old man,” she said. Her answer was not what I expected. She obviously wasn’t smitten by him but maybe she was having a bad day when she saw him or maybe he was. I’ve never heard anyone else say he was difficult. He was an essayist and they tend to be aloof. I consider myself more of a journalist than an essayist even though I never took a course in journalism. My background is in liberal arts. I just like to write. When I was living in New York, I took great pride that I was a professional freelance writer, surviving on what I wrote, always able to pay my bills. I was never a top-tier writer. The tiny tier of writers at the top made a lot of money. I never did. But then, that was never my goal. Emerson during his day was a top-tier writer but he was not concerned with wealth either; his concern was the commonwealth—the common good. Writing was Emerson’s lifelong passion and much has been written about him, but in 2010 Robert D. Richardson published a fresh work titled First We Read, Then We Write: Emerson on the Creative Process. Irish writer John Banville, writing in The New York Review of Books, says, “In this brief, elegant and quietly passionate volume Robert Richardson has produced an invaluable handbook for the writer and aspirant writer, a copy of which should be presented to every student in every writing class around the world …” That’s pretty high praise coming from anyone but especially from Banville who is considered Emerson’s preeminent biographer. Banville opens his review by reminding us of the heavy (but noble) load carried by the sentence: “Surely mankind’s greatest invention is the sentence. Words may be matter, but the sentence is form … human consciousness itself is expressed in intervals between capital letters and full stops. Even the physicist, who alone can fairly lay claim to a special, separate language, must descend to commonplace phrases when he orders his dinner or composes his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.” Why this emphasis on the sentence? Because Richardson, in his “splendid little” guide for the writer,

points out that, it is “the sentence—not the paragraph and not the essay—that is Emerson’s main structural and formal unit.” In Banville’s view, “this is the most striking characteristic of Emerson’s remarkable prose style, and accounts for its fireworks quality as well as its peculiar difficulties.” He quotes Richardson: “Emerson’s lifelong interest in sentences pushed him toward epigram and proverb, and steered him away from narrative, from logic, from continuity, from formal arrangement and effect. Pushed as far as he pushed them, many of Emerson’s sentences stand out by themselves, alone and exposed like scarecrows in a cornfield …” But Banville says there is one point that cannot be made strongly enough or too often: “Emerson, in his day, was first and foremost, a lecturer. His essays all began as lectures. His writing was first speaking.” Richardson singles out the “best bit of practical advice Emerson ever gave to anyone wishing to write”: “‘The way to write is to throw your body at the mark when your arrows are spent.’ Emerson considered the writer to be among ‘the great class,’ and writing to be an act that is ‘as much physical as mental, a venture into the real world and not a mere spinning of castles in the vacant air of the mind.’” I feel fortunate to have studied Emerson at a young age. Despite my grandmother’s negative review of him, he’s always been a positive influence on my writing and an inspiration to me as a writer and I’m proud to count him as a relative, however distant.

When my family lived on Covington Road, my older brother was assigned a room of his own. I shared a bedroom with my grandmother. She proclaimed herself a “teetotaler” who didn’t believe in drinking but she always carried upstairs to bed a tin cup filled with homemade grape wine. It was her sleeping pill. And she would offer me a sip. Later, when she fell from her rocking chair and broke her hip and had to be hospitalized, she asked for her nightly dose of wine and was told she couldn’t have it. It was against hospital rules. This made her furious. She didn’t believe in pills. She wanted natural solutions to her problems, such as a soothing cup of wine at bedtime. I thought of trying to sneak her some but never got up the nerve. From the very first taste, I liked it. It was slightly sweet, like fermented grape juice, but very pleasant to my young taste. I also recall helping the neighbors across the street, the Kennerks, when they had an eggnog party, and licking the glass cups after I carried them to the kitchen. (If my mother had only known!) I was around eight. It was tantamount to a capital crime back then but I never got caught. By the age of nine, I already had a well established taste for alcohol. My family served wine on Holidays but not for nightly dinner. So there wasn’t much opportunity, beyond grandma’s tin cup, to get any alcoholic beverage in the house. Years later, I read that rural French families gave their small children “watered down” wine so they could join the adults in drinking wine with dinner. I remember thinking, “That’s so civilized.” When I was in college, liquor was outlawed in Oklahoma. But this was wartime and there was a Navy pilot training school nearby and the students obligingly brought in supplies from Texas. At that time, I learned to drink Cuba Libres, rum, and Coke. As a young writer in New York, I joined the martini crowd for lunch, and the Scotch and soda set at night, with brandy after dinner. When I eventually settled in the Philippines, a tropical country, I lost all interest in hard liquor of any kind. And to this day, I prefer dry vermouth with a twist of lemon peel for cocktails, and red or white wine for dinner. It suits the climate. We moved to Oklahoma City when my father took a job as chief engineer of an oilfield equipment company. I hated leaving my high school in Fort Wayne behind. It’s never easy to make friends when you move to a new place but when you are high-school age, it’s twice as difficult to adjust socially. When I first started attending Classen High School (it was walking distance from our rented house), everyone seemed already to have a group of friends except me. I felt like a lost girl. Most children ate lunch in the cafeteria but not me. I dreaded eating alone, so I got in the habit of walking home for lunch. One afternoon I stayed after school to attend what I thought was a meeting of a drama group. I went to the designated room and found the room empty, except for one student—a fragile-looking girl with a hauntingly beautiful face. Her name was Ann. It turned out both of us came on the wrong day, which said something about our common character. Anyhow, since I lived nearby, I invited her home with me, so she could call her aunt to pick her up. She was from Alabama. When her parents separated, Ann was

sent to live with an aunt in Oklahoma so her mother could concentrate on finding another husband without the extra baggage of having a daughter around, or so Ann believed. At that stage in our lives, Ann wanted to be a writer and I wanted to be an actress. We later reversed roles. I became the writer and she became a Hollywood starlet with the screen name of Cathy O’Donnell. She was featured in The Best Years of Their Lives and They Live By Night and Ben-Hur and some filmnoir movies. She also had some bit parts in a few TV shows as well, like Bonanza and Perry Mason and Man Without a Gun. As “lost” girls in Oklahoma we formed an instant and intense friendship that lasted until her early death of an undiagnosed cancer. Knowing Ann, she probably didn’t bother to get regular medical checkups or even report any symptoms. She was just that way. While in high school, she wrote poetry—lyric, haunting, sad poetry. We shared books and poems and plays, and could talk for hours about what we were reading and our favorite poets. I remember her soft, lovely smile, but I can’t recall ever hearing her laugh. Most times she had a sad and almost melancholy air about her. Men were attracted to her, some thought they were madly in love with her (as they later told me), but she appeared so indifferent that none seemed to have the courage to pursue her. The only affair that I’m aware of involved a thirtyish local poet who insinuated himself into our high school writing workshop. Later, in Hollywood, she got involved with a portrait photographer for a while. She eventually married Robert Wyler, the less successful brother of the prominent film director, William Wyler. Ann was twenty-four; Robert was fortyeight. They were married for twenty-two years, unusual for Hollywood even in those days. Robert was the one who called me to say that she had died—at forty-six.

A Different Kind of College Prep CHAPTER NINE

My life would have taken a very different path if I had not decided to make some changes during my senior year in high school. It was at that time that I took a hard look at myself in the mirror and I didn’t like what I saw. I couldn’t help but notice that many of the other girls had developed curves, their bodies were beginning to be the envy of some of the older women, and boys always wanted to be around them. But not me, not my body. My social life was nil, nonexistent, not even on life support. And I knew why. I looked in the mirror again, and frowned. What I saw was a girl with a boyishly plump body in need of some attention. Of course, this was not new to me. Up until now I had not thought much about boys but it wouldn’t be long before I left my childhood home for college. And if indeed I was going to college, then I needed to burnish my social life. So the summer before college I took the accumulated cash gifts I had received on my seventeenth birthday, and went to see a nutritionist whose name I had found in the Yellow Pages. (I had inherited from my father an engineer’s point of view: See a problem and find a solution.) She looked like a little boy, with her cropped hair and ill-fitting pants. But she was serious about her health mission in life: to make over shy, fat people like me. Nothing she advised was a revelation. It’s the same approach that has been used for thousands of years in every country and by lots of people. But mine was a classic case of you-can-lead-a-donkey-to-water-but … Before then, I wasn’t ready to drink the water. Now I was. And I did. And it made all the difference. I liked her plan. It was simple and straightforward and it made sense. I started with a three-day liquid cleansing to clear the system. That was followed by a diet of no more than 1,200 calories a day. To no surprise, it included lots of veggies and fruits and fish but not fried fish or much red meat. She also gave me an exercise routine that was designed to help trim and firm and accentuate the positives of the female figure. It was a life changer. By the time I entered college at the University of Oklahoma, I had lost fifteen pounds. I felt good; I was more confident, and I was ready to add men to my life. Fortunately, that proved not to be too difficult. There were lots of young college men out there who had left their family and high-school friends behind and who were also looking for company.

Beyond Oklahoma CHAPTER TEN

I was seventeen and a freshman in college when I decided to ditch my reliable boyfriend for a dashing pilot from New York named Chuck Kingsley. It would prove to be a fateful decision. I was living in the freshman girls’ dormitory, with an assigned roommate whom I would never have chosen as a friend—and the feeling was mutual. She was indifferent to her classes and very much into dating and meeting as many new guys as possible. I was not. She also liked to blab about her dates. I did not. “You come in from a date with a new guy and you don’t even say whether he’s good looking or a good dancer or a good dresser. All you ever say is whether he’s INTERESTING or not!” she complained. At that time, my dating consisted of a succession of uninspired evenings out until I finally settled for an older law student named Charles who had dreams of going into politics. We lapsed into a comfortable relationship, warm and friendly—but not especially romantic—feeding each other’s egos and dreams. We hugged and we kissed and we “necked” in parked cars and under trees but we never had sex. It sounds strange in today’s world but in those days sexual relations were indeed quite rare, both in high school and college. Girls that were known to have “gone all the way” were considered “fast” and not respectable. There was a lot of necking but few couples ended up in bed. The ones that did usually got married in a hurry. Charles seemed fine with this. He never pressured me to go beyond the tolerated hugs and kisses, which suited me perfectly. I knew where babies came from and didn’t want to get caught in that trap. Then Chuck Kingsley entered the picture. He was in training at a nearby Naval air station. I met him when a bunch of college girls was asked to entertain the young officers who were far away from home. Chuck was trim and graceful, of medium height, with a combination of black curly hair and blue eyes that I (and millions of other women) found devastatingly attractive. Of course, the Naval Air Force uniform helped too. I thought he was the handsomest and sexiest man I had ever met. He was a good dancer and played the saxophone. Sometimes, he would join the orchestra on stage, leaving me alone on the dance floor but I didn’t mind. I liked watching him play the sax on stage. It made me even more proud to be “his girl.” He had a small car and many nights we would drive out onto the empty airfield, where we would park and embrace and kiss, before he would take me home. We, too, never went beyond necking. This deserves some perspective. Social mores change over time and what was standard then is considered downright archaic now. John Updike, in his column on “Sex in the 1940s,” captures the true nature of that era well. “The extensive, elaborate ‘necking’ and ‘petting’ whereby adolescents kept their virginity but expressed their heat were what is now fashionable as ‘safe sex,’” he wrote. He makes the point that even without reading Freud one knew that civilization demanded some control of the libido. He talks of his own youth and he poses the question: How repressed were we really, back in those benighted forties and fifties? “I do not recall feeling more repressed than was good for me … The enemy was not a set of aliens out there, denying and scolding; the enemy was us, our sexual inhibitions locked in for self-preservative reasons. And these inhibitions, it might be said, generated a poetry of pervasive eroticism. The sideways glance, the glimpse of underwear, the whiff of perfume, the perhaps accidental touch, the intimacy achieved bit by bit, like a painstaking mapping of the heavens—all this would be forfeit in a Plato’s Retreat of consummation on demand. We value what we need to fight for. Secrecy is a great aphrodisiac. The Victorians made much of an exposed ankle, the Japanese of the nape of a woman’s neck. If every beach becomes a meaty sprawl of near-nudity and every date a compulsory copulation, we risk allowing sex to seem paltry.” To those of us who came before the sexual revolution of the sixties, we might be inclined to agree with British poet Philip Larkin’s poem:

Sexual intercourse began In nineteen sixty-three (Which was rather late for me)— Between the end of the Chatterly ban And the Beatles’ first LP. Not having sexual intercourse with Chuck seemed the natural thing in those days. Nevertheless, we savored each moment together. Chuck was fun to be with and we enjoyed some great times. When the Navy Air Corps officers flew down to Texas, they picked up liquor (Oklahoma was dry) and then we would party, drinking rum and coke at the Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ), where students were not supposed to be. I remember one night we left in haste to make the dorm curfew. As I was rushing out of the BOQ, I was surprised to run into one of my younger teachers who was leaving at the same time. We both pretended not to see each other. She didn’t report me and I didn’t report her. My romance with Chuck was taking all the right turns, or at least that’s what I thought. When he learned that I would be taking a trip to New York, he asked me to visit his mother and sister on Long Island. Back in those days, for a guy to ask a girl to meet his mother was of monumental importance. The next step was a marriage proposal and engagement. And that was my expectation. So I made a point to drop by his mother’s house for a visit. In my mind, I got along well both with Chuck’s mother and his sister. I thought the visit was a huge success. So I was surprised when Chuck didn’t call the day I got back from New York. We usually talked most every day. Then another day passed without him calling, and then another and another. (In those days, the girl never called the boy. She had to just sit and wait and hope for the phone to ring.) It was agonizing. Each day I thought Chuck would call and ask me to marry him. With each passing day, my anxiety and confusion grew. One day I was sitting in history class when one of those annoying little gossipy girls who seems to know everything about everybody pulled at my arm and whispered, “Did you hear that Chuck and Elyse are engaged?” I’m eighty-nine years old now but I can still recall that sudden stab of pain. The room swam. The hurt was awful, devastating, and disorienting. I couldn’t focus. I was in a dreadful state. In that instant my whole world fell away and I was left icily alone with no direction and nowhere to turn. I stared blankly at the wall. The gossip girl continued to talk but I couldn’t make out her words. By this point, it had been several days since I had heard from Chuck—but is that really enough time for someone to fall in love with another and get engaged? I never did hear from Chuck again. There was never so much as an explanation. (Many years later I heard they had divorced but it was cold comfort.) British literary editor and novelist Diana Athill had a similar experience. She wrote about it in her classic memoir Instead of a Letter. As a young woman, she fell in love with a pilot in the Royal Air Force and they got engaged. But he ran off and married another woman without so much as an explanation. Many years later she decided to find him and ask him, in person, “Why?” She found out where he was living but he died before she could confront him. She’s ninety-six years old now and she says it still gnaws at her. The moral of the story is really quite simple: Whether you are a man or a woman, have the courage and common decency to tell the other person if you have fallen out of love. Call or go see them in person. Nothing beats the clarity of a face-to-face meeting. Lots has been written about this. There’s agreement among psychologists that when you face up to things, you grow as a person. I remember reading that charming bit of scripture which talks about how a woman should be treated and I thought of Chuck and how different everything would have been if he had simply followed this approach: Be careful if you make a woman cry Because God counts her tears. The woman came from a man’s rib, not from his feet to be trampled on. Not from his head to be her superior but from his side to be his equal. Under his arm to be protected and next to his heart to be loved. I was looking back over old photos recently. I found that I still had one picture of me with Chuck. We were at a wedding party the same year that I lost him. There is this tremulous, hopeful smile on my face, as though my wedding would be next. And what if it had? Most likely it would have led to a life with the

four- or five-room house and with kids I had already decided against having. So it’s just as well that things worked out the way they did. But you couldn’t have told me that then. Ironically, Athill’s heartbreak turned her toward a literary life and so did mine. Once I had finally recovered from the initial trauma—and anger and disappointment and disbelief turned into acceptance— I vowed never to allow another human being to have that much power over my emotions. And I never have. Avoiding emotional over-dependence has become second nature. I always want to be able to walk away. Chuck’s cowardly act—and there’s really no other way to describe it—forced me, at a very young age, to make a decision about my future. I chose an unconventional life. I decided to pursue a career as a professional writer at a time when most women were on a different track. It was the right choice for me. I didn’t know what lay ahead—but I did know I would soon be leaving Oklahoma behind.

A Writer’s Life CHAPTER ELEVEN

I’ve always been impressed with writers. I was fascinated with the icons of the publishing world and wondered how the famous writers ever got to be so famous. I figured if I were near them maybe it would rub off. Ever since I learned my ABCs, I liked to write. When I was ten years old or maybe even younger, I would write a little character sketch whenever somebody I didn’t know would visit my parents. Nobody told me to or encouraged me. It was just my private world. I was the proverbial fly on the wall. I was quiet and shy—but I was a watchful kid who saw everything and jotted down what she saw. Writing was my passion. Writing became even more important to me after the crushing heartbreak of losing Chuck and the decision not to allow myself ever again to become so emotionally dependent on another human being. I finished college when I was twenty and landed my first fulltime job as an editorial assistant at a literary quarterly published by Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. My boss, Donald Day, was a former professor, with a PhD from the University of Chicago, who had managed to wangle a job from Reader’s Digest to scout for articles in the Southwest. He was the first person I had met who knew something about writing and publishing. He even knew literary agents, which were exotic fare in Oklahoma City. I was so impressed I decided I was in love with him. He had been married three or four times (depending on whether you counted the remarriage to one of his previous wives)—and he was forty-six years old. Not surprisingly, my father and mother did not approve. My father was a mild-mannered sort who was never vulgar and hardly swore, except for the occasional “goddammit” when he dropped a wrench or hammer but that was about it for swear words. And he never tried to influence me as to who I dated— until Donald came along. Once, after it became obvious that my relationship with Donald was serious, my father said, “Why do you want to marry an old man like that? His pecker isn’t good for anything but to pee through!” I was shocked. But I learned quickly that when it came to Donald, my dad could spit venom. Looking back now, after reading notes that I had written during that time all those years ago, I am amazed. I had obviously convinced myself that I was in love with Donald. But I doubt I ever was. What it looks like to me through the scrim of sixty years is “access.” I was seeking access to the literary world, access that Donald could provide. I was writing but didn’t know how to market what I wrote. Sending in stories cold, with a stamped, self-addressed return envelope wasn’t getting me anywhere. I needed to be represented in New York and I knew it. So, against my parents’ wishes, I married Donald. And I paid my passage as his driver, lover, typist, and cook. And I got my access. He found an agent for me and I began to sell my stuff to New York markets. So I was happy. I recall that when I got married everyone said that, because Donald was so much older than me, I was looking for a father figure. But that was a bunch of crap. I had a perfectly good father whom I adored. I was never bereft of a father figure and I wasn’t looking for a father. I got married to Donald because I was a “girl in a hurry.” I wanted things from life and saw little possibility of getting anything very quickly on my own. I was an average middle-class college girl with a good brain and probably some talent but not yet marketable. What could I do? Donald was an editor/professor/scholar and the most stimulating and interesting male I had ever had the chance to be close to. But I wasn’t looking for a father. Young women marry older men because older men have money, prestige, position, and power and so far in our society it’s difficult for a woman to get any of these things strictly on her own. This situation has changed dramatically since I was growing up and women have a much better chance of making it on their own, but marrying an older man is still something many young women consider as they size up their careers and opportunities and options. My father, seeing that I had what I wanted on the first rung up the career ladder, was civil to Donald— but he never liked him. And truth to tell, Donald was hard to like. He was big (6’4”), ungainly, and noisy. He was full of opinions that he would press upon unwitting listeners whether or not they wanted to hear them. This left little room for me to talk, so I was mostly silent in those days. My first book, which was published in 1952, was a spinoff of one of Donald’s. He had an assignment to

write a book on Will Rogers and, using Donald’s material, I wrote a Will Rogers book for children. He was glad for me to do it but that was the only time I did that. When I was writing about Will Rogers, I came across a woman roper and horseback rider named Lucille Mulhall. She was a cowgirl and a Wild West performer and the first woman to compete with men in roping and riding events. She worked with Will Rogers and was quite the performer, earning the title of Rodeo Queen and Queen in the Saddle. I found her and her exploits fascinating and wrote a book about her for girls. As a writer, you meet some interesting people. At one point, we were living in Washington, D.C., and Donald was writing a book on President Woodrow Wilson. We invited his elderly widow to dinner (cooked by me) in our apartment. Edith Bolling Wilson had a formidable reputation from the years she effectively ran the Executive Branch of government after President Wilson suffered a stroke in 1919. Cocktails and dinner consumed several hours. It occurred to me that my distinguished guest might like to know where the bathroom was. But when I offered her this helpful advice, she glared at me as though I’d spit in her soup. Now that I’m elderly myself, I’m still curious. I often go to the bathroom during a long evening. I assume former First Ladies have to pee like the rest of us—but apparently not Edith Bolling Wilson. When Donald later got an assignment driving around the Southwest scouting for article ideas for Reader’s Digest, I enjoyed meeting and talking shop with regional writers in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. The best part of that trip was Tuscon because Donald knew Erskine Caldwell and we visited him there. He was a writer who made a difference. He was intelligent and he had a real social conscience. He wrote about poverty, racism, and social problems in his native South in novels such as Tobacco Road and God’s Little Acre. At the time I met him he was bathing in critical acclaim. He was much more affable than I had expected. I remember thinking that his friendliness may be reserved for people he already knows, like Donald. I think he would be difficult with a stranger. But I was a fan. Actually, I was in awe of him. Donald’s assignment included a trip up the West Coast to look for other writers who could contribute articles to Reader’s Digest. It wasn’t a bad life. And it eventually led to Hollywood, where I would learn what it was like to be in the reflective glow of the public spotlight. It was great preparation for the high profile life that would come with Romulo’s world of international diplomacy.

Hollywood Days CHAPTER TWELVE

When I first met her, I had the impression she wasn’t sure she wanted to waste her time with me. She was reserved and shrewd and had a reputation for being difficult. But I managed to get through the initial resistance by asking her some sensible questions that showed I knew something about her background. Then she opened up and my interview with Katharine Hepburn turned out just fine. Donald and I arrived in Hollywood in the early fifties. Getting access to the right people was the challenge. Hollywood tolerates wannabes and used-to-be’s and every other kind of “bee” as long as they stay outside the studio gates. Getting into the studios is like trying to storm the Bastille. It’s worked only one time in history. But Donald knew some people in the MGM publicity department, which led to an introduction to legendary insider Frank Whitbeck. Frank and his wife Laura had been in show business for more than sixty years—carnival, circus, road shows, vaudeville and motion pictures. Frank had appeared in thirty-six films (most without on-screen credit). By the time I met Frank, he had been chief of MGM publicity since 1934. I became great friends with both Frank and Laura. They sort of “motherhenned” me and they seemed to know everyone in the movie business. My original plan was to write some articles about the studios, but Frank encouraged me to write a book about the Golden Age of Hollywood—the thirties and forties. He said he would provide me access to the stars and to the MGM lot and to the studio department heads and he was good for his word. That’s how I was able to research and write the book, This Was Hollywood, which I dedicated to Frank and Laura.

Of all the female movie stars, Katharine Hepburn was Frank’s favorite. The freckled, spunky, strongminded actress didn’t appear at the MGM studio until 1940, when she was brought over from RKO to repeat her stage success in The Philadelphia Story. But by the time I met her, she had been a fixture at the MGM studio for more than a decade. Hepburn could be seen around the MGM lot with her invariable look that included slacks and flat shoes and an old, patched white ducking jacket. The studio personnel who at first thought she was difficult changed their minds after dealing with her daily and concluded, “she was just smart.” And she was fiercely independent. She never bothered with an agent or a manager, and when it was contract time, studio lawyers would personally deliver the contract to Hepburn’s home. She would spread the contract out on the living room floor, then lay down beside it, and study it line by line. Frank liked to tell a story about Hepburn that, he said, summed up why she was such a favorite. Here’s how he used to tell it: “I received a letter from a pen pal in Australia. Like me, she loves elephants. She had begun a correspondence with me after reading my explanation of ‘Why I Love Elephants’ in Reader’s Digest. She said she had stood in line for four hours but was not able to purchase a ticket to any of Hepburn’s plays. At the time, Hepburn was on tour in Australia, performing in a series of Shakespearean plays in Sydney. I wrote an airmail note to Kate, care of the theater, asking her if she would help. My first attempt failed. I received a return cable: ‘No such woman. No such address. Are you sure she lives in Australia?’ I was puzzled. I double-checked and found the address was wrong. I cabled the correction. I didn’t hear from Kate for a week but then I received an ecstatic letter from the woman in Australia saying that Katharine Hepburn had sent her two tickets to all four plays—plus an invitation to come backstage after the shows. That’s Kate! One of the greatest women I’ve ever known!” Frank was known as one of the best-loved “elephant men.” And in those days, the MGM lot was huge and thanks to the Tarzan films, there were lots of elephants. Frank’s love for elephants was a carryover from his circus days. I was delighted when Frank took me to meet the elephants that worked in the movies. Frank had a favorite: Queenie. She’s pictured in my book with the character actor, Wallace Beery, during the filming of Shaughnessy’s Boy. A number of the actors of that time had a fondness for elephants. Doris Day said she had been fascinated with elephants since she was a little child. She would later get to work with a live elephant in Billy Rose’s Jumbo, which also starred Jimmy Durante, Martha Raye, and Stephen Boyd.

