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Storyworth: How Did You Bring Peace to the Middle East – Chapter 2

Two years after our experience on Cyprus with the Palestinians and the Israelis described in a previous chapter, my friend Jay F. came back with a new project related to the earlier one. Jay was working for the Peres Center for Peace, named for Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shimon Peres, whose executive director was a man named Uri Savir. Uri was Israel’s chief negotiator for the Oslo Accords, a peace agreement from the early ‘90s between the Israelis and the Palestinians. He was portrayed in the movie “Oslo” as a slender, dashing, charismatic and irreverent diplomat, a characterization of him wildly at odds with the man I got to know on this project. He was in fact smart, irreverent, funny and charismatic. Other qualities in the portrayal in the movie seemed exaggerated for dramatic effect. But that’s another story for another time.

Jay came to me with a project called the Millennium Peace Calendar. It was a large poster-sized calendar that the Peres Center had created with young Israelis and Palestinians from the West Bank who drew pictures about their dreams for peace. Those pictures decorated each of the months in the 12 month calendar. The calendar was signed by the Pope, Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela and other world leaders. It was designed to be a fundraising vehicle that would provide financing for computer centers that the Peres center would establish both in the West Bank and in Israel that would allow young people from each community to communicate with one another and build relationships across the two communities. These relationships would break the chain of hostility by developing a generation of Palestinians and Israelis who had friends on the either side of the Jordan River.

I had been at FleishmanHillard for two years by that time. I was a little more established and so I had a little more ability to get the company to approve this project. Of course, unlike the previous project, this would have been a paying client. But payment was somewhat contingent on the success of the project. In other words, we had to sell calendars. All FH asked was that we don’t LOSE money on it. I only had to break even. In the end, we never came close.

The first meeting with Jay and a woman from the Peres Center was on a Monday in early September of 1999. Since the calendar was for the year 2000, there was no time to waste. Once my general manager at FH approved the project, we had to move quickly. In fact, I had to be in Tel Aviv by the following weekend for a meeting at the Peres Center for Peace that following Monday….with Shimon Peres, the former Prime Minister of Israel. Less than a week away. And, I had to have a plan for the project by then. Yikes.

I wrote a plan in my hotel room in Tel Aviv that forecast that we would raise $10 million dollars from the calendars. We would sell them for $100 a piece. Our chief targets would be the American Jewish community.

I presented the plan to Shimon Peres and the Chairman of the Board of the Peres Center, Dov Lautman, who was the head of the Sara Lee company in Israel. They approved the plan, but before I left the meeting (after getting the picture with Peres below), Lautman pulled me aside and said, “This project HAS to work. The Peres Center is struggling financially right now and if this effort fails, it could destroy the organization.”

Me and Shimon immediately after I told him I was going to raise $10 million for his non-profit with the Peace Calendar.

Storyworth: Who has been one of the most important people in your life? Can you tell me about him or her?

So many people. I could write a book about the people who had major impacts on my life. For purposes of this question, I’m going to set family aside, since by definition, they have had the most impact on my life. But that’s all of our jobs, to positively impact members of our family. Non-family members who intervene positively on our lives are, I think, a special breed. So I’ll focus on that category. And I will start with a list and finish with the person who had the greatest impact.

Storyworth: How Did You Bring Peace to the Middle East – Chapter One

In the summer of 1997, I had just started my 17-year career at FleishmanHillard (FH).  I was still very much learning the ropes of what it meant to be a “public affairs consultant.”  One day, I got a call from Jim Rosapepe, who was at the time a Maryland state senator, but would, in time, become the U.S. Ambassador to Romania.  He was also on the Board of the American Council of Young Political Leaders (ACYPL), a foreign exchange program that sent young (under 40 years old) politically active Americans around the world.  They also welcomed similar young people from other countries.  I had gone to the Future of Europe Conference in London under their auspices.  It was a fabulous experience.  I had hoped to do other programs with them, but, by 1997, I had aged out and never expected to hear from them again.

Jim had an intriguing request.  He said they were trying something new and wanted me to be a part of it.  They were developing a meeting that would bring together young political people from Israel and the Palestinian areas.  The Israelis would come from the conservative Likud Party, them in power in Tel Aviv.  The Palestinians would come from the Fatah Party, the party of Yassir Arafat, possibly the most hated man in Israel.  Unlike typical ACYPL programs where participants go on tours and meetings with their counterparts in other countries, this program would be more “goal oriented.”  The idea was to teach young Palestinians and Israelis how to communicate with one another without violence.   This was a time when America was admired around the world for its ability to settle political disputes peacefully, both through a democratic process and constructive communications across differing parties.  Yes, this was a long time ago.

Storyworth: How did you bring peace to the Middle East – Chapter 1

In the summer of 1997, I had just started my 17-year career at FleishmanHillard (FH). I was still very much learning the ropes of what it meant to be a “public affairs consultant.” One day, I got a call from Jim Rosapepe, who was at the time a Maryland state senator, but would, in time, become the U.S. Ambassador to Romania. He was also on the Board of the American Council of Young Political Leaders (ACYPL), a foreign exchange program that sent young (under 40 years old) politically active Americans around the world. They also welcomed similar young people from other countries. I had gone to the Future of Europe Conference in London under their auspices. It was a fabulous experience. I had hoped to do other programs with them, but, by 1997, I had aged out and never expected to hear from them again.

