Run, Forest, Run

Why Switter’s World instead of Gump’s World?

I wrote the following back when Switter’s World still had that new publication smell and I wanted to explain the reasons behind the name, which took considerable thought.

The first name I mulled over was Gump’s World, because over the years, I have met, Forest Gump-like, more than my share of presidents-for-life. I am in a photo with the president of Azerbaijan (that’s me on the far left!). I was in the same room as Vladimir Putin once, who could not read my thoughts, for which I am thankful.

I met Salva Kiir (of black cowboy hat fame), the first president of South Sudan, back before South Sudan gained independence and Salva Kiir still wore a red beret. (That’s me directly next to him on the right, in a photo that was quite worrisome for me for reasons I may write about in a future post.)

In Malawi, I met His Excellency, The President for Life, Ngwazi, Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda several times. Once, I was held up at an intersection for several hours in anticipation of His Excellency, Dr. Banda and another His Excellency who was visiting from Tanzania, Julius Nyerere. When the grand visitation finally graced us, their Excellencies were riding in Dr. Banda’s bright red Rolls Royce convertible.

(Slightly off topic, but still germane, a visitor once asked me what the word “Kamuzu” meant, because so many structures in the country were named after Dr. Banda's middle name: Kamuzu Bridge, Kamuzu Highway, Kamuzu Stadium and so on. I told her it meant “concrete” in Chichewa, one of the local languages.)

(Dear one, if you happen to read this, consider it an apology from the depths of my heart.)

In Zimbabwe, I found myself in close proximity to the execrable but finally dead Robert Gabriel Mugabe on two different occasions. Once in a men’s clothing store in Harare (where it was rumored that Comrade Bob always neglected to bring his wallet for payment) and once at a hotel near Victoria Falls, shortly before his security detail shoved my non-eminence off the curb.

And once, I saw Bill Clinton in a blue jogging suit.

These were the reasons for considering the title Gump’s World. However, I did not excel at pingpong and I did not luck my way into a lucrative shrimping business, but I did stay true to the love of my life.

Now about why I finally chose Switter’s World. While working in Central Asia, I received an odd phone call from a past acquaintance who asked if I would be interested in taking part in a discussion with certain US government employees who wanted to hear from people like me what we thought were emerging threats to American national security. I reminded her that I no longer lived in the MD-DC-VA orbit, to which she assured me that she was fully aware and was the reason she called me in a central Asian former Soviet republic. She said that my expenses for the 7,000 mile trip would be paid, including a government per diem, a rental car, and accommodations. Why not, I thought, because the holidays were near and I could bring back celery and cranberry sauce for my wife for our holiday meals. I agreed to go. She said to expect a call from the American embassy in a few days when the background documents would arrive.

When the embassy called, I received my double-wrapped-in-Tyvek sealed package and immediately took it home. I opened the binder to the first page and was horrified to see the seal of the government agency in question. For sake of confidentiality, I will refer to the agency as, uh, the Company. I immediately scanned it, copied it to an encrypted usb drive and double shredded the document.

When the great day arrived to make my way to an address in Rosslyn, Virginia, not far from the Pentagon, I was surprised when the taxi driver dropped me in front of an office building where the ground floor windows were all blacked out. I walked through the entry door to find a Marine reading a newspaper next to an airport scanner. “Take any metal in your pockets, walk through the scanner, and proceed straight ahead up the stairway,” said the Marine, barely looking up from his newspaper. I felt a real Men in Black vibe to the place.

At the top of the stairway, I found another Marine reading a newspaper and another scanner and the same procedure as before. “Turn right and go to the room at the end of the hall.”

When I entered the room, I was the first person there. Tables were arranged in a rectangle with an open space in the middle. On the table in front of each chair was a copy of the briefing book, a bottle of water, and a name card. I found mine and noticed that I knew most of the names on my side of the table. They were friends and colleagues from other aid agencies who apparently also sold their souls for celery and cranberry sauce.

Across the table from my side of the world, I noticed the name cards were a little more discreet. Instead of full names and the organization each of us represented like my side of the rectangle, their name cards were first names only and their military rank if they had one. And beaming brightly from a projector onto a screen was the Company logo.

I wish I could tell you about all tradecraft, skullduggery, and wet work in which I received training, but it was much more mundane than that. In fact it was barely worth my grocery list of celery and cranberry sauce. They simply wanted to know what we thought would cause the world to end. I’m not sure they got their money’s worth from me, or maybe they did, because they listened intently as I described my version of SMOD, the Sweet Meteor of Death scenario. No one smiled or chortled. The Company does not smile or chortle.

This is why I chose to name my Substack publication Switter’s World, after the main character from Tom Robbins excellent book “Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates.” Switter was a spook who worked for the, er, Company and bounced his way around the world in a series of misadventures not so different from my own.

Because Switter worked for the Company and because working for the Company is way more glamorous than standing under the African sun for hours while waiting for two old Their Excellencies to drive by in a bright red Rolls Royce convertible, the choice was easy: Switter’s World instead of Gump’s World. It is far superior to work behind the scenes making history than it is to get shoved into a gutter by a cannibal dictator’s security thugs.

So Switter’s World it is because of those two days I spent with the spooks. Now you know.

Please look into the Neuralyzer for just a second.