Emerson's Last Hurrah

President Emerson’s first interview since leaving office
This interview occurred at 7:30pm on October 16 2006.

Megan Hope: Good evening, tonight a rare treat. Here to promote his recent biography “A Surprising Win”, we are privilege to gain access to Saydneys third longest serving President. Elected in March 1994 in a surprise landslide victory, President Marc Emerson served as the leader of this nation during what can only be described as interesting times. Having survived two assassination attempts, he went on to lead this nation into the new millennium, entering retirement only a week ago the President joins us tonigt. Mr. President Welcome.

Emerson: Thank you Megan, it is wonderful to be here tonight.

Hope: It is an honor to have you here tonight. I would like to ask you, after 12 years in office how have the last few months been. What have you been doing with your time, how are keeping occupied.

Emerson: Well I have to say after 12 years in office the last few months have been quite invigorating. Its nice to be able to get up at 8:00 in the morning again, its nice to have a bit of space to myself to do some of other things that I have always wanted to do. For the most part I’m spending time with the family, doing a bit of gardening and some consulting and speaking engagements. Overall I’m trying to take it easy for a while and have a bit of a rest.

Hope: So what have you got planned for the future. You only just turned 40 and you have already led your country. Where do you go from here?

Emerson: Thanks a very good question, I have just agreed to join the board of the Rescue foundation, a charity created by former Prime Minister of Georgeland, Campbell Rhodes. I’m also going to be doing some work for the United Nations development program in December. President Eaton has also appointed me as a special Ambassador to South America, a post that I will take up in May next year. So, I’m going to be busy once again, which is good. I think I would go mad if I just stopped doing everything. Right now I’m not looking to get involved in anything long term, I just want to relax and take time really to take in the past 12 years. There are not many people who get to live their dream, I had mine by 28 and lived it for a decade. I think I just want to take stock of that and raise my family. That’s my next big challenge, see my Children grow and become the people that they will be. After that who knows.

Hope: Do you miss it? How hard is it for you not to pick up the phone and go President Eaton you doing it all wrong?

Emerson: Some days, some days I really do. Its not just a job you can walk away from, there are days when I watch the news and go if I was there I would have done this, or that. But then I just get a grip and go that’s not my problem anymore. There are capable people in control who know what they are doing they don’t need my imput. With that said I still speak to President Eaton from time to time, we are good friends.

Hope: What do you speak about?

Emerson: A lot of things

Hope: Do you speak about politics, policy world leaders?

Emerson: Sometimes

Hope: You not going to say?

Emerson: I’m not trying to be coy, but that’s something between me and the President. What I will say is that being the President is a very lonely job and there are only a few people alive who know what it is like to lead this country.

The old saying is true, it is lonely at the top and I can appreciate what she goes through on a day. There are only four living former presidents, I certainly used to call President Nurenberg from time to time, just to de-brief and get perspective.

Hope: What was it like for you to lead this country?

Emerson: It was a huge honor to lead the country…it was an experience that I can never regret. It did have its ups and downs though and but even knowing what I do now I would not have changed what I did, there are things that I would have liked to do better and there are things that I’m incredible proud of. It is like nothing on this earth to do that job and I’m thankful everyday for being given that opportunity.

Hope: What you would you say were your success and what would you like to do better if you got the chance.

Emerson: For me the two greatest achievements that I made were the literacy programs and the disarmament of our nuclear weapons.

Hope: Those really speak for themselves, but what motivated you to do those things?

Emerson: Well when I first came to office, Saydney has a literacy rate of 98%, which sound great until you realize just how big that 2% is in terms of people. I remember at the time in cabinet everybody looked on that as a positive, we had 98% of people who could read, and I thought what about the 2% why stop there. I said to my advisors and party people “you know that represents almost 2 million people who can’t read”. 2 million people in a supposedly western nation who could not write their own name let alone read poetry, Shakespeare or even their own local paper. I decided their and then that I would promote literacy and every opportunity even if I had to create those opportunities myself. My plan was to eradicate illiteracy, and I didn’t know whether that could be achieved but I didn’t care I had to try.

