PLO on the Potomac
Nollson, John
John Nollson PLO ON THE POTOMAC I took. my genuine sealhide, Eskimo, handmade kayak out into the middle of the Potomac River for my daily paddling exercise. I headed upstream, minding my own...
...He commented: "So you see, as Mr...
...Whetstone was the first member of our ineffectual, moribund citizens association to suggest that we shave only every third day, and that we wear dark sunglasses, even at nighttime...
...One of them is bound to come along here sooner or later, and then you can present your case at the highest level...
...At this point, he withdrew a long list from his shirt pocket and began reading off the names of prominent world figures in alphabetical order, beginning with Amin and ending with Somoza...
...After all, we all purchase our outdoor gear from the same mail-order supply house in New England, and this ought to establish some common ground between us...
...no more dummy corporations...
...Mr...
...The city will be cut off from the rest of the world, and will be accessible only by unreliable rail service...
...We'd rather parley in a relaxed manner," said the man from the PLO, "and I hope we do not have to hijack you in broad daylight in order to get you to listen to our just case...
...I mean, the Secretary of the Interior and the Director of the National Park Service are both seriously into sculling...
...Sooner or later,'' said the man from the PLO, "you lowlanders are going to have to negotiate with us directly...
...This was a great insight...
...We have procured a supply of hand-held anti-aircraft weapons, and six days from now we will open fire on all airplanes which violate our sacred airspace...
...I headed upstream, minding my own business, and reached the point where the high ground above the river provided pleasing views to those who lived there...
...That doesn't much surprise me," said the Palisadian, who cleaned his sunglasses with a handkerchief as he spoke...
...Well," I answered, "I really ought not . to be seen speaking with you...
...We demand the appointment of a Special Envoy," the Palisadian said, "without any ifs, ands, or buts...
...There was an ominous tone in the voice of the PLO spokesman as he resumed...
...I had gone not another quarter of a mile when I found myself surrounded by six canoes, each carrying a group of six pad-dlers, equally divided between men and women...
...George Washington is the George Washington of the United States...
...JL couldn't quarrel with what he had said...
...All groups like ours need a covenant, so that it can be called our Declaration of Independence...
...My own superiors are a crusty bunch...
...The same," he said...
...Everybody who's anybody anywhere in the world these days is the George Washington of someplace or other...
...How did he do it...
...I turned my kayak smartly about for my return trip, and I noticed immediately that it moved with greater ease and speed...
...Now," he emphasized, "you must carry our message back downriver to your superiors, and we will await their reply...
...The Palisadian noticed it, too...
...My blood froze...
...What was his original line of work...
...That's the nub of it...
...No more middlemen...
...Fireside Whetstone is the George Washington of Palisadia...
...He was a foreign service officer of Class 2," said the Palisadian, "and was for 27 years the official Deputy Media Liaison Spokesperson at the Department of State...
...The heroic struggle of the Palisadian people to secure autonomy over their native highground will certamly be vindicated by the movement of history," replied the man from the PLO...
...Both the local authorities and the Department of the Interior had been admonished to tread gingerly into this controversy...
...You have been selected," he said, "to carry back to the lowlanders a message of the utmost gravity...
...Even as we talked, I could imagine that a battalion of Cuban soldiers was secretly training guerrilla fighters, and that our very meeting was being observed by North Korean pilots flying aerial reconnaissance missions...
...There is much to what you say," I acknowledged, "but I must tell you that the Interior Department and the State Department are not cut from the same cloth...
...We shave every third day, you shave every day...
...Your founder," I said, "of course, your founder...
...Moreover, we have reached the breaking point so far as the noise of low-flying aircraft, bound for Washington National Airport, is concerned...
...Palisadia must become an autonomous, self-governing region of the District of Columbia, or there will be no peace in these regions...
...1 could not but admire his stoicism and sense of quiet commitment...
...Whetstone told us it might take years, decades, generations, before wje were successful, so we are perfectly prepared to wait them out...
...Not wishing to offer offense, I stalled for time...
...They appeared hostile...
...No tactic, however uncivilized, was beyond these dangerous madmen...
...Otherwise, I'll find myself in a kettle of hot water .at the Bureau of Recreation of the Department of the Interior, where I work...
...Your approach to these issues is really quite un-American," I volunteered, a note of reproach creeping into my voice...
