Historian Taylor Branch did hours of contemporaneous interviews with Bill Clinton, in the White House and in secret. Clinton kept a set of tapes, which he’s not made public. Driving home from the interviews, Branch recorded his own set, and has now published a book from them which is about out. Among the highlights plucked out in a US Today story:
He also relayed how Boris Yeltsin’s late-night drinking during a visit to Washington in 1995 nearly created an international incident. The Russian president was staying at Blair House, the government guest quarters. Late at night, Clinton told Branch, Secret Service agents found Yeltsin clad only in his underwear, standing alone on Pennsylvania Avenue and trying to hail a cab. He wanted a pizza, he told them, his words slurring.
The next night, Yeltsin eluded security forces again when he climbed down back stairs to the Blair House basement. A building guard took Yeltsin for a drunken intruder until Russian and U.S. agents arrived on the scene and rescued him.
h/t Talking Points
I bet the cops thought Boris was just another Congressman out on a toot. Can you imagine a cop radioing back to HQ: “Central … One Adam Twelve. I’ve got the Soviet premier here at 16th and Penn, in nothing but his drawers. Subject appears intoxicated and wants to be taken out for pizza. What are my orders?”
Now imagine you’re the duty officer at HQ. How do you respond to the patrolman?
You would have thought that someone would have briefed him (no pun intended) that Domino’s delivers.