Henry Kissinger was honorary chairman of the black-tie gala hosted by IADC’s chair, Amb. Christopher Thomas, and its president and CEO Barry Featherman. Present also was former honoree Harriet Mayor Fulbright.
Western Union, the company for which Mrs.
Gold serves as president and CEO, was also honored for its “leadership in stimulating economic development in the Americas,” said Featherman.
For those who remember Western Union’s business as telegrams and an occasional money order from home, that was back in 1851, when it was founded. It is now the world’s largest money-transferring business, with billion per year to the Americas alone – and Christina presides over 355,000 agents in 200 countries.
Susan Bennett helped organize the gala, which is always a let-your-hair-down party that throbs to ¬a Latin beat, with many ambassadors from the Americas, interesting speeches, and a hot salsa band playing non-stop. The event draws guests from all over, including dynamic Yvonne Abaki, the popular, one-time Ecuadorian ambassador, who ran for Ecuador’s presidency, was appointed Minister of Finance, and has now been promoted to the presidency of the Andean Parliament. She and daughter Tatiana were joined this year by pal Bo Derek, adding to the high glamour quotient.
UP IN THE AIR
For this writer, a special part each year of the Palm Beach Red Cross Ball is the flight with the ambassadors to be honored there, aboard Donald Trump’s Boeing 727. Built to hold 158, he reconfigured it for just 23 passengers, happy amidst the comfortable upholstery, mahogany paneling, golden bathroom fixtures, and oil paintings.
There is always anticipatory chatter with the honorees on the way down … and a fun re-hash on the way back. This year, while Trump’s pilot of 17 years, Mike Donovan, guided the big bird gently down, the energetic ambassador of Malaysia, Dr. Rajmah Hussain, urged me to share the cockpit jump-seat with her (luckily, she is tiny) and we literally had a bird’s eye view of Washington, obtainable only from that perch, as we gradually returned to earth.
TURKISH DELIGHT
Cyd Everett chaired a beautifully done cocktail party for the Women’s Committee of the Washington Ballet, hosted by Gulgun and Nabi Sensoy, the ambassador of Turkey, at their Massachusetts Avenue residence, complete with Turkish delicacies. As the flowered invitations promised, University of Massachusetts Professor Walter Denny came down from Amherst to speak on “Flowers in Ottoman Turkish Art”; we’ll never look at those tulips the same way again. Seen: Kay Kendall and Jack Davies, Debbie and Donald Sigmund, Vibeke Thune, Maria Nedelcovich, and Paul Carp.
ANYONE WE KNOW?
There was one funny sidebar to the always-magnificent Kuwaiti national day celebration: Sheila and Gerald Katz rushed in from Potomac to the party’s usual site, the Willard Hotel. Sheila thought ”How odd, just regular flowers, Rima always has spectacular ones at her events.
” No Al-Sabah hosts in sight, and only a few familiar faces. Then it hit. Wrong party. They regrouped and headed for the Four Seasons and the fête.
If there is an advance event Around Town should know about, send it to donnashor@aol.
com.