In her own righ
Sondra Gotlieb stands on her own
identity, not as the "wife of"
BY HEIDI PRESS
Local News Editor
Sondra Gotlieb criticizes the Washington social scene.
"I wanted to
get married
and see Capri.
I still didn't
see Capri!"
hen other Washington
wives were being intro-
duced according to their
husbands' offices — wife of
Senator So and So, wife of
Ambassador John Doe — Sondra Got-
lieb was introduced by name: Mrs.
Gotlieb, wife of Canada.
Mrs. Gotlieb, a writer who hap-
pens to be the wife of Canadian Am-
bassador to the United States Allan
Gottlieb, talked about being a "Wash-
ington wife" during a recent Detroit
visit.
Speaking at Adat Shalom Sister-
hood's annual donor luncheon, Mrs.
Gotlieb talked about life in Canada as
a politician's wife and in Washington
as an ambassador's wife. "Before I
lived in Washington I lived a simple
life in Ottawa." But when she came to
Washington, she became the unpaid
manager of a small hotel."
She recalled upon her arrival, she
was met at her residence by two
maids, a butler, a cook and a house-
man.
Many of her duties centered on
planning and holding dinner parties.
Her mission in life as she saw it? "My
main job was to assert authority over
my (house) staff."
It was one such dinner party that
catapulted her into fame, or perhaps
notoriety. Last March at an embassy
dinner party, she slapped her social
secretary, Connie Connor, in front of
God, man and the press. The incident
was not looked kindly upon by Cana-
da's Prime Minister Brian Mulroney
and others in Ottawa. The press, for
whom she had a comment at the
luncheon, had .a great time with the
story, but it was an embarrassment to
her husband's position.
She called the press "dangerous,"
adding, The only power in Washing-
ton is the power of the press." But, she
said, Washington is a city of "tremen-
dous power. Power counts more than
money."
Critical of Washington, she
labeled it a party town, a "madhouse."
She said parties are making deals.
"Parties are an extension of work."
Mrs. Gotlieb said she was unpre-
pared for the role of an ambassador's
wife. She received her training on the
job, but not without errors. She re-
called her first faux pas at a dinner
party in France. At the end of the
meal port wine and nuts were served.
She helped herself, thinking nothing
of it, as her husband glared and be-
came embarrassed. The ladies stood
ready to leave the room, but she mer-
rily chatted on.
Finally, the other ladies urged
her out of the room. She soon learned,
to her embarrassment, that at the end
of the dinner the ladies were to leave
the men to discuss business, and that
the port and the nuts were for the men
only.
Her second innocent mistake also
came in France, when after dinner
she went to wash her hands. At the
time, men and women shared the
same bathroom. Much to her surprise,
and anyone else who saw her there,
she unknowingly chose to wash her
hands in the urinal.
She married her husband at 18,
in what she called an arranged mar-
riage, the title of her Leackock
Award-winning book.. Mrs. Gotlieb
recalled their dating experience. She
remembers wanting to meet her fu-
ture husband at a party, and remem-
bering her mother's advice ("The way
to a man's heart is through his
stomach"), she took the future ambas-
sador a dish of ice cream and "had an
intellectual discussion" on the merits
of one flavor over another.
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