Hope: and you succeeded?

Emerson: And I succeeded, at least as far as it is able to be proved, I think there is still more work to be done in education. I’m not one to look backwards, always forwards and so my task was always to improve literacy standards.

Hope: You mentioned also nuclear proliferation, this was a campaign promise for 10 years what was it like to finally do that.

Emerson: Heaven, absolute heaven. The vindication I felt having achieved that was beyond any words I have. It is something that I hope I’m remembered for, if nothing else that is one achievement I would be happy to rest my legacy on.

Hope: You say in your book that you faced huge opposition to that move, why and from whom.

Emerson: Well it was hardly surprising, although at the time I was quite bewildered by it. Here was this 28 year old boy, pretending to be president overturning 20 years of military doctrine and dogma. Now I have a tremendous respect for the military, but at the time there were difference between my early administration and the military establishment. I was attempting to move Saydney away from the fortress mentality and as they sore it I was naïve and did not understand the world as they knew it.

Hope: A lot of senior officers resigned over your restructure of the military; do you have any regrets over that?

Emerson: on one level I find it sad, that they choose to resign. I really do feel sorry about that. I feel sad that those who resigned could not see past the difference to what I was trying to do to Saydney on the foreign stage. But then I look back and go, no, this was the will of the Saydneyan people. The Saydneyan people decided that the amount we were spending on the military was far too much, particularly on nuclear missiles. There is not a day goes by that I weep for what I did the money that was diverted paid for the literacy and education programs what teach kids to read. It paid for the healthcare system that saves thousands daily.

And you know what the military was better for that change too and most military thinkers agree with that. We now have a military with new tactics, better training, and new technology. It’s capable of going anywhere to protect Saydney and her allies. We got away from the isolationist military that was ineffective, inefficient and soaking up funds that were needed elsewhere.

We also got rid of weapons capable of destroying entire cities in instant, weapons that would slaughter innocents indiscriminately so I’m quite happy to be rid of those.

Hope: You started work on that in your first term, but if I can take you back a moment to the campaign and your election. What was it like to be selected as your party’s candidate for President and what was it like to win.

Emerson: Surreal, it was….I still don’t know how it happened. I mean it was a surprise to be selected as a candidate for the High Council, when I was elected leader I had no idea what was going on. At the time of the national conference I said to Sarah

Hope: That’s Vice-President Fitzgerald

Emerson: That’s right; I said to her am I having a psychotic break. I just could not deal with the reality of what had happened. And she turned to me and said “if you are then everybody in the room is.”

And sure enough I looked around the room and people were just staring at their tables, or the floor, some straight at me. That result was a shock…but it wore off quickly and I just said to myself that if it was a dream then I should go with it until I wake up. I went to work, I campaigned hard. I knew that now was the time for the Democratic Party, the people wanted change and we had to grab that hope and run with it until Election Day. And it paid off. We won,

Hope: You won, youngest president in history, first democrat in 12 years, first women Vice-President. It was a change alright, how did you deal with it all when you had time to think.

Emerson: Well, I hope. I don’t know, I think others are better to judge that, I still wasn’t sure if I was psychotic or not….another reason to be rid of the red button.

Hope: Tell me about your first term, you had a big agenda in those first few years. Take us through them.

Emerson: Well I just figured that I had had four years to do everything that I wanted. I wasn’t sure we would go to a second term and even if we did I didn’t think we would have a majority in both houses. So I tried to do as much as possible, I think we did a lot of good stuff in those first few years, some of our early work is our best.

It was such an aspirational time I think everyone just thought they could achieve anything and so we set out to do just that.

Hope: You say “Our” work, was it all a team effort, or do you sometimes go I did that.

Emerson: I think that it is always a team effort; you know I led it but not everything was even my idea let alone my work. It was very much a team effort, especially in those early days.

I certainly know I did a lot, but so did everyone. Its one of the things I’m proud of is the fact that I was able to have a team behind in those early days, and even in the later period after the early leadership challenges. I always felt proud to be in that room of people and I think that each one of them has a lot to offer the country.

