Saturday, May 3, 2003

Great evening. I received the “Golden Plate Award” of the Academy of Achievement. It was a Gala affair at the Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C. I was on a panel chaired by Mike Wallace of “60 Minutes” during the day and had a black tie dinner in the evening. Other awardees were Jose Carreras (did not show), Hillary Clinton, Sen. Tom Daschle, Bob Dylan, author and Washington Post columnist Thomas Friedman, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Graham (CEO of Washington Post), Baroness Susan Greenfield, Dr. Robert Sanger, Leonard Lauder (CEO of Estee Lauder), Trent Lott, John McCain, Simon Peres, Franklin Raines, Justice Antonin Scalia, Robert Strauss, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Alvaro Uribe Velez, President of Columbia. The banquet was attended by all of the Glitterati including President Clinton who was the hit of the night, dancing away like crazy . It was a wonderful time with incredible entertainment including Patti Austen, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and Chuck Berry who drove the house down. May 3 to 13, 2003 – Spending almost full time working with White House on trying to shape the BioShield Legislation with the Senate and House. I have daily been briefing senators (such as Sen. Byrd) and staff of the House as well as members such as Henry Waxman, Chris Cox, Fred Upton, etc. on why they should support the President’s (Sen. Judd Gregg’s) Bill. Congress is reluctant to make the purchase authority “Mandatory, permanent, and indefinite” It seems now that we are winning the battle for mandatory, but it is going to be tough to get permanent and indefinite. We will have to settle for a cap according to the budget resolution and a sunset at 10 years. People at the White House that I am working closely with are Ginger Loper, Candi Wolff, Carol Kuntz, Ken Bernard, Chris Cox, Mike Allen et al. Also, during this time I gave the Commencement Address at Emory in front of 14,000 people and received an honorary degree. May 14 – 20, 2003 – Continued doing Congressional briefings and Hearings on BioShield and SARS. The epidemic is appearing to come under control. Spent sometime today (May 20) helping the White House write the POTUS speech on the AIDS initiative. Wonderful thing happened yesterday. The WH is planning a signing ceremony for the AIDS Bill ($15 billion authorization). It was originally schedule for May 28. I wrote an e-mail to Gary Edson and Jay Lefkowitz saying that I had to give the Commencement Address at SUNY Downstate on May 28 and if it occurred then, would they send my regrets to the POTUS. Jay responded by e-mail that since I was the honored guest, they will change the ceremony to May 27. Amazing! May 20 – 27, 2003 – Busy time for Bioshield and giving Commencement Addresses (Emory, Albany Medical, Univ. of MD and SUNY Downstate) and receiving honorary degrees (Emory, Albany, Univ. MD, Yale). Major article (feature piece) on me in the weekend edition of The Financial Times; mostly very flattering with the usual few jealous comments from “unamed sources”.