...No one will win from the senseless escalation of this dispute...
...These were old Washirigtonians indeed, long unaffected by the vicissitudes of life in the downtown Washington lowlands...
...I asked...
...And, as I said that, I recalled the daring raid the Palisadians had staged last year, when they kidnapped the president of Washington's largest real-estate firm, and held him captive for 61 days until all their demands had been met...
...But I don't know of anyone at the State Department who would get near a firearm, let alone actually own one...
...No, sir...
...Palisadia is ours...
...After observing the responses of the Department of State to developments on the international scene, he concluded that the Department of the Interior would respond in similar fashion to similar tactics...
...Yasir Arafat is the George Washington of Palestine...
...I asked...
...Very much so," replied the Palisadian...
...If they were to fall under the control of forces implacably hostile to the purposes of the Federal City, a crisis of grave proportions would ensue...
...Whetstone pointed out to anyone who would listen, the Palisadian Liberation Organization is as American as apple pie...
...The Palisades were the strategic key to control of the District of Columbia...
...I was much taken by the forcefulness with which the PLO spokesman had articulated the PLO's long-standing demand...
...We demand the right to fly our own flag, and we demand that the birthday of our founder be declared a national holiday to be celebrated, without fail, the third Monday of each November.'' A was temporarily startled by this last demand, for I knew little of the history of the Palisades Liberation Organization and had never even heard of its founder...
...Both were bound by the provisions of City Council Resolution 242, a two-part document which affirmed Palisadian rights on the one hand, but recognized only their duly-elected City Councilperson as their authorized representative on the other...
...Why pick on me...
...The Department of the Interior doesn't recognize you, and that's that...
...He, of course, was the gentlest of men, and a terrible public speaker, an incurable mumbler in fact...
...Naturally, the Palisadians would not cooperate with the federal authorities, and all investigations into these incidents had come to a dead end...
...Likewise, all countries need a George Washington...
...This was another profound insight of Mr...
...And, having clearly enunciated Department policy, I began to execute a reverse Jstroke, so as to turn about and end the discussion...
...If we did that, he argued, everyone would think that we were pretty tough...
...They all own ftifles and many of them are secret members of the National Rifle Association...
...With the notion that Anastasio Somoza (the elder) had been the George Washington of Nicaragua still spinning in my head, I noticed that he had replaced the list...
...Now you can see for yourself," he called out to me, "how much easier it is when you are not paddling against the current of history...
...A concerned citizen...
...Whetstone's...
...You ought to know,'' one of them said, "that we are the maritime arm of the Palisades Liberation Organization/' "Surely, not the PLO, of which I have heard so much," I answered...
...Their canoes were made of genuine birch bark...
...We are up in the mountains, our oppressors are down in the plains...
...they're not much for sensible compromise at the Interior Department...
...I asked...
...What concerned American could not...
...Unless our demands for autonomy are fully met, we will close the river to further pleasure-boat traffic...
...I know," I said, "that the Palisadians are a great people who have, for two centuries, struggled against attempts at oppression which originate in the lowlands of downtown Washington, D.C...
...Then he drafted a Covenant of Palisadian Rights for us, our Declaration of Independence he called it...
...no more enticing advertisements in the daily press...
...He was admirably situated to observe the best way to get a hearing for one's grievances...
...We work by day and fight by night whereas, with you lowlanders, it is just the other way around...
...We give them 72 hours, not a minute more...
...I myself had always identified with the liberation forces, wherever they might happen to be...
...Fireside Whetstone-his actual name, though often called Whetstone Fireside by some confused by the fact that he seemed to have two last names-was the man who molded our inchoate discontents into a formidable armed struggle...
...Men and women alike wore red chamois shirts, denim pants, and well-wrought leather boots, all of the finest quality...
...and we are not about to turn it over to real-estate developers and others, who will brutally exploit us and end up expropriating our birthright through clever speculations in land and houses...
...I didn't know many of the details, but from time to time, in my capacity at the Department of the Interior, I had to deal with complaints from innocent boaters and hikers that they had been fired upon from the top of the Potomac Palisades whenever they ventured too far north on the river...
...Now, here was a threat worth taking seriously...
...So even as I floated on the river, I knew I was in the midst of a political thicket...
Vol. 12 • October 1979 • No. 10