Hope: Even those who went for the leadership? Say Councilor Parker, or Estivez, or Hernandez

Emerson: Well obviously I felt that I was better at the job than they would be, that’s why I didn’t step back. I don’t bear them any grudges for challenging me, after all I beat them and remained in my job, and even if I lost I think that I would have dealt with it, after all C’est La Vie.

Hope: You weren’t even angered by the challenge from your close friend and Vice-President?

Emerson: For a little while, I was more hurt than anything else I think. I felt a little betrayed that she would challenge me like that. But then I got over it and went about the work of being president and leader of the SDC.

Sarah and I are still friends and I think she is a tremendously capable women and if she ever wanted to get back involved in politics she would have my full support.

Hope: Are you still involved in party politics in that way these days?

Emerson: Well I would be lying if I said I wasn’t, you don’t go from President to average punter overnight. I’m sure that I will eventually but I still have a lot of contacts, I mean I still have them over for dinner on occasion and obviously things come up and we talk.

I’m still involved with my local branch and still do that stuff, in fact for the first time in a long time I’m involved again at the grass roots level which is great.

Hope: I would like if I could, to take you back to March 4 1996. You nodding your head so I guess you know what I’m going to ask. That was obviously the year of the second and most serious attempt on your life. What was that like?

Emerson: Traumatic, obviously. A bit strange as well.

Hope: What do you mean by strange?

Emerson: Well I obviously knew that the FLE were about, that they didn’t like me this president from the west but to actually be shot is just surreal. I just find it strange that people I didn’t know would hate me so much they would try and kill me. The first attempt on me was a abject failure and I was barely aware that it had happened, except for the DPU agent man handling me off the stage, but the second attempt was far better planned and far more vicious.

The level of hate projected on me that day is just something you can’t prepare for. Again as President you accept that you will upset some people, you try not to, but it happens. But for an entire group of people to plot your death, place an assassin in a building and shoot at you, and nearly kill you is a surreal experience.

Hope: How close were you to death?

Emerson: Well I did die?

Hope: You died?

Emerson: Yes on the table actually, that’s never been revealed before.

Hope: What happened?

Emerson: Well I went into cardiac arrest twice while on the table,. So for a little while I was technically dead, which was an interesting experience to say the least. I didn’t see a blinding light and much too some peoples disappointment I’m sure I didn’t feel a burning sensation either

It also poses an interesting question for the students of law or government out there about the succession. Did I at that point cease to be President…it will get you thinking, certainly got my lawyers thinking?

Hope: You seem to be quite on terms with it now but, given how close it was, do you wonder how lucky you were to have survived and how long did it take to recover from that?

Emerson: There is not a day that goes by that I don’t thank God and the surgeons of Tasroco Mercy for saving my life. Not a day goes by, given the scars on I have it is impossible to escape from that reality. I was incredible lucky, it was explained to me later that the assassin was not particularly experienced with the rifle and had he adjusted for the slight breeze of that I would be dead. With out a doubt.

As for the healing, that took years. I was back on my feet after 4 months but there are, and this is so cliché, other scars that take longer.

Hope: you’re talking about the emotional trauma, what was that like.

Emerson: It was more painful than anything else. The thing that stung me most was not that somebody had shot me, you don’t expect it and it’s strange but you can accept that as part of the job.

The thing that hurt me most was the deaths of the two DPU agents who were besides me on the dais. That really got to me, here were two guys who were killed just because they stood next too me. And I know that was what they were supposed to be doing, that they are there to protect me, but I couldn’t escape the fact that they died so I could live.

Who am I that two people died trying to save me, they had families and lives and hope and dreams and in an instant it was gone. No more. It was an awesome and humbling moment realizing that sacrifice and it cause a lot of thinking and grief for me.

I never forget the looks on the faces of their wives and kids; it was terrible reconciling their death with me living. I took me a long time to deal with that, but I haven’t gotten over it.

