In 1887, I was asked by the
Egyptian government to help them to get a security system set up for a portion
of the Cairo Museum. I travelled to Egypt and took a look at existing
facilities…not good.
In order to provide an adequate
system for them, I sought out one of the better companies in the business which
was at that time, Diebold, Corp. I contacted their UK office and they were
interested in working with me. After several calls and a trip to the UK to meet
with them, we agreed to go to Cairo to review the situation and submit a
proposal to the Egyptians for the project.
About a month later, we all met
in Cairo and began discussing the proposal. As is normal in that part of the
world, negotiations were very meticulous and deliberate. The process involved
meeting for hours on end, discussing a host of things (outside of the proposal
for the project) and being extraordinarily patient with the talks.
After a great deal of discussion we finally got down to the talks related to the proposal and the
contract to accomplish the project. This involved discussions that occurred daily
for over three weeks. During that time, occasionally, the talks became somewhat
heated since the parties started (predictably) very far apart and GRADUALLY
worked closer together. At one point during a pointed and heated exchange
between the parties, I proposed a short recess. One of the Egyptian negotiators
(a brilliant female contract specialist who had been somewhat intense in the
discussion) was standing next to me. She had a brightly colored pen embedded with
stones. As an effort to lighten the moment, I complimented her on her pen. She
handed it to me (I assumes to examine more closely) and after looking at it,
started to hand it back to her. My Egyptian agent touched my arm and whispered
to me, “Give her yours.”
My pen was a Mont Blanc that had
been a gift form a business associate several years before and one that I
valued highly. However, not fearing any loss, I handed it to her whereupon she
promptly pocketed it and walked away. Before I could protest, my agent
explained to me that if you compliment someone on something they have, they are
obligated to give it to you but you must give them back something of equal or
greater value. In this instance, I provided her with a gift a considerably
greater value and learned a (hard) valuable lesson in the process.
We returned to the negotiations
and my gesture (unintended as it was) bore fruit. She was much more amenable to
my suggestions and we soon concluded the talks and the contract was signed.
A couple of days later, we
prepared to leave Cairo for the UK. We packed all of our belongings and loaded
one of the small but efficient cabs in Cairo (all of our luggage on the top of
the car) and left for the airport at about 4:00 AM (planes leave before sunup
whenever possible to avoid complications associated with the intense heat).
Accompanying us was a representative of the people who had secured my services
as negotiator along with the Diebold representative and my Egyptian agent. The
car was small so we were packed in fairly tightly.
As we turned down the road to the
airport entrance, five armed men stopped our car. Two of them put their rifles
inside the back windows against our heads and told us not to move. I heard the
rifle against my head being cocked and realized that this might be IT for me.
In terror, we sat perfectly still
as the other three began unloading our suitcases and opening them, searching
through all of our belongings fairly intensely. In my position, I could not
hope to protest but sat silently praying. After several agonizing minutes, one
of the searchers said something in Arabic and the guns were removed and the gun
men told us to get out. We were searched thoroughly and then, finding nothing
of interest to them, they started to walk away. Our driver asked them in Arabic
why they had detained us. He was told that there had been a small item stolen from
the museum and they suspected us. Since the item was not found in our luggage
or on our persons, we were free to go.
As we left the cab and entered
the airport, I asked my agent if the item had been found, would we have been
shot, he replied, “most certainly.”
It was my last trip to Cairo.