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Chapter 2 - An Invitation to DanceWhen Fred announced our selection for the conference, he was convinced that the conference wouldn't play a major role in changing the world since the outcome was already predetermined as it always had been such cases in the past. The property rights of the oligarchy were to be protected by international law. That demand was already cast in stone. Fred felt that the only factor that we were allowed to determine was how that would be done. When Fred told me about his conviction before we were to leave, I told him that we were honor-bound to a dear love of mine, to Olive, a woman from Austria who was the real instigator of the conference. I told him we were honor-bound to turn the whole thing around and achieve something honorable for the advance of humanity and civilization. Fred just laughed. He answered that I was dreaming. I told him that I had a feeling that this could be done, that the UN structure had changed deep at its core. I had hoped that the UN had changed and become more human. Perhaps it had changed, if not outwardly, then inwardly. And if it hadn't, we would simply have to cause it to change. Of course none of us had the slightest idea how the great battle was to be fought, or how it should unfold. In fact, at the very beginning of the conference we played the role of innocent bystanders, the same role that we had played for the last decades since our success in Venice. Perhaps it was in the flow of honoring tradition that were booked into the Caracas Holiday Inn that still existed as a private US based enterprise. Moreover, this selection gave us a comfortable and secure feeling. "Nothing can go wrong," said Sylvia on the plane jokingly, that was taking us from our cold northern climate to the genial tropics. "No surprises, right?" Was she ever mistaken! Murphy's law was in control all the way. It had been in control from the moment we left. Whatever could go wrong had gone wrong. The Caracas project turned out to be an episode full of surprises. On our very first morning in Caracas, I woke to stream of noise at five o'clock in the morning, a terrible noise. That's when the shocking reality set in that we were facing the freeway. Our hotel room window was at pavement level. We had spent twenty-four hours traveling to get there. The Coast Guard was supposed to have given us a lift to Norfolk in time for a connecting Air Force transport to Key West. But the Coast Guard had been delayed. After countless phone calls Tony convinced the Navy to send a floatplane that belonged to a carrier group 300-miles off the coast of Florida. From there, after a five-hour wait, we finally made it to Miami. In Miami we were put on the twice a week VIASA flight to Caracas. And even this flight was delayed for four hours because of a needed repair for which no personnel had been on hand. As things were, we didn't get to Caracas until way after midnight. Then, not surprisingly, nobody could find our luggage for another whole hour. For a while it looked like our luggage had accidentally been routed back to New York. Eventually, someone found it in the designated area for the next day's processing. Fortunately a person from the conference staff was able to help us. The man's affectionate manner soothed more than a few frazzled nerves that day - an island of calm with a great generosity. Since we were on the last flight coming in, he offered us a ride to the hotel. The gesture took him two hours out of his way. He said it was his pleasure to help us since the last bus had already left. The road to the city is built into the side of a valley that cut deeply into the coastal mountain range. With the airport located at sea level and the city of Caracas being located at the high end of the valley, it took a forty-minute drive to get us to the hotel. The man said that the higher elevation would give us cooler air. He was right. || - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||
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