As head of publicity, Frank’s work took many forms. One of his jobs was to keep Spencer Tracy sober during filming. They were good friends. Tracy was husky and moody and had spent years as a contract player for Fox before he came over to MGM where he eventually emerged, in San Francisco, as the studio’s top dramatic star. He was still at the top of his game when I met him. He was the only MGM actor who appealed to a thoroughly mixed audience of both sexes and all age groups. Hollywood is partly known today as a mecca for psychiatrists. But even back in the fifties Hollywood had its share of noted therapists. I suppose there’s something about show business that requires “shrinks” to help sort out the difference between reality and fantasy. At one point, Donald met the famed analyst and psychiatrist Mary Wilshire. She was in her seventies. Donald thought it would be a good idea for me to go to her. He thought it might help my writing. I’ve always had a tendency to want to please people. Mary picked up on it immediately. I remember after my first session with her, she looked at me with amusement as she lit a cigarette. “Amazing,” she said, in a weary voice dripping with cynicism. “You really want everybody in the world to be happy!” Donald and I used to be invited to the premieres of new films. It was one of the fun perks for those who wrote about Hollywood. I enjoyed the premieres but what happened out front was sometimes more amusing. Let me explain. When Donald and I would drive up to the movie theater in our little Chevy, we were always routed quickly to a parking lot where we were told to transfer to a chauffeur-driven limousine. We then would be driven back up to the theater entrance where there was a red carpet for guests and crowds behind ropes on either side. We would get out of the limo, as if we were just arriving, with no one in the crowd knowing that our little Chevy’s engine was still warm in a nearby parking lot. Having thick skin and a sense of humor are especially handy in Hollywood. At one of the premieres Donald and I emerged from the limo and started walking up the red carpet when I noticed two middleaged women, movie fans, staring at me. As I approached, one turned to the other and said in a loud stage whisper, “Who’s she?” and the other woman gave me a quick once-over and shrugged: “Nobody.” One time I was visiting the MGM lot, and talking with a producer and a photographer, when the photographer made a “square” with his hands as though filming my face. He then gave his verdict in a hushed tone (to the producer—but I could hear him): “Not pretty. But well scrubbed.” Sometimes I was allowed to be on the movie set during shooting. The first time this happened I remember turning the corner and coming face to face with one of the most famous actors in the world: Clark Gable. I stood there for a second as if in a trance. Here I was, this shy girl from the Midwest, staring into the eyes of a film star I truly respected. He quickly took command of the situation. He extended his hand and, with a warm smile, he motioned for me to take a seat beside him. I was immediately put at ease. I found him to be the absolutely most relaxed actor I ever met. He was so easygoing and friendly. He never pretended to be anything he was not. His on-screen persona was just him. And it was a real treat to be able to sit beside him on the set. Gable was a powerful-looking man. On the MGM lot, he was known as The King. He was put under contract by MGM in 1930 (after he had been passed up by Darryl Zanuck, then at Warner’s). During the following twenty-five years, Gable was to make more money for his studio and provide more income for the motion picture industry than any other single performer. But despite his extraordinary public appeal, Gable never lost his sense of proportion and remained “the same old shoe” throughout the years. He was tops on my list of people who would be nice to have as a guest for dinner. To follow the development of Gable’s career is to understand how the MGM system of stockpiling stars functioned. He was first cast in a minor part. When the audience reaction was favorable, he was put into a picture with Norma Shearer, one of the most popular actresses in North America from the mid-1920s through the 1930s. Successful in that, Gable was then cast with Joan Crawford. By using him with experienced stars, the studio built him up gradually. Later, when he was well established as a star, the studio began using him, in turn, to build up young actresses. Unlike some other actors, Gable never eclipsed his female star. He had the unusual ability to make his costar appear desirable. Grace Kelly was a good example. Grace Kelly transformed from cool and distant into a passionate woman when she worked opposite Gable. Despite being the most popular male star, Gable was never mobbed (although some impassioned girls did pitch a tent on his lawn once). At the time of the premiere of Gone with the Wind in 1939, Gable took a morning flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta via Dallas. The stretch from Los Angeles to Dallas turned out to be rough and uncomfortable, with no in-flight meal. So when they landed in Dallas, Gable was in need of some breakfast, especially a cup of coffee. But the flight attendant stopped him at the cabin door.

“I better try to bring something to you, Mr. Gable,” she said. “There’s a huge crowd out there.” “That’s all right,” Gable said and he stepped out onto the ramp where he was confronted by throngs of movie fans choking the area between the plane and the terminal building. Gable stood calmly and greeted them cheerfully as they shouted and hollered. After a few minutes, he held up his huge hand and explained to the crowd that the ride had been a little rough and he needed some coffee. “Would you let me through?” he asked. To the amazement of those traveling with him, the crowd parted. No one laid a hand on him or made any attempt to block his way. Gable was not the only person to conquer Hollywood during its Golden Age. So did Mae West, although with a different style and approach. She refused to play any role except the one that she had created for herself: Hollywood’s original bad girl. She built her reputation on saucy wit and one-liners. “I used to be Snow White but I drifted.” “I’ve been in more laps than a napkin.” “Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?” Even her ad-libs stayed true to her character. “Goodness had nothing to do with it!” “I believe it’s better to be looked over than to be overlooked.” She turned down any role that would detract from the consistency of her public persona. She was once offered to play the character of a wealthy society woman who was in love with a younger dancer-gigolo in Pat Joey. Mae West flatly rejected it. “This woman,” she explained, “does not get her man, and everyone in America thinks I always get mine!” During the Golden Age of Hollywood, Mae West was one of many headline players at MGM. Company wealth was measured in terms of the numbers of such players that the studio kept under contract. Louis B. Mayer’s personal goal was to amass the largest stable of stars by a single company. And he succeeded. MGM kept around sixty on contract for over twenty years. “We are the only company,” he liked to tell his employees, “whose assets all walk out the gate at night.” Jean Harlow was another favorite at MGM—but not for her acting. Howard Hughes’s classic line about his star Jane Russell applied equally to Harlow—“there are two good reasons why men will go see her.” Harlow had the most unusual breasts in the film industry. Her nipples were so prominent that the shadow of the movie censor lurked over every scene she made. To top it off, she considered wearing a bra “unhealthy and immoral.” So each evening when the rushes of the day’s takes of Harlow were shown, producers and directors groaned orders to Wardrobe to “Cover ’Em Up!” She usually fought the idea of restraining her natural curves until it was explained to her that the picture could not be shown unless something was done. In one film, in which she was wearing gowns with exceptionally revealing material, various restraining undergarments were tried, from sheer silks to heavy cottons—but she still looked as if she had nothing on. Finally, in desperation, they developed a bra with the idea of subduing her nipples. The rounded tips of the bra were fashioned of tin and lined with fur for the actress’s comfort. At the time that I hung out on the studio lot, MGM was filming The Wreck of the Mary Deare, with Gary Cooper and Charlton Heston. I remember seeing the ship Mary Deare fighting a storm in a tank on Lot Three, and thinking, “Isn’t this wonderful?” I was fascinated with special effects. My book includes a photo of Buddy Gillespie, the master of special effects magic, setting up the storm sequence between takes. I was just as interested in the special effects—if not more—as I was in the actors. But some of the actors were especially interesting: Franchot Tone and Charles Laughton in Mutiny on the Bounty; and Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, and Paul Muni, to name a few. I finished writing the book This Was Hollywood in 1959. It was published the following year to good

reviews. A picture of Tarzan’s son and Cheetah attracted the attention of some of the critics. It shows Dean Stockwell as Tarzan’s son shaking Cheetah’s hand as if he’s getting acquainted with the chimp. It was a wonderful photo that created a bit of a positive buzz at the time. Donald thought my photo on the back cover made me look like a movie star. He said I looked “gorgeous.” The famous MGM still photographer Bud Graybill took the picture. Apparently the idea was to make me look as much like a starlet as possible. Since my mother was once an aspiring actress, I thought This Was Hollywood would resonate with her, so I sent her a copy. But she never said what she thought of it. After she died, when I was going through her belongings, I was surprised to find the copy of the book that I sent her. I knew it was the exact copy because I found the note that I wrote in it: “Here’s one hot off the press. Hope you find it fun. Love and kisses from your not-so-baby daughter.” I also found part of a letter that I had written to her in which I said, “P.S. Got a review of the Hollywood book today which pleased me.” The review said, “People watcher Beth Day has a light and laughing touch, a bit of pathos where warranted, a frankness to please and not offend.” This description comes as near as anything to analyzing what I try to do. And there was a review from a local paper that my mother had placed in the book. It says, “Beth Day whose book This Was Hollywood, published by Doubleday in June, is on assignment in Paris. The daughter of Mrs. Ralph Feagles, Miss Day writes, ‘Paris is just as beautiful as everyone claims and I can see why there are so many expatriates here. Life is still talky and leisurely compared with New York. I always wanted to see Europe like this, on assignment with work to do and people to meet, which suits me better than touristy stuff.’” I found another article in the book from the local paper with the delightfully quaint headline, “Beth Day, Back from Europe, Visits Mother.” I still have a copy of that book and the letter and the articles. Not long after the book was published, I left California and moved back to New York. I was beginning to realize that, after five years of marriage, I already felt emotionally divorced from Donald. A confrontation was looming.

“Give Me My Typewriter and Let Me Go!” CHAPTER THIRTEEN

One day I was walking past a bookstore on Fifth Avenue. As I often do, I stopped to look into the window and was thrilled to see my new book on display. But it wasn’t the typical display. It took up the entire window. Big posters promoted the book. Multiple stacks could be seen in various positions, all screaming the title Passage Perilous: The Stormy Saga of the Santa Maria by Beth Day. I couldn’t believe it. Nothing like this had ever happened before. I stopped to let the thrill wash over me. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. The publication in early 1962 of Passage Perilous (my twelfth book at this point) was timely. It had been rushed to press to take advantage of the worldwide interest in the first hijacking of a modern cruise liner. The world’s newspapers had reported on the day-to-day accounts of the seizure of the Santa Maria, with headlines like “Pirates Seize Portuguese Liner” and “Phantom Pirate Seizes Portuguese Cruise Ship.” But, thanks to decisive action by my publisher, Putnam, I was able to provide the first detailed account of how the officers and crew had thwarted the hijackers. The Santa Maria was the pride of Portugal. It was a sleek, transatlantic luxury passenger liner that had been launched in 1953 as part of Portugal’s modern bid for commercial sea power. It had left Lisbon on January 9, 1961, with its 365 crew members and 600 passengers, including 42 Americans. It was about two days out of Miami, on the last leg of a Westbound voyage, when it was taken in the pre-dawn hours of January 22 by a band of rebels led by an almost-comical character, an ex-Portuguese Army captain named Galvao, who was politically aligned with Cuba’s Castro and wanted to lead a revolution against the Salazar government in Portugal. What followed was twelve tense days and an international search and sea chase involving the Portuguese, the British, U.S. Navy search planes from their bases in the Caribbean, and three American destroyers. It ended with Galvao surrendering to the Brazilians and the ship docking at the port of Recife in northwestern Brazil, before sailing to Madeira, a Portuguese archipelago about 250 miles from the Canary Islands. When Putnam assigned me to write about it, I immediately got on a plane to Lisbon where the Portuguese maritime police opened their files for me. Then I flew to Madeira where I boarded the Santa Maria for its voyage back to Lisbon. I was able to interview everyone aboard the ship who had endured the hijacking. Ironically, it was around this time that my personal life seemed just as stormy as the saga of the Santa Maria. When Donald and I left California behind, we moved back East to Chappaqua, New York, so we could be close to the Pleasantville headquarters of Reader’s Digest. I had written enough articles for the Digest to prompt the editors to give me more assignments. The notion that Reader’s Digest was a collection of articles from other magazines was a myth by the time I started writing for them in the early 1950s. The husband-and-wife team of Dewitt and Lila Wallace had co-founded Reader’s Digest in 1922 with that formula in mind but soon found they couldn’t rely on other magazines to publish the variety of subjects they wanted. So they began to originate articles on their own and then “planted” them for first publication with other magazines. I never knew what the financial arrangements were with the other publications. At first I wrote about subjects assigned to me by senior editor Charles Ferguson, with whom I worked closely. I had met him socially years before and he spotted me as a potential contributor to Reader’s Digest. He encouraged me and got me assignments. Everyone needs help along the way and he was a real help. Then I began submitting my own proposals for writing assignments, which covered a variety of subjects, including how I thought the material should be developed. When approved, I would get the assignment. By this time, Donald had long since turned into a not-so-lovable partner. Donald was a big, rangy, raspyvoiced Texan. Once I started having more luck getting my work published, the atmosphere around the house got pretty testy. I remember counting the empty beer bottles and resenting them—because it was my money that bought them. By then I was selling my own stuff on a regular basis and I was tired of

Donald and his noisy pronouncements. I wanted out. But I was also stubborn. All of my family and friends had predicted that this would be a bad marriage and that it wouldn’t last. I didn’t want to hurt him and he didn’t want me to leave. He liked the additional income that I brought in and he liked my cooking. I was torn. So I stuck it out for another ten years. But the time came when I realized that this just wasn’t working. I had wanted to get physically away from him for years. I felt as long as I was in the same house with him I couldn’t make a final determination on how to leave him. I needed to get away. So I researched interesting personalities in Europe, made choices about who I wanted to write about, and turned in a proposal for a series of stories in London and Paris and Amsterdam. The Digest had offices in all three cities and staff to show me around. I was also psyched up for what I anticipated to be my first love affair. A few months earlier I had written a profile on a man in New York who headed up an international real estate company and we had kept in touch. When he knew that he would be going to London, he urged me to get an assignment so that the two of us would be there at the same time. The prospect delighted me. He was tall and slim and had premature white hair. He dressed impeccably and seemed to my relatively provincial eyes sophisticated and worldly—the perfect type to introduce me to the art of a love affair. However, just before I was to leave for London I learned that his schedule had changed abruptly. He wouldn’t be able to make the trip. I was devastated. I was all set for a defining moment in my life but it wasn’t going to happen. Instead, he gave me the name of a London colleague who he said could at least show me around. So in the blink of an eye I went from amorist to tourist. I left for London anticipating nothing more than completing my assignment and taking in a few of the sights. But I must have really worked myself up emotionally anticipating that affair, because a few days after I arrived in London, I found myself in bed with Gary, a young English editor that Reader’s Digest had assigned to look after me. I think it was his voice. After all those years of hearing Donald’s shouts and rasps, his was the most melodious and charming voice I had ever heard. Seductive to say the least. Later I met Gary’s wife. I actually liked her better than I liked him—and felt ashamed that I was her husband’s lover. I traveled on to Paris and Amsterdam gathering the material I needed for my stories, and then returned home with the courage to do whatever was necessary to leave Donald. In the early years of our marriage, Donald took me seriously in that, as an editor, he spotted “potential.” He helped train me and lined up assignments for me. In the latter part of our marriage, he considered me “his creation” and an ungrateful wretch for leaving him. I remember my anguished cry, “Give me my typewriter and let me go!” We divorced in 1961 after fifteen years of marriage. He moved into New York City immediately and I stayed in the house in Chappaqua. After our breakup, I didn’t date anyone but I soon learned that, within weeks of our breakup, Donald had fallen into a cushy situation with a wealthy widow in Manhattan. I thought, “The hell with it. I needn’t worry about him anymore.” I laughed when I found out. Life gives one a sense of humor, if you let it. In the meantime, whenever my English friend came to New York to visit the Digest, we managed times together without alerting our editor friends to the situation, although one colleague later told me he suspected as much since Gary seemed “unusually inattentive” at editorial meetings. Since I was living out in Westchester County, I would go into Manhattan only a few times a month to see publishers and my agent. Once, when I had an appointment with the legendary agent Edith Haggard at Curtis Brown, I turned up at her office only to learn that she was home in bed with a bad cold. Since I had made the trip into the city—and in effect “shot the day”—a colleague of hers called to see if she could see me at home. She lived in one of the anonymous but fashionable apartment buildings on the Upper East Side. A maid let me in the door and then showed me into her bedroom. Edith was sitting up in bed, wearing a lacy pink negligee, with manuscripts scattered on the bed all around her. On her night table were photos of two men: her late husband and Sinclair Lewis, who may or may not have been a client and who may or may not have been her secret lover. But the thing that struck me was both of those men were dead. And I thought: “Is this the way it all ends up?”

Love on the High Seas CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I woke up feeling unusually cold. I looked out the window and all I could see was snow everywhere. And it was piled high. I rushed to the front door. The snow was so high I couldn’t get out. The same was true of the back door. “My God, I’m trapped!” It was the first winter after Donald moved out, my first winter alone, and it was one of the coldest on record. My little house on the hill in Chappaqua was surrounded by ice and snow. I tried to calm down by doing what I would ordinarily do. So I sat down and ate my breakfast and tried to think of someone to call for help. About that time I was startled to hear a knock on my front door. I ran to it and threw it open. There stood a youngster in his teens all bundled up against the cold, with shovel in hand. “Would you like me to dig you out?” he asked. Would I! It seemed like a kindly message from God. I didn’t even care how much he charged. That same winter, a public relations friend, George Peabody in New York, called me with a surprising suggestion. George represented a cruise line. He said a ship, bound for the Caribbean, was leaving New York in a few days and it did not have a full complement of passengers. “I can get you a free ticket. Would you like to get a respite from this beastly weather?” George said. I had never been on a cruise ship, nor any ship bigger than a sailboat, for that matter. I wasn’t sure it was such a great idea to go alone. I assumed the other passengers would all be couples. But I was much too cold and much too thrifty to pass up a chance for a free trip that promised better weather. Just driving down to the dock area on the west side of Manhattan was an adventure for me. When I clambered aboard, I was impressed with all those professional welcomers—officers and cabin crew in their well-starched whites. I was shown to a nice stateroom, with its own shower and tiny closet, which had room enough for my casual slacks and tops for the day and my bathing suit and the one evening dress that I owned. (George had warned me people dressed up for dinner.) There was even a little makeup mirror at the tiny dresser. For dinner, I was assigned to a table with two couples and a single man who looked—and talked—like a salesman. I prepared myself for a very long evening. But, during the dessert course, a stranger rose from a nearby table and came over and asked me to dance. He looked like a movie maître d’ in his tuxedo, with dark eyes and quite dark hair that was grey in places, adding to a look of sophistication. He had a practiced friendly smile, which he seemed to share with everyone in the room. To my delight, he was a graceful dancer, better than my college friends who were the last men I had danced with. I had almost forgotten what it was like to be on the dance floor. Life for a divorced, freelance writer in Manhattan hadn’t been very productive socially. His name was Harry. He was from Brooklyn, a part of New York City that I had yet to see. But he didn’t have a Brooklyn accent. He was of Italian descent. I didn’t know what his education was and I didn’t care. His job was managing a chain of movie theaters, which also didn’t interest me much. What I responded to, besides his unobtrusive good manners, was his innate warmth. I wondered why he was alone but didn’t ask. We ended up in my stateroom. The first time we made love I remember him saying, in surprise, “Where did you learn that?” I didn’t even know what he was talking about. I was just enjoying the moment, responding to a passionate partner—and hoping this wouldn’t end when the ship docked in Manhattan. It didn’t. Harry would either drive out to my house on weekends or, if we wanted to see a Broadway play, I would take the train into the city and meet him at the theater. I remember thinking that Harry, at some point, probably wanted to be an actor but it had obviously not worked out, so I never asked him. Harry was divorced, with two sons, one grown and living on his own, the other fifteen and living with his

mother. Harry stayed close to both. But I discovered that he saw himself as a loser because of his marital failure. When I met him, he was lonely, cynical, and miserable. But he was also passionate, uninhibited, and had a great potential for joy. I thought of Harry as an indulgence. It was the first really great sex I ever had. Harry was forty-five and I was thirty-eight. I wanted to know what passionate love was like. I thought it was fitting to experiment at my age when I could appreciate the difference. I didn’t know how long it would last but I knew I wouldn’t be the one to leave. Harry brought out my feminine side. Before Harry, I dressed mostly in business suits. After Harry, I began to dress in a more feminine way as my shy reserve melted. I loved being a woman—doing womanly things, like dancing and dining out and making love. I was content simply to enjoy it, day by day. He was fascinated that I was a published writer and was very proud of me. I had no intention of marrying again, nor did I think that Harry would ever be interested in marrying me. He was too good looking and had too many beautiful women interested in him. Central casting could not have produced a better lover than Harry. But he not only, to my surprise, asked me to marry him, he pursued me relentlessly. “I shall make myself indispensable to you,” he said. And he did. I finally gave up all thoughts of never marrying again. We were married in the living room of Cap and Clara Pearce’s house in Tarrytown, New York. Cap was one of the founders of Duell Sloan and Pearce Publishing Company. His wife was the daughter of artist Rockwell Kent. They were my best friends and they were glad for me that I found Harry. Married life with Harry was wonderful. Each of us worked hard at our respective jobs. We enjoyed vacations together and sometimes, when I was on a foreign assignment, Harry was able to arrange to travel with me—to New Zealand when I was assigned by McCalls to write about the Lawson quintuplets; to Mexico City to corner the elusive Mexican comic, Cantinflas, and so forth. My friends loved Harry, and not just because they were happy for me. Harry added a new dimension to their lives as well. All of us were a bit restrained but not Harry. He was more extroverted, easier with strangers, friendlier and more helpful. That was his nature. Harry also could be temperamental and tempestuous. He had a bit of the street fighter in him. I remember one time after Harry had moved in with me in Chappaqua, he was ranting about something which I thought of little consequence. I have always taken a cue from the animal world. When the male gets angry, simply disappear. So I went outside in the dark and climbed up high in the rock garden and hid in the foliage. I just sat there, listening to him wander around the garden and yard calling my name, “Betsy! Betsy!?” (He is the only one who ever called me Betsy other than my mother. Everyone else used my nickname Beth.) Harry was sure I was out there somewhere. I suppose this is a clear example of passive-aggressive behavior but it was my way. I don’t like fights. Nobody ever wins. My theory is there is no point in arguing when someone is in a rage. The best thing to do is leave—like the mother gorilla who grabs her baby and swings away through the trees when the male is beating his chest and showing fury. There is no verbal response to fury. You just have to get out of the way until it passes and they calm down. Harry is the only man who ever hit me. We had a passionate and sometimes rocky relationship. After he hit me, I grabbed the car keys and was on my way out the door when he pulled me back, got an ice pack for my eye, which had already turned black. He looked so forlorn I forgave him. He is also the only man I ever hit. I hit him so hard I almost broke my hand. He was getting ready to leave for work and at the door saying something mean when I hit him. So he just left, which was just as well. The animal analogy works both ways, for the male and the female. If I were a diplomat and needed to settle a dispute, I would always go for arbitration as opposed to conflict. The same is true in family relations. With miscommunication and misunderstanding, it’s so easy to have a rift in a loving relation. There’s so much more emotion involved with the classic family feuds. I’ve seen so many family members estranged over some argument about property or money or favoritism. Arguing can be so pointless and such a waste. When people are upset, an argument only escalates anger and a sense of being misunderstood. That’s why I prefer to walk out and wait for a cooler moment when hopefully the misunderstanding can be resolved. The bond of love must not be sacrificed. If it is, it is likely to be irretrievable. Once when we were discussing our various differences of opinion, Harry suggested to me that I should learn how to stand up for myself, how to argue, and how to fight. Not just with him, but also with those who disappointed or hurt me. But it wasn’t easy for me. My habit of avoiding conflict was hard to change. If I was disappointed by someone who I could do without, that person simply ceased to exist in my mind. If it was someone I had to deal with—like my mother or my sister-in-law, Anita—then I refused

to fight. Anita was once a “best” friend, until she married my brother. Soon afterward she was relentlessly opposed to me, even though I was the one who introduced her to my brother, Bob, and I was thrilled when they got married. But Anita changed and I don’t know why. I remember when Dad and Mom went to see them in Puerto Rico, where Bob was stationed as a branch manager for Citibank, Dad took me aside after they returned and said, “Watch her. She’s jealous of you.” Anita did her utmost to make sure Bob and I had no more time together alone. Not even target practice, which we once enjoyed. My brother and I had been so close. Anita was the perfect example of someone Harry thought I should stand up to. But I let it go and focused on having fun with Harry. Then one day the doorbell rang and when I opened the door I was shocked to see Harry, his body paralyzed on the left side, unable to stand on his own, being held up by one of his close friends. His friend said he thought Harry had a stroke and he didn’t know what to do so he brought him home instead of taking him straight to the hospital. In hindsight, that wasn’t such a good idea. By the time I got Harry to the hospital he was in bad shape. At one point, he rose up in the hospital bed and cried out, “I’m dying!” There was no fear in his voice, only immense surprise that this should be happening to him when he was so young and strong, and outrage at the unjustness of the whole idea. It was the last thing he said. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage. His death came as a total shock. I never expected to lose him. He was trim and looked healthy. He had played a lot of basketball, even into his middle years. But he had developed high blood pressure and didn’t take care of it. By the time I found out, I had him go to my doctor who prescribed blood pressure medicine, but he died anyway. I think he needed something stronger or maybe he didn’t take his medicine the way he should. The year was 1967. Harry was fifty. When I lost Harry, I lost the happiness of life shared with him but I did not lose what he helped me find: my real self and a newfound awareness of others. I had grown up in a household where the Victorian idea of good manners and negation of all things ugly and/or sexual held sway. The household law was “don’t speak up,” “don’t voice strong opinions,” “don’t do anything loud or violent or ugly.” As I look back over the shape my life has taken, this is the thing that proved most difficult for me. These laws of suppression left me weaponless when I went out on my own. One must know how to fight, how and when to speak up, to give opinion, to express oneself. The first thing I did was marry someone (Donald) who shouted and raved and was impolite and misbehaved and acted out all my suppressions and hostilities for me, except that it was necessary that I remain suppressed to live with him. Once the real me came out, the only answer was divorce, replacing marriage with aloneness and the search for self. Then along came Harry, the good-looking street fighter from Brooklyn who knew hostility and violence as a reality of daily life. And he taught me about that reality which was a high point in my life at that time because I learned so much about myself and I developed a keen awareness of the world beyond self. The unexpected loss of Harry also made me realize just how important it was to make the rest of my life meaningful. So—to the horror of my agents—I turned down a $30,000 a year hack writing job. (That was quite a bit of money in those days.) As long as I could support myself, I wanted things other than money. I knew that after Harry died I couldn’t stay in Chappaqua. It was too isolating, too suburban, and too predictable. I wanted the possibility of change. It was time to move into the city. So I sold the house and moved to Manhattan. I took a sublease on the West Side. It was a roomy apartment on 21st Street. But I soon realized I didn’t feel really comfortable on the West Side. I had spent much more time on the East Side. I wanted the reassurance of the familiar tall buildings and shops and streets that I knew. So I watched the Want Ads for an opening in that area, and took the first one I saw, a compact three-room apartment on Madison Avenue, just off of Park. Living in Manhattan changed my life drastically, but not always in the ways that I imagined, at least not at first.

