"You can't just go to the Olympics," I told him. "There are no tickets, no hotels. People have been planning this trip for three years."

"Pack your bags," he said. "We're going to Sarajevo. That's where the action is."

"When do you want to go?" I asked.

"Now," he said. "Meet me at the plane."

He owned a 727, with the cabin divided into two two-bedroom suites. I used to bring a few bottles of Chateau Lafite and a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Armand loved that. He had a chef on the plane, but on most of our trips all he did was put the chicken on plates and pour the wine.

It took forever to reach Sarajevo. Hammer was eighty-four years old. The trip exhausted him. He had made no plans, no reservations, nothing. Instead, when we were an hour out, he called the president of Yugoslavia and said, "We need rooms."

"Don't worry, Dr. Hammer," said the president. "I'll take care of it."

Hammer had convinced the president that he, Hammer, would dig for coal and drill for oil, so the president would do just about anything to make him happy.

We were met at the airport by a parade of limousines and police cars, which took us to Tito's ski chalet in the mountains. (Tito had died a few years before, but his name was still spoken with great reverence.) The road climbed in switchbacks, each turn opening on a monster view of dark hills and yellow lights. It felt like we were going to the top of the world. The chalet was a palace, hundreds of rooms and galleries. We unpacked. A banquet had been arranged to honor Dr. Hammer. Now bear in mind, it was one o'clock in the morning. We were wiped out, sitting at this long table as they brought out the food-stag, grouse, a wild grub-eating boar with an apple in its mouth, the last thing in the world a Jew wants to see. They cut into its flank, shaved off strips of belly meat, fat pooling and glistening on the plate. Everybody was passing around fizzy, pale beer, making toasts, and Armand had his chin on his chest, head down.

"Do you want I should wake him?" one of the diplomats asked me.

"Nah," I said. "Let the man rest."

We finally went up to bed. I got under the covers, closed my eyes, started to doze, an American Jew surrounded by black, Slavic peaks. Then, just as I started to dream, there was a vicious banging on my door. It was scary as hell, coming in the dead of night, like a summons by the Gestapo: Send out the Juden! I sat up in bed, confused, wondering: Who am I? Why am I here?

"Yeah, who the hell is it?" I asked.

"It's Armand. Get packed. We're moving."

I went downstairs. There was a guard of fifty soldiers watching us, each man armed to the teeth. "There's a storm blowing in," Armand explained. "If we don't get out now, we'll be stuck here and miss the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. We can't miss the opening ceremonies. That's where the action is."

We drove back through the passes, the storm closing in behind us.

Armand was on the phone the entire way. He called every hotel in the city but could not find a room, so he called the president, got him out of bed. "We need help," said Armand. "We don't know where we're going." A palace was found in the middle of the city. It was filled with diplomats. It was completely packed, but no problem. The president kicked everyone out, ambassadors and diplomats were awakened in the dead of night and told to pack. I saw them in the halls, one shoe on, shirtsleeves hanging out of suitcases. I was given a suite of rooms on a high floor. I could see distant blue mountains over the red rooftops of the city. My living room was a ballroom, the bathroom was bigger than my house in LA. It was a fairy tale.

The next day, at the opening ceremonies, we sat with the president. It was like every other trip I'd taken with Hammer: going to be going, big wheels and diplomats, sleeping through banquets and toasts. We attended the opening ceremonies of the Games, went to some of the contests. Well, I assume we did. I don't really remember. With Armand, the event was always less interesting than the show. He wanted to be in the action, to see and be seen. He made a study of human drama-it was his life's work. He was fascinated by everyone, high and low. He wanted to find out everything. He had a special interest in charisma and power, in great men, the special few who worked their will on history. Hammer participated, but he also observed. In this, he exhibited a kind of active detachment. He was in the game but removed from the game, playing and watching himself play. He made a spectacle of himself but enjoyed watching that spectacle. He did that his entire life, until he was sick and old.

He died of bone cancer. It was very painful, but it was not the pain that bothered him. It was being stuck in a hospital bed, removed from the game. Look at this joint! This ain't where the action is! But I did not agree. To me, Hammer was the action. He carried his own gravity-the definition of a great man. He died in 1990. When I think of him now, it is not the sick man I see but the immeasurably pleased man at the funeral in Moscow, grinning in pictures standing next to a casket. "What are you smiling for? Did you forget? Your friend died." But maybe Armand had it right. As long as you're here, you might as well smile.

The Peanut Farmer

People think that Hollywood and politics operate in different spheres-they don't. The world is very small at the top, with a few thousand players running everything. For a producer, an actor, a banker, a politician-name your celebrity-crossing genres is less a matter of making connections with the leaders of other industries than of climbing high enough in your own to reach the place where all lines converge. As I said, people describe me as a Republican powerbroker, a right-winger in the land of liberals, but that's not true. I am, in fact, a person who values friendship over politics, and I happen to have a lot of friends, which means I happen to have a lot of politics. As Hammer was friendly with both Lenin and Reagan, I am friendly with both Clooney and Bush.

If you were a Jew in New York when I grew up, you were a Democrat. Franklin Roosevelt was like a great-uncle to us, a benign presence who towered over everything. By watching him, you learned about power and prestige. He taught you that politics is more than conventions and elections, more than smoky backrooms. It's the neighborhood. It's life. It was Roosevelt who led the country through the Depression. It was Roosevelt who took on the Nazis. When he was riding high, we were all riding high. When he was licked, we were all licked. I consider Franklin Roosevelt the ideal leader, the president against whom all others are measured.

Of course, all of this was in the background; it was the world of adults. Politics did not become real to me until the late fifties, and then only because of a particular incident. I was working as a record plugger, traveling the Midwest and South to promote artists. Going into a radio station in Omaha, Nebraska, I bumped into a young man coming out. This was John Kennedy, then a freshman senator. (You can say I crashed into politics.) We fell into conversation in the way of northeasterners happening upon each other far from home, and formed an instant bond. He had finished his interview and was at a loose end. So he waited for me. We went around the corner and sat down for coffee. I fell in love with him. It took sixty seconds. The charisma came off him like shimmers come off a hot road. We had a picture taken together, standing side by side in the sun. I was added to the list of people who could be contacted, counted on. I later worked for him in the presidential election, making calls, getting out the vote. I was an advance man.

From Kennedy I learned that the best politicians are not different from movie stars. They charm, communicate, command. The good ones never make you feel isolated or small, as if they have something you don't. Quite the opposite. They include you in their world, enlarge you, make you recognize the best qualities in yourself. I saw this most powerfully with Ronald Reagan. George Bush had taken me to the Alfalfa dinner in Washington. At one point, I realized that everyone in the room had been on the cover of Time magazine. Secretaries of state, presidents, vice presidents. But when Reagan came in, everything stopped, everyone stared, then they rushed to him like moths to a flame. Whatever moment he was in became his moment. Whatever room he entered became his room. Some people have that. It's the intangible quality that sells tickets and pulls nations out of funks. It's where politics becomes showbiz, and show-biz becomes transcendent. A movie or piece of art can save your life in the same way your life can be saved by a policy or law. This is why politicians seek out movie stars, and why movie stars want to become politicians. They seek the same target, which is the soul of the people.