Security tight at this White House, too (10/1/03)

It wasn't my first trip to the White House.

But it was my first trip to this White House.

The president of Kyrgyzstan lives in an enormous and enormously ugly building on Chuy Prospect, right in the heart of beautiful downtown Bishkek. The street gets its name from the Chuy River, which at one point long ago occupied beautiful downtown Bishkek itself.

That was before Russian engineers — tired of the high water — moved the provincial capital out of the flood plain. All of that occurred in the 19th century — it's not a very old city — so it's laid out on a north-south, east-west grid.

Pretty easy for a guy raised in the Midwest to find his way around. Just the same, I never expected to be going to the White House, even if I could find it.

The plan was, in connection with a newspaper distribution project I'm doing for Freedom House, to stop in for a courtesy call to the president's press secretary.

Why in the world he'd want to see me, I had no clue.

But I was told it was important.

So at the appointed time, we — my 6'4" former football player translator and I — arrived on foot at the White House gate.

Passports were shown. Heads were shaken.

Dimitry scowled. "They say we have to use the other gate because we're not arriving by car," he said.

It didn't really make sense, but we knew better than to argue.

Trouble was, the other gate was blocked by a temporary fence because of some construction or remodeling work.

Finally we made our way to a crowded office in an adjacent building.

Passports were shown. This time, no heads were shaken.

In fact, we encountered a smiling face, that of the press secretary's assistant. She knew of the appointment and said we should follow her.

Follow her, that is, outside, around the construction fence, down a dusty path, through some trees, over a concrete drainage ditch, to a little guard post at yet another gate.

Passports were shown. Heads were nodded. And we were passed through, led by the press secretary's assistant across a stone plaza, up stone steps, around a stone terrace to the back door of the White House.

We followed her inside to find: Another checkpoint.

Passports were shown. Suspicious eyes were cast on the contents of my briefcase. And we were sent through a metal detector.

Another, smaller oak door opened, and we were in a stone hallway — stone floors, stone walls, apparently the work of Dracula's interior decorator — that led to an elevator.

The assistant pushed the right button, and we ascended.

When the doors opened, it looked as if there had been an accident. Little sticks of wood were scattered everywhere. The parquet flooring was being repaired.

We skipped through the chaotic bits of lumber like kids jumping from stepping stone to stepping stone.

But we found the office and the press secretary. He seemed to be in a pretty good mood for someone who had to deal with that trek every day, and the meeting went well.

At least he didn't ask to see our passports.

And as the big oak doors of the White House closed behind us, Dimitry cracked up.

"The guard," he laughed, "the guard said, 'Come back again soon.'"[[In-content Ad]]