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Upper West Side window box. 1:30 PM. Photo: JH. |
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| July 15, 2009. Beautiful, sunny day; yesterday in New York. I went down to Michael’s to meet Pia Lindstrom for lunch. Pia is a very familiar face and name to New Yorkers as a television news personality and entertainment reviewer. She now has her own radio show, an hour, twice weekly on Sirius Radio, called “Pia Lindstrom Presents.” Hers is also a familiar name to many Americans, especially movie fans, as the first born child of actress Ingrid Bergman. Pia was ten years old when her mother left her father, Dr. Peter Lindstrom, for Italian film director Roberto Rossellini (with whom Bergman had three more children including Isabella Rossellini).
I’ve been aware of her all my life because of her famous mother. Yesterday I had the opportunity to ask her about herself and her fascinating life and background. She was very forthcoming, and very relaxed with herself. Pia is one of those people who has used her opportunities, as well as the twists of fate, to learn. But more about that in tomorrow’s Diary. Michael’s was very busy. Vernon Jordan was occupying Table 1 with Barbara Walters who was looking very shimmery summery in red. I wrote last week that when Vernon Jordon lunches with a lady there is a lot of laughter at the table. I didn’t detect quite as much of that yesterday although I could see Ms. Walters listening. I could imagine that she had some trenchant questions to present, as she is always learning and acquiring, and he is (my take anyway), The Man Who Knows. Tweeters already know some of this as Ms. Walters Twitters. Although I doubt she’ll Twitter much about her conversation with Mr. Jordan. Last night Harry Evans and Tina Brown hosted a book reception for Dr. Howard Dean and his book “Howard Dean’s Prescription For Real Healthcare Reform; How We can Achieve Affordable Medical Care For Every American and Make Our Jobs Safer.” That sounds at once sensible and also not exactly titillating. However, the Brown/Evanses, Sir Harold and Lady Evans to the Queen, always have interesting receptions offering guests something to think about, as well as write and talk about. They remain after what has turned out to be a quarter century, the most stimulating couple in New York. They also have the cachet to attract almost anyone to their door (and with a minimum of food and libation, comparatively). Their guest lists -- comprises movers and shakers, occasionally tycoons, media people, publishers, reporters, pundits, politically active people and politicians – are always the main course and coup de grace. |
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Howard Dean addresses the guests. |
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| Sir Harry is an excellent host-cum moderator. He has a talent for asking pointed and even loaded questions in the most charming way as to appear neutral. Guests respond gladly. I went because I wanted the opportunity to see Howard Dean up close again for the first time in eight years. I wanted to hear what he had to say. I got there, fortunately, just as he was beginning to speak in the garden on the side of the hosts’ Sutton Place maisonette. The public rooms were also cleared out entirely of furniture -- as is the custom -- to accommodate the crowd. Governor/Dr. Dean was a wearing a navy blue lightweight suit, yellow tie and black loafers. He has slimmed down considerably. He’s not very tall, and he’s lost that stout-ish profile. His lighter weight adds to his almost boyish appearance, pretty good for a man in his early sixties. He stood on a wrought iron terrace chair to speak. He talked a little about the history of government sponsored healthcare. He told us that when he was in medical school he got himself an assignment following around Senators Ted Kennedy and Jake Javits who were trying to put through the first ever healthcare bill, underscoring how long it’s taken us to get here.
