Social Scene

Mary Bird •

Irish Ambassador Anne Anderson welcomed Founding Friends members for a literary luncheon May 20 and hailed the Irish roots of Washington Post journalists Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan, who collaborated with Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus on the current New York Times bestseller, “Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland.” The women, and Michelle Knight, who has already written of the ordeal, were held captive for ten years in Cleveland by school bus driver Ariel Castro, who committed suicide in prison. The book details their amazing strength and resilience amid horrific abuse and Berry’s birth to a daughter Jocelyn.

Robert Devaney •

Restaurateur Tony Cibel celebrated his 78th birthday with a full house of happy guests June 4 at his riverfront restaurant at Washington Harbour, Tony and Joe’s Seafood Place.

Party-goers were again treated to endless servings of oysters, shrimp, lamb chops, sauteed soft-shell crabs, split lobster, prime rib and drinks.

Native Washingtonian Tony Cibel founded Tony and Joe’s with Joe Rinaldi in October 1987 at the newly constructed Washington Harbour. His business projects have expanded since then. Cibel is the patriarch of the Oceanside Management Family of restaurants, which has included the Dancing Crab, Tony & Joe’s Seafood Place, Nick’s Riverside Grille, Kaufmann’s Tavern, Cabanas and the Rockfish. Tony and Joe’s survived the April 2011 flooding at the waterfront that damaged it and several other places. With a re-design, it emerged better than ever.
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Mary Bird •

Connie Lawn signed copies of her updated autobiography, “You Wake Me Each Morning: The Final Chapter,” at the National Press Club May 21. The title comes from international listeners to her radio broadcasts. Nelson Mandela told her during a Washington news conference, “You gave my people hope.” The book follows Lawn’s career as a White House reporter since 1968 and the struggles of her one-woman news bureau. Lawn has received multiple honors, including the Life Time Achievement Award from New Zealand’s National Press Club. [gallery ids="117568,117563,117556,117572" nav="thumbs"]

Mary Bird •

Latin American girls celebrate their 15th birthday in a big way. On June 11, In Series followed suit at DACOR-Bacon House with a garden party, seated dinner and gala musical program. The ambassador of Chile and his Antonia Echenique Celis, as well as Ambassador Emilio Rabasa, Permanent Representative of Mexico to the OAS, and his wife Carmen were honorary patrons. Producing Artistic Director Carla Hübner said, “Talk to your best friends and not so best friends about us, so we are not such a well-kept secret.” In Series takes fresh approaches to the classics and blends performing arts in unconventional ways.
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Pamela Burns • June 18, 2015

Carolina Herrera opened her latest CH Boutique on Tuesday, June 9, in D.C.’s CityCenter. The 2,400 square-foot boutique is Herrera’s 21st store in the U.S. The CH Boutique features women’s suits, shoes, accessories and signature gowns, as well as men’s sportswear. The night was a huge success and 10 percent of the profits benefited the national Portrait Gallery.
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Kelly Byrnes •

Journalists, family and fans met June 11 at the National Press Club for the American News Women’s Club’s 21st Annual Roast, which honored “CBS This Morning” host Norah O’Donnell with its “Excellence in Journalism Award.” There were lots of laughs with O’Donnell, but it was Bob Schieffer who stole the show.
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Mary Bird •

On June 4, Esther Coopersmith entertained those gathered for a five-day symposium to support Maha el-Khalil Chalabi, founder of the International Association of Tyre, the American Committee on Tyre and Friends of Tyre, to raise awareness of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Lebanon. The Senator Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) and Coopersmith received recognition for their pioneering roles. [gallery ids="102119,133790,133787,133792" nav="thumbs"]

Carolyn Landes • June 11, 2015

The Kennedy Center received “The Blue Star of Life,” a porcelain artwork from Japan, during a May 29 ceremony held in the Terrace Theater of the Center, marking the longstanding relationship between the Kennedy Center and the people of Japan. The dedication ceremony honored the occasion of the 160th Anniversary of the Japan-U.S. Treaty of Peace and Amity, as well as the anniversary of the birth of President John F. Kennedy.

“The Blue Star of Life,” a globe-shaped, porcelain vase of considerable dimensions, was accepted and unveiled by Deborah Rutter, president of the Kennedy Center, and others, including Ambassador Yoshio Karita, chairman of the Blue Star of Life delegation.

Japan has given other gifts to the Kennedy Center. As a gift to mark the 1971 opening of the arts memorial to President Kennedy, Japan presented the 3,000-pound, red and gold, silk curtain for the center’s Opera House stage. In 1975, Japanese Prime Minister Miki presented President Gerald Ford with the funds to build the Terrace Theater as a Bicentennial gift from the people of Japan to the United States.

Remarks were made during the ceremony by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kristie Kenney and Japanese Ambassador Kenichiro Sasae as well as by students from Georgetown University and Keio University. Karita poetically likened the delicateness of the porcelain vase to the fragility of world relations.

Students representing Japan and the United States, including students from Sidwell Friends School and Georgetown University, participated in a “Pebble Drop” ceremony, during which a small satchel of pebbles was dropped into the belly of the vase. Since stone in Japanese is “ishi,” phonetically the same as “will” in Japanese, the pebbles symbolized the will of the world to seek peace and conserve the environment.

A special message from Ambassador Caroline Kennedy was read by a representative of the United States Embassy in Japan, expressing Kennedy’s gratitude for the gift. “The symbolism of the vase captures the best values, hopes and dreams of the American and Japanese peoples,” Kennedy’s note read. “I look forward to being able to drop my own pebble in the vase during my next visit to the Kennedy Center.”