“You Still Have Life In Your Face” CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The second I finished the interview, I excused myself and ran to the Ladies Room and threw up. Interviewing people face to face did not come easy for me. I was so self-conscious and nervous that I got sick to my stomach. I was not trained as a reporter and I had no idea how to begin and my innate shyness worked against me. But my editors at Reader’s Digest left me little choice. “It’s high time you get out there and get live interviews to jazz up your stories,” I was told. And after I moved from Chappaqua to Manhattan, it was much more practical for me to interview notable people while they were visiting the city. All I could think about was the horror of facing someone and having them look at me expectantly and my mind absolutely blank and me not being able to think of what to ask and knowing that I am taking up their valuable time. It was easy for me to describe the joys of writing when the only things I dealt with were research and dead people and coming up with reasons to avoid having to face real people. I was writing an article on Sol Hurok, who at the time was the world’s most successful impresario, responsible for bringing some of the world’s top musicians and ballet dancers to the U.S., many from his native Russia, including the Bolshoi Ballet. While promoting performers all his life, he also was in effect promoting an ambitious cross-cultural exchange. Mr. Hurok provided me a list of people to contact who knew of his work and who were lifelong supporters of the arts. Adlai Stevenson, a cultural enthusiast, was on the list but he turned down an interview and instead sent me the following statement: “Is there a common language more readily understood by all peoples than the language of ‘culture’? A wise man has said, ‘culture hates hatred.’ Culture is the language of peace. In speaking it himself and in encouraging countless others everywhere to speak it, Sol Hurok has played a great role in opening our hearts and heads to greater beauty and understanding in the world.” It was a good quote and we used it in the article but it was also a static quote. It lacked a certain aliveness that comes from the in-person interview and I knew it. So, with my editors persistent and with me having no more excuses, I reluctantly accepted the challenge. But the early days of interviewing were tough. Publicists preferred for me to interview their celebrity clients at lunchtime. They would invariably arrange for me to meet with their clients at one of the midtown restaurants, such as La Côte Basque or La Caravelle or La Grenouille. Years later I was told by chef Albert Roux of La Gavrouche restaurant in London, “The restaurateur’s job is to distribute joy.” Some of my most joyful moments have indeed been in good restaurants, enjoying good food and good wine and good company. But not during this period of my life. Lunches were miserable affairs. I would sit there interviewing someone trying to take notes and appear to be eating and after it was over, I would lose my lunch more frequently than I care to remember. It seemed like I was meeting new people every day. I became preoccupied with how to control my nervous stomach. Then a funny thing happened. I went into a law office in New York on a rainy day to interview a prominent Manhattan attorney. As I fumbled for my notebook, I knocked over my wet umbrella which I had placed against the chair. I reached for it, just as my subject gallantly did the same thing and we bumped heads at about waist level. He burst out laughing and, with a great sense of relief, I joined in. The unscripted contact was brief but it relaxed me enough that I was able to get a good interview and later I even considered carrying an umbrella as a prop for a similar encounter. I found therein lies a truth: If you are at a disadvantage and people realize it, they will help you. I paraphrased this truth and incorporated it into a set of simple rules to help build my confidence. Rule No. 1—If you are feeling nervous, people will do anything to help you. Rule No. 2—People love to talk about themselves. Rule No. 3—An interview is nothing more than a form of directed conversation. Rule No. 4—If you really are interested, the questions will come.

Interviewing is an art form that requires lots of practice but you never really know what you’re going to get. Like the artist, you begin with one thing in mind and it inevitably turns out quite different in the end and you have to be open to that. It’s important to know what you want out of the interview but the beauty of the in-person interview is hearing something you never expected. All of sudden you’re off in an entirely different direction, not only with the interview but also with your story. Some people have a talent for interviewing. Art Linkletter was known for the ad-lib interview and he built a successful broadcast career around it on American radio and television, hosting shows like People Are Funny and House Party. Millions of Americans tuned in each day for decades. Here’s how the New York Times described it: “House Party, which ran five days a week on radio from 1945 to 1967 and on television from 1952 to 1969, was a looser version of People Are Funny, with beauty tips and cooking demonstrations filling time between Mr. Linkletter’s audience-chatter sessions. The highlight of the show was a segment in which five children between the ages of five and ten sat down to be interviewed by Mr. Linkletter, who sat at eye level with his little subjects and, time and time again, made their parents wish television had never been invented. After one boy revealed that his father was a policeman who arrested lots of burglars, Mr. Linkletter asked if his mother ever worried about the risks. ‘Naw, she thinks it’s great,’ he answered. ‘He brings home rings and bracelets and jewelry almost every week.’” Linkletter published a collection of replies like that in his best-selling book Kids Say the Darndest Things! Art Linkletter is still remembered for conducting interviews in one of the more unusual locations. In one of his more famous stunts, he went to the top of a skyscraper in New York and climbed into a chair for window washers. As it was being lowered to the ground he interviewed office workers on every floor. He once said, “The best interview comes from kids under ten and people over seventy. The people over seventy don’t care what they say and the kids under ten don’t know what they’re saying.” Everyone agrees interviewing is more than just asking questions and lots has been written about it. Nineteen top journalists offered some timeless tips in the book interviewing the World’s Top Interviewers which was published in the early nineties. Columnist Noelani Torre wrote an excellent review of the book for the Philippine Daily Inquirer under the headline “Famous interviewers share their trade secrets.” Here are some highlights: NBC News commentator John Chancellor said “the elements of a good interview are homework, courtesy, and a determination to get as much as you can out of the person being interviewed, without becoming a bully.” I agree, especially with the point about doing your homework. It’s impossible to overprepare. Robert MacNeil says a good interviewer should enjoy asking questions. That’s true but I didn’t, at least not at first. Once my ever-curious self won out over my shy self and I was able to focus on the person I was interviewing instead of worrying about myself, then I could enjoy the experience and approach each question with a sense of anticipation, like an explorer looking for wonders around the next bend. Roger Mudd of CBS News fame says he tries never to ask a question that can be answered with a yes or no. This is excellent advice and often separates the amateur interviewer from the pro but it’s not a steadfast rule. Sometimes the yes or no question is necessary for clarity or exactness or confirmation of a particular point or fact. “The most important thing going into an interview is your knowing so much about it that you wouldn’t even need the interview. The interview just carries you over,” said Nicholas Pileggi, author of nonfiction books and a New York reporter. Of course, it’s often not practical to know so much ahead of time that “the interview just carries you over.” But it’s something good to keep in mind. It underscores the point about doing your homework. Bill Moyers, one of the most prolific interviewers, says, “a good interviewer is a good student, above all.” True enough. The more you know, the more you’re likely to understand the true meaning behind what the person is telling you. TV broadcaster Barbara Walters prepares for an interview by asking herself, “What do I want to know?” and, “What does the public really want to know?” Interview styles vary from the prosecutorial approach of a Mike Wallace to the schmoozing of a Barbara Walters to the dance-around-the-subject style of a Diane Sawyer. My own interview style is a version of the soft sell. Make friends and inspire confidence. This technique is not without trouble. When you do make friends, you can’t just drop them when you’ve got what you came for. At one time I was carrying on heavy correspondence with a retired rodeo bronco rider, the aged daughter of a famous sailing captain, and a Polish seaman who was having trouble getting naturalized. He showed up at my apartment one night between ships, with his little bag in hand, wanting a bed for the night. I hastily made supper for him, and showed him the couch. As you can see, anything can happen. Luckily, at that

time I had a sympathetic spouse. With each interview, I gained a little more composure and eventually I was able to control the butterflies in my stomach enough to enjoy lunches again. What a relief that was. I look back on this experience now and realize that, as tough as it was, it was great preparation for the diplomatic life, where meeting new people without losing one’s lunch is an essential skill. Over the next few years, I was interviewing lots of people in New York, some more memorable than others. The worst interview I had was not in New York, but in Anchorage, Alaska, with a famous Arctic glacier pilot named Sig Wein. He was an extreme example of taciturn. No matter what I asked him, he would grunt “yes” or “no” and I’d have to fill in the narrative, which he would then agree to or not with a shake of his head. Apparently, he had spent such a solitary life in the frozen North that he wasn’t prepared for normal social discourse. About the only people he ever saw or talked to were Eskimos and there weren’t that many of them around. One of the most challenging interviews was the one set up by the agent of Marcel Marceau, the famous French mime. Marceau was a keen observer and he drew his material from the people he studied. As we sat in a midtown restaurant—I think it was La Grenouille—Marceau would glance around at other couples and foursomes in the room, and then tell me what he thought they were doing: if they were fighting or making a business deal, or apologizing for some misdeed, or whatever. They were all mime material to him. Sometimes his English could be puzzling. He only knew about 300 basic words. When I was interviewing him in New York, Marceau asked winningly one day if I might consider seeing him again and he ended with what sounded like a zinger. “Would you make horse with me in Central Park?” When he died in 2007 the New York Times wrote a seven-column obituary. “Marcel Marceau, the wiry French mime who mostly performed as the chalk-faced Bip … did much to revive the art of the pantomime … Since 1946, when he began his silent career, Mr. Marceau had performed an average of 200 shows a year … His repertory changed little over the decades, but he played to full houses in the United States, Germany and other European countries and Japan, where he was deemed ‘a national treasure.’ “His acts included Creation. in which the start of the world began with a fluttering of his long fingers as fish and birds, and ended with Adam and Eve skulking out of Eden. In Youth, Maturity, Old Age and Death, he depicted in four minutes the joy and pathos of life more succinctly and dramatically than many novelists and playwrights were able to do in hundreds of pages. He began folded into himself, an embryo, then strutted boldly, then crumpled and knotted himself into shrunken death. “Marceau … once said of his pantomime: ‘Mostly I think of human situations for my work, not local mannerisms. There is no French way of laughing and no American way of crying. My subjects try to reveal the fundamental essences of humanity.’” My first interview with Marceau was after he presented his first one-man show on Broadway. I saw him again twenty years later, at a small dinner party, when he visited a friend in the Philippines. We were seated together on a sofa, before dinner, and he looked me over very carefully. With an approving nod, he made one of his more creative comments. “You still have life in your face.” He may have been one of my more challenging interviews but to this day, that’s my very favorite compliment. My most humiliating failure of an interview was with Opera singer Lauritz Melchior. He was born in Copenhagen and later became American. He was at the top of his game throughout the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, and then later broke into the movies, performing in a number of popular MGM musicals, enough to earn him a celebrity star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Through research, I had dreamed up the most wonderful brief that portrayed him as a robust, vital, humorous man who would have lessons in life for everybody. It turned out that he didn’t want to do the interview. He was tired. He wanted to be left alone with his stamp collection. But his wife pushed him to talk to me. He finally agreed but only if I met him at the beach. I assumed he meant that we would talk in a coffee shop or somewhere looking out over the water. So I arrived with a big black hat, dark city dress, and my

portable typewriter (I never learned shorthand). But no, he was insistent that I meet him actually on the beach or nothing. So I had to change into a bathing suit that I had brought with me and out to the beach I went. I had hardly sat down on the blanket when kids ran by and kicked sand into my typewriter. Then we were continuously interrupted by people asking what I was doing on the beach with a typewriter. And to top it off, he wasn’t very talkative. It was a mess. He was nice enough but I didn’t write a very good article and it was never published. The bathing suit incident was not the only time I had to suit up for an interview. One time I went to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York to talk with Dr. Virginia Apgar, famous for creating the Apgar Score which evaluates a newborn baby’s physical condition immediately after birth. Dr. Apgar had me suited up in delivery room attire, so I could be present at a live birth. As the baby was delivered, she turned to the attending physician. “Doctor, may we borrow your placenta?” she said. It was dripping blood and still warm and, after the umbilical cord was cut, to my surprise she handed the placenta to me. A teacher at heart, Dr. Apgar wanted me to appreciate this amazing organ which had sustained the baby’s life in the womb. “Look at that!” she marveled. “You can still feel the blood flow.” I could. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to. It was still so warm I could feel the heat through my gloves. I held it for a moment, trying to admire it, before a nurse had mercy on me and retrieved it and added it to the delivery room waste. (She also showed me the deep freeze where they had a few hundred placentas, wrapped in cellophane and labeled like a meat counter. The hospital sold them for 50 cents apiece.) Even though I never had children of my own, I’ve always had an interest in children and childbirth, which is why I teamed up with 1969 pediatrician Dr. Margaret Liley to write the book The Secret World of the Baby, published by Random House. I still have the congratulatory letter from my editor, Janet Finnie, in which she sent me a compilation of reviews. “They are just about the most favorable reviews for any book I’ve ever edited …” she wrote. The Library Journal selected The Secret World of the Baby as one of the “Best Books of the Spring.” “This sympathetic and tasteful treatment of an engrossing subject will find an assured audience among young teen siblings and babysitters and will very likely catch the interest of their parents too. Reflecting the findings of the new science of fetology, the authors describe the active and sentient existence of the unborn baby. In opposition to the generally held belief that the fetus develops in a passive and unconscious state, readers are shown that the baby hears noises, detects light, explores his own features, exercises, and in other ways prepares in the womb for his radically different life after birth. The birth process itself is described in terms of its effect on the infant, and the early postpartum weeks are shown as a transitional period where many of the baby’s reactions reflect his prenatal experiences.” The Saturday Review was equally enthusiastic in its praise: “Wonderfully explicit X-ray pictures of embryos and fetuses make vivid the eternal miracle of birth, and charming photographs of infants illustrate phases of the learning process in babyhood. Dr. Margaret Liley and Beth Day explain the latest facts and theories about the baby’s learning before birth, the trauma of birth and the aftereffects (adjustments to the pull of gravity) and the ways in which a newborn child responds to love, communicates, and explores his new world.” We based the book on the experience of Dr. Liley in running a prenatal clinic in Auckland, N.Z., and the scientific studies of her husband, a pioneer in fetology. The Kirkus Review described the photographs of Lennart Nilsson as “remarkable” and called the book “hard to resist”: “Here is the fetus moving in his sac like a baby seal, later becoming cramped and more and more uncomfortable; hearing quite well but seeing little, limited by the scant light passing through his mother’s body; reacting to jostling and increasing constriction by kicking out; lulled by the rhythm of his mother’s heart, of her steady walking—being, in short, a sentient being. So that when he is born the reader sympathizes with his shock. Altogether it’s … hard to resist.” The book is an example of a successful collaboration between a pediatrician and a writer with no specialized knowledge of the subject—in this case, me. I spent quite a bit of time in New Zealand interviewing Dr. Liley and her husband and I remember well the feeling of exhilaration as we worked to put together an authoritative text that would be of importance for quite some time. The subject is still topical today.

Many of the assignments that I took on from Reader’s Digest focused on business subjects, so many of my interviews were with titans of industry, like U.S. industrialist Walter Paepke. I was somewhat in awe when I interviewed Paepke, who was president and chairman of the Chicago-based Container Corporation of America. I met him in Aspen, Colorado, where he had founded the Aspen Institute. I then flew with him on his private jet back to his Chicago home, and interviewed him in his apartment overlooking Lake Michigan. After an hour or so of questions, he offered me a drink. “I’ll take a Scotch and soda,” I said, and then added primly. “But please make it a small drink.” He smiled mischievously, and replied in a grave voice, “I make very good half drinks.” Wherever I went people offered me drinks—from juice to coffee to champagne—but they would never offer to show me the way to the Ladies’ Room, even though many times I had just come from an hour’s train or car ride or air flight. And since most of my subjects were men and I was innately shy, I was embarrassed to ask for the bathroom. This is what happened when I was in Paepke’s apartment. I finally got up the courage to ask for the bathroom, which he kindly directed me to. But when I got inside I was puzzled. At first glance I couldn’t see a toilet. Then I realized it had a skirt that matched the chair before the mirror, a first for my mid-western eyes. An editor at Reader’s Digest, after hearing about my meeting with Paepke—and well aware that finding a restroom was a major problem when conducting interviews—joked that if I ever got around to writing my autobiography, I should call it And Where is Your Can, Mr. President? Interviewing someone who hates to be interviewed presents its own set of challenges. Such was the case with Mexican comic actor, Cantinflas. I began the interview on the set of Around the World In 80 Days in which he co-starred, and later followed up in Mexico City where he lived. Cantinflas (his real name was Mario Moreno) hated interviews and deliberately scheduled mine in the midst of a big party that he was hosting at his home. He parked me and my husband, Harry, in a study room, then flitted in and out every fifteen minutes or so, but never stayed still longer than the time required for one question. It was a long evening. My most challenging interview was with Alec Guinness, that wonderful chameleon of an actor, whom I interviewed in London. Actors are notoriously gun-shy about being taped. I often had to take notes instead. But Guinness would not even let me take notes—he wagged his finger “no no” when I took out my notebook. So the minute the interview was over I raced back to my hotel room, sat down at the typewriter I had rented, and tried to recreate our conversation verbatim. I was so worried about whether it would be accurate that I broke a Reader’s Digest rule about not allowing your subject to see the article until it was printed. I sent him an advance copy for corrections. I still have his scribbled comment on the margin of that manuscript. “Dear Miss Day, your only error was in the age of my parrot.” Reader’s Digest used to run a feature called “What Sparks You.” And I often wrote articles for it, talking to people in the news and finding out what sparked them. It was always a popular feature. A friend asked me recently to tell her what sparks me. I suppose what sparks me is people, watching people. As far back as I can remember, I was writing down notes about people. I always have been most interested in meeting interesting people, living in odd places, and tasting the fullness of life. In June of 1972, my mother and my brother were involved in a serious car accident in New York. My brother escaped with only minor injuries but my mother, who was not in the best of health anyway, was hospitalized with a broken hip. I remember visiting her in the hospital and thinking, “She may not die tomorrow or next week or even next month but I tasted death on her lips today.” Her hands were cold, her eyes glazed, and there was the scent of inner decay. I already had been conscious of her disorientation, her senility, and her pain but on one particular visit I had a strong sense of her impending death. Part of it was what she said. She had a terrible night; she was very agitated, and had to be restrained. “I went to the cemetery and dug my grave with my bare hands,” she said. “It was very cold there.” I thought perhaps she was hallucinating and thinking of another cemetery and of another death years ago (her mother’s or her husband’s or brother’s, maybe). “Where is the cemetery?” I asked. She seemed surprised that I asked.

“Mount Kisco.” (How she knew of Mount Kisco I’ll never know. It had never been discussed, to my knowledge. But that is indeed where she is buried.) “Why did you go to the cemetery?” “To find a nice spot.” She spoke of being cold, so we got blankets and covered her but she still felt cold. Her hand seemed unnaturally cold, even after covering her. She told me she wanted to die, and then said in a very conversational manner, “I know you don’t like to talk about it but when should I die?” It was as if she were asking my advice or my leave. I thought of something a doctor had once told me. “Birth and death need kindly company.” This is so true. There was little I could do for my mother other than to comfort her with my presence, my hand on her brow, her hand in my hand, my voice soothing her. Any kind presence can soothe a dying person but the presence of a familiar face is especially soothing. I remembered my late husband, Harry, who had died in this same hospital. He was being prepared for a spinal tap and he said, “Where’s Beth?” The doctors stood back and let him see my face and then he was quiet. This brings me to a second point. If one lives a reasonable lifespan (I was forty-eight when my mother died), then one does officiate at more than one death. This was my third—first my father, then my husband (Harry), and now my mother. I remember thinking, “Who will be around to console me when my time comes?” If you survive the unspeakable hours and days and months of grief and feelings of hopelessness, then things start popping again. They always do. There’s so much truth to that old saying, “You never know what’s around the corner.” After my mother exited my life, General Romulo entered it. Thoughts of death and dying were set aside and replaced with romance and happiness. My focus quickly shifted to the Far East. I thought of my mother and how, when I was much younger, she would get annoyed with me because I was always thinking of the outside world, the world beyond Indiana and Oklahoma. She would think moving to Manila would be about the craziest thing anyone could do. But the truth is, I was bored with life in New York and my mother had died and I felt so very lucky for this most unlikely opportunity of a lifetime to find, at the age of forty-nine, another chance at love, one that was chockfull with the promise of adventure and romance. The day I hopped into the yellow taxi for J.F.K. airport and my flight to Manila, I was confident that my life as a writer had prepared me for just about anything, including life as the wife of the Philippine foreign minister—or so I thought.

The General’s New “Girlfriend” CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The garden was vast and filled with orchids. The giant acacia trees sparkled in the night from the bright glow of countless shell lanterns. Beautiful women, in their flowing gowns, moved about languidly, their jewels glittering in the moonlight. This was my first grand party in Manila and I was impressed. It was a whole new world for me, a never-never land for society’s elite. Servants stood ready to refill my champagne glass. Violinists poured waltzes into the romantic evening. A steady stream of chauffeurdriven limousines arrived one after the other, each emptying more power and more talent and more wealth into the grand garden. The lifestyle was beyond the imagination for a working New Yorker like me. But it was only a glimpse of what was to come. I moved to Manila in May of 1973. I still have a copy of a letter that I sent to a close friend that same month. In the letter, which describes my frame of mind at that time, I share my “secret plan to marry General Romulo, an old friend of twenty years standing, at a date yet to be determined.” I described why everything had to be “secret” and the international repercussions of Philippine-U.S. treaties and agreements which were all being renegotiated. “What with the Watergate mess I don’t know when Nixon will get around to looking over the new proposals,” I wrote. My exuberance was tempered by the uncertainty of my situation. “I never expected to be wandering around in the middle of a novel with such international intrigue but that’s what it feels like.” I also explained how happy I had been with Harry and that I had not been tempted to marry again but “this is something I feel very comfortable about.” “I don’t think Harry would mind my choosing to marry one of the world’s greatest heroes,” I wrote. Since Rommy and I could not yet be officially married, I took a suite at the Manila Hilton, only a few blocks from the General’s office at the Department of Foreign Affairs. He would usually stop by for coffee in the morning on his way to work and we would meet for lunch and then get together for dinner either just for the two of us or for dinner parties with more than a hundred guests. I thoroughly enjoyed the leisurely ritual of long baths and dressing (long) every night. I wrote to a relative in August of 1973 describing my new routine and how Rommy and I never ran out of conversation. There was so much going on to discuss each day. I was impressed with Rommy’s diplomatic skills. He was so wise and unruffled. He had been through so many crises that nothing rattled him anymore. In the short time since my arrival, we had already hosted a number of visiting guests, including the Thai foreign minister and his wife, the internationally acclaimed pianist Harvey “Van” Cliburn, Mrs. Henry Ford, and the ministers from four Muslim countries who had come on a fact-finding mission to investigate the Filipino-Muslim situation in the south. My situation was awkward at first. Here I was, a Hoosier in Manila with no clear social position or any rank beyond that of resident journalist. I often felt uneasy in the amorphous role of “girlfriend of the General.” But the Marcoses treated me well. They understood that my position was a result of the president’s request to delay the Romulo marriage until after a military bases agreement could be reached with the U.S. (Philippine-U.S. negotiations over American military bases had been postponed because of the Watergate scandal. We had no way of knowing that these on-and-off-again negotiations would grind on until 1978.) Despite my lack of a title, I was adopted into the official family at the presidential palace (Malacañang) and became a de facto Cabinet wife, performing the normal duties and routines of the other wives. At state dinners, Rommy sat at the Presidential Table. I was assigned to Table One, which was located directly below the Presidential Table and included members of the Cabinet and foreign guests. I remember one time we were at the Presidential Palace, Rommy had passed through the receiving line first and as I stepped up to greet First Lady Imelda Marcos, she leaned in and whispered, “He’s so proud of you.” Imelda could be sweet at times. I always kind of stuck up for her. She got a lot of flack when she did silly things. Of course, there were times when Imelda got herself in trouble for not-so-silly things. There was one custom that caught me off-guard. (I found it hilarious, but kept that to myself.) The elegant ladies at the presidential palace, laden with the finest jewels, would always greet you with a kiss, which was fine, but they wafted the heavy odor of garlic. They tried to cover it up with a lot of perfume but the best perfume could never prevail over garlic. And one thing you find out pretty quickly is that Filipinos love garlic and Philippine cuisine has a lot of it. Luckily, I love garlic too. But the lovely ladies with the garlic breath took some getting used to.

