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WHAT IT WOULD COST YOU TO HAVE DINNER WITH TOM RIDGE, THOMMY THOMPSON, DONALD EVANS, RICHARD ARMITAGE, TOM BROKAW & COLIN "Lear Jet" POWELL?
Share / Recommend - Comment - Print - Wednesday, Feb 02 2005, 4:41PM
I don't want to get into the details of this right now, but there is a time I had an interesting phone conversation with former President George H.W. Bush. Some interested parties in Japan were approaching him to come to Japan after the conclusion of his presidential term and were offering him $2 million.
I was approached by a larger Japanese news conglomerate who wanted me to approach Bush -- so I called his newly established private office. It was clear to me that Bush and his secretary were the only ones in his new office because they had tried to send a fax to me as if it were from another Bush-handler, but I just had the feeling the person wasn't in Texas yet. When trying to get this particular person identified on the fax (who was responding for Bush to me) on the phone, Bush himself got on the phone -- and it was a memorable and fascinating conversation.
He was being represented by the Harry Walker Agency and wanted to make sure that Harry (Harry's son now runs that business) got his fair cut -- and put me in touch with him. But Bush was interested -- but wanted just $1 million. Reagan had in direct compensation and in the overall cost of his trip had enjoyed a Japan excursion that cost about $8 million total, paid for by Fujisankei Communications. Bush wanted none of that controversy.
I wasn't being compensated to play a middleman role in all of this but was trying to be helpful -- and wanted to learn how these things moved along. I ended up meeting Harry Walker in New York -- great guy actually -- and he wanted to start a business line with me lining up some of the nation's top political talent for Asian deals. I politely wiggled out of that expectation and stayed in the less lucrative public policy business.
I don't think Bush ever took that trip. The sponsors wanted 8 speeches from Bush, and they were clearly syndicating him around Japan and lining up other sponsors and trying to use President Bush as the bait to make money themselves. Bush wanted just one speech and maybe a couple of other appearances -- and was willing to go as far as two speeches for the million dollars. But in the end, the package fell apart, until the sponsors lined him up a few years later.
I mention this because despite the large amount of money involved, Bush demonstrated some judiciousness about his role and the degree of crassness he would permit regarding selling his stature for compensation. Bill Clinton seems much more willing to speak for large fees, but I don't know his going rate. I see that he is represented by Harry Walker as well -- and at the time Bush told me that Walker's take on each speech was 20%.
I liked Bush and talked to him again, in person, at Richard Nixon's funeral. He remembered the conversation, and we spoke briefly about the awkward tension he felt between making a living speaking at gigs around the world and not wanting to inappropriately or excessively benefit from his stature as a former president. Some reading this will scoff at these comments from Bush given the lucrative family relationships the Bush family has enjoyed with the Saudis and many other monied interests around the world -- because of their stature -- but if you were there with me in person, you might have read what I did in Bush's comments -- that he genuinely felt awkward about it.
Since then, I have always been interested in the financial conflicts that high profile politicians, pundits, and media stars might encounter. James Fallows wrote about this in a brilliant short book called Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine Democracy. Fallows' book is even more relevant today given the Armstrong Williams scandal and the fact that the Bush administration has tried to buy off a number of journalists.
A previously unreported incident that runs along these lines occurred when agents representing Rodrigo de Rato contacted me in the weeks preceding his formal appointment as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.
Rato was among those at the top of the list jousting to run the IMF, and as it became increasingly clear he would get the job, a speaker's agent offered him to the New America Foundation. We were asked to pay a speaker's fee to Rato -- and I was told that I could confirm all of this with Rato by phone if I needed to check the credentials and status of these agents. I stupidly let all of this drop, though I did speak with the agent several times.
But it seemed profoundly unethical to me that the IMF Managing Director to be would market himself for a fee because his stock had just risen in the eyes of those concerned with international economic policy. There are laws in the U.S. about jacking up prices of goods during natural disasters -- and Rodrigo de Rato's agents were crossing a line too.
