On his last weekday in Prague Castle as the President of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel taped a brief farewell address to the nation and then took a telephone call from George Bush. Havel, who came to office thirteen years ago wearing borrowed trousers that flapped high around his ankles, now wore an exquisitely tailored navy-blue three-piece suit, a white shirt, and a tie that had undoubtedly done its duty at summit meetings and memorial services. A clutch of efficient aides scurried around his office door. A steward with a napkin folded over his arm delivered a glass of white wine. Sunlight streamed through tall windows, and chandeliers lent a glow to the flowers and the Oriental carpets.
The American President might have been surprised to learn that Havel's castle makes the White House seem inelegant, but Bush probably remembered the place well. Just a few months earlier, he had been to the Castle for a NATO summitâ??the first ever in a former Warsaw Pact capital. Bush, his Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and dozens of generals and other politicians were treated not merely to the usual working meetings but also to theatrical performances organized by Havel himself. The NATO visitors watched an ersatz eighteenth-century dance (complete with powdered wigs and simulated copulation) that might have been considered obscene had it not been so amusing. They listened to booming renditions of the "Ode to Joy," a souped-up "Marseillaise," and John Lennon's "Power to the People."
"I didn't understand anything," Rumsfeld remarked as he headed toward dinner. "I'm from Chicago."
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