Hope: Is this why you stayed involved with those families. I believe you supported their children through school and other things.

Emerson: It was yes, at first it was out of guilt but after speaking with the families I realized that they didn’t need my guilt. They understood the risks involved with the job and were incredibly proud of what they husbands, fathers, sons and brothers had done. Incredibly proud.

So my guilt changed into a desire to honor that sacrifice and to make sure their children knew the man they had saved and that I was incredible grateful for no only their fathers sacrifice but for their sacrifice to. So I made sure there education was provided for.

Hope: I understand that one of the children graduated from Tasroco University just this year.

Emerson: that’s right; Christina graduated with honors in an Art History degree a few months ago and has just started a post graduate course in teaching.

Hope: So you carried a lot of grief it seems, you carried it very well, did any body know?

Emerson: Well the public didn’t. I did tell my staff and cabinet certainly guessed. And I suspect Frances Graham knew by some of his comments.

Hope: What do you mean by that, did he try to take advantage of it?

Emerson: No quite the opposite, he was very accommodating during the whole affair. He was after all a former minister for the Interior and had been subject to more than a few FLE death threats, so he understood. He was really good to me personally and was one of the first to welcome me back to the chamber later that year.

Hope: It was during this period that you met your current wife?

Emerson: That’s right, she was covering my recovery. Not that anything happened at this point, she is too professional and I was on a morphine drip which I must does not lend itself to wooing a future wife.

But that’s where we met, which I think worked well for me.

Hope: Whys that?

Emerson: Well I was quite a meek and mild figure….I think she took pity on me. Not that I’m complaining I married her.

Hope: Family is quite a lot to you isn’t it?

Emerson:  Absolutely, it is everything to me. I think having a family to take care of grounds people in such a fundamental fashion. If ever I was indecisive about a course of action while I was President I would go home at the end of the day, look at my wife and children and know what I had to do.

Hope: You were the first President to get married in Office and you were only the second too have had children in Office. What was it like to have that experience while you were attempting to lead the country?

Emerson: Well getting married was an interesting experience. I’m normally quite a private person, my career aside. So my view of a small wedding, a quiet gathering of close family and friends was out the door. When you are the head of state of a nation it becomes a little bit larger.

It was a logistical nightmare organizing all of that, although I think Melanie was happy to have the support of the protocol staff of the palace. The seating arrangements took months and months aside from anything else that needed to be organized. It was great though, that day. I think, despite its size and the media coverage it was a great day. And despite the intimate guest list of 650 people at the reception it still felt quite small.

My kids were another experience altogether, I was in Sussex when Jordan was born. That’s not how I had planned it but he was premature and so I was caught out. I was in Sussex for a tour of East Coast military facilities and readiness. I was fortunate that I had Vice-President Mitchell with me though, so I was able to leave the rest of the tour with her and fly back to Tasroco to see my wife and son.

Clare was really the completion of the whole story really. Although I was in Tasroco when she was born, that one I was ready for.

I’m very proud of my family, perhaps more so that being President.

Hope:  What do you kids think of their dad?

Emerson: I’m not sure they get it, Jordan knows that I’m President but not what they mean exactly and they both see dad on television but I think they are still too young. Certainly they are still too young to understand why they couldn’t always see me and why I spend so much time away. That’s why I had to give it up. It is very cliché and certainly the more cynical among doubt it but my time had come.

Hope: So the leadership speculation and the events following the March election had nothing to do with it.

Emerson: Of course they did, they were the signs that it was time to go. If a leader no longer knows what his team are thinking its time to hang up the towel. Had I wanted I probably could have served out the term, but it would be hollow.

I have achieved everything that I set out to do, staying on any longer would just be power for powers sake and I’m not prepared to stay around for that at the expense of my family. It was time for a new generation of people to come it, I had a very good run.

Hope: If it were up to you, how would you like history to remember you?

Emerson: I would hope history remembers me as a progressive and inclusive leader who tried his hardest to effect positive change. I would hope they see me as a President who looked forward at what Saydney had the potential to become, rather than a President who tried to simple throw back to the glorious years of the nation.

