Page 263 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

BECOMING A WHITE HOUSE FELLOW

and he never came back out for the duration of the trip. Later, the press
guys told me that you don’t speak to the president like that—it was too
informal. That was a pretty heady day.”

ALL THE COMFORTS OF HOME
The record for the most work-related travel in one Fellowship year prob-
ably belongs to Karen Galatz (WHF 85–86), who was assigned to work
with Secretary of State George Shultz. Galatz traveled to thirty countries
during ten trips abroad with Secretary Shultz and State Department staff-
ers. Some of the trips were in preparation for the historic 1985 Geneva Sum-
mit between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, in
which the two leaders began the dialogue that ultimately would lead to the
end of the Cold War.
“The airplane was a combination of office and home. We would
be gone for ten days, and there were fax machines and computers and
typewriters and briefing books, and everybody was piled in together—
journalists, the secretary’s security detail and staff, and Mrs. Shultz,” Galatz
recalled. “It really was quite remarkable. We were in Europe over Easter,
and when we got back on the plane, there were little Easter candies for
everybody. We celebrated Mrs. Shultz’s birthday with cake and song aboard
the plane. We worked hard but also had fun. One time, I beat somebody
in Trivial Pursuit because just as the plane was landing, I was asked a sports
question about a golf course. I quickly claimed I had a partner, none other
than the Secretary, who of course knew the name of the golf course. On
these trips, you were sitting next to the experts in all aspects of interna-
tional relations, and listening to them was a graduate-level course in
diplomacy.”

JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE
Some Fellows say it was the day-to-day workings of the federal government
that left the biggest impression on them, and they got an insider’s view of
all the action with no jet-setting required. Every day, down every corridor
in Washington, there is the potential for history to be made, and since 1965
there has been a Fellow nearby to witness it. Don Furtado (WHF 67–68)
was working in the White House when Martin Luther King, Jr., was assas-
sinated, and he watched troops setting up firing positions on the lawn
below his office window as smoke rose over the city. He recalled the

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