President Marcos was accustomed to calling Rommy at all hours of the day or night. Shortly after I arrived, Marcos put through a call to the house and the maid said the General was “out” but she didn’t know where. Marcos called his security chief, the ever-faithful and ruthless General Fabian Ver, and told him to find the General. Ver first made a sweep of the prominent hotels asking if anyone had seen the General. He struck paydirt at the Intercontinental Hotel in Makati. “He’s up at El Castilliano,” the front desk manager told him. This was the night club at the top of the hotel. General Ver took the elevator up and when he walked in, he saw us dancing. Ver went to the nearest phone (there were no cellphones in those days) and reported to President Marcos that he had found General Romulo. “Where is he?” Marcos asked. “In El Castilliano, dancing,” he said. There was a slight pause. “Does he dance well?” asked the president. “Yes sir. Very well,” Ver reported. “Do you wish to speak to him?” “No. Never mind,” the president answered. “Don’t bother him.” I enjoyed hotel life, with its utter lack of daily chores and responsibilities. My suite, overlooking Manila Bay, was spectacular in any weather—sun, rain, or storm. I had nothing to do but spend time with Rommy and work on my latest book. For the first six months, I patiently researched and investigated the state of democracy in the Philippines. I traveled to the provinces on a number of side trips by small plane and helicopter; I talked to numerous people in Manila and I spent time in the libraries of Washington and New York. The book was published in 1975 to good reviews. Here is what one reviewer, Apolonio Batalla, writing in the Manila Bulletin, had to say: “Last Monday, the Philippine Women’s University conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters on Beth Day, author of The Philippines: Shattered Showcase of Democracy in Asia. The book seeks to give the U.S. reading public a clear understanding of the Philippines’ New Society … the book might well have been titled The Philippines and America. One of the longest chapters is given to ‘A Very Special Relationship’ (between the U.S. and the Philippines). “And there, Ms. Day says: ‘The major crime … which can be totted up directly against America is its reinforcement of the stratified social structure. The only Filipinos the Americans dealt with were the already entrenched hierarchy of educated landowners. No efforts were made to reach the poorer nationalist leaders or attempt to indoctrinate any but the already wealthy in the intricacies of the democratic process. Rather than attempt to democratize the two-class order, Americans taught the tenets of democracy and free enterprise to the wealthy class.’” Of course, American attitudes toward the Philippines have changed. On the last page of my book, I highlight comments made by the U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines, William H. Sullivan, in his appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, at the time of his confirmation. “It would be arrogant,” Sullivan stated, “for representatives of countries with one form of democratic experience to dictate the exact form the democratic process should take in other countries …” It’s been many years since Ambassador Sullivan made those comments and attitudes are continuing to evolve but these policy views are still relevant today, not just for the Philippines but each country wrestling with the principles of democracy. General Romulo wrote the introduction to the book: “As an author and as an interpreter of my country to the American people, I am impressed less by Miss Day’s command of facts, excellent as it is, than by her sure and evenhanded treatment of background which is often regarded as peripheral by other writers but is seen by Miss Day as integral to the discussion of contemporary events in the Philippines. I hope that this book will inaugurate an era of renewed understanding between Filipinos and Americans.”

The General liked the fact that I was a “generalist.” I had written books and articles that covered a broad range of subjects: sociology, history, biography, education, aviation, medicine, adventure, current events, the art of living, food, and animals. I had interviewed hundreds of people and asked thousands of questions. So I could discuss just about anything. Rommy used to say, “Beth could make a dead man talk.” I was fascinated by the whole notion of being on the “inside” of government and was eager to immerse myself in the subject of diplomacy. Rommy said he was thrilled to have someone around who wanted to learn. I remember after a few “diplomatic lessons” I said, “Ahh yes, it’s like poker. A flush beats a straight,” which won a delighted chuckle from Rommy. He told me that when he went to diplomatic functions with his first wife, he would always write a one-paragraph bio of each guest with suggestions of what to talk about. He never gave me directions, except to say, “Don’t let him hold you that close out on the dance floor!” He liked that it was easy for me to talk to strangers but he didn’t like it if they got too cozy. I tried to steer around potentially awkward situations. Besides, I wasn’t interested anyway. I had a good life in all ways and I was grateful for it. I got to meet heads of state, kings and presidents, and the highest level officials from more countries than I can remember. Sometimes I would think back to when I was a shy girl in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I was amazed at how far I had come—literally halfway round the world. This was a whole new ballgame for me and I was getting a real kick out of it. I had even gotten used to the stares and the cameras and the strain of always being in the spotlight and having to look well-groomed all of the time. I thought I was meeting all expectations but I soon found out how fickle the public can be.

The Diplomatic Life CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“It’s too bad you have so few clothes.” The woman’s remark was catty but on target. When I first arrived in Manila, I only had two off-the-rack evening dresses (although I liked them very much). There was one I really liked: a long, coral sequin sheathe. For the first two weeks in Manila, I alternated wearing my two gowns to parties and receptions. As the General’s companion this just would not do. The message got around quickly that my two gowns were not sufficient and I was told to hurry up and get some more clothes. So Rommy had his daughtersin-law guide me to a fashion designer and dressmaker. Manila was still dressy in those days. Women tended to wear long gowns in the evening. I went on a shopping spree. After a few weeks I was literally wearing a different outfit to each reception and dinner. And Rommy loved to show me off. He would buy me “real” jewelry and insisted that I buy the most beautiful evening gowns and ternos. At one point I counted forty evening gowns. Then I was told the local gossip had shifted. They were now sorry for the General—I was spending too much on clothes! My conclusion: The new girl in town can’t win. I also heard there were questions as to why I had no children of my own. But no one ever got up the nerve to ask me directly. Marrying Rommy provided me with an instant family, including three stepsons (his oldest son had been killed in a plane crash a few years earlier), four stepdaughters-in-law and ten stepgrandchildren. In my teens, I assumed that I would get married and have children, like most married women during that time. But I never got pregnant. Nor did I try to. I had just assumed that I would probably get pregnant one day. But my husbands all had children from earlier marriages and weren’t too keen on starting another family. So there was no incentive and I didn’t care one way or the other. So my relationships with them were as a couple, not as a family. Then, in my forties, I had a gynecological problem and went through extensive examinations. I was told that I would have had trouble conceiving when I was younger. So it was just as well not to have tried. Regardless, I never had any strong maternal instincts. Looking back, I believe if I had married a man who wanted children, I would have tried to oblige. As it turned out, trying to have a baby would, for medical reasons, most likely have been an exercise in frustration. So, as an adult, my focus always has been more intellectual than maternal, which is why I took to global affairs with such enthusiasm. I had lots of international reporting experience but no experience whatsoever with the diplomatic life. None of my book or magazine subjects (other than Rommy) had been diplomats—or even political figures. They were mostly drawn from the movies, theater, sports, and the business world. I found out quickly that nothing in my past approached the protocol of diplomatic life. Rommy was a distinguished public figure with global standing—and I didn’t want to embarrass him. As much as I love wine, for instance, I was careful to drink sparingly at receptions, to guard against some ill-advised or overly effusive comment. I tend to get enthusiastic as I talk and the wine I love loosens the lips. But I never made him sorry that I was with him. I soon discovered that he could be very demanding. He didn’t tolerate fools gladly, and would flare up at inefficiency, tardiness, and just plain stupidity. His appetite could be ravenous and he would get very testy if meals were late. Whoever was close caught the flack—whether it was an aide, his host, or his wife. A close friend had warned me early on, “You will find they don’t call him General for nothing!” One time I surprised him and he surprised me. It was at a dinner that he hosted in honor of one of my New York friends, Norwegian journalist Bess Balchen Urbahn. Bess had been married to the famous Norwegian explorer Bernt Balchen. Bernt was a heavy drinker and occasionally binged. Bess was very alert to this. To try to avoid serious mishaps, she tried to keep him from driving when he was drunk. On one occasion, when he had way too much to drink, he tried to get the car keys and leave the house. She tackled him and tried to retrieve the keys. Bernt was a bear of a man, heavy set, and powerful. Bess was a slender woman and no match for his brute strength. But she fought hard for the keys anyway. In one

close clinch, she bit him hard on his bare chest. He yelped and dropped the keys. Later, after he had sobered up, Bernt taught her the art of hand-to-hand combat. “If you try to bite anybody again,” he told Bess, “remember to aim for the ears or the nose!” Bernt died in 1973. Bess later married Max Urbahn, a prolific architect of government buildings whose work included the design of the largest structure in the world, NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Bess and her new husband were visiting Manila in 1978. The General had met them with me in New York and liked them. So we both were excited to host a dinner in their honor. I still have a note describing the evening as a beautiful, small dinner for forty-three. I loved that. Forty-three. “Small” dinner. Boy, does that show that I had been on the diplomatic circuit for a while. We had a long table on the veranda that night. The guests included some cabinet ministers and one Justice and four architects, plus the ambassadors of Egypt, Britain, Italy, and Japan. Rommy stood and introduced Max by reading his bio but said absolutely nothing about Bess who, after all, was the one we were really honoring. She was my old friend whom Rommy liked and Max was her man. So I prompted Rommy and said something to him about how she was the widow of Colonel Balchen and I prompted him some more and he said, “Why don’t you tell us?”—and he sat down. So I got up and explained her background in journalism and Norway and her work in the U.S. and so forth. In the note I wrote to myself later, I said, “I really do resent those who identify women only in terms of the man, someone’s wife or someone’s daughter, as if they have no identity of their own.” Some of the other women present at the dinner apparently agreed with me. They came up afterward and said, with a twinkle, how much they “enjoyed my speech.” Rommy and I often had to greet foreign dignitaries on their arrival at Manila airport. I remember one particular day. I had to stay at the airport from noon to 5 p.m. to welcome four foreign ministers and their wives, which was fine except it was the monsoon season in the Philippines and the rain was relentless. Each time I waited patiently in the pouring rain, standing beside their plane with my flowers. My shoes were sopping wet. I remember thinking, “I’ll be glad when we get jetways.” When we got home, Rommy walked up to me and patted me on the back and said, “You are a real trooper.” Life as the wife of a prominent diplomat is a constant blur of activity and a continuous lesson in making last-minute adjustments—sometimes at warp speed. I was reminded of this the other day when I found a long-since forgotten note that I had written more than thirty years ago. It said, “Of all the last-minute dinners this week, just before we were to leave for New York, this was the most elegant.” The General and I hosted this particular dinner in September of 1979 in honor of the Libyan Ambassador to the Philippines, Mostafa Ghafa Driessa. Rommy had come home late from the Philippine parliament (Batasan), so I researched Libya for him and had the notes ready for his toast. He especially appreciated a reminder that the United Nations created Libya in 1949—when he was president of the U.N. General Assembly. In 1979, I was very much in public view in Asia, Europe, and the United States. I served as hostess for the thousand delegates from all over the world who convened in Manila in May for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, personally greeting at the airport U.N. Secretary General and Mrs. Kurt Waldheim, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and Mrs. Andrew Young, and former U.S. Secretary of State and Mrs. Henry Kissinger. I wrote two major articles that year, one on geothermal power and the other on artists in Silay City. In Manila, I was a guest of honor at three luncheons and one reception and a guest at formal dinners in thirteen embassies. I was twice in Geneva, Switzerland, once for the Committee on Disarmament and again for the U.N. Special Meeting on Refugees. I was a guest of the Foreign Minister and his wife in Tokyo and visited the Asia Institute of Technology in Bangkok. I gave five major speeches to various groups, hosted a tea party to promote the Cultural Center of the Philippines dance company, opened the Conference of Engineers and a special Photo Exhibit in Manila, and was a special guest at the University of Philippines Book Fair. In the fall, I was in residence in New York, where I attended U.N. General Assembly meetings and a slew of formal dinners as a special guest of Mr. and Mrs. Jack Howard of Scripps Howard Publishing; Mr. and Mrs. Richard Deems of Hearst publications; Mrs. Douglas MacArthur; Mrs. Kurt Waldheim (on three occasions); and formal dinners given by the foreign ministers of Thailand, Malaysia, China, the U.N. Chief of Protocol, the German and Spanish embassies; and the Circumnavigators Club of New York. I was the subject of photo features and articles in several magazines and appeared on television frequently. It was a busy year but 1979 was representative of what diplomatic life was like as the wife of the Philippine foreign minister. One of the strangest diplomatic dinners I ever attended is still vivid in my mind. The wife of the Israeli ambassador was the guest of honor. She insisted that I go. “You really must come,” she said. “It’s a wonderful house. There’s a great collection of sculpture and art. It’s a fabulous place.” So I went. The art was absolutely the most eerie collection I’ve ever seen. All of the pieces moved, like a haunted house. The hors d’oeuvres consisted of nothing more than fresh dates and figs. I asked a waiter for a glass of white wine. What he brought was a forbidding apricot color. Sure enough, it smelled like vinegar and

had a nasty aftertaste. It was definitely “over the hill.” I was rude and let the waiter know and asked if he could pour a glass from a different bottle. He reluctantly brought another. (They probably won’t invite me back again and I’m certainly fine with that but I did wine drinkers a service that night.) I noticed at dinner the good wine was served. I also noticed that production dominated food. Each course (there must have been seven) was a different artistic arrangement with live flowers and sculptured chocolate and dry ice sending clouds of mist around the room. The worst was the lobster on a clear plastic base with a pathetic little crayfish (live) trying to get out. And three transvestites entertained between courses, mouthing a sound track and flirting with the male guests. (Everybody has to make a living but for me the trouble with men dressed as women is, more often than not, their feet are always too big. The makeup and wigs are okay for the face but the feet are a dead giveaway and they don’t prance well in stiletto heels.) Considering that every course was a piece of sculpture for each individual guest, as well as a bit of food, the service was interminable. It took hours. Several diplomat couples were there and other friends I knew from the local community and I hope they enjoyed the evening. It certainly was different. In fact, in my five years in Hollywood I don’t remember a single production like this one. I often found myself acting as a bridge between the U.S. and the Philippines and other Philippine diplomats took notice. I remember one time in particular after I had published my book about the Philippines in 1981. The Philippine Consul General in New York wrote a thoughtful letter praising the chapter “Perspective of a Diplomat’s Wife.” But his favorite chapter was “Old Friends in a Changing Scene.” Here’s what he had to say about it: “ … it strikes closest to my temporary milieu, the New York scene where I have to battle daily the quintessence of American parochialism … and commercialism … I get cramps in my neck following the pendulum of media-inspired ‘public opinion’ as it swings from left to right. I agree with and am heartened by Mrs. Romulo’s observation that she does not ‘consider the jackal tendency of the press to be a national characteristic.’ I share the feeling that the press is so ‘high’ on its post-Watergate triumph that it is destroying its own credibility … Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of Americans, because of their basic generosity of spirit, their friendliness or their goodwill towards other people, know better than to get aboard the roller-coaster to nowhere.” The other day I came across a note from me to General Romulo, handwritten in 1981 on Waldorf-Astoria stationery, which echoed a similar sentiment: “It was puzzling why is it that all journalists (my old trade) seem somehow callous and ‘smart-ass’? Maybe it’s because I’ve been moving in more prosperous or more elegant circles these past few years. But what used to seem so very clever now strikes me as juvenile!! It also may be that I’m more often with Asians and Europeans who are more polite than Americans.” When Rommy decided to run for the Batasan (Parliament), I campaigned with him. It was great fun to travel around the Philippines and visit with people in their towns and villages. I liked to appear in the traditional Filipino dress known as the Terno, a long dress with broad “butterfly” sleeves that rise out of the shoulders and extend to the elbow. Fortunately, those butterfly sleeves will go flat when you fold them together and then they come up when you put the dress on. You don’t need to have them pressed. The Terno is flattering to almost anyone since the butterfly sleeves frame the face. I wore the Terno at all state functions in Manila and Philippine receptions and dinners abroad. Wherever Rommy went he drew crowds. Once, at a flag-raising ceremony when he was pinch-hitting for President Marcos, the crowd surged around him asking for autographs and wanting to shake his hand. The Secretary of Defense, Juan Ponce Enrile, who was standing by, said, “General, they like you.” Rommy turned to him and said softly, “No, Johnny. They love me.” He then turned to me and said, “I wish someone would say that about me someday instead of writing about all the honors and awards.” (He had eighty-four honorary degrees, nearly one hundred special medals and citations, including the Philippine Medal of Honor.) In Manila, I seldom said anything controversial in public, lest it hurt his position. But when we would get home, he would look at me sharply and say, “All right, tell me. What are you thinking?” Whenever I expressed a political opinion opposite his own, he would ask to hear more. “Don’t tell me anyone ever changed your mind,” I said, laughing. “You could,” he replied. For me, this was the height of flattery, better than him telling me how beautiful I

was or giving me flowers or jewelry. His remark was like a warm hand on my heart.

Beth Day and her horse Beauty

Beth Day and her mother, Mary Anna Feagles

Beth Day and her brother, Bob, in college during World War II

Beth Day with her mother and father at Bob’s wedding in Atlanta, Georgia in 1942

Beth Day in Hollywood in 1959. This photo was taken by MGM’s still photographer Bud Graybill.

Beth Day with her husband Harry in 1961

Beth Day interviews former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos in 1973.

During the American astronauts’ Manila visit. Beth Day listens to one of the guests with President Marcos.

Beth Day with Gen. Carlos P. Romulo at the Waldorf Astoria in 1979.

Beth Day sits beside General Romulo while he addresses the United Nations Security Council in 1980.

With Pope John Paul II (extreme right) at the Papal Nunciature in Manila, February 1981. In the photo are (left to right) Ricardo “Dick” Romulo, Tessie Romero Romulo, Beth Day, and Gen. Carlos P. Romulo.

Carlos P. Romulo with Shirley Temple Black (center) in Hollywood in the 1980s. Beth Day is standing on the far right.

Beth Day with Pres. Corazon C. Aquino, ca. 1987. (Photo credit: Eddie Esguerra)

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago (extreme left) and Beth Day filming a TV talk show

Beth Day welcomes comedian Joey Adams and his wife Cindy when they visited the Philippines in 1990.

FVR told Beth Day she looked “the same” as in her video in 1980. “You could switch places (with your image) and no one would know the difference.”

“You Can’t Kill a Weed” CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

He considered telling the helicopter pilot to land on the helipad at Makati Medical Center but decided against it and instead landed properly and then rushed to the hospital in a car. General Romulo had just returned to Manila after accepting an outstanding citizen’s award in his home province of Tarlac. He was suffering from an awful cold, but was anxious to find out about my emergency surgery. It was December 30, 1974. The day before I had gone for what I thought would be a routine annual checkup by my OB-GYN but I ended up with a sobering report that I best proceed immediately with a full-scale total hysterectomy. Up to this time, I had successfully eluded all hospitals for a good half century, to the degree that I didn’t even know my own blood type, nor reaction to anesthesia. Having nothing more pressing to do at that moment, I told the doctor, “the sooner the better.” I checked into Makati Medical Center, one of the finest hospitals in Asia. Two of the General’s grandsons, Carlos III and Miguel, took my place for the helicopter flight to Tarlac, north of Manila in Central Luzon. But I didn’t expect them back so soon. “You Miss Day?” asked a hospital worker in the hall. “Yes.” “There are three guys here to see you.” The three guys soon appeared: the General and his two grandsons. The grandsons looked disappointed to see me walking around the hospital. I explained that the surgery was scheduled for the next morning. The next morning, Rommy called at six to say some immortal words—which he later very much regretted, because, as it turned out, I was already sedated and couldn’t recall a thing he said. In fact, the last thing I remember was being wheeled on my bed into the elevator and thinking, “I really feel foolish on this thing and I hope I don’t see anyone I know.” Then, hours later, I remember waking up back in my room. Meanwhile, somebody goofed as far as the General was concerned. He had been sitting at home waiting for word of how the surgery had gone—but nobody remembered to call him. He sat for one hour, then two hours. No call. Being logical, he feared the worst. He decided I had died and they did not want to tell him over the phone, so he began arrangements for my disposal. He would have to alert the American Ambassador and my banker brother in London, and then he would have to have me cremated. And where on earth do you find a crematorium in a Catholic country like the Philippines? He had heard me express my personal crotchet about cremation. (My thoughts on cremation came from commuting for twenty years from Chappaqua to Manhattan past the prettiest land in Westchester county which was filled, chockablock, with gravestones.) Well, he finally thought of one place that performs such a heathen ceremony but before calling them he decided he better check and find the body first. So, he stormed over to Makati Medical, pressed the buzzer that unlocks the door to surgery, marched in and demanded they turn me over to him. “She’s not here, sir,” they told him. “Well, where is she?” he demanded. “She’s there—in the Recovery Room.” He looked in there and was met with quite a sight—shocking to the lay person but routine to medical personnel—of the post-op patient looking white as chalk, unconscious, with a blanket up to the neck. “All I could see of you was your periscope of a nose,” he recalled later romantically.

Since no one else in their right mind wanted an operation on New Year’s Eve, I had the whole room to myself. I was that one lone body near the door. But the body was breathing and the nurse told him I was okay. “Then, why is she so white?” he wanted to know. “They all look like that, sir. I monitored her heart. She didn’t miss a beat. She’s strong.” At this point, Rommy claims I opened an eye, glared at him and said, “What are you doing in the Recovery Room with your cold?” That convinced him I was alive so he went home. A few hours later he came back, after I had been moved up to my room. He found me whimpering like a puppy. “Why is she making noises like that?” he demanded. “Because she hurts,” explained the nurse. He went back home and sent someone else who did not mind listening to whimpers. Next morning I was fully awake—and did not like it one bit. When my doctor came, I suggested he give me something to knock me out. He obliged by prescribing morphine. I was soon floating comfortably into a sweet black space. When I would come to, they would give me another shot. This went on for about twenty-four hours and by then I could wake up, see people, and handle what was left of the pain. I say “see people” advisedly. People had been there all along. I just wasn’t in any shape to look at them. In the Philippines they do not believe in anything so inhospitable and inhumane as hospital visiting rules. One old pro (who had given birth several times in that same hospital) advised me that ladies should start putting on their mascara at 6:45 in the morning and keep it on till midnight every day. One morning, by seven, before I had bathed, I had in my room Rommy, a photographer, two doctors and a banker friend. People would come by on their way to work each morning. People would drop in at night on their way to parties, and on their way home from parties. Some would pop in wearing evening dresses, others pelota sports shorts, and still others fresh from the hairdresser, and so on. The first visitor I recall was a gentleman whose face hung over me like a white moon while I was still only half conscious. I still don’t know who he was. Later there was a woman holding roses who also swam in and out of my vision. Then, after my long morphine sleep, I began to be able to see them: men, women, children. In addition to the Romulo clan, I had a few honorary kinships, including the Delgados and Parsons. They all came despite the red sign on the door which Rommy had posted which said, in all caps, POSITIVELY NO VISITORS. I only heard of one shy lady who found the sign intimidating. Everyone else said, “Of course, it doesn’t mean us. We are family” or “We are friends.” There were also acres of flowers, fifty-eight baskets in all, including a beautiful display of orchids from President and Mrs. Marcos. This added to the crowd in my room; every nurse in Makati Medical, under some pretext or another, came to see the presidential bouquet of orchids. There also were fruits, pastries, candies. I even had one lovely bunch of goodies (camembert cheese and caviar which perked up my hospital room) from the General Manager of the Hilton Hotel, which was my home at that time. The Peter Go family sent daily deliveries in a hot thermos full of Chinese specialties, served with ivory chopsticks. My incarceration happened to coincide with the official visit of the Foreign Minister of Indonesia, Mr. Adam Malik (whom I had met in New York) and Mrs. Malik. When I mentioned I was sorry that I would miss them, Rommy said they had asked about me and wanted to drop by. I thought he was kidding—until a bunch of security men and a covey of news reporters lined the corridor outside my room one day. The nurses began whispering, and in strode Rommy with the Indonesian Minister and his wife. I would lay odds I was the only patient at Makati Medical Center who had two foreign ministers for visitors that day. This reminds me of how things here in Manila are so much more intimate compared to New York or anywhere else I’ve been. There are always lots of “backup” people to help absorb the unavoidable and inevitable shocks of life. Nobody is ever left alone with illness and grief. There are always tribes around, of varying degrees of kinship and friendship. It’s nice. I think of how much pleasanter my mother’s last days would have been in this kind of society. On the third day of my hospitalization, Rommy felt it was time to start cheering me up with comments about how thin and haggard my face was. “It’s too bad that surgery is so aging,” he said with a grin.

