Despite Summit, City's Life Goes On

As NATO delegates met, others stuck to their agendas, including Roger Mercier and Muffin, competing in a dog show for rare breeds on the Mall. (Mark Finkenstaedt — The Washington Post) Related Links Text of Clinton's Speech NATO Protesters Fill Park Complete Summit Coverage Summit Photos: Day 1 | Day 2 Map of Street Closings

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 25, 1999; Page C1

Anti-NATO balloons were black, and brides wore white. On a springtime Saturday that was hardly normal by any standard, NATO leaders debated strategy, protesters chanted "Slo-bo! Slo-bo!" and wedding couples still made it to church on time.

The second day of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's grand gathering slipped by without surprise, unless you count the tourists who could make little sense of a lofty international event that unfolded beyond public view.

Thousands of pro-Serbian demonstrators rallied in Lafayette Square, shouting slogans against NATO, praising leader Slobodan Milosevic and warning of a new Vietnam. Under watchful police eyes, they chanted and marched – one group carried a black coffin scrawled with NATO names – and peaceably disbanded.

By evening, the leaders of the Atlantic alliance and 23 partner countries were dining at the White House while D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) was hosting 1,900 well-heeled guests at the National Building Museum. The District staged an elegant party, but officials, sobered by the misery of war in the Balkans, were ordered to call it anything but.

As guests were wined and dined, a Latin band played salsa and an African American youth choir sang jazzy, upbeat songs. Williams spoke of the District's resurgence. Like NATO, he said, "the D.C. community is joined in a partnership to show that democracy works . . . and to move the city forward."

D.C. police checked out suspicious packages, found no bombs and saw no reason to activate contingency plans for mass arrests. With mere hours to go until today's end to the three-day conference, Cmdr. Michael Radzilowski was feeling fine.

"The district commanders are reporting lower crime rates in the districts," said Radzilowski, chief of the special operations branch. "Out here, the escorts are going well, traffic is under control, and the demonstrations have been peaceful. I can't complain. My officers just need some rest."

Apart from the motorcades, the protesters and the occasional police snipers deployed on rooftops, Washington's largest gathering ever of presidents and prime ministers was virtually nowhere to be seen. For many, the event expressed itself as a matter of absence – of crowds, of access to the White House, of hoopla.

"I would have liked to see more of an outward appearance of NATO," said Michael Spandorfer, 33, from Charleston, S.C. "I don't see any balloons, do you?"

Tourists said they girded for hassle, and found none.

"We got up at 5:30 this morning," said Mary Hill, 40, the chaperon of a high school band from North Carolina. Fearing heavy traffic, the group allowed three hours to reach downtown Washington from a spot near Dulles International Airport.

The band might as well have been riding the jet stream. They made it downtown by 7:15 a.m., with nothing to do before the Smithsonian museums opened at 10 o'clock. They went to Ford's Theatre for a tour they had planned take today. Grateful for a silver lining, they will sleep in today.

Other travelers confessed to being blindsided by the whole NATO shebang.

"To be honest, I heard about it today," said Scott Biedenkapp, 23, a visiting Baltimore college student. "Finals are coming up."

And what about all those people who steered clear of Washington on Friday, turning downtown into a ghost town? A startling number of them went to Mount Vernon. Forty bus loads of tourists descended on George Washington's home a half-hour after it opened, said spokeswoman Sally McDonough. In all, 10,300 people visited, compared with 6,000 on a typical April weekday.

On the wedding front, the sense of crisis ebbed and Michele Petrillo and Matt Benson got hitched on schedule at the Hotel Washington, a garter's throw from summit headquarters at the Ronald Reagan Building. Panicked that their ceremony for 150 people might be a summit casualty, the couple received help from Radzilowski, who had read of their worries.

The flowers arrived, as did the five key lime pies being served in place of cake. But the band, Full Circle, reached the hotel at the same time as the French delegation to NATO – and the French won. Band members hauled dozens of instruments and amplifiers along a sidewalk to the hotel.

Next door at the Willard Hotel, a wedding reception for Linda Vandaele also went smoothly. When she learned of the potential clash of matrimony and diplomacy, Vandaele hired buses to ferry 75 guests from Washington National Cathedral to the Willard reception.

Early yesterday evening, District police reported a shooting unrelated to the summit. But for much of the day, police scanners were peppered with mundane chatter as officers did little more than keep track of protesters and each other. Many a tow truck was called to remove illegally parked cars.

"Can any unit advise me of where Ford's Theatre is located?'' one officer radioed a dispatcher. Another asked, "Can anyone advise where the press center is located?"

Officers tracked down a man who appeared "agitated" and mentioned something about the White House before he headed toward Lafayette Square. Another man drew officers' attention by carrying a three-foot-long cardboard tube.

Inside the Reagan Building, off-limits to anyone without a special pass, plenty of business was being done, and not all of it concerned force projection. A yellow and blue sign in the central food court advised delegates and reporters, "All American Donuts Welcomes NATO. Enjoy America's favorite breakfast treat – DONUTS."

Occupying prime real estate on a busy corridor was a booth that targeted the summiteers' sartorial tastes. Business looked lively, although the prices weren't cheap. Ball caps with the summit logo cost $18, polo shirts were $35 and outdoor jackets were $95.

Twelve dollars could buy a white T-shirt painted with scenes of the Berlin Wall, once a gray barrier to East German liberty, now morphed into a colorful, traveling symbol of the post-Cold War world. Sales clerk Ruth Riddick pointed to the shirts and said cheerfully, "That's an exact picture of it. We have part of it upstairs. It's beautiful."

Bombs are falling, missiles are hitting their marks and the war is going exceedingly well, alliance spokesman Jamie Shea reported in unfailingly polite tones yesterday in the daily NATO briefing, moved from Brussels to the Reagan building amphitheater for the duration of the summit. He reported "continued success" in the air campaign.

Shea wages NATO's media offensive anew each morning with a presentation that includes photographs and cockpit videos of exploding targets. Addressing scores of journalists, he said yesterday that NATO crews, attempting to deny fuel to the Serbian-led war machine, may soon "visit and search" oil cargo ships.

This prompted a British reporter to say, "This very strange formulation, 'visit and search.' It almost sounds as if you can have a cup of tea."

Shea, who answers in English and French, sometimes exercises the wartime prerogative of rhetorical excess, injecting enough flourishes to warm the cold heart of a London tabloid editor. He spoke Friday of a "ring of steel" protecting Macedonia. He declared that NATO would "take the fight directly to Milosevic's forces." He said, "We know what Milosevic is up to, and we're not going to let him get away with it."

Yet verbal grist is as good as gold dust for the news-hungry hordes, particularly when so much presumed activity is occurring out of sight. Yesterday, many reporters sat for long stretches of time in the sun, drinking free coffee or pay-by-the-drink booze, waiting for news, any kind of news.

Over at the Madison Hotel, Turkish diplomats and reporters were aflutter about a front-page faux pas in the New York Times. Beneath a color photograph of NATO leaders, the caption mistakenly identified Turkey's President Suleyman Demirel as Prime Minister Costas Simitis of Greece.

With more than 40 visiting politicians to choose from, Turks were wondering how the leader of Greece, a country with which Turkey often seems on the brink of war, could be confused with Demirel. Someone, alas, had to bring the mistake to Demirel's attention.

The Turkish leader, sources said, was not amused.