I Am Beautiful: A Celebration of Women in Their Own Words

Touring Bosnia with Swanee Huntand then they spend most of their timescrambling to deflect bullets."Three days later, over breakfast in Bosnia,a volte-face is apparently on the menu.Hunt declares, in that soft-voiced, cozydown-home style of hers, that while she isnot looking forward to leaving Vienna, she'svery happy there, but if pressed by PresidentClinton, she would take up anotherrole. She can't imagine saying no to thepresident, she says, like so many politiciansbefore her when they announce they arerunning after insisting they aren't. "If asked,I would do it. I'm here to do his work." AndBosnia and meet real people and hear theirstories, you discover this war was more amassive propaganda campaign by politicalidealogues who had very specific ambitionsfor their own careers than it is about ethnicstrifes that cannot be bridged."She does recognize how "irregular" it isfor her to be "roaming" around Bosnia,climbing in and out of military helicopters,getting mud on her boots, sans the ambassadorialarmor of power designer suits,make-up and jewelry. Certainly, it's notPamela Harriman's style."lt has Washingtonmidlevelers scratching their heads and say-Left, Hunt (center) with two of her staff at the Sarajevo women's NCO,Zena 21. Center, entertaining a Sarajevan child at Zena 21.Right, with Haris Silajdjzic, former prime minister of Bosnia.then she laughs, embarrassed. That's alower-cased "H" on "his," she stresses.This is Hunt's sixth trip to Bosnia, wherethe risk of her dodging bullets is real, notfigurative, as it is in the White House. Thearmored vehicles and humvee security detail,courtesy of the American branch ofSFOR (the multi-national NATO-led StabilizationForce), are charged with protectingher. "Ambassadors are really so much troublewhen they come into a country likethis," she acknowledges. "If we get kidnaped,or injured, it becomes an internationalincident." The U.S. General in chargeof Eagle Base in Tuzla is pleased to see herarrive, she says, but happy to see her go,and Hunt understands why.As the ambassador to Austria, Bosnia isnot technically her beat, so why does shego? "I believe you can't understand the politicalsituation unless you do so at ahuman level," she says. "When you get toing, 'Somebody put her back in her box!Please!'" She chuckles. "It's the people atthe upper levels who say, '"Come on. She'sdoing the Lord's work.'"SUCH RELIGIOUS REFERENCES are COITImonin Swanee's conversationand speeches, in which shetends to use Biblical type parables,like the minister she oncewas, to make a point. She canalso be expected to burst into song, frequentlyhymns or Sunday school ditties, atthe click of a photo-opportunity. When shewas growing up in Dallas, the churchplayed a major role in her life, in part becauselife at home was so difficult. "TheChristian fundamentalist church was theonly warm environment for me as a kid."she says. Now she sawily distances herselffrom it. "When I go home these days I pretendI'm visiting a [foreign] culture," shesays, just as she separates herself from herfather's arch-conservatism and overly colorfulreputation.Swanee is one of 15 offspring sired byHunt with the three simultaneous womenin his life: one to whom he was married;the second, his secretary, whom he finallymarried; and a third, who came forward atthe time of his death to say she'd beenmarried to him and claim part of his estatefor her children.At one stage in his life, H.L. Hunt was reputedlythe richest man on earth. Two ofSwanee's half-brothers made a bid for thesame title some years laterwhen they attempted, andingloriously failed, to cornerthe silver market. But for abrief while, they were worthan estimated $5 billion. H.L.Hunt, a man with a thirdgradeeducation, worked variouslyas a shepherd, a shortordercook, and alumberjack, before gamblinghis way, via poker, into owningoil fields. Swanee's shareof the family fortune is nowworth, by her own reckoning,"several hundred million dollars."It could be more, butshe has not been accruingprincipal, preferring instead to donate halfthe annual income to a foundation she andher sister, Helen, run.H.L. Hunt was not an easy man to livewith. He was 60 when Swanee was born."Home life was pretty tough; there were alot of strains. I had an extraordinarilystrange upbringing," she says. "My fatherwas a very eccentric man, very involved in alot of right-wing causes. And being a Huntin Dallas was isolating, like being a Rockefelleron the East Coast or part of the royalfamily in London." She left home early tomove to Heidelberg, Germany, where shespent four years "trying to get as far awayfrom my home environment as possible,"she says, and where she learned to speakthe German she now uses in Vienna."I grew up in an extremely patriarchalfamily," she says, "and a particularly gratingmemory for me came after my half-brothershad a run in with the silver market. A leadingbusiness magazine stated that my father'left behind a progeny that cares aboutnothing more than (continued on page 59)S p r i n g 1997 • O N T H E ISSUES 33