Finally, there was that “Check Out” day. The surgeon was so pleased with his handiwork that all of his staff came in to admire it, not me. They quite forgot me, but kept looking at my belly and murmuring, “Perfect. What a fine scar.” Then they told me I was uneventful and could go home. Since I was not sure just how uneventful I was, I took a nurse home with me for a few days. But she soon admitted, with some embarrassment, that I did not need her anymore. (We had been reduced to studying Spanish together to fill up her time.) At this point, I now knew enough Spanish to be able to understand a phrase that Rommy had been muttering since I returned home from the hospital. Roughly translated, he was saying, “You can’t kill a weed!”

The “Secret” Marriage CHAPTER NINETEEN

Our “first” marriage was supposed to be secret. Sensitive negotiations over military bases were still underway between the Philippine government and the United States and President Marcos did not want to deal with any domestic backlash from his foreign minister marrying an American journalist. But the General had grown impatient; our marriage plans had been on hold for a long time. Each fall, with each successive trip to New York, he was increasingly embarrassed facing all his old friends, and my family, with no change in my status. So, on September 8, 1978, five years after my move to the Philippines, Rommy and I went quietly to the Manila home of close friends, Admiral Charles (Chick) and Katsy Parsons. We were married privately in a civil ceremony officiated by Philippine Chief Justice Fred Ruiz Castro. The only other person present was the wife of the Chief Justice. This was the marriage that we did not announce publicly. Rommy thought he could keep our marriage secret in Manila, and only share it with our close friends and family in New York. It was a naive assumption. The morning after our “secret” marriage, the wife of an undersecretary in the foreign ministry called to congratulate me. I was flabbergasted. It turned out the Chief Justice who performed the ceremony had ordered his wedding present from Rustan’s department store: two silver goblets engraved with our names and the date. We denied it and I continued to live at the Hilton until the following February when the negotiations over U.S. military bases were complete, opening the way for us to be married officially. The wedding was officiated by the Papal Nuncio at the Apostolic Nunciature. Only the Romulo family and the Nuncio’s staff were present. I wore the same pink chiffon dress to both weddings. This one was announced to the public. I remember that Rommy’s good friend, Cardinal Sin, offered to marry us in his residence but Rommy joked, “I don’t want to get married in the house of sin.” The next step for me was to move into the Romulo compound. I recalled my first time there when I sat— uneasily—in the formal living room of the main house which did not have one comfortable corner to “snug” into and I viewed the formidable museum where the master bedroom once was, and his bedroom dressing room with no room for anyone else. I said, “Where will I be?” Now, six years later, I at last had a spot of my own where I could write. It was a second floor room that had been cleared of its artifacts and made into a sitting room/study. I placed my typewriter there and looked around. I had a big desk, a telephone, and a view. (It had a wonderful top-of-the-tree green view from the windows.) What more could anyone want? I slowly started moving my junk into the house bit by bit, a file here, a dress there, a piece of jewelry. I slept in Rommy’s room on the main level but my bathroom was on the second floor next to my study. I began to nest myself into this second floor which was by far the pleasantest part of an otherwise rather formal and unlivable house. (Except for Rommy’s bedroom, downstairs was so public.) But it felt good. We were blessed with cool weather when I first moved in and it required no air conditioning. I remember thinking, “It took six years but I’ve finally emerged into the real climate.” No more “cool box” at the hotel where you can’t open your window. Ironically, my new status as General Romulo’s legally-married wife carried with it pressures beyond any I had ever experienced. And it seemed funny to be such an awkward bride at my age, a woman in her mid-fifties. The official wedding ceremony was hardly over and the ink on the press releases announcing our wedding was hardly dry and the house was still full of floral gifts (with many, many orchids) and all the cables from well wishers around the world were still stacked high on tables, when the tension started—and the headaches. For the first time in my life I was plagued by headaches—the tension type from too much confusion and a sense of not coping or not wanting to. I felt as if everything had been dumped on me—the snarled bank accounts, the household confusion, plus myriad duties as mate, “doctor,” secretary, companion. I didn’t blame them for dumping it all on me if I indeed aspired to the top role in the household compound but it made me tense and snappish and deprived me of the pleasure of enjoying all the good vibes that were still coming in from the wedding announcement. The good vibes, understandably, were coming from outside. The inside vibes (the relations with the help) were definitely ambivalent if not hostile. I came across this letter that I wrote to a close friend in March of 1979: “I never did sign up as an accountant or housekeeper but now it’s all in my lap: the big (depressingly furnished) house and incompetent staff who can’t understand me and I can’t understand them; and

endless bookkeeping to do, with a huge payroll which all has to be paid in cash. You should see me sorting out those odd lots of money—and the staff borrows ahead, so I have to figure that out. It’s a mess, or I am. Plus, there’s the constant social obligations and ladies ‘calling’ on me, God forbid. How I yearn for the peace and quiet of 38th Street in Manhattan. And I have four good writing assignments awaiting my time. I don’t know when I can even look at them. My one escape is the pool. My one peaceful moment is my early morning swim. I keep telling myself it will all sort out and settle down one day and then I can have some hours to work in peace. (When I get mad at the staff, they simply run away and hide.) I’m sure when I do get control of everything, which eventually I shall of course, it will all seem quite funny. But currently I’m a bit tense instead of amused. Alas, it’s easier to be ‘the constant companion’ to the General than to be ‘the wife.’” I remember telling friends long ago that my life was a search for serenity and a search for love. Well, there was very little serenity when I first moved into the Romulo compound. What I discovered is that in Asia it’s often the woman who is charge of the household finances and everything else that goes with running a household. I had handled my own personal finances but it was nothing like this. Of course, the caretaker on the property had been there eons before me and his first ploy was to try to please me and do things that he thought I wanted done even before I said anything. But I soon noticed that the weekly payroll kept inching up and up with more and more “extras” getting a great deal more money than the members of our poor regular staff. I couldn’t see why we needed all those people. I had it out with him, in front of General Romulo so he could back me up. I told him there was to be no extra staff except on Saturdays. After that the house was very quiet. When I next asked to look at the payroll for extras for the week, there was none. For the first time, no money had been spent on extras. Later that same day I went to see how my cabinet upgrades were progressing. I found the old man himself painting the cabinets (instead of hiring a painter). He looked at me reproachfully and, as I was walking away, he coughed gently in the bargain to remind me of his frail health. But this was hardly the end of it. As the months went by, I would check the payroll and find all-too familiar items like “painting the boys’ quarters.” I would double check the preceding weeks and sure enough we had paid for the same item three times before. I was told it was really for painting the kitchen. I pointed out that we had already paid for the kitchen in both June and July. I pressed the issue. There was an admission that the project was really going slowly. I said it doesn’t take that many months to do one job. The maid then told me that’s why so much rice had been eaten. And then she broke down in tears, saying she didn’t want me to think that she was trying to put something over me. “It’s my brother,” she said. “It’s my jobless brother. We’re trying to get him work.” “I know,” I said. And I started feeling sorry about the whole thing. But I had to tell her that her brother is not on our payroll and that he must finish the work and move on. “We’re not going to carry him indefinitely.” But I also realize this is a fight that I will never win. They all try to hire their jobless relatives. With the growing population in the Philippines, there are never enough jobs or enough rice to go around. At the same time I was carrying on a running argument with the cook which goes like this: Me: Instead of buying sausage at the market, why don’t you take those Chinese hams that are filling up our freezer and use them to feed the guards and the drivers? Cook: But the ham is expensive, ma’am. Me: But we can’t eat it. The General is not supposed to eat pork. So cook it and feed the drivers and guards. Cook: But it is too expensive to feed them. It cost $20. Me: But if we don’t eat it, it’s better to feed the guards and drivers. Isn’t it? Cook: (silence—which means, “No.”) “Besides,” I argue, “the hams are a gift and we will be given more at Christmas. I want to empty the freezer.” (We went through this three times in a couple of months.) Finally, she cooked one ham, but served it to us. I ate some of it and suggested she serve the rest to the guards. She put it back in the freezer! The next day the housekeeper suggested I try a different approach. “Check the grocery list in front of the cook and say, ‘What is the sausage for?’ She will tell you it’s for the guards’ breakfast. Then say, ‘Why don’t you use the ham?’” I figured I had nothing to lose. My way had certainly not worked. So I

tried the housekeeper’s approach—and it worked. Tension can be contagious. One morning after we had returned from Baguio, Rommy was in a snit and making a scene in front of his barber, the maid, and me, throwing things on the floor and carrying on. He was upset because he was late for a meeting at the presidential palace (which got postponed anyway). That same day I was confronted with bank problems and family news that someone was angry because we missed her wedding and another person came at me with worries about the General’s accounts and the carpenter was upset because the electrician didn’t show up to change the wiring and I got word that more VIPs were expected any day. I felt like screaming or crying. Instead, I went swimming. The swim revived and calmed me—and I eventually got it all sorted out. What amazed me was how a so-called “important” life can be filled with so much trivia: the endless social notes, airport duties, personal calls, weddings and funerals, appearances, ribbon cuttings, as well as all the interminable time just standing around waiting for state dinners and the like to “start.” I’m not that relaxed. I had spent thirty years of my life carefully husbanding my time and energies so that I did the maximum work—and only engaged in the minimal of society’s trivial pursuits. I remembered that when I used to entertain, it was always between writing books or articles. I would clean my desk and set about having my dinner party (shopping, cooking, etc.) and when it was all over, then I went back to my desk again and resumed my writing. It was a remarkably disciplined existence, where I made a deliberate decision to put on blinders to anything that might distract me—people, events, etc. This was no longer possible, at least not until I mastered the art of managing a large compound with its large staff. But like so many other things, you eventually get the hang of it. You do what you have to do— whether it’s cleaning up crap (human or animal) or ordering a hundred orchids. It took about two years for things to settle down enough for me to have some hours each day to work in peace. Rommy had a prescription for a successful marriage: Be friends for years so there are no surprises. It worked for us. Despite the twenty-six-year age difference, Rommy suited me better than any man I had ever known. We had known one another for over twenty years—and there were few surprises. The only surprise that I recall was his youthful ardor. He was in his seventies and already considered an old man chronologically when I married him but he was a young lover—passionate, proud, jealous—all of those things one associates with youth. One day he came into the hotel carrying a package that Imelda had given him. It contained a bottle of Royal Bee Jelly capsules imported from Europe. I was amused. Since ancient times, Royal Bee had been used to stimulate the libido and restore vitality. Rommy, with a laugh, said, “Imelda says this will help me uphold the Philippines’ honor.” He never took them. One of his friends told me Rommy had been in love with me since we first met, which surprised me. He was enough of a diplomat not to have shown it. Rommy had been married to his first wife for forty years and by all accounts it was a happy marriage. Virginia was the mother, the hostess, and she took care of all household concerns, freeing him to pursue his career. When he lost her, his sons were worried about him. She had done everything for him, even picking out his tie each day. He was lost and lonely without her and then I came along, offering an end to his long-ago-love and the beginning of a fresh romance with an American girl. His personal assistant told me his personality changed once I was by his side. Instead of being occasionally grumpy and hard to please, he was cheerful and inclined to tease, facets of his personality that had become less apparent as he aged. I didn’t have to choose his ties or raise his sons (they were ten years younger than me), so we could just be friends. The real glue that held me together with Rommy was my interest in what he was doing. He loved the fact that he had someone to share his professional life with. If you looked at us as a couple, you might wonder what sort of a match this was. He was short and Asian. I was taller and Western. I remember an Asian colleague of his who once said, “Why would you marry a woman taller than you?” And the General joked, “Because I like to look up to a woman.” In fact, he did. Carlos P. Romulo never felt threatened by accomplished women. He took pride in their achievements, and helped them rise to the level of their competence in the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs. One time Rommy and I took an evening stroll in Luneta Park not long after I moved to Manila. We later learned that the police blotter carried the note that the foreign minister was seen walking in Luneta with a “white woman.” A local columnist who chose to attack me about our different positions on the question of American military bases in the Philippines (before the Philippine Senate had voted to close them) referred to me scathingly as the “white Romulo.” I’ve never gotten used to (nor understood) this “white woman” syndrome. I never think of myself as a “white woman,” nor do I think of my family and friends in Manila as “brown,” yet a lot of people do. In fact, Filipinos are such a racial mix—Spanish, Malay, Chinese, etc.—that they vary in skin color from alabaster to dark brown. But I think of myself and people in general as personalities, not colors. I

remember once being startled when Brunei entrepreneur Timothy Ong told me he had a “white wife.” Not a lawyer or businesswoman or whatever way she might personally have been classified—but “white.” I’m not virtuously colorblind. But it seems to me not focusing on color is a much better way to go through life. I remember stepping off of a plane from New York once and seeing the familiar, welcome face of my husband’s driver, Pascua, and realizing with a jolt that he really was dark brown. But what difference did it make? I never discussed this with Rommy so I don’t know how he felt about it. But I never heard him use the term “white” when referring to his many American and European friends or me. He was a thoroughgoing cosmopolitan and I doubt he divided people into racial categories because of skin color. I recall once in 1954 a black man appeared on Ralph Edward’s TV show This is Your Life. His name was Laurence Jones and he infatuated thousands of viewers with his life story of being a Northern-born black in the South trying to open a school for the children of Piney Woods. At the time, I had been writing children’s books for Julian Messner publishers. Kitty Messner decided someone should follow up with a book on the Piney Woods story but it would have to be done very quickly before the TV audience forgot. She couldn’t get any writer in her adult stable to agree to complete a book in a month’s time. Her Juvenile Editor suggested she give the assignment to me. My juvenile books were biographies, for the 12-to-14 age market, and not that much different from adult bios. Even though there were better-known writers, more successful writers, probably better writers, I always delivered on time. So I got the assignment. I had never been to the South, except to Atlanta to attend my brother’s graduation at Georgia Tech, and had no black friends or acquaintances at the time and I was not even familiar with the civil rights movement. (Keep in mind this was 1954.) I flew to Jacksonville, Mississippi, which was the nearest airport to the Piney Woods School and its founder Laurence Jones. I looked for someone to meet me. I saw a car parked on the edge of the runway, with several people standing beside it. A white woman walked forward to greet me and asked if indeed I was Beth Day from New York. Then she led me to the car. Laurence Jones was a small, black man with white hair and a warm, welcoming smile and an outstretched hand with an enthusiastic handshake. I had never watched his TV show This is Your Life and so I had no idea what he would look like. When he got into the car for the drive to Piney Woods he motioned for me to sit in the back seat with the white woman, a teacher, who had greeted me plane side. He sat in front with the driver. I thought this a bit odd since I had made the trip to see and be with him. I was reminded that the South was still segregated. Later, when we all went to a movie theater, the same thing happened. I sat downstairs in the main theater and my black friends sat in the balcony. During the weeks that I spent at Piney Woods these rules were in place whenever we were outside of the campus. It was different when we were at the school. There were several white teachers who melded in nicely with their black colleagues and everyone was easy and friendly. It took about ten days to get my material and then I flew back to New York. I wrote the book in three weeks, so that it came out that fall under the title The Little Professor of Piney Woods. It got good reviews and made a little more money than the advance, though it was not a big commercial success. Over the years I’ve had a number of hopeful writers ask for permission to write a screenplay and I always say yes but so far nothing has ever come of it. New York publishers got the word that I would take a job (even if I didn’t know anything about the subject) and produce a readable work in a very short time. This launched me into the adult nonfiction market. I was sent to Alaska by Henry Holt & Co. to write the book Glacier Pilot about the last remaining bush pilot Bob Reeve. Then I was sent to British Columbia by Julian Messner to write Grizzlies in Their Back Yard about one of the legendary hunting guides, Jim Stanton, who specialized in grizzly bears for his clients (he had been my father’s guide on one of his hunting trips in Canada). Henry Holt also sent me to a home for recovering alcoholics to write No Hiding Place about a successful retailer who fell as far as skid row but managed to clamber back up again. And on and on it went. For me it was one adventure after another. I remember a celebrated Philippine writer, Leon Guerrero, once commented to me, “You look like such a little lady. Almost prim. Yet at heart you are a real adventurer.” I also recall a similar observation, in a much less pleasant context from a woman I met at a cocktail party. “Oh, I know your type,” she sneered. “You look so proper, like butter wouldn’t melt in that sweet mouth of yours. Then you fuck everybody else’s husband!” I looked behind me to see if she was talking to somebody else. She wasn’t. She stared right at me before walking off in a huff. I never did understand where that came from. I didn’t know her or her husband, and can’t recall ever offending her. I concluded she must have mistaken me for somebody else. I spent half the evening trying to spot a woman who looked like the type who would do such a thing.

But my days in Manila were so full I didn’t have much time to dwell on these sorts of insults. Sometimes when Rommy was very busy at the office and a VIP was in town, I would do some fact-checking and give him a brief bio-data sheet before they had a meeting. On one occasion I ended up sitting next to General Alexander Haig at a dinner that Rommy hosted. Haig was President Reagan’s Secretary of State at the time and he had stopped in Manila for talks in connection with the annual meeting of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which is made up of the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It didn’t take much effort to get Haig talking. We touched on Romania, Yugoslavia and Italy, and much more. I was telling Mrs. Haig about my new role in Manila and she responded, “Instant Matriarch.” For his part, General Haig liked to tell jokes. Here’s one he told about brain transplants: “The diplomatic brain cost $10,000. The banker’s brain cost $20,000. And the general $46,000. Why did the general get so much for his brain? Because it had never been used.” It’s an old joke, which is always good for a few laughs from those who’ve never heard it. I’m not sure why he chose to tell it. Perhaps General Haig saw it as self-deprecating humor that could blunt his reputation for arrogance. Or perhaps it was just his good-natured side showing itself. Haig was fun. He also was so outspoken. A lot of people took offense but I didn’t. He did sound off a lot and I think Haig was too impetuous for his job. But I liked him. The fact that he sounded off made him more interesting. I told Rommy later, “Haig doesn’t have the temperament to be Secretary of State. I can’t imagine he will stay in the job.” And he didn’t. The next time I saw him in Washington, he had been replaced and he was bitter about it and he blamed his departure, in part, on an interfering Nancy Reagan. I was telling Haig about a recently published listing of First Ladies in America and how they rated in popularity. Jacqueline Kennedy and Lady Bird Johnson were among the top three. “What about Nancy?” Haig asked. “Twenty-eighth,” I said. “Too high!” he snapped.

The Writer, the Lover and the Diplomat CHAPTER TWENTY

Rommy’s diplomatic duties meant that we were constantly in the limelight. I thought about how much my mother, who always wanted to be the focus of public attention, would have enjoyed these state functions. I was now living much of the life she had always hoped for me and for herself: the diplomatic circuit, the car-and-driver, the long gowns each evening. It was a lifestyle I never aspired to, and laughed off when she mentioned it, but had now stumbled into. Unfortunately, it was too late for her; she passed away just before I moved to Manila. So I came up with a sort of “silent covenant” that I “include her in.” Every time I go to the presidential palace or a state dinner or to meet with some head of state, I put on my mother’s ring and, in effect, take her with me. When I was young, I never dreamed of being a success by myself. I always thought in terms of couples. I wanted to be part of a great team, like “First Lady of the Theater” Katherine Cornell and her directorhusband Guthrie McClintic who formed a production company together which gave them complete artistic freedom. I kept pictures of them in my school notebook. Later, I added pictures of Clark Gable and Carol Lombard, who was from my hometown of Fort Wayne. (I was devastated when she died in a plane crash at thirty-three.) And I remember admiring British comedic actress Lynn Fontanne who teamed with her American actor/director husband Alfred Lunt to form the most preeminent Broadway acting couple in history. (Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theater is named after them.) Both Cornell and Fontanne formed a long-time partnership with their husbands and each led a rewarding life. My idea of the perfect future was to be one half of an artistically productive team. And now, I was enjoying that kind of experience as the wife of Carlos P. Romulo. We made a great team on the diplomatic circuit. We traveled together, entertained together, and worked on books together. Marcella de Perez de Cuellar, wife of the U.N. Secretary General, said, “Beth, you are the perfect foreign minister’s wife.” When I first started seeing—and being seen—with him, I was shy about getting up and making an impromptu speech, although I was often asked. Ever the teacher, he told me, “Don’t forget that you know things and have experienced situations that these people have not. They want to hear from you. They want to share your life. Don’t be nervous. The audience is your friend. You have something to give them which they want to hear.” He was right, of course, as he so often was, and his advice helped. Even today it’s good advice for anyone who has to speak in public. When you look out over an assembled group, and you see their expectant faces, it’s good to keep in mind that they wouldn’t be in the audience if they didn’t want to see —and hear—you. I could never get enough of Rommy’s company. We had the most in common of anyone I had ever known. And our relationship was the most rewarding. He had a terrific sense of humor and was always curious and maintained a zest for life despite our age difference. He was self-confident and a trailblazer and capable of deep commitment, to an idea or a person. He was the writer, the lover, and the diplomat. As I look back on our relationship now, our extraordinary compatibility rested primarily on respect. I respected him more than anyone I had ever known. And he respected me. As a writer, editor, and publisher himself he knew the long hard road to becoming known in the publishing world. He had written thirteen books himself, including I Saw the Fall of the Philippines, Last Man Off Bataan, and I Walked with Heroes (his autobiography), and all were New York Times bestsellers. And he respected the fact that I had come up the hard way—with the usual number of rejection slips to prove it. My greatest asset, certainly for magazines, was reliability. I was totally dependable. If the editors wanted the story in three months, fine. Most likely it would arrive a bit earlier. If they wanted the article in three weeks, that was okay with me, too, although it might mean some sleepless nights. I never missed a deadline. And because of that, I could always get assignments, even when the editors might have hoped for a more distinguished byline. And, speaking of bylines, before Rommy, I had published articles in most of the magazines, as well as Reader’s Digest, and written fifteen books under the name Beth Day. But after I married Carlos P. Romulo and moved to the Philippines, I began using the name Beth Day Romulo, which sounded more appealing to me than the succinct Beth Day. As it turned out, I ended up publishing several books with that byline, including Inside the Palace, which is my own take on the rise and fall of Ferdinand and

Imelda Marcos in the Philippines, and Forty Years: Carlos Romulo and the United Nations. I also used Beth Day Romulo for articles in Reader’s Digest about the Philippines and Southeast Asia. Rommy once teased me about our relationship and asked whether it had hurt me professionally. I turned to him and said, “How about your relationship with me affecting your career?” He said it had helped him enormously. “This fall I’ve done more work at the U.N. than any time in the past, more even than when I was president of the General Assembly,” he said. And this was on the eve of his eightieth birthday. We had 900 guests at the dinner celebrating Rommy’s eightieth birthday. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it. The day started with a mass at the beautifully restored Manila Cathedral officiated by his good friend Cardinal Sin whose jovial smile led the boisterous singing of “Happy Birthday.” This was followed by a special breakfast at the Manila Hotel with the Manila Strings playing. Rommy gave a good speech, funny and appropriate for his pack of people from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the retired ambassadors. There were two museum openings with his memorabilia on public display for the first time. (Much of it came from our house.) A commemorative Carlos P. Romulo stamp was issued in his honor. And then came the dinner which, given the number of people who had to be served, was amazingly flawless, except for some longwinded speakers who exceeded their allotted time (I guess they just couldn’t resist an audience that size). He received a number of awards and citations for public service, including one from the Philippine president. The “This-is-Your-Life” presentation was a fine tribute, complete with slides and video clips. I nearly missed the first award. The head of protocol found me, wine glass in hand, chinning with friends, and grabbed me and rushed me through the crowd just in time to hear the Austrian ambassador finish his speech and to see him put the first honorary sash on General Romulo. The huge dinner took place at the impressive Philippine International Convention Center, an architectural and cultural landmark and the first of its kind in Asia, built on reclaimed land along scenic Manila Bay. Many of the guests had not been there before. The international center had played host to a wide variety of events, including political summits, medical conventions, and concerts featuring international artists from Luciano Pavarotti and the Bolshoi Ballet to Ricky Martin and Burt Bacharach. It would be hard to imagine a better venue to pay tribute to General Romulo’s life. Rommy survived many serious illnesses. One of his doctors kindly said to me, “You would have made a very good nurse.” I would take his blood pressure every day and watch out for him, making sure he got enough rest and so forth. I married Rommy knowing full well I would lose him unless I was run over by a truck. But I felt it was worth it. This is my “practical girl” side showing itself again. I had lost loved ones before. You think you can’t get through it but you do. It’s the hardest thing in the world to maintain a perspective that recognizes the high times and the low times do alternate—and the trick is to cope with both. As it turned out, marrying Rommy was one of the best decisions I ever made. I have no regrets, except I wish we had gotten together sooner in life. Rommy was a loving partner like no other and being with him moved me up a whole plateau in the world, with new information, pleasure, accessibility, all sorts of things. And even though he was old, he could still travel. I remember laughing to myself when we would go to Paris and how different it was from when I went there as a young girl. Not long before he died, Rommy paid me the greatest of compliments when he said, “You know me better than anyone has ever known me.” I thought how is this possible? I first met him when he was already in his sixties. Then I didn’t see him for another twelve years, when he was in his early seventies. I missed his childhood and middle age entirely, except for stories that he told me. Where, I often wondered, did that drive come from that made a boy from a small town in the Philippines become such a familiar world figure? What sparked him? I recall him telling me that long ago he stood at the edge of Manila Bay and looked out to sea one day when he made up his mind to leave his country and explore the world that lay beyond. In that sense, we weren’t that different. We both came from small towns. We both were comfortable with life on two continents. At a very young age, he wanted to expand his opportunities. So did I. He moved from East to West and I moved from West to East. Rommy also had a burning desire to let the world know more about his “little country,” as he liked to call it. Years later, he would say, “I am a small man from a small country …” and then he would launch into a speech that could move the world. As a boy, he was mischievous. He loved to tease his sisters. He had a scar on his lip which, if questioned, he would say was a “war wound.” Actually it was a scar from a cut that was caused when a sister threw a drinking glass at him across the table.