Following the dedication ceremony, a brief reception was held on the Terrace level during which a toast led by student Jack Hannah of Sidwell Friends School was made. Hannah talked about his recent trip to Japan and the lasting impact the new relationships he forged while there have had on him. “Friendship is important,” said Hannah, becoming a bit misty-eyed as he alluded to the significance of strong international relations. “It makes things better for everyone, everywhere.” The group of American and Japanese dignitaries gathered around Hannah emitted a rousing cheers, appreciative of his sentiment.

On the anniversary of the birth of one of America’s most beloved presidents, who emphasized the importance of international peace and development, inside the halls created as a living memorial to his life, friendship was, indeed, alive and well.
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Gary Tischler •

In Washington, D.C., it sometimes seems that every day is a commemoration of some other day, some other time.   It’s natural that we do this is in this city. For the country and for the people who live here, this city is a kind of hallowed and symbolic ground in its name, its statuary, its function, its cemeteries and its governmental business of being the pragmatic soul of what we believe and how we present ourselves to the world and to ourselves. 

It is also home to most of the world’s embassies who presented themselves formally and culturally to this city on a daily basis, and also in memory.  That makes Washington a unique place—among us scattered across the city, including Georgetown, are the envoys and functionaries of long-time friends, sometime adversaries,  and former enemies, who also have moments and events  to commemorate from their histories,  events in which they were sometimes co-joined with the United States cooperation and triumph.

Memory—and a desire in difficult times to have things be something other than what they are—serves as a kind of engine on these occasions.  So it was—after the city, and London and Paris, celebrated the 70th Anniversary of Victory-in-Europe Day—or V-E Day—that it came to pass that the American-Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation and the Embassy of the Russian Federation presided over “Unforgettable Years, 1941-1945,” billed as a “Salute of Arts and Culture to the 70th Anniversary of the Allied Victory in Europe” last week.

Which meant that hundreds of invited guests gathered at the Embassy of Russian Federation in an event—reception, dinner, exhibits, vodka, food, speeches, World War II patriotic posters throughout the embassy and music and stories told as if around a rather splendid campfire—stirring memories recalled of suffering, war and harrowing times in the Russian theater of World War II.  

If the atmospheric setting—some members of the embassy staff were dressed in the uniforms of WWII Soviet Union soldiers—suggested a commemoration of the Russian experience of the war, the theme and focus of the event, echoed both by speakers and the performers, seemed more to focus on a singular aspect of that war—the spirit of assistance, and cooperation that existed among Americans and Russians in their combined efforts to finally defeat Nazi Germany’s war machine.

In particular, the night’s events returned again and again to a singular and triumphant event, when American and Russian troops hooked up at the Elbe River on April 25, 1945, in a joyous, sometimes inchoate meeting of troops, officers and men,  tanks and jeeps, marking the military end of Nazi Germany.   It was in many remembered ways, the high-water mark of American and Russian cooperation, time and again referenced by speakers and performances throughout the evening.

It was noted often that Russian soldiers and civilians suffered inordinately during the course of the war. “Russia deaths totaled 27 million, or roughly 19,000 deaths a day during the course of the war,” said Sergey Kislyak, the congenial ambassador of the Federation of Russia in his welcoming speech. But this was not to be an event only  about the suffering of Mother Russia.  “On this day, we also remember our comrades in arms abroad . . . today we are gathered to remember this important convergence of American and Russian history,” said Kislyak, as he noted that Arlington National Cemetery includes a memorial  to the meeting at the Elbe.  “We hope that the spirit of the Elbe descends on us.”

This was the kind of celebratory, moving and wishful night in which the reality of history, past and current, took a back seat in a vintage WWII jeep with no mention of the Cold War that commenced fairly soon after the Nazis surrendered in Europe.  There was no mention of missiles and arms races, Cuba and Afghanistan, or the tensions that continue over the crisis in the Ukraine.  It seemed that everyone and all wanted to resurrect a singular moment in time, willing it back to life. 

This tends to happen when people—many of them quite prominent—get together in the spirit of a singular, jointly and hard-gained triumph, when soldiers clutched each other in mutual honor of the suffering and courage they all contributed.

We heard from veteran diplomat John R. Beyrle, who told the remarkable story of his father, Joseph Beyrle, a paratrooper from Michigan who jumped behind the lines in advance of D-Day, was captured, escaped in Poland and met a Russian tank unit—commanded by a female soldier—with whom he fought for a time on the Eastern front until being badly wounded and returned to the U.S.   

Rabbi Arthur Schneier, founder and president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, walking slowly to the podium, told how he was freed from Auschwitz by Russian troops. “Believe me, I was a lot thinner then,” he said.  “No one believed such things could happen.  We cannot ever forget—none of it.”

Susan Eisenhower, the granddaughter of President Dwight Eisenhower who commanded the western Allies’ invasion of Hitler’s Fortress Europe, spoke of her grandfather’s belief in the importance of the “imperatives of peace.”  

In a buoyant performance, former congressman James Symington, a tenor, and Anton Fedyashin, a baritone, combined on singing the popular World War II song, “On a Wing and a Prayer,”  in English and Russian. 

Russian Pianist Yuri Shadrin played Sergei Rachmaninoff stirring “Prelude in G Minor.” A group of performers evoked the period with the moving “The White Cliffs of Dover,” sung by Embassy Series founder and director Jerome Barry. It was all part of a musical program of music popular in the Soviet Union and the United States during the war.

Throughout the evening, several Russian veterans of World War II mingled, shook hands and were honored by the guests. They came from another time . . . on a place . . . on a river . . . in Europe. 
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