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Mick's Blog: That time, well, the second time, I met Paul Wolfowitz

Posted: Jul 2nd 2010 By: mikeiles

When I was working on Countdown to Lockdown, I had to remove several notable names from my original manuscript and still it's painfully obvious that I am a namedropper of world class distinction. The message to all celebrities should be quite clear - affect my life in any way, and I will write about you. So, that said, here's how I came to chat with Dr. Paul Wolfowitz - Iraqi war architect/Deputy Defense Secretary/World Bank President....

Yes, I know I detailed a meeting with Wolfowitz previously in the "Diaries" in the provocative, erotically charged chapter "My Dinner with Wolfie." No, I'm not rehashing history here. Indeed, this is an altogether different encounter with Wolfie, which took place during the "Diaries" final editing process.
I was in Washington, D.C., driving an Air Force officer to a Friday night dinner, honoring a wounded warrior on the occasion of the anniversary of the warrior's "alive day" - the date of his injury in Iraq. The officer in my car had been injured in battle as well; in fact I'd met him a few years earlier when he'd been recovering from his injuries at Walter Reid Army Medical Center. The officer knew I wasn't a particularly big fan of Dr. Wolfowitz's, and warned me that Wolfie/the Wolfmeister/Wolforama might be in attendance at the dinner. Indeed, even after leaving the Pentagon to take up his post as the head of the World Bank, the International financial institution that provides financial and technical assistance to developing countries, Dr. Wolfowitz had remained steadfast in his support for injured service members. Which I admired, even if I did hate the guys guts?and his breath. Especially his breath.

At our earlier meeting, which I detailed in "Diaries," I'd specifically mentioned that a blast of Wolfowitz's breath would have dropped a lesser man. Ouch! Kind of hard to be friends after a remark like that. I mean, disagreeing on foreign policy is one thing; writing about a man's halitosis is pretty much a non-negotiable non-starter.

So, during the course of the dinner, I did what I thought was the manly, hardcore, mature thing to do - I hid from Paul Wolfowitz. Hid from Wolfie as if it was my turn to pick up the tab at a Devastation Incorporated reunion dinner.

Finally, after hours of regaling troops injured in real battles, with my own exaggerated tales of injuries suffered in make believe battles, I headed for the door, knowing I had a good 300 mile drive in front of me, thankful I'd been spared any type of incident with the notorious Teen Wolf. Yes, I know Wolfowitz hasn't technically been a teen wolf since the early 60's, but I'm just about out of Wolf references.
Suddenly, from across the room, I saw Wolfie's eyes glare at me as he started his move. I was headed for the door and had a sizable lead on him, but Wolfowitz was like a linebacker - heading me off at the pass with a precise angle of pursuit. He was going to catch me, interrogate me, breathe on me.

"Excuse me, are you Mick Foley," he said, not angry, not even a little tired from his journey across the restaurant.

"Yes sir," I said. "How are you Dr. Wolfowitz." Trying to be polite, buying a little time before bolting out the door.

"I just want to thank you for all you do for our troops," Wolfie said; serious, complimentary. Hard to really hate a guy when he's being so nice to you.

"Well thank you sir," I said. Okay, I thought, time to leave. Maybe just one polite question, before heading out.

"How is everything at the World Bank, sir?"

"Ughh," Wolfowitz groaned, letting out a blast of breath that was?minty fresh? What the heck? I'd expected Nosferatu and gotten Stacy Kiebler instead. Because, Stacy's breath when I met her was so Doublemint delicious. Stacy once ate a tuna fish sandwich while next to me, sitting on a plane ride (where I should mention, she specifically asked a passenger if they could move so she and I could hang out) and she even made that smell good. Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, Wolfie, grunting - minty fresh breath.

"If you thought the Pentagon was full of bureaucrats, you ought to try getting something done at the World Bank," Wolfie explained.

"That must be frustrating sir."

"Well it is," he said. "Especially if you're trying to make decisions that could improve millions of lives."

"You know, Dr. Wolfowitz, along with what I do with the troops, world poverty is one of my great passions."

"Really?" he asked, intrigued. Hey, maybe, as long as I was talking with one of the most influential men in the world, I could score a couple points.

"Yes sir, that's true," I said. "I sponsor seven kids around the world with Christian Children's Fund (now Child Fund International)."

"Which countries," the World Bank head honcho asked.

"Well, I have three kids in Mexico, one in the Philippines, one in Sri Lanka, one in Ethiopia, and I have a wonderful little child in Sierra Leone."

"Sierra Leone," Wolfowitz said. "I sponsor a child there too."
For the next several minutes, it was just me and him - a battered old wrestler and the President of the World Bank, chatting like old friends, gossiping like school girls, carrying on about things like the elicit diamond smuggling trade in Sierra Leone, child soldiers, amputation by machete - little things like that.

And it dawned on me that none of my friends from home would give a crap about the diamond smuggling trade in Sierra Leone. Wait, check that, John McNulty would. Maybe Steve Zangre, too. But none of the others. Certainly not Imbro, who never seems to tire of personal anecdotes about Christy Canyon, but would shield himself from stories of any emotional depth as if he was Dracula, fending off the first rays of daybreak. Yet here was Wolfie, a guy I claimed to hate, a guy whose very breath I'd cast dispersion on, hanging out with me, trading concerns about the developing world.

I felt like such a phony, like a beauty contestant claiming natural D's when the slightest feel, the most tender touch, the simplest tweak would have exposed the perfect, impossibly rounded, gravity defying truth. This talk with Wolfie seemed to be tweaking a nipple of it's own; the nipple of my conscience. And was doing it in a less gentle way than I would have found preferable. I just couldn't take it.

"Sir, may I be honest with you," I said.

"Of course" Wolfie assured me. O.K., do or die time here; he really had a grip on that thing, twisting it around metaphorically like he was trying to tune in the Opry live from Nashville on an A.M. radio in the old days, all the way from Missouri on a cloudy night.

"Well, sir, I never really liked you."

A hearty laugh from the Wolfmeister, followed by an explanation from the hardcore legend, and then, discussions on the war in Iraq, the care of our wounded veterans and the benefits of mosquito netting in lands across the world.
Wolfie even offered me a stick of Doublemint gum, noting that my breath smelled like I'd been gargling with a drunk man's balls. Just kidding - he never really specified what kind of balls they were.

I rolled into my driveway around 5:30 a.m. and was woken by Hugh's pre-dawn perfect annunciation about a half-hour later. I felt weary, hung over, though I hadn't had a drop of alcohol. My wife wandered in, taking note of my precarious perch atop a child's bunk bed.

"Oh man, I feel so guilty" I confided in my wife.

"What did you do, Mick," Colette said, knowing that from time to time, during the course of our marriage I'd sought solace in the arms of bored housewives, grieving widows, adventurous grandmothers, defrocked nuns and sexy republican women.*

"Oh, no, it's nothing like that" I assured her. "It's just that I talked to Paul Wolfowitz last night."
"Wolfowitz?," Colette said, shocked. "You hate that guy! But that's nothing to feel guilty about."

"Yes it is," I said. "Because I really enjoyed it."

Tags: Mick Foley, Devastation Inc.