I sometimes thought he was attracted to me because of the American girl he had dated when he was a government scholar at Columbia University. He might have married her, but news of their romance resulted in him being snatched back home to Manila. It was a love story without an ending. Years later, a friend who knew of the romance invited Rommy to a party after a speaking engagement in Denver. “I have a surprise for you,” he said. And he brought out Rommy’s lost love, now a matron married to an American engineer. “She’d gotten fat,” he observed harshly. “And she lost her looks.” Of course, people commented about our age difference. But I never thought about his age, except when he was ill. It was his personality and his words and his reporter’s curiosity that fascinated me. We shared what all writers share: curiosity. We were interested in everything and everyone. Rommy died on December 15, 1985, a month shy of his eighty-eighth birthday. The headline in the New York Times shouted the news in all caps: CARLOS ROMULO OF PHILIPPINES, A FOUNDER OF U.N., DIES AT 87. An old journalist friend, columnist Cindy Adams with the New York Post, called me from New York. “What were his last words?” she asked me. “He had tubes in his mouth,” I said. “He couldn’t say anything.” What actually happened was too personal to share with the New York Post at the time. When I leaned over him, the tubes in his mouth didn’t stop him from mouthing the words “I love you.” We brought his body to the lovely old Spanish-style Santuario de San Antonio, our parish church, for the three-day wake before the funeral. President Marcos sat beside me in front of the bier the night he came to the wake. I still remember vividly his comment. After some small talk, he looked toward the General’s body in the casket and said, in a soft voice, as much to himself as to me: “He should have been president.” For the General’s funeral, we first observed a simple private Mass at our parish church. Rommy’s good friend, Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, officiated. Then we took the General’s body to the beautiful Cultural Center overlooking Manila Bay, where the state funeral was held. President and Mrs. Marcos attended, along with the entire cabinet and diplomatic corps and guests from abroad, including the foreign ministers from the neighboring Asian countries. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, Michael Armacost, who had been an ambassador to Manila, read a letter addressed to me from President Reagan. It was a stunning, dignified event that extolled my husband’s half century of public service. His stature as a Philippine national treasure was stamped firmly in the public mind. He is buried in the Heroes’ Cemetery in Manila. It’s been almost thirty years since Rommy died. And as I look back on our twelve years together and the twenty years of friendship prior to our marriage, the words that pop into my head are “utterly selfconfident” and “utterly fearless.” I never was around anyone with such self-confidence. It wasn’t vanity. He simply knew who he was and was comfortable in his own skin. And he was indeed fearless. When he described how he challenged the Soviet Union’s Gromyko at the U.N. meeting in Paris, he used the analogy of the little David standing up to the giant Goliath. He would take on anyone of any physical size or international importance on any issue that he felt he must speak up about. One of his fellow Cabinet members during the Marcos years said Rommy was the only one who would challenge President Marcos when he thought he was wrong. An official from the U.N. once observed that the Philippines was high up in the perception of other countries simply because of the stature of General Romulo. During his last weeks, the General had been depressed, partly because of renal failure from the kidney disease that would eventually kill him. But even more was his feeling for his country. He was deeply saddened and angered by the mounting exposure of the corruption of the Marcos government, which more and more implicated the president himself. For the longest time, it had been Imelda that had been tied to the corruption. At first, Rommy couldn’t believe that the president would do such a thing to his country. He also was concerned about the prospect of violence as anti-government outrage over the murder of popular opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino grew. When he finally quit as foreign secretary in 1983, he was disgusted. The Philippine government was going to place an ad in the New York Times and other major newspapers absolving President Marcos of any responsibility for the Aquino murder. The General was asked to sign it. He refused. Near the end, the General bitterly described himself as “the deodorant for the Marcos administration.” He was heartsick and broke into tears during

a press conference. As Asiaweek accurately reported, General Romulo believed that his work of forty years “to build up the prestige of our country internationally had been spoiled and torpedoed by events beyond my control.” He died two years later. Within two months of the General’s death, the President and Mrs. Marcos were forced to flee the country to Hawaii, for a life in exile. I thought back on the comment that Imelda had made to me at the wake. “Poor Beth. You are all alone now. You must come and stay with me.” I’m glad I didn’t accept her offer.

It’s ironic that when it comes to husbands I started with the tallest—Donald was 6’4”—and ended with the shortest—General Romulo was 5’4”—but it was the shortest who was the smartest and the bravest and the one who gave me the biggest and most expansive time of my life. He opened up a whole new period of my life and I am still basking in it. Throughout our years together we never ran out of conversation. I still miss him. To this day, when global conflicts arise, I think, “What would Rommy have said about this? How would he find a diplomatic rather than a military solution?” I am reminded of one of Rommy’s favorite quotes by J.M. Barrie: “God gave us our memory so we might have roses in December.” In 2009, Rommy’s grandchildren opened the elegant Romulo Cafe in the Makati area of Manila as a way “of remembering and celebrating the long life and history of our grandfather, Carlos P. Romulo.” At the entrance to the main dining room, there’s a picture of me in a flowing silver and white chiffon gown. I’m leaning back comfortably in a chair, with a relaxed smile. My right hand is outstretched, clasping the hand of General Carlos P. Romulo who is seated in the chair next to me. When I saw it for the first time, I said to the Romulo grandchildren who were with me, “Now that’s the portrait of a marriage.”

Blonde “Cockers” CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The emotional void immediately after Rommy died was vast. Once all the well-wishers had left, the house fell silent. The animated conversations that filled the house daily with life and laughter were no more. Everyone needs attention and companionship all the days of their lives but circumstances get in the way. Husbands, lovers, friends, relatives die, or disappear. (The saddest complaint of the elderly is, “I’ve outlived all my friends.”) It’s during times like these that you need something to fall back on, something that can provide companionship without being demanding, and unconditional love to break through the unavoidable monotony of the day. In this sense, the value of pets increases with age and its inescapable losses. Try eating alone in silence for days on end and then decide which you would prefer: frisky, funny companions—or ghostly silence. I love dogs. In the back of my books there’s a photo of me that almost always includes one of my cocker spaniels. (I am true to blonde cockers.) I had dogs, cats, and a horse as a child growing up in Indiana. But by the age of eighteen when I left for college, until I moved to Manila many years later, it was impossible for me to own a pet since my work involved so much travel and I had no resident house-help. But that changed once I was settled in Manila in a house that was never vacant. I was then able to indulge my desire for a pet and I’ve owned at least one cocker spaniel at all times since. My housekeeper, Basing, who has now been with me through almost thirty years (and several dogs) complained that it’s a hardship to have pets and to get so close to them, because when they die (as they inevitably do) “it’s like losing a human being.” So it is. We have gravestones in the garden of a previous house for two of my golden cocker spaniels, Champagne and Bubbles. Basing used to maintain that she doesn’t care that much for dogs—she’s a cat lover, which is rare in Manila. But I know differently. One day I discovered that Basing still goes by the old house to visit our dog graveyard in the backyard and she keeps a picture of Champagne on her clock so his face greets her each morning as she wakes up. This was the dog that would sometimes pee in the house and once tripped her causing her to break a wine carafe that she was carrying to the bar. I can still remember being incensed a number of years ago when I read a review of Carolyn Heilbrun’s autobiography, Life Beyond Sixty, and the supercilious reviewer stated that “thoughts on one’s dog should be kept in the family.” What unrealistic nonsense! The man/dog relationship is as old as human history. It’s a viable and interesting subject for many of us, probably most of us. When I wrote a column on “My Old Dog,” who was dying of bone cancer, I got more letters and calls than I had from any other subject. And that included responses from Europe and America and Asia. The importance of pets is increasing not just with the elderly. I remember reading in Newsweek about one of the predictions for the millennium: As more people work alone with their computers at homeoffices, the more “we will be getting our ‘touch with the living’ from our pets.” What separates your dog from everything else is its unconditional love for you. And we all know unconditional love is as rare as treasure. The legendary story of Hachiko is perhaps the most famous example of the extraordinary loyalty of a dog for his owner. Hachiko was a golden brown Akita dog that a professor at the University of Tokyo took as his pet in 1924. The professor and his dog became a familiar sight to many commuters at the Shibuya station near their house. At the end of each work day Hachiko would greet his owner at the train station. The pair followed this routine for more than a year. But one day Hachiko’s owner suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died, never returning to the train station. But Hachiko continued to show up each day precisely when his owner’s train was due at the station. For nine years, Hachiko appeared at the train station every day until the day he died. Hachiko became a dog celebrity after his story was written up in Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan’s largest circulation newspapers. Since then, the tale of Hachiko’s faithfulness is considered legendary and it’s been the subject of books and movies and numerous articles, both in Japan and the United States. Richard Gere starred in an American film version of the story in 2009. Dog lovers know what I’m talking about. Your dog greets you ecstatically each time you open the door no matter what stupid thing you may have just done: lost an important client or lost a high-stakes poker game or lost the hubcaps on your car. He won’t scold you, give you a cold shoulder, or imply that it was

all your fault. He’s just happy you are home. One elderly widower I know, who owns a Grand Pyrenees (as big as I am), carries an extra handkerchief in his pocket. He says when he comes home each day he uses it to wipe the dog’s mouth “before he kisses me.” And a couple who own a pair of excitable and loving, standard-sized poodles keep their car armed with dog toys on their nights out, which they toss in the front door to divert the dog’s attention, while they slip past in their “good clothes” without being pawed. Do these sound like spoiled, undisciplined pets? Of course they do. We dog lovers enjoy all that unrestrained, lunging affection. It sure beats walking into a silent house. There are times I wish the house was a little quieter. I remember when Champagne kept me awake barking at thunder. Whenever there was a thunderstorm, he would race down the hall barking and then race back to me, jumping on the bed, barking again. He hated thunder and he would “challenge” it with his barks. At one point, he would come up to my face and sniff me. Basing said it was to see whether I was still alive and I think she was probably right. Do dog lovers feed their dogs at the table? (Which non-dog lovers find so revolting.) I’m guilty. Which is why my dog is locked up when I have dinner guests. When I dine alone there is a jar of dog cookies on the table, which I occasionally toss to my dog so he eats while I eat. Another lone lady of my acquaintance has a placemat put on the floor near her chair and her dog gets his dinner served when she eats. Still another friend invites her canine companion to sit in a chair at the table beside her. Do we sleep with them? Many do. After General Romulo died, both our dogs decided to sleep on the foot of my bed and I didn’t chase them away. One of my dogs preferred the cool tile of the bathroom floor. He would jump on the bed to wake me, if I overslept, which reminded me of when I lived at home as a teenager and my mother would send the dog upstairs to wake me when she went to the kitchen to make breakfast. I am accustomed to waking to exuberant dog kisses. (So what if their breath is awful. It does wake you up.) Yes, we do treat our animal pets like humans and claim they can understand what we say (they do read moods, voice inflection and attitudes quite well). And they seem to have a sense of time. At 7:30 a.m. my current dog, Foxy, starts trailing Basing, who is the one that usually takes her for her morning walk. Not long after getting Foxy, I felt her jump up onto my bed in the middle of the night while I was still half asleep. Then there was a strange crackling noise. I turned on the light. Foxy had a plastic bag in her mouth that was full of nails. Basing said Foxy always brings you something when she goes to your room. She can’t go out and shop, so she brings anything “new” that she finds. Foxy had found the bag of nails on the floor of Basing’s room. I was skeptical. I didn’t think this was Foxy’s way of shopping. I decided Foxy’s actually a great thief. Aside from the nails, she’s “stolen” slippers, underpants, and bras and so forth. Foxy is not especially pretty but she’s sly and funny. She loves to eat paper. I’m scared she’ll graduate to plastic. I soon discovered that Foxy also can be very protective. I once came home from a party with a friend for a nightcap. Foxy immediately got between us and stood in front of me facing the “guest,” her hair bristling and then she barked and growled. I patted her and tried to quiet her down. “You know this is a friend,” I said. She stopped barking but didn’t go to him. I decided to let him pass too. “Let’s have the nightcap another time,” I said, and showed him to the door. I don’t know why dogs take to some people and not others. I suspect it has something to do with their keen sense of smell or their instinct for “reading” people. Whatever it is, I’ve learned over the years that, when it comes to people, I’ll trust my dog’s instincts. Keeping pets comes with a price. I once had a repairman come in to fix my IBM typewriter. Later, when I paid him, I asked about the job. He said the typewriter was dirty, especially because of “the hair of the dog.” I was surprised. I thought about how carefully I cleaned the machine between uses. But my dog lies at my feet when I’m working and apparently that long golden hair “floats” in the air of the study and finds its way into my typewriter. When you let an animal share your life, there are problems. My dog loathes baths, cares nothing for cleanliness, and pleasant odors make her sneeze. Her favorite “perfume” is a dead cockroach which she happily rubs her ear in, until I snatch it away. Dogs love waste or debris of all sorts. They will roll in it or try to eat it, including sun-dried feces, dead insects, etc. They also play host to fleas or ticks. Mine has no fleas but routinely brings in those tiny, merciless ticks. She has a a tick collar and tick shampoo but when she runs in the garden she picks up a fresh tick population. My current dog does not sleep on my bed (unless there’s a thunderstorm that frightens her). She sleeps in the bathroom with her favorite shag rug but somehow those tiny tick tyrants find their way to my leg or arm. Despite our different tastes, she decided to eat anything that I eat (fruit, for instance, which I eat three times a day). She used to bark for a bit of mango or watermelon. But recently she decided my breakfast

papaya is also good—and even lychees which she once refused. Bubbles (gone now) was the only dog I’ve known who wanted salad. I think it must have been the olive oil. In recent years the medical and psychiatric fraternity have officially recognized the therapeutic value of pets to stimulate and reassure patients. Now there are several services in the U.S. which bring friendly, cuddly dogs that have been freshly groomed to children’s hospitals and nursing homes for the elderly. Canine Companions, which provides trained dogs for disabled and wounded military veterans, continues to grow in popularity. In Tokyo, it is even possible for the lonely traveler to rent a dog for an afternoon walk. There may be people who think dogs should not be included in a person’s life story. I don’t agree. Anything that plays an important role in our lives is worth writing about. It occurred to me the other day that indeed my life has come full circle. One of my earliest clear memories is of sitting beside a stream in the woods near our house, with a book in my lap and a dog beside me. And today I spend many hours doing the same thing—and with the same company.

“She’s My American Grandmother” CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The day of Rommy’s funeral, Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos insisted on taking me home in her black limo. When we pulled into my driveway, I noticed that she was staring at the house intently. I asked her if she would like to come in and she said yes without hesitation. I gave her a tour of the house. This was the first time she had been there. She was surprised that it was so small by her standards. She was accustomed to the sprawling compound that Rommy had owned for many years before we downsized. She walked through the house slowly, making small talk and asking questions. “Poor Beth. What will you do now? I guess you will return to New York?” She was surprised to hear that I planned to stay in Manila. “My family is here,” I said. My role in the family is what has helped sustain me. I remember overhearing Maritina Romulo explaining to her boyfriend a number of years ago who I was: “She’s my American Grandmother.” I realized yes, that’s who I am: the American Grandmother. Having no children of my own when I married Rommy, I acquired ten Filipino grandchildren—and I’ve watched them grow, marry and have children of their own. I now have sixteen great-grandchildren, and I’m pretty much accepted as the Matriarch of the Romulo clan. For me, life in Manila is so pleasant and so seductive that I found it impossible to leave. I had become addicted to the Manila lifestyle. My orchids, my garden, my pool, my dogs, my household help, and the warm cocoon of extended family gave me a security I could find nowhere else in the world. The Philippines is incredibly welcoming. There is an old saying here: “Diplomats cry when they leave Manila.” Filipinos are glad to have you. They are friendly and adventurous. And there’s a wonderful mix of people here—some Spanish, some English, some Malay and so forth. There’s also a wonderful American expat community, especially up in Baguio, the one cool spot in the country. And they all get along and there’s much intermarriage. In the case of Americans, there is a shared World War II combat experience that sustains a close relationship between the U.S. and the Philippines forged by common sacrifices. There is some class snobbishness but there’s a racial harmony here that’s admirable. The upper crust fly to Hong Kong for the weekend and to San Francisco for ten-day breaks and most have been to New York City and they love Paris. Many maintain homes in Spain. Filipinos, with at least twenty dialects, are natural linguists. A surprising number of Filipinos speak French. And, of course, many understand Spanish from the hundreds of years of Spanish colonial rule here. The national language in the Philippines is Tagalog but it’s hardly necessary for the “foreigner.” Not many foreigners learn Tagalog because it’s not spoken anywhere else and it’s not even spoken in some parts of the Philippines. American Ambassador Harry Thomas Jr. (2010–2013) was an exception. He carefully learned Tagalog and it did strike a warm appreciative chord among Manilans but most Filipinos understand English. In fact, there has been an explosion of English speakers in the Philippines in recent years. The Philippines is now ranked among the top five countries in the world in terms of total number of English-speakers, and is graduating 470,000 more English speakers from college each year. General Romulo would be pleased. He always placed great emphasis on his command of the English language. Rommy was identified early on as one of the bright, young Filipinos and in 1918 President William Howard Taft (who was then the resident American Governor-General of the Philippines) sponsored Rommy to study abroad at Columbia University, where he earned his Masters degree in English literature. When he first returned to Manila, Rommy became a professor of English at the University of the Philippines. He viewed his command of the English language as the gift that kept on giving. This explosion of Filipinos speaking English has led to another quiet but important development: The Philippines has beaten India for two consecutive years as the number-one international call center in the world. Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, HP, Oracle, Cisco and dozens of others are gaining a competitive

edge by outsourcing parts of their operations to the Philippines. As a result, without much fanfare, the Philippines has surpassed India as the world’s call center hub. CNN described it as “the Philippines’ greatest economic success story in the last decade.” It’s now an $11 billion business, with an estimated 600,000 agents, compared to 350,000 in India. Another little-known fact: As of 2014, the Philippines is the No. 12 most populous country in the world, with more than 107 million people. Not that many years ago, the population of the Philippines was roughly that of France. Now, France is ranked No. 21 with a population of 66 million. When it comes to population, the Philippines has left France way behind. This dramatic demographic change is not yet widely appreciated. The Philippines is a country of 7,000 islands in the South China Sea but for the most part, the rest of the world still perceives the Philippines as a barely visible dot on world maps. I’ve seen many American ambassadors come and go and I’ve known some very fine ones. But Tom Hubbard (1996–2000) had the best understanding of Asia, and especially the Philippines. For years, he’s served as a board member in the organization called Promotion for Peace and Prosperity in the Philippines. He also served as the American ambassador in South Korea, where he worked on setting up the Korean Energy Development Organization which initially included the United States, South Korea, and Japan but has since grown, with other countries in the region signing on. This paved the way to implement the 1994 U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework that froze North Korea’s indigenous nuclear power plant, which has done so much to defuse fears in this part of the world. Tom doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. With America as the lone superpower, it’s especially difficult for its envoys to walk the diplomatic line with skill and modesty. Tom and his wife, Joan, became true friends while they were here in Manila. I admired their tact and friendliness and effectiveness then and I still do. I was surprised by the culture shock that I experienced after Rommy died, with a change of abode and lifestyle. Almost overnight everything went from grand to common. I noticed it when I came to New York for the first time, alone, in May of 1986, after more than a decade of traveling with Rommy. New York was the city that I once called home. But nothing functioned the way I expected. Landmarks had vanished. I had lost my city skills even though I had tried to stay independent. Every time we would come to New York I would disappear and do many things on my own. Rommy would always ask if I wanted the car. I would always say no. I would go out and ride the bus or walk in the crowd. Some of my friends whose lives had changed rapidly said they also had a hard time adjusting. Bonny, the wife of a former American Ambassador to the Philippines (Michael Armacost), got it right when she said, “We got used to the Manila lifestyle. It’s very hard to be [on your own] and do everything again.” The culture shock involves more than just a shift in living from elite gracious to satisfactory gracious. With the loss of Rommy also came an inevitable loss of power. But I’m not much for self-pity. You either make adjustments and make the best of it or waste your time longing for what was but never will be again. I came to realize this after spending an evening at dinner with Hedley Donovan in 1989. Years ago I would have been thrilled just to shake his hand—he was so powerful. Donovan had been editor in chief of Time Inc., which made him responsible for all of its publications, including Time, Life, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, Money and People. He was even chosen by Henry Luce, the founder of Time, Inc., to succeed him. After retiring in 1979 he became a senior adviser to President Jimmy Carter. But now he has completely retired and is without family. No one is after him anymore. And he seems to drift, unable to adapt to not being the center of attention. He has been relegated to being the sometimes-soughtafter-extra man at a dinner party. But I wondered what does he do with the rest of his day? I decided I was better off than he was. He died a year later. On my first day in Manila, General Romulo had warned me, “This is not a classless society.” And indeed it is not. Spanish rule had brought with it a feudal society that changed little over the centuries. A few entrenched families—perhaps ten percent of the population—control the wealth and power in the country. Sometimes this makes Manila seem like a small town, where everyone knows, or is related to, everyone else, and gossip is the chief currency. Manila is really two worlds—the world of wealth and the world of poverty. And the word wealth is relative: I could never duplicate half the services I have in Manila if I returned to live in New York. Of course, the tropical heat and humidity during certain times of the year can be a bit much. The other day I found a random note that I had written about the Manila heat. Three items caught my eye: moldy shoes that had turned white on the bottom, rusty sewing needles (because of the humidity), and melted rubber bands that were stuck to each other. The bugs can get to you sometimes. I woke up one night with a tick stuck to my leg. The next morning I discovered mosquito bites all over me and when I went to shower, a cockroach was in my shower cap. To top off a bad morning, as I was drying off, an ant bit me on my chest. I suppose these kinds of bug bites could occur in many places in the world but I remember thinking, “That’s life in the tropics.”

