Here’s who I was talking about:

Muhamed Sacirbey was born in Sarajevo in 1956 but left in 1963 with his parents for Turkey and North Africa. Four years later, in 1967, he moved to the U.S. Describing himself as an “all-American boy,” who toyed with the idea of West Point and passed up Harvard and Yale to take a football scholarship at Tulane University, he never forgot his origins.

He struck me as intelligent, charismatic, and I believe very persuasive. He never fumbled over words, was always prepared, was courteous even toward detractors.

I remember being at a party hosted by the Japanese ambassador in D.C. and speaking to the ambasssador contrasting Mr. Sacirbey to the Japanese spokepeople who were not fluent in English, stumbled often for words, didn’t understand the idiom and ultimately failed to impress.