Before I get to the story of how I sipped tea with Richard Perle in the South of France, I'd like to offer my condolences to Queen Anne resident Mark Sidran.
Like another ex-Seattle City Attorney, Doug Jewett, Sidran has learned that being smarter, more articulate and an innovative thinker doesn't usually translate into election victories.
In 1976, Jewett lost to Henry Jackson by more than 600,000 votes. And this was after one of Jackson's offspring - WPPSS - a $25-billion necklace of nuclear power plants around Washington state - drowned in red ink.
Still, Jewett did deny Jackson the 80-percent cut of the vote he'd received in 1970, just as it was beginning to dawn on America that another of Scoop's offspring - the Vietnam War - had no light at the end of the tunnel.
Jackson was Vietnam's chief cheerleader from 1954, when he first urged the commitment of U.S. ground troops, until 1974, when he decided his presidential aspirations required losing the albatross.
To this state's newspapers Jackson was near divine. Few questioned his great ideas, like a nuke plant at the UW or nuclear missiles at Fort Lawton.
But WPPSS and Vietnam may not have been Henry's biggest follies.
In 1969 he brought two grad students to Washington, D.C., to champion the anti-missile missile: Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz.
In 1980 Washington state voters resoundingly ousted Sen. Warren Magnuson, the most powerful man in Congress, because he didn't look fit. When Jackson died in 1983, Magnuson was a pallbearer.
Perle, Jackson's chief advisor on foreign affairs, became Reagan's assistant Secretary of Defense and Star Warrior.
In 1996 Perle was chairman of a study group that told Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu "we Israelis" see Saddam Hussein's removal as "an important Israeli strategic objective."
In 2000 Perle organized neo-conservatives into what would become the Project for a New American Century, whose members believed America should remodel the world, starting with the Middle East. Governments in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Lybia, Saudi Arabia and Egypt were targeted for makeovers.
The neocons had once backed Dan Quayle. Now they had a better version of a leader: W.
Before the 2000 election Perle and the neocons advised and promoted Bush. Afterwards they filled out his lineup card.
Neocon Lewis "Scooter" Libby became Vice President Cheney's chief of staff. Neocon Douglas Feith became Rumsfeld's right-hand man. And Richard Perle became head of the Department of Defense's Policy Board, the highest-ranking civilian in DOD.
Why did Perle chose a less than full-time position? Perhaps because he didn't want to fully disclose his business dealings with defense contractors (e.g., Boeing with its $20-million investment).
After 9/11, Perle beat the war drums in person, in print and on the air. He had no problem getting what-ever he wanted published because he sat on the board of Hollinger International, a massive newspaper chain that controlled the Chicago Sun-Times, New York Post, London Telegraph and Jerusalem Post.
The Iraqis, he said, will greet us as the French did their American liberators. It will be "a cakewalk."
He declared France "anti-American" and said it had lost its "moral fiber." Germany was headed by "a discredited chancellor." And "Thank God for the death of the UN."
To other countries opposing America in the region, he all but snarled: "You're next."
Perle delivered these bon mots with disdainful arrogance, part Roy Cohn, part Sydney Greenstreet - complete with the puffy cheeks and comb-over.
Seeing him, Calvin Trillin thought: "This is a guy who got beat up a lot as a kid."
And Trillin wrote a poem for The New Yorker that went: "Who's responsible for Richard Perle? Who pushed him down on the playground? Who called him a girl?"
I'm less civilized than Trillin. I once dreamed I was shooting skeet and he came flapping out of the high house in a turkey suit.
Somebody told me Perle hung out in a particular town in Southern France where French movie stars vacationed.
My brother and I spent a day trying to to find him. Finally, almost at sundown, a vision stopped our car. Across the gorge was a knoll lit by sunset. Centuries-old houses ran up its sides, and the castle on top glowed white gold.
When we reached the town square, there was a postcard-worthy restaurant across from the castle. From under the awning on the patio came the sound of some guy with a fat cigar pontificating on the Los Angeles Lakers.
But it wasn't Perle.
The next morning I asked the postman where Richard Perle lived. They knew nothing.
After buying some lavender soap at the street fair, I climbed the worn stairs to the city hall located in the top of the castle.
"Je récherché Richard Perle?" I told the receptionist.
She raised her eyebrows: "Oui." And buzzed the mayor.
He came out like a cuckoo bird. "Mr. Perle does not like our government," he announced, "but he appreciates French culture." Then he disappeared back into his office.
"So," I said to the receptionist, "there is still Vichy. Is there still Resistance?"
"You do not need to speak more," she replied. "I see every Michael Moore movie."
She went into a back room and returned with a piece of paper on which was a phone number.
"But he won't talk to me," I protested. "I need address."
"Use what you have," she said.
The only pay phone in town was tied up by a gabbing tourist. When I finally got into the booth, the sun had made the metal too hot to touch. Opening the door let in the din of the market.
Somebody answered.
"DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?" I shouted.
"Yes," said Richard Perle.
I made my request.
"You've shown such ingenuity in finding me," he replied nicely, "the least I can do is invite you over."
He gave me directions past many gates. His would have a small American flag on top.
It opened hydraulically.
I saw him walking up the drive. His hand was outstretched.
To be continued
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