‘Follow me. Look like you’re meant to be here.’
I get the feeling David Smith has done this before. He’s a former foreign correspondent for ITN and Channel 4 News. It’s 26 April, 2008, and he now works for Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations. And together we’re striding through the kitchens of the Hilton Hotel, Washington DC. Switching left, right, past stoves and waiters carrying trays high above their heads. Yep, just like that bit in Goodfellas.
We walk up to a heavyset man in a dinner jacket with a brightly coloured lapel pin and a wiggly earpiece. David says something about ‘collecting our passes’ with the self-assurance of a man who always collects his pass on the other side of a US Secret Service cordon. Incredibly, the agent allows two odd-looking Brits through.
We’re now officially gate-crashing the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
David and I have been close friends ever since we met on a bus in Argentina’s wine lands. David is used to interviewing world leaders and reporting on crises (he was Channel 4 News’ man on the ground on 9/11). He then retired to make wine near Mendoza with his wife, Sonia Ruseler. She was a leading anchor at ITN and CNN before she gave it up to go to wine school.
David heard I was near Washington and said we should try and crash the dinner. I was staying with a friend on the Chesapeake Bay who lent me his truck to get to the city. As I set off, he ran up the driveway to stop me and remove a handgun from the glove box and a rifle from the back. A few years later it turned out he was connected to the mob, though I should have guessed when he told me his bed previously belonged to Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano.
The dinner isn’t actually held at the White House. It’s at the DC Hilton. You’ll have seen it on TV. The one Ronald Reagan was walking past when he was shot. I recall this right now as David blags our way past Secret Service agents charged with ensuring such a thing never happens again. They’ll take a bullet for the president. I’m really, really hoping we won’t take a bullet in pursuit of free canapés and chardonnay.
We enter a long, narrow corridor. David hurries along, like the White Rabbit, ever deeper into Wonderland. Suddenly there’s a door. David throws it open and heads out. I follow, into a blaze of flashes and noise. Pop, pop, pop. Click, click, click. Flash, flash, flash.
