Benazir Bhutto - SZABIST

How Benazir let her hair down
Daphne Barak
"Daphne,you don't want me to go back home?" asked Benazir Bhutto. She knew the answer - we'd
been having the same debate for months.
Benazir was a close friend of mine and, even before an assassination attempt on her life in October
this year, I was against her returning to Pakistan.
"You know how I feel," I said. "It's a trap! You fell into it, but you can still get out..."
"I can't," Benazir replied, sounding stressed. "You see Daphne,they are expecting me in Pakistan.
They know Washington is supporting me. My photos are already all over the streets. Asif [her
husband] and I are taking into account what you are saying.But how can I back out? It's too late. And
if I don't go now, I might as well just quit politics forever."
She was confident in the support of the Bush Administration. But I wasn't so sure. I had a bad feeling
about it and when I last saw her I became emotional. I knew I wouldn't see her again. She came over
and hugged me. I cried. She didn't. She just held me tighter.
The Benazir I knew and loved was the most extraordinary woman. Everyone knows she was brilliant
and extremely ambitious but what very few people know - and I am privileged to be one of those -
was that she was also what I would call a girlie-girl who loved to talk about skincare and hairstyles.
Benazir, who used to sign off her emails to me with the name Bibi, was one of those rare women who
had the ability to move a conversation from heavy politics to lightweight gossip in the space of a
minute.
Benazir was like a big sister to me. I am still trying to come to terms with the loss of someone so close
to me. We met for the first time while she was serving a second term as Pakistani prime minister when
she gave me an exclusive interview in June 1995 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the United
Nations.
We got on well and met again in 2000 at the home of our mutual friend Esther Coopersmith, who is
known in Washington as the hostess with the mostest. Benazir was no longer in power but Esther had
arranged an amazing lunch for her, and everything from plates, napkins and even food was in either
green or white, the colours of the Pakistani flag.
From then on Benazir and I developed an increasingly close friendship.
When we met - usually in New York, sometimes in London - we talked about politics, of course. I
knew she was determined to bring democracy back to Pakistan and I would sometimes arrange parties
for her and make sure she met the right politicians in a private and relaxed setting.
But, as so often happens with powerful women I interview, like Hillary Clinton and Segolene Royal, I
also had the great fortune to get to know her as a woman, wife, mother and friend, the sides she
revealed only to people she could trust, and these are the areas I want to concentrate on.