Africa-Press – Zambia. My favorite US President is Bill Clinton. I followed his Presidency closely and his young press aide George Stephanopoulos. One of the embarrassing moments in the Clinton presidency was when he was given a wrong speech for the State of the Union address in 1993. It was billed as the most important speech of Bill Clinton on Health Care Reforms and the entire nation was glued to watch it.
But when Clinton started delivering the speech, he realized he was reading a wrong one! “Wrong speech,” He whispered to his Vice President Al Core who quickly alerted Stephanopoulos and other aides.
It took about 10 minutes to fix the problem as his staff struggled to get the right speech onto the teleprompter. Investigations had shown that there was no sabotage but mere mistake by the teleprompter technicians who had been practicing the set-up using the old speech. They forget to remove it!
About 30 years later, the tale of the wrong speech is in Zambia. The Minister of Health Sylvia Masebo was given a wrong speech at an event attended by the President Hakainde Hichilema last week. It also took about 10 minutes to find the right speech as the event was temporarily disturbed.
Was it a genuine mistake like the Clinton case? Or sabotage? In my book, Inside the Presidency, I wrote why I always kept a presidential speech with me even though the President and his aide-de-camp had copies. Just in case…Lessons picked from the Clinton saga.
Press aides and public relations officers – always have a copy of the speech with you even if you have already given your boss his or hers. Rule of thumb!
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