Jim had an intriguing request. He said they were trying something new and wanted me to be a part of it. They were developing a meeting that would bring together young political people from Israel and the Palestinian areas. The Israelis would come from the conservative Likud Party, them in power in Tel Aviv. The Palestinians would come from the Fatah Party, the party of Yassir Arafat, possibly the most hated man in Israel. Unlike typical ACYPL programs where participants go on tours and meetings with their counterparts in other countries, this program would be more “goal oriented.” The idea was to teach young Palestinians and Israelis how to communicate with one another without violence. This was a time when America was admired around the world for its ability to settle political disputes peacefully, both through a democratic process and constructive communications across differing parties. Yes, this was a long time ago.

Storyworth: What the Farthest You’ve Ever Travelled

In 2007, I was a public affairs consultant working at FleishmanHillard, a global PR firm based in St. Louis.  The company had offices all over the world, including China and Hong Kong.  I was contacted by the Hong Kong office to help with a client of theirs called Huawei.  Huawei is pretty well known now, but nobody in the U.S. (outside of the intelligence community) had ever heard of them.  The company made the guts of the wireless telecommunications system and were’ hoping to enter the American market.  They were in the process of partnering the American investment company called Bain & Company to acquire an American company called 3Comm.  Little did I know that this project would launch me on a seven year global adventure that would provide me both the highlights and lowlights of my professional career.

My recollection is that, in 2007, Huawei had a market cap of about $30 billion dollars.  Their customers were mobile phone companies in the third world, mostly Latin America and Africa.  The had achieved a breakthrough with British Telecomm which was their first entre’ into the industrialized world.  But the U.S. was the big prize.

Storyworth: What was the neighborhood you grew up in like?

Roslindale is among the lesser known neighborhoods of Boston. Most people not from Massachusetts have never heard of it. I have to describe it in relation to other well known neighborhoods. “It’s between Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury,” I’ll say.

It has gotten somewhat better known since I left in 1981. It did become hot among so-called yuppies in the 90’s who liked the relatively lower housing prices than the hotter markets surrounding it. It’s a relatively quiet area with lots of single-family houses. I knew it was changing when the powers-that-be changed the name of the section known as Roslindale Square to Roslindale Village in the 80’s or 90’s. I don’t believe that branding has taken hold. It’s still “Rozzie Square” even to the more recent arrivals.

When I was growing up, Roslindale was a lower middle class neighborhood. Most of my friends were Irish Catholic, like me. But there was a substantial Greek population and my best friend was named Billy Jacob who lived across the street from me and whose parents were Lebanese immigrants. The hub of the neighborhood was “The Square.”.There were two supermarkets, Roche’s and Corey’s. I’d get my haircut at Frank’s Barbershop. My first job was working for Roche Brother’s delivery service, described in a previous chapter. That job forced me to really get to know Roslindale from end to end as I had to organize the routes by which we would deliver the groceries.

Washington Street ran down the middle of Roslindale and continued east for about 5 miles into downtown Boston. At either end of Washington Street in Roslindale there were housing projects, Archdale Projects at the east end and Beech Street Projects to the west. Most of the residents of the projects were Black. Segregation was alive and well in Boston in those days, so we considered them dangerous and to be avoided. In my late teens, however, I had one friend, Larry Cunningham, who lived in the Archdale projects with his mother. So, I would occasionally spend time in his apartment with our gang of friends. Let’s just say we could do things in Larry’s apartment (mostly drink beer) that were not permitted in our own homes.

I remember one time about 5 of us were in a car and we got crosswise with some other guys. I was driving and I probably cut them off or something. They got angry and started chasing us. Larry instructed me to head for the projects for safety. As a resident, Larry could rely on his neighbors for protection. I drove into the projects and our pursuers peeled off. The irony was not lost on me that, after growing up fearing the projects, on this night, it was the place to go for safety.

As I came of age, I spent a lot of time – waaay too much time – at the Roslindale Pub, owned by Vinnie Marino. We all thought Vinnie was a mid level mafioso. I doubt he was, but it was cool to think so. “The Pub” as it was known, attracted an eclectic group of people. It was literally the poor man’s version of Cheers. It was a place where everyone knew your name, unless they were too drunk to remember. Among our extended group, we lost one, John Steele, to a fatal car crash after leaving the pub one night when he drove his car into a tree about 1/4 mile away. Another, Kevin Downs, committed suicide. But the most dramatic event was the murder that took place in the doorway. I was not there that night, but one of our friends, Phil, had walked in right in front of the victim whose name was Ralph. My recollection is that it was some sort of attempted “hit,” but they got the wrong guy. Ralph had nothing to do with the dispute and Phil was a witness in the murder trial that followed. It was a tragic incident that did increase our suspicions about Vinnie’s “connections.”

I lived outside Roslindale for the first time in my life when I got a job with the newly-elected Rep. Barney Frank in 1981. But Rozzie was part of my identity, even in Washington, DC. One evening early in my new career as congressional aide, I was staffing Barney on a couple of events. The first one was with the incoming Secretary of Treasury, Donald Regan, at the Treasury Department next to the White House. The next event was a TV appearance by Barney at a PBS station in Maryland. The station was sending a limousine to pick us up. As we walked along Pennsylvania Avenue, I kept pointing out limos that might be the one that was to pick us up. None were. Finally, in frustration, Barney said, “Bill, this isn’t Rozzie Square. There’s lots of limos.”

Among the famous people who grew up in Roslindale were Mary McGrory, the legendary Washington journalist and Fr. Robert Drinan, the Jesuit priest and congressman who preceded Barney Frank in representing Massachusetts’ 4th CD. I actually had the opportunity to chat about Roslindale with Ms. McGrory, which she remembered fondly.

To this day, I consider Roslindale my home. All of my siblings still live there. And I even named my dog Rozzie.

Rozzie, the dog

Today, Roslindale is home to the Mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu, so I guess you could say the neighborhood has arrived. Soon, people from Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury will describe those locations as next to Roslindale.

Well, maybe not…