He’s direct, articulate, pleasant and respectful and curiously without charm. All-business, doctor. The kind you’d trust to help you. The talk was decidedly political. He believes that the private interests are against the bill because it doesn’t help their profits. Although, he pointed out, the Obama plan is one where the insured can choose what he or she wants: government or private. Choice, Dr. Dean, believes is what the American people want. It was intriguing to see again this man who made a bid for the Presidency that was, albeit briefly, affecting in its time. Six times governor of Vermont, as well as a practicing physician, his energy and intellect is impressive – best of Boomer. As a very young man I trained to be a stockbroker at Harris, Upham where Dr. Dean’s father was a partner. I never knew the man except to see him daily in the boardroom. He was bright-faced, graying dark short cropped hair, was compact in stature, heavier than the son is now. He was a natty dresser, well tailored, often with bowtie, with a congenial manner, the perfect picture of a wealthy North Shore Long Island stockbroker. The old school Wall Street; very Republican. Also the old school. His son used this heritage quite differently: to practice medicine and assert himself on the American political scene as a liberal. The after-talk within my ear-range was about politics and the players. Joe Conason told me he is working on a book about Bill Clinton’s post-Presidency which sounds like it will be a fresh evaluation of the man. Elsewhere, the name on the lips of several in this crowd was Steve Rattner who is resigning as head of President Obama’s autos task force. Mr. Rattner first came on the scene now long ago, as a New York Times reporter who morphed into a financial dealmaker/investor as well as a force in Democratic Party fundraising, along with his wife Maureen White. He apparently has arrived on that other side of the arc of power and prestige in New York. It is believed by many that his connection to the Obama Administration is Timothy Geithner, and that were it not for Mr. Geithner, the Obama Administration would not have appointed him. |
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Guests of Tina Brown and Harry Evans in the garden listening to Howard Dean. |
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| Last night’s conversations harkened back to the charges made this past April by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (whose ex-wife Kerry Kennedy was there last night) that millions of dollars in payments to “middlemen” by investment firms such as Rattner’s Quadrangle Group, were made to win investments from the pension fund of New York state as well as other local governments. The Vig, banker-style. In the SEC’s filings, according to yesterday’s Times, Mr. Rattner arranged a $1 million-plus payment to a middleman when he was heading Quadrangle. The Times also speculated that Mr. Rattner would not be returning to his private equity fund but instead perhaps pursue a political career. If his critics last night were a barometer, he’ll first need a new image. It is easy to believe in the current state of things that the men and women running these funds of working people’s pensions, were skimming the system for ther own enrichment. Massive personal enrichment from Other People’s Money has been the credo for quite some time now in American business. |
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More guests in the garden. |
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| One of the things that is impressive about Dr. Howard Dean is that after making that bid for the Presidency, ill-fated as it turned out to be, he turned his attention to assisting re-building his party and working to improve the lot of his community and its citizens. Self-enrichment in these turbulent times, by politicians, is a potentially even dangerous path to take, considering the plight of the American worker. In the crowd last night: Dominick Dunne, Brad Gooch, Jane Friedman, Jeff Sharp, Steve and Cynthia Brill, Kim and Jeff Madrick, Dr. Mitch Rosenthal, Frank Bowling, Elizabeth and Joe Conason, Ken Burrows and Erica Jong, Bob Silvers, Mark Green, Toni Goodale, Ernie Pomerantz and Marie Brenner, Kevin and Gail Buckley, Gail Sheehey, Kurt Anderson, David Steinberger, Ed Victor and Carol Ryan. Excellent hors d’oeuvres, quickly consumed like bite-sized cheeseburgers and melon cubes wrapped in prosciutto and risotto balls. Plus a nice glass of Pinot Grigio on a beautiful summer night in Manhattan. |
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| Erica Jong and Stanley Crouch. | Ken Burrows, Erica Jong, and Mark Green. |
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| Frank Bowling and Mitch Rosenthal. | Dominick Dunne. | Jeff and Kim Madrick. |
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| Tina Brown and Jane Friedman talking to Brad Gooch and Jeff Sharp. | Jane Friedman and Jeff Sharp. |
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| David Steinberger and Elizabeth Conason. | Kevin Buckley, Toni Goodale, Gail Buckley, and Ernie Pomerantz. |
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| Afterwards I went up to Swifty’s to dine with Lionel Larner. Swifty’s was packed right out onto the al fresco. In the clamoring crowd: Harriet and Ron Weintraub, Steven Stolman, Judy Cox, Christine Biddle, Gail Karr with Dr. David Shafer, Alexandra Schlesinger, Phyllis Newman, Mary (Mrs. Mike) Wallace dining her son Eames Yates; Gale Hayman and Dr. Richard Beckman, Peter Bacanovic, Geoffrey Bilhuber, Susan Fales-Hill, Tara Rockefeller, Gayle Atkins, Somers Farkas, Alexis Clark, Amy Fine Collins, Robert Couturier, Casey Ribicoff, Barbara Liberman, Jim Zirin and Marlene Hess, Audrey and Ambassador Enriquillo del Rosario and many others orchestrating the pleasant chattery clatter. This was a place and a moment where the fortunes of Steve Rattner probably never came up. |
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| Photographs by Christopher Mason (ARF). | Comments? Contact DPC here. [1] |