My good friend Fay Lewis died last September, and I’ve been mulling her passing the last many months. For years, I had grown used to Fay calling me up and shaking me out of my self-importance and a schedule that I thought couldn’t bear any more meetings.
Lewis had become America’s super-agent for placing foreign visitors that the Department of State had targeted as prospects for serving as better bridges between their countries and the U.S. Through her demands issued to me from her perch at the Meridian International Center, directing the Center’s work with the State Department’’s International Visitor Leadership Program, I met somewhere around 1,000 people since she first put me to work for her.
Now when I travel around the world — almost anywhere in the world — I know a prominent journalist, or someone who has become a mayor, or Ambassador, or even head of government, as in the case of Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard who visited the US in this very same leadership program years ago. We talked a lot when Gillard visited about DC’s lucrative think tank business. I know regular folks who came through these programs — and despite my impulses of real irritation now and then that Fay Lewis just didn’t understand how busy I was, I am so grateful to her for never allowing me to say no.
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