In my meeting with Saddam, I crossed my legs and made a mistake, showing him the sole of my shoe, which is an insult to an Arab. It was expected, according to my translator, that I apologize, but I decided not to. I kept to my talking points, and I think he respected that. I saw the glint of a smile when I didn’t grovel.
— Former U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson, in The Times
Kim Jong Il of North Korea is another one. In ‘94 I hadn’t been in the country for ten minutes when I committed a huge faux pas. I’d dressed in a hurry on the plane and had inadvertently tucked my shirt into my red cotton briefs, so at one point I turned around and bent over to tie my shoe — and he saw the briefs! When I turned around he was pale as a ghost. For one thing, turning your back on someone in that culture — in effect showing them your buttocks is like a roundhouse kick to the jaw. He’s very superstitious and he took it as a kind of ancestral babboon curse. To make matters worse, cotton underwear is a supreme symbol of Western decadence. It’s considered soft and feminine, like silk. Men there wear itchy roughspun longjohns — it’s a macho thing. But the way he looked at me, with a kind of longing — then I realized that wearing red in that culture has folkloric sexual connotations.
Strike one for me. So the next day I thought I would reverse engines and be super macho. When we met again I started out like I was just going to shake his hand but I quickly got him in a tight bear hug — he’s a tiny guy, so I was able to really overpower him, and I kissed him passionately in the neck the way we used to do in our frat in college, really snuffled in there. From that moment his whole demeanor changed: I was Alpha dog. He knew it and I knew it. Many people say the subsequent nuclear build-up was in reaction to that — his way of saying “You don’t do that to me — ever.” I don’t think that’s the case at all. I think the people who say that don’t know anything about how hungry he was for that physical contact. Later that day, when his aides were looking away, he put his hand on my shoulder and softly spoke the Korean word for ìMommyî. I still get calls from him sometimes, where he’ll just breathe for a minute and then hang up. I know it’s him because it pops up on the caller ID.
Still, the Saddam meetings were the toughest. I remember once they were going particularly badly, so I decided to do something bold, take a risk. That’s a big part of negotiating, you try things. So I leaned in confidentially and suddenly, out of nowhere — doink! — I plucked his big bushy mustache. And I don’t mean I tugged it, I mean I gave it a good sharp yank! His head came forward and his eyes went googly — and I said, “Gotcha!” and winked. He hardly knew what to do, and of course his aides immediately stepped in… but he waved them off and quickly regained his composure and then he laughed — really guffawed. I knew from that moment on he respected me, like with the shoe thing. After that things went pretty well.
It’s all a game. I remember in France, for example, my nose was running like crazy because I can’t eat dairy and that’s all they’d served for three days. I think they knew what they were doing. Of course it was expected that I’d be blowing my nose constantly and this would give them a psychological advantage, but I didn’t. I’d let the mucous — forgive me — flow freely down to just the top of my upper lip and every time at the very last possible moment I’d sniff it back quickly and just keep talking. Talk about brinksmanship! [He laughs] Anyway, this happened many times over the course of the session and I would have given anything for a good cleansing honk into some Kleenex, but I wasn’t going to give the Fr[ench] the satisfaction. Needless to say we got what we wanted.
And then we flew straight to Beijing! It’s no secret I have a chronic problem with Planter’s warts — the damn things grow on my feet like weeds! I’ve had ëem frozen, blasted with lasers, you name it, they always come back with a vengeance. After the long photo-op walk on the Great Wall my puppies were yipping and yapping — so I kicked off my loafers and socks and just massaged the hell out of them. It felt so good I think I was moaning with pleasure and I kind of lost myself in it. What the hell — if you’ve had a Planter’s wart you know what I’m talking about. But the way they reacted! Some of the translators were even crying — and then I realized my feet were all sweaty because I’d worn polyester socks and hadn’t changed them since Paris! It must have been awful vinegary. But all that dairy still had me stuffed up! I couldn’t smell a thing!
I could go on and on. I remember a very long session during the Camp David Accords. It seemed like we’d been in there yakking for a month. I was so tired of all the talking — my jaw literally ached and my tongue was tired — so just as a way of releasing all of the maxillary and facial tension I leaned forward and blew a raspberry — a real Bronx cheer! I let it rip! The room went dead. Arafat got that bug-eyed look that he gets, like he’s hurt and shocked. Ehud Barak just pursed his lips and turned away. That’s one time I couldn’t turn the goof-up to our favor diplomatically. Well, Clinton was seething. You know how bad he wanted that one. When Arafat fell asleep on the couch and Barak went to the bathroom Clinton got me in a headlock and was fixing to give me a Dutch rub, until I kicked off my shoes.
