FOREVER OURS

AMBASSADOR DAVID B. HERMELIN, 1936-2000

`A TORNADO OF A MAN'

Ambassador

Hermelin's stamp on

Norway 'Won't soon

be forgotten.

BILL CARROLL
Special to the Jewish News

W

hen David Hermelin was
appointed U.S. ambassador
to Norway in late 1997,
many of his American
friends said that Norway probably
would never be the same.
While that may have been a bit of
an overstatement, it wasn't too far off.
Hermelin took the Scandinavian coun-
try by storm. His colleagues at the
U.S. Embassy in Oslo, Norwegian
officials and others have never forgot-
ten he was there — even if it was only
for two years.
An ardent Democrat and longtime
financial supporter of Democratic can-
didates, Hermelin helped to raise
about $2 million for President Bill
Clinton's two election campaigns —
including two fund-raising visits by
Clinton to Hermelin's sprawling
Bingham Farms estate. He also hosted
fund-raising visits this year by Al Gore
for his presidential campaign and
Hillary Rodham Clinton for her New
York Senate drive.
The result of his friendship with
Clinton was the ambassadorship to the
Nordic nation of more than four mil-
lion people inside 125,000 square
miles. "I never sought or campaigned
for an ambassador post, so the whole
thing was a surprise," Hermelin said at
the time.
He took on the assignment with the
same boundless energy, enthusiasm
and optimism that were his hallmarks
throughout his life as a Jewish philan-
thropist, communal leader and busi-
ness entrepreneur.
"He was a real tornado of a man,"
said Petter Naess, an information spe-
cialist at the Oslo Embassy. "He made

12/1

2000

a great impact here and was much
loved by everyone."
In his brief eulogy at Hermelin's
funeral Nov. 24, Jon Gundersen, deputy
chief of the Embassy, said, "Norway
never had experienced an ambassador
like David Hermelin before. He brought
the Hermelin magic to our quiet corner
of the world."

Kosher Express

At the ambassador's residence, a huge
mansion in what could pass for the
"Bloomfield Hills" section of Oslo,
Hermelin and wife, Doreen, kashered
the kitchen and imported a continu-
ous supply of meat and other kosher
foods from Detroit-area butchers and
delicatessens. They also brought their
own chef with them from Michigan.
They remodeled some of the house's
25 rooms, adding a small kitchen and
dining nook upstairs to give them pri-
vacy for meals, plus six more television
sets for the guest bedrooms. They
brought with them some furniture,
paintings, photo albums and the like
to decorate the building — plus family
members who visited continuously.
Hermelin financed most of these reno-
vations himself.
The residence was the scene of three
or four major events a week, including
business and cultural breakfasts, lunch-
es, dinners, receptions and just plain
social occasions. The Hermelins threw
the mother of all Fourth of July par-
ties, erecting tents to accommodate
about 1,000 people. Hot dogs, ham-
burgers, popcorn and apple pie were
the staples. Everyone received a T-shirt
decorated with the flags of the 50 U.S.
states and hailing: "1998 Fourth of
July in Norway."
To help build team spirit and
morale, Hermelin invited the families

of the Embassy's 150 staff members —
including several Jewish employees —
to barbecues and picnics at the resi-
dence, with clowns and magic shows.
He took staffers for trips on his boat
around the fjords of Norway, and even
invited 100 of them on a cross-country
weekend sojourn in the northern
mountains.
The Hermelins had lunch with the
king and queen at the royal palace,
and attended receptions hosted by the
various embassies in Oslo. To make
sure no one was bored, Hermelin, who
loved to perform magic, sometimes
performed tricks for the foreign digni-
taries.
The Hermelins regularly attended
services in the city's only synagogue.
On his first visit to the synagogue, he
ended up reciting maftir (the conclud-
ing part of the Torah reading). "There's
no seven-layer cake at the Kiddush, but
they serve fantastic herring and
salmon," he quipped at the time.

Peace Prospector

One of Hermelin's biggest accomplish-
ments was hosting a Mideast peace
summit last year, with President
Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Barak and Palestinian Authority
President Yasser Arafat. It was the first
time a sitting U.S. president visited
Norway. They all had kosher hot dogs
for lunch.
In his eulogy, Gundersen reported that
Clinton said he finally went to Norway
because Hermelin kept calling him to
remind him of his promise to go there.
In front of Clinton, the king pre-
sented Hermelin with the Royal
Norwegian Order of Merit Grand
Cross, the highest honor the country
bestows on non-Norwegians. One of
the agreements reached then was that

the U.S. and Norway would help
deliver prosthetic limbs to African civil
war victims.
Shortly after arriving in Norway,
Hermelin pointed out that his most
important job was to foster trade rela-
tions between the United States and
Norway, which always had been excel-
lent. He completed a deal with Ford
Motor Co. President and CEO Jacques
Nasser for Ford to build an electric car
called the Think at a plant in Norway.
It's now sold throughout Scandinavia.
Another deal resulted in Norway
spending a half billion dollars with the
Lockheed Martin Co. as part of a con-
tract to get missile systems for five
Norwegian destroyers.

Being Himself

"The staff was amazed at how he could
plunge into these difficult negotiations
and make the participants feel com-
fortable and everything easy to under-
stand. He was a quick study," said
Doreen Hermelin at home. "He knew
he was supposed to be a serious diplo-
mat, but he just had to be himself.
Our two years there was like a fantasy.
"When the Norwegian prime minis-
ter told David he was going to visit his
father on his birthday, David asked
some questions about the father, then
went home and wrote a song about
him for the prime minister to sing.
Both of the men loved it."
She said Hermelin was extremely
proud of an award given to him by the
association of chauffeurs who drove
cars for the embassy diplomats. "He
never forgot to feed them while they
waited outside. And they adored him,"
she said.
Hermelin used to give off-the-cuff
lectures at Norwegian schools, corpo-
rations and charity meetings — and to