The first typhoon that hit after Rommy died got my attention. It felt as if the entire house was going to be ripped from its foundation and blown into the night. I took refuge in the bedroom. The electricity was the first thing to go. A candle gave off a wavering light in an otherwise black void. There was nothing you could do, not even read. The wind howled and screamed relentlessly and it was much too loud to think of anything else. So I, like millions of others in Manila that night, got in the embryonic position with my knees pulled up to my chest, and waited for the howling to stop. Actually, typhoons are part of life here. And they have gotten more powerful in recent years. The other day I came across a copy of one of my letters from 1993 in which I mention that “the Philippines had thirty-one typhoons this season.” But none were as powerful as Typhoon Yolanda (a.k.a. Typhoon Haiyan) which swept across central Philippines on November 8, 2013, wiping out the homes and livelihoods of close to one and a half million people. It was the most powerful storm ever recorded on earth and caused catastrophic devastation on the islands of Samar and Leyte, and especially in the city of Tacloban. If it had hit the Manila area, the most populous region of the country, there’s no telling what the death toll would have been. Some people still debate whether global warming is a reality but for those of us too often in the path of ever-fiercer storms there’s little doubt. U.S. government figures for the global climate show that 2010 tied the hottest year since record-keeping began in 1880. News reports say “it was the 34th year running that global temperatures had been above the 20th century average …” The new figures show that nine of the ten warmest years on record have occurred since the beginning of 2001. The earth has been warming in fits and starts for decades, and a large majority of climatologists say that is because humans are releasing heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide level has increased about forty percent since the Industrial Revolution. In March of 2014, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the second of a four-part assessment, which was written by 309 scientists, relying on about 12,000 scientific papers. The report warns world leaders to slow climate change, not just adapt to it. “Increasing magnitudes of warming increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive, and irreversible impacts,” the report said. Here’s how Steven Mufson of The Washington Post reported it: “ … climate change is already hurting the poor, wreaking havoc on the infrastructure of coastal cities, lowering crop yields, endangering various plant and animal species, and forcing many marine organisms to flee hundreds of miles to cooler waters. But the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group said that climate change’s effects will grow more severe and that spending and planning are needed to guard against future costs, much as people insure themselves against possible accidents or health problems … the most likely damage from climate change will be linked to rising sea levels and temperatures.” Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University and one of the report’s authors, is quoted as saying …“everyone agrees that if we don’t slow warming, our prospects for adaptation are not good.” Rising temperatures generate extreme weather. And that’s the experience of an increasing number of the world’s peoples, especially in island states like the Philippines. The economic shocks from floods and typhoons amplify poverty. The Philippines has to deal with its share of earthquakes, too. In 1999, I remember being shaken awake at 2 o’clock one morning. I jumped out of bed and ran outside. The water in the pool looked like a tidal wave. The house was okay and there was not much damage reported in Manila. It was a strong quake, 6.8 on the Richter scale, but the epicenter was north of Manila. The night before, we had a blackout which officials claim was caused by jellyfish being sucked into a power station in the South China Sea. I remember thinking, “Don’t they have strainers for sea water?” I never gave much thought to volcanoes until I moved to the Philippines. In 1991, Mount Pinatubo reawakened, causing a series of earthquakes that culminated with the volcano’s actual eruption in June 1992. Up to 800 people died and 100,000 were made homeless. Clark Air Force base, which had been shut down and all the American service members evacuated, was virtually destroyed. Millions of tons of sulfur dioxide gas were discharged into the air, spreading around the earth in two weeks and causing global temperatures to drop for years. I made a helicopter inspection trip of the Mount Pinatubo region north of Manila with the Secretary of Public Works as part of research for a story—and it was sobering. We flew there in January of 1992, seven months after the initial eruption. The lava had hardened into a cement-like substance. I watched one poor fellow trying to dig out his jeep. He had dug a little trench all around it but the top was on the same level of what was now the road. The volcanologist who was with us said, “There is nothing comparable in this century.” We learned later that it was the second largest volcano eruption in the twentieth century, ten times larger than Mount Saint Helens.

Despite natural and not-so-natural disasters, Filipinos keep a sense of humor about them that’s admirable. “We Filipinos have happiness in our DNA,” I was told. Even their nicknames are exuberant and make you smile. And they are not the kind of nicknames you’re likely to encounter anywhere else in the world. In fact, nicknames are the first cultural difference that strikes many people when they arrive in Manila. An Englishman by the name of Matthew Sutherland, after living in the Philippines for six years, wrote a lighthearted article on the subject for The Observer of London, which Philippine columnist Juan Mercado then turned into his own tongue-in-cheek commentary under the headline, “Unique Filipino Names Prove Rib-ticklers.” “‘How boring to come from the U.K. full of people named John Smith. How wonderful to come from a country where imagination and exoticism rule,’ Matthew Sunderland writes. ‘A town here can be unbelievably named Sexmoan. Men go through adult life unembarrassed by names like Angel, Mandy, or Gigi. Even the head of the Catholic Church is called Cardinal Sin. Where else in the world could that happen but in the Philippines!? “The Philippines also has names that sound like doorbells: Bing, Bong, and Ding and Dong. There are millions of them. And they’re frequently used in door-bell-like combinations like: Dingdong, Tingting, and Bingbong. I once asked a friend why he was named Bing. He said because his brother was named Bong. Faultless logic. “Some Filipino parents shoot for more sophisticated forms of assonance or rhyme, as in: Biboy, Boboy, Buboy—or Baboy. Others like to create groups, like clusters of desserts, naming their daughters (in no particular order) Apple Pie, Cherry Pie, or Honey Pie.” But “ … the Philippines has no monopoly on unusual monickers. Remember the story of comedian Groucho Marx? When he was asked if that was his real name he replied: ‘No. I’m breaking it in for a friend.’” One day my housekeeper came into my study holding a dead rat by its tail. I had seen a rat scurrying about the house on several occasions and I had put a bounty on its head of six pesos. I was prepared to pay my housekeeper but she said it was actually the dog that had killed the rat, so I gave my dog extra treats that day. The incident reminded me that superstition is part of most cultures, including the Philippines. The Chinese zodiac is sometimes the topic of conversation. It’s based on a twelve-year cycle, with an animal related to each cycle. So people are sometimes curious to know whether you’re a horse or a dragon or a snake or a sheep or a rat and so on. I’m a rat. I discovered this purely by chance one day when I was reading a local newspaper during the Year of the Rat and, just for fun, I looked at what years encompass the Rat Cycle and sure enough my birth date (May 25, 1924) makes me a Rat. I read the characteristics of a Rat and was impressed. It was as if a keen observer had put together a profile of me that was spot on, or at least I would like to think so. Here’s a partial description: “The Rat is hard-working and thrifty, and remarkably easy to get along with. Although generous only to those you are inordinately fond of, you radiate a fantastic appeal. You may appear reserved; in actual fact, you are easily agitated but full of self-control. As a rule, the Rat is bright, happy and sociable—you enjoy a wide circle of friends. When you are upset you tend to become edgy and curt if not an absolute nag. The Rat is irritated most by idleness and waste. In addition to being incredibly inquisitive, you have an uncanny eye for detail and a good memory. The Rat makes an excellent writer.” When I first read this, I was amused. It was enough to change my view of the rat. Of course, I only included the best parts—but you get the idea.

Each year on December 15th, the anniversary of Rommy’s death, I go to my usual mass at church and come back home where I host a breakfast for friends and family of Rommy. Fourteen years after his death, my housekeeper asked, “Are we still going to do that? He’s been dead a long time.” “That’s true,” I said. “But the old friends look forward to getting together, so I still do it.” Around forty people usually show up. It’s always mixed generations—old, middle, and young, which is one thing I like about the Philippines. Every gathering is a mix of nationalities and ages and I always find it stimulating. I have been blessed with a loyal and capable live-in staff that is truly like family, starting with my housekeeper, Basing, who was General Romulo’s personal assistant all those many years ago. Her husband, Gaspar, has been my driver for many years. Tina, the cook, is fond of growing lemon grass and basil in the garden. And Rey, the handyman, keeps everything in good repair. These are the key people who make up “my village.” I still enjoy an elevated social position in Manila life and the security of “my village” and this is reason enough to have stayed in Manila for almost forty years.

Unfortunately, tropical diseases, without invitation, sometimes enter the safest of villages and they are not always easy to diagnose. A few years ago I got hit by one and spent quite a bit of time in the hospital while doctors tried to figure out what was wrong with me. For most of my life my weight has been between 128 and 138 pounds. But in 2006 I started losing weight inexplicably until I was down to a mere 98 pounds. I felt like a clothes hanger. Naked I looked like a POW, emaciated except for all those former plump areas which were now pleated like an accordion. Thighs, butt, upper arms all looked Godawful! My usually cheerful personality had turned dour. My mind was filled with anticipation of pending tragedy and my nights were filled with bad dreams. I still had an appetite but food went straight through my body and never hung around long enough to do any good. Then a blood test showed an alarmingly low red blood cell count. I was suffering severe anemia and had almost no energy. I was slapped into a hospital and given transfusions. I learned my blood type: A-rh negative. I also learned it was really hard to find, with only six percent of the population sharing the same blood type. (I was reminded of the old adage, “The rarest blood type is the one not available when you need it.”) My days were filled with mostly young doctors trooping in and out of my hospital room not knowing what was wrong with me. I had no fever. Finally, they contacted an older doctor as she was getting ready to board a plane to go to a medical conference. She agreed to see me. She went through all my charts, asked a number of questions and then said one word to the doctor in charge: “Sprue.” The young doctors had never heard of it. The middle-aged doctors had read about it in medical books but had never seen a case of it. Tropical sprue had become as rare as my blood type. It took an older doctor with broad experience in treating all kinds of tropical diseases to diagnose my malady in a matter of minutes. The symptoms are acute anemia and chronic diarrhea and fatigue and malnutrition. That was me. I was immediately put on a high-calorie diet and antibiotics and vitamins and liquid baby food in the form of Ensure. Finally, I was sent home, knocked out and barely functional. It took a month before I felt like writing again. When I did finally sit down to write a column, I rewrote it four or five times before it sounded right. It was at least another month before I got back on my regular schedule of writing three columns a week but it was even more months before I felt like going out of the house again. I found out later that tropical sprue was responsible for one-sixth of all casualties sustained by Allied forces in Asia during World War II, according to a study by the University of Alabama. No one knows the exact cause of tropical sprue, although they suspect a bacteria that attacks the small intestine. But the good news is it’s now rare and it’s treatable and it usually does not come back. I recently discovered a letter I had written to my good friend Helen expressing shock that she had an embolism. She was lucky to have had a good neighbor to see that she got to the hospital. I said, “At our age we do need a keeper, don’t we?” I told her that I fantasized that, maybe, like the French writer Colette, I could find a devoted younger man to take care of me—but no such luck. All the ones my age or older are in a worse state of health than I am and I’m through with the nursing business. At the time I had been laboring through an overlong biography of George Eliot and I had just gotten to the part about her last years after her longtime companion had died. She indeed married a devoted young admirer. They honeymooned in Venice. But he tried to commit suicide by throwing himself out of their hotel room window into the canal below. No one knows why but I told Helen that regardless it doesn’t speak well for the idea of a young admirer.

Your Life Report CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“If you are over 70, I’d like to ask for a gift. I’d like you to write a brief report on your life so far, an evaluation of what you did well, of what you did not so well and what you learned along the way.” — David Brooks, columnist New York Times I saw this blurb one day in the global edition of the New York Times and I thought, “What a good idea!” Brooks says he had two reasons for asking for this “gift,” as he called it. First, he correctly points out that “we have few moments of self-appraisal in our culture.” (True for just about any culture.) But more important, he says “these essays will be useful to the young. Young people are educated in many ways, but they are given relatively little help in understanding how a life develops, how careers and families evolve, what are the common mistakes and the common blessings of modern adulthood. These essays will help them benefit from your own experience.” He sold me on the idea, so I sat down and wrote a brief report on my life and sent it in. I never heard back. I don’t blame him. I think he must have been looking for people who have a great many regrets in their lives but I don’t. In my letter, I say, “My only regret is that I had no talent for learning languages other than English …” Not exactly a heart-thumping revelation. In fact, when I reread my letter, I decided I wouldn’t have responded to me either. Brooks says the closest thing he’s been able to find “to Life Reports of this sort are the essays some colleges ask their alumni to write for their 25th and 50th reunions.” For example, he “stumbled across a collection of short autobiographies that the Yale class of 1942 wrote for their 50th reunion.” “The most common lament in this collection is from people who worked at the same company all their lives and now realize how boring they must seem. These people passively let their lives happen to them. One man described his long, uneventful career at an insurance company and concluded, ‘Wish my selfprofile was more exciting, but it’s a little late now.’ “Others regret the risk not taken. One rancher wrote, ‘The pastoral country and its people of New South Wales and Tasmania are similar to Arizona of fifty years ago, that I recall so fondly. I deeply regret not moving to Australia when I was married there 25 years ago.’ “Others wish they had had more intellectual curiosity, or that they weren’t so lazy, or that they had not gotten married so young … Looking back, many were amazed by the role that chance played in their lives … The most exciting essays were written by the energetic, restless people, who took their lives off in new directions midcourse. Nobody regretted the life changes they made, even when they failed. And, for almost all, family and friends mattered most.” I feel lucky that I have so few regrets. One stands out: the time I sat beside everybody’s-favoritenewsman CBS anchor Walter Cronkite at a dinner. I had admired him from a distance and wanted to meet him. I liked his voice. I liked his directness. I trusted him. So I was delighted to be invited, along with Walter Cronkite and his wife, to a dinner dance for some charity or other by my friends Jack and Eleanor Harris Howard of the Scripps Howard newspapers. There must have been others at the table but I don’t remember them. I was sitting next to Cronkite and enjoying hearing that familiar voice at close range. When he asked me to dance, I was especially pleased at the prospect of a few minutes alone with him—but we had taken no more than two steps out onto the dance floor when a young male fan of his danced alongside us with his partner and started up a conversation that kept the two couples marking time in place until the music stopped and returned to our respective tables. I could happily have killed him. That was the only time I was in a position to carry on a conversation with Cronkite.

If a Life Report after seventy is such a good idea, then why wait? Self-reflection is helpful at any age. Why not pretend you are already seventy or eighty? Imagine the life that you want to live and the things you want to do by the time you reach seventy and then pretend you’re looking back on your life and sharing your experiences with those you care about. You could be carving out your own personal path to happiness. Speaking of seventy, it was the one birthday that caused me the most angst. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was because I remember reading that the distinguished author and critic Carolyn Heilbrun had solemnly vowed to end her life when she turned seventy. Of course, she made that vow when she was very young. She apparently changed her mind when she turned seventy, because instead of committing suicide, she wrote another book—about life beyond sixty. Here’s what one reviewer had to say: “ … on the advent of that fateful birthday, she realized that her golden years had been full of unforeseen pleasures. Now, the astute and ever-insightful Heilbrun muses on the emotional and intellectual insights that brought her ‘to choose each day for now, to live.’ There are reflections on her new house and her sturdy, comfortable marriage; sweet solitude and the pleasures of sex at an advanced age; the fascination with e-mail and the joy of discovering unexpected friends. Even the encroachments of loss, pain, and sadness that come with age cannot spoil Heilbrun’s moveable feast. They are merely the price of bountiful living.” One thing I’ve noticed about people over eighty: They can still be charming. They have been there and done that and seen everything. If the experience hasn’t made them cynical, then it’s made them generous. They are much more tolerant of others’ weaknesses and ineptitudes. And when they are talking enthusiastically to an interested listener, their infirmities recede. At least that’s been my experience. A number of years ago I was startled by the news that Angie Biddle Duke had died after being struck by a car while roller-blading near his home in Southampton, Long Island at the age of seventy-nine. (Doesn’t that sound like a line from a novel?) Duke was a retired U.S. diplomat whose father was heir to the American Tobacco Company fortune and whose grandfather gave lots of money to Duke University, so much so that they named the university after him. Duke’s wife, Robin, had continued to be friendly with me after Rommy’s death, which I appreciated since the Dukes were more his friends than mine. I wrote Robin a condolence note but I couldn’t help but think that at seventy-nine, maybe it’s preferable to be hit by a car than go into some lingering illness, although Duke might not have agreed. He was a health nut and lean and fit and did everything right—except perhaps rollerblading at the age of seventynine. I remember a conversation I had with Stephen Zuellig, a prominent Philippine businessman, not long after his wife, Jaqueline, died. Stephen was a close personal friend. He was away on a business trip, so I didn’t see him, but we ended up having a long conversation on the phone about friendship. We agreed that one can find new friends but they are likely to be casual friends, not the kind of friendship that’s built on the trust and confidence of years of association. You need people in your life who have “always known you,” which is why family and longtime friends are so important. Of course, just because someone has “always known you” is no guarantee that your welfare is uppermost in that someone’s mind. I remember the case of Brooke Astor, the widow of Vincent Astor who inherited a massive fortune when his father went down with the Titanic. Mrs. Astor was one of New York’s highest profile socialites and philanthropists for decades. She kept herself busy charming Manhattan’s elite and giving away gobs of money to worthwhile causes. I first met Brooke at a small, cozy dinner at the apartment of Jack Howard, head of the Scripps Howard newspaper chain, and his wife Eleanor Harris who I knew as a magazine writer in Hollywood before she married Jack. I then saw Mrs. Astor on several other occasions in New York where I enjoyed her worldly conversation and great wit. Her eyes twinkled with an irresistible mischief. I once heard her say, “When I can’t sleep, I count my lovers instead of sheep!” Mrs. Astor lived to be 101 but unfortunately she began to slip into senility during her last few years. “I’m getting gaga,” she told her personal doctor. And she was. One of Brooke’s good friends was Annette de la Renta, the wife of fashion designer Oscar de la Renta. When she no longer saw Brooke on the social circuit, Mrs. de la Renta dropped by her Park Avenue apartment, and was horrified to find her lying on a urine-drenched sofa. She hadn’t been cleaned in days and her dogs, of which she was inordinately fond of, had disappeared. Mrs. de la Renta took the case of neglect to court, where the whole sordid affair went public. It turned out that Brooke’s son Anthony Marshal, from her first marriage, had taken over the care of his senile mother, and he had been methodically looting her estate, while leaving her physically in a pitiable state. Marshal, who was himself eighty-five years old, was convicted of defrauding his mother’s estate and looting her fortune. So was the lawyer who did estate planning for Mrs. Astor. A co-defendant, he was

convicted of fraud and conspiracy and forging Mrs. Astor’s signature on an amendment to her will. The trial was a star event, considering those who turned up to testify against the greedy son and the corrupt lawyer. Henry and Nancy Kissinger, television star Barbara Walters, and, of course, Annette de la Renta, who started the legal ball rolling with her tales of abuse. The court appointed Mrs. de la Renta as Brooke’s legal guardian and she made sure that Mrs. Astor’s last days were clean and comfortable. The mistreatment of Brooke near the end of her life was upsetting. I don’t normally get angry—unless there’s cruelty involved and, in this case, there was certainly cruelty. Cruelty is the only thing that can evoke a sense of outrage. Whether it’s to people or animals, I see no excuse for cruelty and consider it a damning characteristic that puts that person outside the purview of ordinary, well-meaning people. I bear no malice to anyone. I don’t hold grudges and I basically want everyone to be as happy as they are capable of being. I am nonjudgmental. Each individual has the right to make his or her own choices provided they don’t hurt anyone else. My philosophy always has been live and let live and take me as I am. A new area of psychological research caught my eye recently. It’s called self-compassion, the study of how kindly people view themselves. I was surprised to learn that people who find it easy to be supportive of others often score low on self-compassion tests. I’ve always had this tendency to want to please people so I began wondering whether a lack of self-compassion had anything to do with it. Those who lack self-compassion berate themselves for perceived failures. I’m certainly hard on myself but I don’t think it’s ever reached the point of berating myself or anybody else. Still, I find the study of selfcompassion interesting. I suspect it had something to do with me being a shy and fat girl as I was growing up. New York Times columnist Tara Parker-Pope, author of books on health and creator of the “Well” blog, says “the research suggests that accepting imperfections may be the first step toward better health. People who score high on tests of self-compassion have less depression and anxiety, and tend to be happier and more optimistic.” Anyone can get a sense of how much self-compassion you have by asking yourself the simple question: Do you treat yourself as well as you treat your friends and family? Parker-Pope, in a recent column headlined “Go Easy on Yourself …” quotes some pioneers in the field, including Dr. Kristin Neff, who says self-compassion is not to be confused with self-indulgence or lower standards. “‘I found in my research that the biggest reason people aren’t more self-compassionate is that they are afraid they’ll become self-indulgent,’ said Dr. Neff, an associate professor of human development at the University of Texas at Austin. ‘They believe self-criticism is what keeps them in line. Most people have gotten it wrong because our culture says being hard on yourself is the way to be.’” But Dr. Neff says self-compassion is really conducive to motivation. “The reason you don’t let your children eat five big tubs of ice cream is because you care about them. With self-compassion, if you care about yourself, you do what’s healthy for you rather than what’s harmful to you.” Dr. Neff first introduced the subject to a wide audience in 2011 in her book, Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind. She developed a self-compassion scale: Twenty-six statements meant to determine how often people are kind to themselves, and whether they recognize that ups and downs are simply part of life. Here are a couple of examples. Do you agree or disagree with the statement, “I’m disapproving and judgmental about my own flaws and inadequacies.” If you agree with this statement, then this suggests lack of self-compassion. But the opposite is suggested if you agree with the statement, “When I feel inadequate in some way, I try to remind myself that feelings of inadequacy are shared by most people.” Dr. Neff suggests a series of exercises for those low on the self-compassion scale: “Listing your best and worst traits, reminding yourself that nobody is perfect and thinking of steps you might take to help you feel better about yourself are also recommended. Other exercises include meditation and ‘compassion breaks,’ which involve repeating mantras like ‘I’m going to be kind to myself in this moment.’ Parker-Pope realizes that some readers may consider all this ‘feel-good’ talk a bunch of nonsense. “If this all sounds a bit too warm and fuzzy, like the Al Franken character Stuart Smalley (‘I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me’), there is science to back it up. A 2007 study by researchers at Wake Forest University suggested that even a minor self-compassion intervention

could influence eating habits. As part of the study, 84 female college students were asked to take part in what they thought was a food-tasting experiment. At the beginning of the study, the women were asked to eat doughnuts. One group, however, was given a lesson in self-compassion with the food. ‘I hope you won’t be hard on yourself,’ the instructor said. ‘Everyone in the study eats this stuff, so I don’t think there’s any reason to feel real bad about it.’ Later the women were asked to taste-test candies from large bowls. The researchers found that women who were regular dieters or had guilt feelings about forbidden foods ate less after hearing the instructor’s reassurance. Those not given that message ate more. The hypothesis is that the women who felt bad about the doughnuts ended up engaging in ‘emotional’ eating. The women who gave themselves permission to enjoy the sweets didn’t overeat. “‘Self-compassion is the missing ingredient in every diet and weight-loss plan,’ said Jean Fain, a psychotherapist and teaching associate at Harvard Medical School … ‘Most plans revolve around selfdiscipline, deprivation and neglect.’” The field is still new and whether it will have much effect on the multibillion dollar diet industry is anyone’s guess. Dr. Neff has started a controlled study to determine whether teaching self-compassion actually leads to lower stress, depression and anxiety and more happiness and life satisfaction. For most of my life I’ve never been depressed. But occasionally I now have what I call geriatric depression, which I consider a normal part of aging. Sometimes I look at myself and think, “Why do I feel low?” And then I think, “Well, I’m just alone too much. I get tired of my own company.” Sometimes two or three weeks will go by and there’s nothing much going on. And I do get bored with myself. I have good days, bad days and might-as-well-be dead days. This good day/bad day syndrome has become more pronounced lately and the bad days can be real bummers. One day I feel cheerful and optimistic and productive—and I write well. Then the next day I feel insecure and incompetent and not capable of doing anything or making any decisions. I don’t recall ever experiencing that kind of polarity in my youth or middle age. I wonder whether it’s a recurring response to the inevitability of death. But I don’t fear dying at all. Sometimes it really seems like the best answer to problems I can’t or won’t ever solve. Not understanding these roller-coaster mood swings is what bothers me. Maybe more self-compassion will help. It’s worth a try. The other day I was thinking about how rituals shape our lives and are comforting in old age. Each afternoon, around six, as my dogs have always come to know, I stop whatever I am doing and go to the bar refrigerator and get my daily Vermouth on the rocks with lemon peel, and cheese and crackers. On the other side of the world, my brother, when he was alive, would fix his daily gin martini and sit in a chair with his little dog on his lap. In this fashion, we both would observe the cocktail hour, which was an important part of our adult lives. It was the time to knock off from whatever work you were doing, and relax before dinner. It was a daily event, seven days a week, whether you were with family, friends or alone, at home or abroad. And for me, it still is. It’s surprising what can happen to a person beyond the age of seventy. I got a call from the Philippine Retirement Authority in December of 2010. To my surprise, they said they wanted to put me on their 2011 calendar. I remember thinking, “My goodness, what a way to start the new year. A calendar girl— at the age of eighty-six!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR



Corregidor “No soil on earth is more deeply consecrated to the cause of human liberty than that of the island of Corregidor.” — General Douglas MacArthur War memorials exist to remind us it’s much better to live in peace. Many people may not realize that the U.S. War Memorial cemetery near Manila, with its white crosses covering 152 acres on a vast plateau, contains the largest number of graves of American military dead from World War II (17,201—almost double that of Normandy—and another 36,285 names of those missing in action are inscribed on concrete tablets). Many of those buried there died fighting Imperial Japan in the battle of Corregidor and the Bataan Death March in the 1940s. Reenactments of famous military events in history are like war memorials in motion. Such was the case on the fiftieth anniversary of General Douglas MacArthur’s return to the Philippines. On October 20, 1994, the U.S. and the Philippines reenacted the landing of General MacArthur on the island of Leyte, southeast of Manila in Central Philippines. I was there as an invited guest of the Philippine government. It was a day full of surprises, starting with the Hollywood actor who played the role of General MacArthur. The actor looked the part. He stood upright in the World War II era military landing craft, wearing a replica of MacArthur’s signature sun glasses and his uniform with its insignia and the floppy goldbraided cap that telegraphed to the world that he was the General and not just any General—he was Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur. Other landing craft were off to his left and still more off to his right, each full of soldiers, their helmets and weapons in hand, waiting for the signal. Everyone was in position. “General MacArthur” stared toward the nearby shores of Leyte where I was seated in the midst of crowds of onlookers. The day was sunny and the sea was calm, perfect conditions for staging the reenactment of the 1944 landing in the Philippines that fulfilled General MacArthur’s famous promise “I shall return!” U.S. President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton were there. So was Philippine President Fidel Ramos and my favorite First Lady of the Philippines Amelita “Ming” Ramos. I sat next to U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry. There were representatives from dozens of other countries as well. Thousands of eyes were on the actor, including the eyes of a small army of television cameras of the international news media. The director cried “Action!” The actor stiffened and looked a little awkward as if this was his first time in a landing craft but he did his best to project General MacAthur’s commanding presence of fifty years ago. The scene called for him to jump into knee-deep water and wade ashore. He tried to jump with authority, as MacArthur had done, but he caught his foot on the edge of the boat and stumbled and fell face first, hitting the water with an ignominious splash, his hat floated on the surface, his sunglasses sank to the bottom. I doubt he could hear all the laughter with the whump, whump, whump of the helicopters overhead. Images of that poor slob falling into the Pacific were carried on news programs around the world. The actor’s unfortunate stumble at least provided some comic relief to an otherwise serious day. The event was predictably a madhouse, with mammoth traffic jams and very little in the way of crowd or traffic control. I was assigned a room at a hotel near the beach but it was flooded, so they put me on a Norwegian cruise ship, which was very nice but it made it extra hard to get back and forth through the traffic. The other events on October 20 went well. I enjoyed sitting next to Secretary Perry who was low key but not without a sense of humor. During the U.S. part of the program, when an announced plane failed to appear, he turned to me and said, “That’s our Stealth!” The U.S. recovered nicely, however. Immediately following the reenactment, the United States put on a “1994-style invasion” to show the difference. And it was quite a show, with fleets of helicopters dropping in Navy Seals and supplies and so on. China sent a tremendous fireworks display for that night’s activities. President Ramos invited the diplomatic corps, which included me, out to his yacht to watch the fireworks which lasted a full hour. We had a late lunch at the Presidential Palace (Malacañang) with Clinton’s party of fifty-three, mostly business executives on their way to a meeting of APEC (the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum) in Jakarta. After the lunch, everyone was in good spirits and Clinton got coaxed into playing the saxophone

with the Executive Band. Philippine First Lady Ming Ramos plays the piano, so she joined in as well. It was a jolly good time. I found both Bill and Hillary Clinton to be agreeable and approachable. They certainly made a good impression in the Philippines. I didn’t hear a single negative comment after their visit. Two days before the reenactment, we were on the island of Corregidor, which holds a unique place not only in the Philippines but in world history. As president of the Corregidor Foundation, I hosted more than one hundred press people on the island, where I stayed overnight to be in position to greet Presidents Clinton and Ramos who came to pay their respects to the war dead from both countries and to pay tribute to the courage of those who made a last stand against the Japanese on Corregidor and held out against relentless bombing and hunger and sickness for longer than anyone thought possible. Then we were helicoptered to the U.S. War Memorial cemetery near Manila, where Clinton made an excellent speech (mostly historical) that was well received. President Clinton’s visit helped to shine an international spotlight on Corregidor which is now the largest natural museum in the world, a pristine island that is 3 1/2 miles (5.6 km) long and 1 1/2 miles (2.4 km) across. I have been president of the Corregidor Foundation for a number of years. And I believe very strongly that it’s important never to forget what happened there. As Winston Churchill (and many others) observed, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” But multiple generations have been born since the battle of Corregidor and they do not know the pivotal role the Philippines played in defeating the Japanese in the Pacific theater during World War II or the against-allodds defense of Corregidor that, for many months, prevented the Japanese from using the Philippines as a launching pad for attacks in other parts of Asia. The location of the Philippines remains strategic today. But the threat is no longer from Imperial Japan. These days it’s China flexing its muscle. China recently summoned the Philippines’ ambassador to lodge a strong complaint after Manila sought international arbitration in a territorial dispute over the South China Sea. Here’s how the Reuters news wire service reported it: “The Philippines filed the case against China … at an arbitration tribunal in The Hague, subjecting Beijing to international legal scrutiny over the waters for the first time. The United States, a Philippines treaty ally, said … that the right of any state to use dispute resolution mechanisms under the Convention on the Law of the Sea should be respected … the U.S. State Department accused China’s coast guard of ‘harassment’ of Philippine vessels and called its attempt … to block a Philippine resupply mission to the Second Thomas Shoal, a disputed atoll in the South China Sea, ‘a provocative and destabilizing action.’” War memorials spark our imaginations and allow us to vicariously experience the hell of war. To me, Corregidor not only serves as a reminder of the sacrifices of the American and Filipino soldiers, but also a real-life reminder of why peace is such a noble pursuit. This is the way General Romulo saw it as well, because after the war he dedicated the rest of his life to world peace which earned him a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize and the United Nations Peace Medal. Corregidor—also known as “The Rock” to the men who fought there—is the largest of four islands which were fortified with powerful coastal artillery prior to World War I. (Corregidor was sometimes referred to as the “Gibraltar of the East.” Just as Gibraltar guards the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Africa, Corregidor guards the mouth of Manila Bay, the finest deep-water port in the Far East.) The Spaniards installed a lighthouse and military installations on Corregidor when they controlled the Philippines. During the early American era, Corregidor became a modern military camp with twentythree seaside batteries defending the island. When the Japanese invaded Manila, Corregidor served as a refuge for a “government in exile.” Philippine President Manuel Quezon and General Romulo were with MacArthur on Corregidor for much of the fight against the Japanese. In an effort to keep up the morale of the Philippine people, Romulo broadcast the Voice of Freedom from an improvised radio room in Malinta Tunnel on Corregidor. It is difficult today to recapture the mood in Manila just prior to the Japanese attack. The author William Manchester (in his book American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880–1964) points out that as early as 1934, the American commander of the Philippines warned “that Japanese immigration to the Philippines was growing at an alarming rate, that they were mapping the coasts, and that most of them were men of military age—some were known to hold reserve positions in the Japanese Army.” General Romulo, when he was a journalist in the 1930s, won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting accurately on Japanese intentions leading up to the war but even he acknowledged that it wasn’t until much later that he discovered his gardener was a Japanese major and his masseur was a Japanese colonel. Here’s how he summed up his experiences on Corregidor:

“The Japanese invaded the Philippines the day after they bombed Pearl Harbor. We fought them in Manila and when that fell, we fought in Bataan, and when that was overrun, we hunkered down on Corregidor. As long as we held Corregidor, the Japanese could not use Manila Bay. But we were outnumbered and outgunned. The Japanese pounded us night and day from the air, from the sea, and from land artillery. We shared ounces of food and small amounts of water twice a day—and there was no hope of reinforcements. Rather than lose MacArthur, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered him to leave the island so he could live to fight another day. He was evacuated under the cover of darkness on PT boats. I was supposed to be part of that evacuation but got left behind. It was months before I was able to escape and rejoin MacArthur in Australia, where a new U.S. Joint Command for the Pacific had been set up. I thought I would return in a month. I thought we would be able to regroup quickly, get reinforcements, and return to rescue those who stayed behind to defend Corregidor. But it took almost three years to amass the forces we needed to return to the Philippines and liberate the country. There were 90,000 American and Filipino troops at Corregidor and Bataan. They had very little food and water and few supplies. Bataan fell in April of 1942. More than 70,000 American and Filipino soldiers were captured there, and forced to make a death march north. Between 7,000 and 10,000 died from starvation, brutal beatings, and execution. Corregidor surrendered in May. Another 15,000 Americans and Filipinos were captured. The situation was desperate. I was concerned about morale. I was concerned the Philippines would be forgotten in the course of the war, with limited resources going elsewhere to fight on other warfronts in Asia, Europe, and North Africa. So, I sat down with General MacArthur and we came up with the statement ‘I shall return.’ In a way, the Philippines was MacArthur’s adopted country and Filipinos loved and trusted him. I knew if he stated publicly his personal commitment to return to the Philippines, this would boost morale on the home front. Some people criticized MacArthur later for being an egomaniac but ‘I shall return’ became his mantra because morale in wartime is of paramount concern. MacArthur was true to his word. Our campaign to retake the Philippines began on October 20, 1944, when we waded ashore on the island of Leyte and when General MacArthur announced in a radio broadcast, ‘People of the Philippines, I have returned!’ But there was still much fighting to be done. It wasn’t until February of 1945 that we were able to liberate Corregidor. Only one-third of the men we left behind in 1942 were still alive when we recaptured The Rock.”

Many historians consider the fall of Bataan and Corregidor to be the worst military defeats on foreign soil in U.S. history. But by holding out as long as they did, the American and Philippine forces prevented Japan from using Manila as a staging platform for its plans to conquer Australia. If Corregidor had fallen earlier, there also would have been nothing to stand in the way of Imperial Japan and its war plans against the U.S. West Coast. Thanks to the tenacious defense of Corregidor, General MacArthur had enough time to establish a viable Pacific command for Allied forces in Australia. Allied forces were then able to regroup and eventually launch a successful series of counterattacks against the Japanese that shifted the course of the war. Statistics never tell the whole story but they do provide a glimpse of what the American and Philippine soldiers endured on Corregidor. The U.S. War Department later reported that the Japanese flew 614 bombing missions over Corregidor. They dropped 1,701 bombs and 365 tons of explosives. And this does not take into account the relentless bombardment from the Japanese howitzers and other artillery. “No soil on earth is more deeply consecrated to the cause of human liberty than that of the island of Corregidor,” General MacArthur said. The battle for Manila was even more fierce. It took the U.S. and Philippine freedom fighters a month to liberate Manila from the Japanese but not before the city was virtually destroyed. General Dwight Eisenhower (who would later become president) said Manila was second only to Warsaw in terms of cities suffering destruction during World War II. Corregidor is only a short boat ride from Manila. Close to one hundred thousand tourists visit the island each year. It’s an especially important learning experience for school-age Filipino children but international visitors come away singing its praises as well. After passing the sign “Welcome to Corregidor—Island of Valor, Peace and International Understanding,” visitors quickly find themselves amid the ruins and the memories. The Malinta Tunnel, which served as General MacArthur’s headquarters, is a highlight of any visit. The tunnel is a maze of underground passages with reinforced concrete walls, floors and ceilings. It served as an effective bombproof shelter for the hospital and storehouses and soldiers. The double-track rail line which runs along the East-West passage is still there, as well as the blowers for fresh air. Above ground, in the elevated area known as Topside, you can still see the impressive array of coastal artillery pieces and anti-aircraft guns that gave the ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy ships and the planes of the Japanese Air Force so much trouble. Today, the ruins on Corregidor are in need of some repair. In the early 1990s we were able to build a new Inn to house visitors overnight. A new light and sound show in the Malinta Tunnel provides a virtual

experience of the kind of days and nights the Quezons, MacArthurs, and Romulo and their valiant aides and nurses endured during those harrowing days of 1942. I’m still trying to get UNESCO to help us shore up the freestanding walls of the barracks and hospital which are in bad shape. Nevertheless, a trip to Corregidor, away from the busyness and traffic congestion of Manila, is a great way to get out of the city and spend some free time in an open environment. On the peninsula, markers have been installed from Mariveles to Capas allowing tourists to walk the actual route of the Bataan Death March. U.S. President Jimmy Carter once said, “War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good.” Memorials remind us of the consequences of war. They should be quiet places for personal reflection on the extraordinary bravery of the men and women who fought so we could live in peace. Corregidor is all of that and more. I highly recommend it.

“Hey Wait, I’m Not Yet Through!” CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Most every day at my house you can hear me clack, clack, clacking away on my IBM typewriter, metal keys hitting paper, punctuated frequently by pings as the carriage moves down to the next line. For more than sixty years, I’ve been a real “barefoot writer.” I’ve always liked freelancing from home and working under my own tempo—and this still suits my temperament. Not long ago I was featured in a magazine article under the headline, “Hey Wait, I’m Not Yet Through!” And that’s true. I’m now ninety years old and I’ve enjoyed writing three columns a week on global affairs for decades—and I still do. I’m happiest when I’m writing. It still gives me a great sense of accomplishment. As a writer, you have to pick and choose what you want to write about. I write from an America-centric perspective for The Manila Bulletin, which recently celebrated 125 years of continuous publication. When I started writing about world affairs and diplomacy, the American ambassador at the time said, “Once you get into the subject, you are hooked. Because things change every day.” He was right. Since living in Manila, I have almost never focused on anything local. I think this is the secret to my longevity as a writer. Newspapers here already cover Philippine affairs extensively, so I focus on news that involve the United States and economic development. One time I wrote a column about a meeting here in Manila of the Pacific Basin Economic Council (PBEC). There were 100 CEOs of prominent companies from twenty countries. The PBEC Director General, Robert Lees, called later to thank me for my column. At the time, there were twenty-three newspapers in Manila and I was the only one to write about the conference. He also told me that of all the countries they meet in, the Philippines is the most hospitable. I wasn’t really surprised. Filipinos excel at making you feel welcome and at home. Lees said the PBEC delegation was very impressed with Fidel Ramos who was the Philippine president at the time. “Some heads of government give us lectures. Others promote the interests of members of their families,” Less said. “But Ramos was outstanding because he promoted the country as a whole and was very direct in asking for more investment. This is the kind of talk business leaders understand.” (The current Philippine president, Benigno Aquino III, is the same way.) Years later President Ramos would give PBEC its fair share of credit for the economic transformation that has made Southeast Asia among the fastest-growing regions in the world. I’ve always been a naturally curious person and I feel very lucky because my natural curiosity, despite all the years, has never left me. On most days, all I need to do is read the headlines and my curiosity kicks into high gear and I’m thinking, “How are they going to handle this?” Before long I’m totally absorbed in the subject. Then I turn my attention to writing my column. I have a desk that’s piled high with files and clippings. Keeping up with the news is a constant. (The other day I realized how much I multitask without thinking about it. I was sitting in the living room listening to a concert on the radio while watching the latest TV news and at the same time clipping articles from The Economist.) I collect news clippings just to remind me there is a story there. When an idea gels, I will then sit down at my typewriter and write a column about it. I’m old-school that way. My IBM typewriter is from the 1970s. I never took to computers, although I do have one in the house. I remember the day it arrived back in May of 1999. I stared at it for hours. I hired a “trainer” and managed to use it a bit. It was an early model that didn’t even have a mouse. I decided it was best suited for someone else. None of the improved versions are within my comprehension. To me they are monstrous devices. They don’t like me and I don’t like them. So once a week I have someone come in to print out my e-mail and send my replies. I’m not alone. I recently received snail mail (an old airmail letter) from a former ambassador to the Philippines. I had asked him if he did e-mail and he wrote vehemently, “NO—and I never will!” His reaction reminded me of Mark Twain and the manual typewriter. Twain was one of the first to get a typewriter not long after its invention. He spent a week fooling with it and then threw it out the window (literally) and swore he would never touch another. And he didn’t. When I was young, I used to tease my mother, calling her a “motor moron” because she could never handle new gadgets well. It really didn’t matter what it was. She never learned how to use it. The latest

television, the record player, even the dishwasher caused her problems. She never even took to cars with automatic transmissions; she preferred the stick shift. Now, at my advanced age, I realize how rude I was to my mother—because when it comes to new technology I am my mother. The information technology world has come along and left my skills behind. I do have a cellphone but I don’t even know the number since I never leave it on. I only use it to call my driver and it is set at his number. I am beginning to realize my age bracket in other ways as well. Now, every time I go to buy a Get Well or Sympathy card, I always buy extras. And the other day a cancelled luncheon appointment made me happy. I remember when Rommy was in his eighties. He used to duck all of his old friends, which at the time seemed thoughtless to me—but now I understand. Too many survivors in my age group tend to discuss aches and pains and disappointments, which I neither want to hear nor counter with my own. It’s hard enough to be cheerful with so little good news in the world but I think it’s worth trying. And I don’t have much patience for people who sit in their apartments and don’t move. I still make a special effort to get out. I look back and can’t escape the irony of having married three times, yet I’ve ended up alone for nearly thirty years. I’ve outlived most friends and family. I mention this not to complain but as a simple statement of fact. My brother died recently at ninety-one but I had not heard from him in several years. He was living in an assisted living residence in Florida. My closest friends—Ruth and Clara and Helen Hector in Chappaqua and Katsy in Manila—are all dead. And others whom I would enjoy seeing—such as Monica in London—are oceans apart. Yes, I could fly to London but the last major trip I made a few years ago to New York was exhausting. I decided then that I’d just settle for my “life plan” of living out my days in a tropical climate with my own swimming pool. Swimming brightens me up. I’m up by seven each morning and in the pool swimming laps by 7:30. You can swim year-round here, even during the monsoon season. I’ve almost always found a lull between the night rains and when they begin again in the morning. Seven-thirty a.m. appears to be the magic hour between storms and I always have the pool to myself. No one else is crazy enough to be out there. One of my cocker spaniels, Champagne, was a water dog. He used to plunge in with me when he was alive but my current dog, Foxy, doesn’t like the water. She tried it once when she was a puppy but ran into trouble in the deep end, where I managed to pull her out before she drowned. She didn’t realize all she had to do was keep her head up and paddle. That was years ago and she hasn’t tried it since. Instead she has decided that she will stand guard while I swim. She perches herself at the edge of the pool each morning barking ferociously at birds and squirrels and the neighbor’s cat. The good feeling I get from swimming can last for hours. It goes to your brain and relieves your depression. I absolutely believe in exercise. It works. I think it’s so important. The human body was designed to be active. If you don’t use it, it gives out. My interest in exercise started when I was a middle-aged widow living in New York. That’s when I started preparing for old age. One day I was looking out of the window of my apartment at 38th and Madison and I saw little old ladies half bent over, making their way slowly down the street, some with walkers. I thought, “I don’t want to be one of those.” I had lucked my way through my twenties and thirties eating and drinking too much, followed by the occasional crash diet—but no exercise. I’m convinced if I had continued that lifestyle, I most likely would have ended up infirm years ago. But seeing the little old ladies struggling to make their way down the street was an epiphany for me. So I started exercising and built that into my daily activities. I chose swimming even though I wasn’t a good swimmer (I was actually afraid of the water) because it offered an exercise where you wouldn’t hurt yourself. The body is buoyant so swimming is easy on the joints. There’s no wear and tear on the hips and you don’t get a strained or sprained neck, arm, shoulder, or leg. This is not a small consideration, especially as you age. My first tentative step in this direction was to get a swimming coach and then I dutifully started swimming laps twice a week. As far as eating healthy, I was fortunate in that I already liked fruits and vegetables and fish and chicken and I built my diet around that, with red meat thrown in once a week. I take care of myself not to live longer but to live better as long as I live. When I went to see my cardiologist after a stress test a few years ago, he looked at me and laughed. He told me he was walking down the hall of the hospital and the technicians from the Stress Test room stopped him. “Is that your patient?” they asked. “Is she really eighty-six? She came out normal on the treadmill for someone in middle age. We never had an eighty-six-year-old do that before. Most octogenarians drop out as soon as the treadmill is tilted upward and they have to walk uphill.” I mention this not to pat myself on the back but to show that you can prepare for old age. You just need to start as early as you can. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become really strict with my routine. I start with

light stretches, then jump in the pool for ten laps before showering and dressing and off to breakfast. When I first get out of bed, I’m stiff and sore. The trapped nerve in my hip is painful. My feet feel like all the nerve ends are exposed. My dorsal spine aches. But ten minutes of stretches and twenty minutes in the pool and I’m a different woman, the one that astonished the technicians during the Stress Test. When Harry was alive we fantasized about retiring to one of the islands in the Caribbean, where we would run a small resort at a beach and be able to enjoy the sun, the sand, and the sea year-round. But then Harry died suddenly and that dream died with him—but not the urge to swim. I remember reading an interview with spy novelist John le Carré not that long ago. When the reporter asked what his daily life was like, at eighty-seven, he said, “Swim, write, drink.” It sounded like me. Novelist Philip Roth is also a big swimmer. “The heart of my day is spent at the swimming pool and everything else fits around it,” Roth told John Heilpern in an interview for Vanity Fair. Roth says he swims for two hours every day. “Two hours! Don’t you get bored?” Heilpern asked. “You think I don’t get bored writing?” Roth responded.

I’ve published twenty-eight books and I’m well aware of how much time it takes. I’m always in the midst of relating another story or pursuing a fresh facet of information but I lack the energy to write another book. Like Philip Roth. He’s through with writing books, too. He’s a mere child at seventy-seven. And he swims a lot more than I do. I do my twenty minutes every morning and that’s enough. I’m sometimes amused at myself in response to different social events. Two come to mind. The first was the eightieth birthday party for a friend. There were one hundred guests. Dinner wasn’t served until 9:30 p.m. I was bored and did not have a good time. The next night, at the U.S. Embassy, I was invited to a small dinner at which I was the only woman. I sat at the table with the American ambassador and two admirals. I came home so exhilarated I had a hard time sleeping. Obviously, the second night suited me better. The conversation focused on the state of the world today which I still care about. Recently, I went to a farewell reception for a friend working for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) which has been active in the Philippines for years. After I greeted her and told her I’d miss her, ten minutes had passed and I had nothing else to do there. I looked around the room, got a glass of wine from a waiter, and moved around on the periphery and saw only one face I knew. It was the Dutch ambassador. He was busy talking with three other men but I joined them anyway, and told him frankly that he was the only familiar face. They proceeded with their conversation and finally, bored, I wandered off. At last the buffet opened, so, not having ordered supper at home, I shamelessly was the first in line for food. I nibbled on dry chicken and this and that, and decided I could escape, which I did— before the speeches were made. Rude! No doubt about it. But I hate standing around, especially when I have no one to talk to. Back home I took off my “reception clothes” and slipped into my serviceable cotton nightgown and wondered why I had gone there in the first place. I really don’t enjoy these receptions anymore unless I stumble across someone I really enjoy talking to. So, what do I still enjoy at my age? Good food, good wine, and good conversation. But I would much rather be with an interesting friend at a good restaurant than wander around a reception. So, I’m thinking of not going next time. But then I remember my vow to get out of the house, simply because I am alone so much of the time and I think I should take the opportunity to be among a few warm bodies whenever possible. In terms of pet peeves, I only have a couple. I detest a speaker who says, “in conclusion” and then goes on and on. The same goes for the speaker who opens by saying “I’ll be brief” and isn’t. I still wrestle with a life-long tendency to do what people want. As far back as I can remember, I’ve had this awful urge to please people. It ranks right up there with the desire not to hurt anyone. In fact, my motto, which I borrowed from physicians, is “Do no harm.” There are only two cruel things that I can remember doing in my life. The first was leaving Donald. The second was putting my mother in a senior center. Others have described these decisions as necessary. I seldom finish reading a book anymore. I used to always finish books but now I read awhile and I think I know what the author is going to say, so I quit. I don’t have the same patience that I once had. At this point in my life, I’ve been exposed to so much information that a lot of what I read isn’t new. I never had a favorite book but I remember in middle age my favorite author was Colette, the French writer, best known for her novels Gigi and Cherie. She was very good at characterization and emotion and sensory descriptions. But I never modeled myself after any writer. I think the way I write is very much a

reflection of my personality. I like to be absolutely clear about what I’m saying and what I mean. I like to communicate directly and explain complex issues, and avoid any type of pretension or anything affected. I sleep lightly and wake up in the night and as a result I often remember my dreams. Sometimes I will even turn on the light and make a note if I think it’s interesting. Occasionally I dream of someone I’ve lost. Recently I dreamed my dad was visiting me and I woke up with the sensation that his hand was on mine. When I went back to sleep, he reappeared and said, “Don’t be frightened or sad when you wake up and I’m not there. I’m dead you know.” I still tend to live in the present and don’t dwell on the past. In fact, I try to leave the past behind. There’s lots of history between Rommy and me at the Waldorf, for example, and I will always treasure it but I don’t look back with any great sense of nostalgia. In a way, the Waldorf is a symbol of romance and world affairs. The General and I often entertained overseas guests at the Waldorf ballroom, and attended many diplomatic dinners there. Jean MacArthur, the widow of General Douglas MacArthur, lived in the Waldorf Towers and when we were in New York, I always had lunch with her at the Waldorf’s Peacock Alley restaurant. Yes, the Waldorf has its meaning, and so many wonderful memories. I only have one picture of Rommy and me at the Waldorf. It was taken in 1976. I’m seated next to Rommy on a sofa and we’re both laughing as we clink our champagne glasses in celebration. When I see that photograph, I think to myself, “I’ve lived a good life, haven’t I?”