I would hope history recognize my role in making part of the global community and as a peacemaker.

Hope: Do you think that you will be remembered as these things?

Emerson: Only time will tell, there quite lofty goals really but in the end I just hope my family, especially my children are proud of me. I think that’s all any father asks.

Hope: What do you see in the future for Saydney, the Democratic government and yourself.

Emerson: Well for me I would just like some quite for a while, as I said. In the future I don’t know. I will take it as it comes, I no longer have any grand plans. For the government I expect that they will continue to make inroads into the areas of health and education. I know President Eaton is also keen to become more active in the area of South American free trade and a common market. Which I think is a fine goal and I hope I can help her with that as her special Ambassador.

For Saydney, I think we have a bright future ahead. We are coming of age in this region, we are now a respected world leader and certainly south and central America looks to us for guidance. We are the South American power and that brings with it tremendous responsibility to protect this region from negative influences and to make sure that South Americas destiny is decided by South America.

Hope: What do you mean by negative influences, do you mean the US? I know that you have been critical of US foreign policy in the region for some time.

Emerson: Well the US is obviously the world’s only super power and that of course is an issue. The US has a black history in regards to this region and we must recognize that, I don’t think it helps to deny it. I think they would recognize that their choices for this region have not always been helpful, but they have also done a lot of good and I hope that continues so I don’t think it’s fair to single the US out. These influences are not just nation states

There a lot of negative influences on the region, local terror groups like FARC and FLE, drug cartels, unstable governments, trade restrictions on our goods and the huge amount of poverty endemic to South America. These influences are far more dangerous to the stability of the region than any nation state.

Hope: Mr. President we don’t have much time left but before I would like to ask you opinion on some world leaders. ?

Emerson: Sure

Hope: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan?

Emerson: He is a tremendous man, who has taken an incredible difficult job through very turbulent times and made it look easy. I have met him obviously and his passion towards peace and human rights is second to none.

Hope: UK Prime Minister Tony Blair?

Emerson: Tony is a man who has done a lot of good for his people and the world. It is unfortunate that he now has marked that record by the UK’s involvement in Iraq. I think his legacy will be that more than anything else and that’s a shame and quite a disappointment to him I’m sure.

Hope: President Hugo Chavez?

Emerson: Unfortunately he is flash in a pan I suspect. While he talks a good game I don’t think he offers much in the way of substance. It’s a shame that the only way he see him self getting ahead it by being against the US rather than being for the betterment of his people. He has fallen into the trap of so many South American Leaders.

Hope: Prime Minister Eaton of Georgeland

Emerson: She is more than capable and I believe she will serve Georgeland well. I hope she is better than the populist foreign policy that shaped the last years of Prime Minister Rhodes career, but I think in the end she will follow her gut.

Hope: Finally President Bush

Emerson: Well I could say so much here at this point and I think so many people would hope that I would. Especially given Iraq and what happened there. But I won’t. What I will say is that as a leader and head of a national government you get at best one chance and you have a responsibility to make sure you do the work and the research and get it right. I could be indignant about the fact that in my opinion President Bush got it very wrong. I could be angry about how I think it has made the world more violent and unsafe than ever. But these things get me no where.

I’m just very sad and very empathetic to the countless families of all nations, Iraqi, Afghani, American, British or any other nation who had their lives turned upside down because of the shortsighted mistakes and errors of a few.

It could have been a great thing that President Bush did, but I think he spent to much to wishing for what he wanted and not enough time working for what was possible.

Hope: There some very harsh words, certainly more than you have said before

Emerson: Well I’m not President anymore, they are my feelings and I think there are shared by a lot of people on this planet. They got it wrong it think they admit that now. However at that level a mistake like that cost tens, hundreds of thousands of lives. People have been killed as a result this and it will get much worse before it gets better. That makes me angry, it makes me indigent, but most of all it make me sad.

Hope: Mr. President thank you for your time. On behalf of the network and our viewers we wish you well in the future.

Emerson: It was a pleasure.