Page 281 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

BECOMING A WHITE HOUSE FELLOW

Sadat, and to their amazement, permission was granted, though only for a
brief, cursory encounter.
“They prepped us for a photo opportunity, and we weren’t supposed to
talk to him. We were supposed to just be really nice, smile in the photo,
and get on with it,” Evans recalled. “But President Sadat decided he actu-
ally wanted to meet with us, and we spent two and a half hours sitting with
him in his villa on the Nile discussing the Middle East peace process. One
of my classmates asked him where he got the strength to go on each day
when the problems are so huge, and he talked about how his strength came
from his village and his heritage. It was one of the most moving soliloquies
I had ever heard, and my takeaway was that even world leaders at the height
of tense periods and extreme difficulty still have humanity. As a class, most
of us have singled that out as one of the most amazing experiences of our
lives.” Evans’s classmate, Mari Aponte (WHF 79–80) remembered that
“President Sadat told us about a letter from President Carter on the impor-
tance of putting the peace process in motion. He said he thought about it
and thought about it and finally wrote back, ‘Dear Jimmy, Be Bold.’”

A BITTER CUP OF TEA
Although Evans and Aponte were buoyed by their policy study trip, one
group of White House Fellows was haunted by theirs. While the world
watched in horror as protesters were brutally beaten in Beijing’s Tianan-
men Square in 1989, that year’s White House Fellows felt especially close
to the drama. The intrepid class had just returned from a tour of Asia,
including stops in China. In Shanghai they had shared tea and frank con-
versation with a quiet elderly dissident who, in spite of having been a polit-
ical prisoner for years under Mao, still was protesting the communist
regime’s ongoing violations of human rights. As the editor of a rebel news-
paper that had been banned and closed down repeatedly, the soft-spoken,
courageous old man continued to defy the government, and his quiet brav-
ery made a lasting impression on the Fellows.
“After we flew home, we were enthralled along with the rest of the
world at the breathtaking courage of the Tiananmen protesters and sad-
dened—but not surprised—by the ruthlessness of the crackdown,” said
John Shephard, Jr. (WHF 88–89). “We feared for the old dissident and
wondered about his fate. We never found out what happened to him, but
there’s no doubt that even with all the economic success that China has

266