Just to be fair to Rato, I never did call him -- and know that there exists the possibility that these agents were just being entrepreneurs and trying to line stuff up without his formal endorsement. But still the tale deserves to be told as I've presented it.
I actually told a guy at the IMF about this attempt to extort speaker's fees for Rato when it happened -- and he encouraged me to divulge the story then. Unfortunately, The Washington Note was still at the conceptual stage.
But here is some data I just came by that can't help but make people scratch their heads wondering why these civil servants (and members of the media) feel entitled to such imperial levels of compensation.
Here are the compensation figures (about to be officially announced -- but the information on Ridge, Thompson, Evans and Armitage is still pre-publication):
Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge
$40,000 for East Coast appearances
Former Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson
$35,000 for East Coast appearances
Former Commerce Secretary Donald Evans
approximately $25,000 (still negotiations between Evans and his agents)
Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage*
$25,000
*(TWN Note: Armitage is worth much more as he is the guy who really did stop a nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India about 90 minutes before the missiles began to fly. . .no joke)
Tom Brokaw
$60,000 for New York City appearances
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell
$100,000 plus first class expenses for two to include a Lear 60 Jet
Let me just be clear that bloggers, even those who are celebrities, fly cattle class and are lucky to get breakfast.
-- Steve Clemons
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Praktike -- Most times, these people expect an evening with the guest speaker. Dinner, a good speech, answering some questions of the audience. . .the kind of thing that happens at no charge in most think tanks is a big deal at retreats for Morgan Stanley. It's all pretty hush-hush who pays and how much -- and handled by brokers and speaker's agents. The interesting thing in this post is that I don't think that the speaker fees for the folks I mention -- but particularly Evans, Thompson, Ridge and Armitage -- have been published yet. They don't pull nearly what Powell pulls -- or any former President... but it's not a bad living.
best,
Steve Clemons
"Some reading this will scoff ... but if you were there with me in person, you might have read what I did in Bush's comments -- that he genuinely felt awkward about it."
Why is it supposed to be difficult to imagine Bush Sr. being awkward?
Where could one find a good source examining the role Armitage played in easing the tension between India and Pakistan? I remember the flare-up between the two nations a couple years back, but I never heard that the chances of an actual nuclear exchange were that high.
Harry Walker has quite a stable! Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, Al and Tipper Gore, Howard Dean, John Edwards (even Elizabeth Edwards), Joe Lockhart, Karen Hughes, Hans Blix to William Bennett, and many more! A motley crew. The only two I'd never heard of were:
Dr. Mae Jemison
( First African American Woman in Space Medical Doctor Astronaut)
Gary Hall, Jr.
(The fastest swimmer in United States history and in organized competition worldwide, a three-time Olympian, ten-time Olympic medalist, American record-holder, and hero to millions of swimmers and diabetes patients ...)
Steve,
FYI - Clinton came to speak at my college (UC Davis) in 2002. Anyway, I know that his speaking fee was rumored to be approximately $125,000 for about two hours. Additionally, at the end of the event, it was announced that he was donating $25,000 to a campus scholarship fund ( or there abouts. The name of the fund and the exact amount escapes my memory.) But yes, very expensive. Although, I would think that is a suitable amount for a former president.
~dpa
Contrast Reagan, Powell, and Clinton with George Marshall:
"He never exploited his fame. He never sought or asked for favors or recognition. He was a man driven more than anything else, by sense of duty, by the powerful, overpowering obligations of service. When he finally gave in and agreed to an official biography to be written by Forrest Pogue and to the eventual publication of his papers, it was with the expressed and explicit stipulation that no financial gain or monetary profit or compensation, of any kind should come to him or to the benefit of his family as a result of the publication and sale. His lifetime in the Army, he once observed, had been more than honor and reward enough. He often said what he had done as a soldier was simply not for sale."
ref:
http://www.ci.vancouver.wa.us/marshall/1996lec.htm
> Let me just be clear that bloggers, even those who > are celebrities, fly cattle class and are lucky to > get breakfast.
