Living History by Unknown (best non fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

point on, my staff regularly winked at the television screen and spoke into lamps, making loud requests for pizza, steak and milkshakes and hoping that our security handlers would deliver again. But after three days, only the newspaper had arrived at the door.

The day after the Beijing speech, I went to Huairou to speak to the NGO representatives whose forum had been exiled from the main conference. Accompanying me was another member of the U.S. delegation, the Administration’s dedicated Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala, who served in Bill’s cabinet for eight years.

She was known for her unwavering commitment to improving the health and welfare of Americans-and her mettle, which would be tested in Huairou. It was a gloomy day. Rain poured down; the air was raw. We drove north in a small caravan past flat fields and rows of rice paddies to the site of what was now billed as the NGO Forum. Though they had taken the precaution of moving the forum to a location an hour’s drive from the main UN

gathering, Chinese officials still worried about the thousands of activist women in Huairou.

My presence, in their view, only escalated the stakes. They were unhappy that I had criticized their government in my speech the day before and must have been even more concerned about what I would say to the women whom they had banished from Beijing.

Due to the rain, the forum had to be moved inside a converted movie house, and it was packed with three thousand people, double the capacity, by the time we arrived.

Hundreds more were trying to get in. Standing outside for hours in the driving rain, with muddy puddles underfoot, these activists were blocked by the Chinese police. As my car approached the hall, the police, bandying nightsticks, pushed the crowd back from the entrance. This was not a polite confrontation. As the police pushed harder and harder, many in the crowd struggled to stay on their feet. Some fell into a slippery sea of mud.

Melanne had arrived ahead of me with Neel Lattimore, my first-rate deputy press secretary, who was famous for his pithy one-liners and artful handling of my relations with the media. Neel brought professionalism and humor to one of the most delicate jobs in the White House. As Melanne was pushed back and forth by the surging crowd, a Secret Service agent recognized her and extended his long arm, which she held on to like a life preserver while he literally pulled her inside. The intrepid Kelly Craighead went into the crowd with Secret Service agents to find Donna and other missing members of my group and pulled them to safety. By the time they caught up with us, they were sopping wet but otherwise none the worse for wear. Neel was taking care of our press contingent, and he shepherded the press out of their bus, lagging behind to make sure everyone was accounted for. By the time he started through the rain-drenched crowd, he couldn’t make it.

When he asked for help from one of the Chinese officials monitoring the crowd, he was pushed and yelled at and forced to leave the area altogether. He couldn’t get inside to find us, and they wouldn’t let him wait near our cars. He eventually found his own way back to Beijing.

The Chinese police, through their harsh tactics outside the hall, had done an extraordinary job of energizing the NGO representatives, who sang, yelled, clapped and cheered as I walked on stage.

I loved the feeling of the crowd and told them how much I admired and championed the work these groups did, often in dangerous situations, to build and sustain civil society and democracy. NGOs are mitigating forces that help keep the private sector and the government in check. I talked about NGOs I had seen in action around the world, and then I read “Silence,” the poem written for me by the student in New Delhi. It seemed to be the perfect antidote to the Chinese government’s suppression of the NGO forum and its attempts to silence the words and ideas of so many women. I was buoyed by the courage and passion of women who had traveled thousands of miles, at great personal expense, to break the silence and raise their voices on behalf of their causes. For years afterwards, the scenes I witnessed at Huairou remained etched in my mind. Seldom does one see so tangibly, in one setting, the differences between living in a free society and living under government control.

Once it became clear I would make the controversial trip to China, the Administration requested that I stop for an overnight visit in Mongolia, a former Soviet satellite that in 1990 had chosen the path of democracy rather than follow the Communist lead of neighboring China. The fledgling democracy was struggling because the spigot of Soviet aid had been turned off, and the country faced difficult economic times. It was important for the United States to show support for the Mongolian people and their elected leadership, and a visit from the First Lady to one of the most remote capitals of the world was one way to do it.

Ulan Bator is the world’s coldest capital, and even in early September, snow is not unusual. But we arrived on a crystal-clear day with bright sunshine. We drove about forty-five minutes into the high plains to visit one of Mongolia’s thousands of nomadic families. Three generations of this family lived in two large tents, known as gers, made out of heavy felt stretched over a wooden frame. I had brought a handmade saddle as a gift, and in presenting it to the grandfather patriarch, I explained that my husband came from a region with horses and cattle. Asking questions through an interpreter, I learned that this was the site of their summer home and that they were preparing to leave soon for their winter home near the Gobi desert, where the weather is milder. They traveled