By Menachem Wecker
On May 31, 1990, GW hosted an important press conference that brought together then-U.S. press secretary Marlin Fitzwater and his Russian counterpart, Arkady Maslennikov, spokesman for Mikhail Gorbachev.
Speaking to about 65 people—20 of them students in a Graduate School of Political Management course, Political Communications, taught by fellow former White House press secretary Dana Perino—Mr. Fitzwater described the event, which quickly outgrew the White House’s facilities and brought about 7,000 reporters, far more than the 50 who usually attended the White House daily briefing, to the Charles E. Smith Center.
“We called up Steve Trachtenberg,” then-president of GW, “and said, ‘Can you help us? We gotta have a new briefing room,’” said Mr. Fitzwater, who served as press secretary for both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. “He gave us the auditorium here at the university.”
The massive press interest in the May 31 briefing reflected the larger American public’s fascination with Mr. Gorbachev, according to Mr. Fitzwater.
“Young people, of course, have no concept of what the Cold War was all about,” he said. “Every family, every school child, every person in America had some little fear of some kind about the Russians coming to get us.”
Though Mr. Maslennikov showed up nearly two hours late, Mr. Fitzwater entertained the reporters in attendance and was covered favorably in the press. But he told the GW class that he and his colleagues had not been so well prepared a few years earlier at a meeting with Mr. Maslennikov’s predecessor, Gennadi Gerasimov.
With Ronald Reagan at his weakest at the height of the Iran-Contra scandal over secret U.S. weapons sales to Iran, all of the president’s senior staff had either been fired or were on their way “to the slammer or some other place,” Mr. Fitzwater said.
Howard Baker was the new chief of staff, and Mr. Fitzwater was the new press secretary. “No one knew each other,” he said. “We were all just kind of winging it.”
This sort of candid storytelling characterized the entire hour-and-a-half class, where Mr. Fitzwater discussed his successes and embarrassments serving in the White House. The latter included calling Mr. Gorbachev a “drugstore cowboy” and saying Denmark reminded him of eating danishes for breakfast.
He also addressed his 1995 book, Call the Briefing, which Ms. Perino assigned to the class and said she read and studied as a White House staff member.
“It meant a lot to me personally to have Marlin come to the class,” said Ms. Perino, an adjunct professor in GW’s Strategic Public Relations program. “His insights and observations are so interesting, and that’s bolstered by the great stories he has to tell from his time working for Presidents Reagan and Bush.”
Ms. Perino said Mr. Fitzwater is not only a “wonderfully talented communicator” but is also author of two novels and a new play. Though he normally gets paid to speak to groups, Mr. Fitzwater spoke to the GW class pro bono, she said.
“He is also one of the kindest, most grounded individuals you’ll ever meet, so it was quite an honor to have him teach the class,” she said.