I can't help you with the cattle class seats
on Air Near Bankrupt, but I'll buy you dinner
anytime.
Ian
Tell the 90 minuite story! Tell the 90 minuite story! It needs to be told more often....
I remember Armitage's 'facilitation' visit, too. Is there something that didn't make the papers? It looked then to me that he was less responsible than a necessary excuse for India to back down and accept Musharraf's assurances. I didn't see either side actually daring to press the button, not in 2002, a year in which anyone with a brain in each government would have been incredibly sensitive to the risk of being next on the US's list after Afghanistan instead of Iraq.
I just wanted to say that I too am curious to hear more about Armitage's role in the India / Pakistan incident.
Looks like you're going to have to tell the Armitage story, Steve.
Seeking opinions, seeking opinions:
>>tongue in cheek<<
I live and work a few miles from where Michael Jackson is being tried. Maybe I can 'exploit' my proximity. Think I should take some pictures, interview some people, try and make some dinero? Maybe I need an agent....
I was hosting a conference for an office in the Joint Staff, and was able to get Gen McCaffrey to do a 2-hour stint. His usual fee was $15,000, but because this was a military crowd (and the military has compensation rules) his office came down to $500. He was an amazing speaker, one of the highlights of my career was to escort him into and out of the building.
What can I say, I've had a boring career.
Al -- Thanks for the anecdote about General McCaffrey. I had a similar experience with him when invited to a small dinner hosted by Washington College -- which had no doubt paid him a higher fee than you paid -- but he was very lucid about the great debates about the military and the way we were using it. I was very surprised to see McCaffrey's name on the PNAC letter the other day because he expressed profound reservations about the intentions and policy positions of the neoconservatives at his public talk at Washington College (in Chestertown, MD).
However, given the spice of some of your other posts, I take exception to your assertion that you have had a boring career. Clearly you haven't.
best regards,
Steve Clemons
I'm not sure that they feel "entitled" to the fees; they'll take what the market will bear. How many of us here wouldn't?
I can also imagine that Powell's requests also have the effect of limiting contacts to serious offers only. Otherwise, he'd have to have a huge staff just to turn down everything that came his way.
As for what the payers expect, I suspect that much of the time they're mostly looking for someone who can demonstrate how much pull the event organizers have. A headline figure for marketing purposes.
Or more cynically, look for what the payers may have already received, for which the high fees are now a legal way of saying thanks.
How do you know what CELEBRITY bloggers get?
Steve,
Call me pedantic if you will but there's an important point of sematic to be clarified in your post.
*(TWN Note: Armitage is worth much more as he is the guy who really did stop a thermonuclear exchange between Pakistan and India about 90 minutes before the missiles began to fly. . .no joke)
I agree Armitage's worth a lot more, at least by virtue of being an actually decent person. Yet, it was not a thermonuclear exchange he prevented but "merely" a nuclear exchange, Hiroshima type. It's already a lot.
India / Pakistan = fission = A-bomb, 10s of kilotons, pretty nasty, burns a small city to the ground = cold war circa 1950.
Thermonuclear = fusion = H-bomb, multi-megaton, really nasty. It doesn't just burn a small city. It scraps a big city off the bedrock = cold war 1955-1989. Google for "castle bravo".
It's pretty annoying that Pakistan has some A-bombs. It would be downright terrifying if they had the big H. They would even ask for a permanent seat at the UNSC. The horror :-)
Fifi -- You win points on that one. Unlike David Frum who didn't enjoy my pointing to a quotation error he made, I actually appreciate constructive and educational critiques.
Thanks for point this out -- I have just changed the text to read "nuclear."
best,
Steve Clemons
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