Erin Conway-Smith June 20, 2014 00:54
Including the most embarrassing speech
Madiba ever gave and just how personal he
was allowed to get with Queen Elizabeth.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Nelson
Mandela’s personal assistant Zelda la
Grange has released her much-anticipated
memoir of the years she spent working
for South Africa’s beloved former
president — and detailing the nasty family
infighting during the final few years of his
life.
“Good Morning, Mr. Mandela” tells of La
Grange’s 19 years at his side, and her
transformation from a young Afrikaans
typist who grew up during apartheid
South Africa to Mandela’s trusted
assistant during his presidency and the
years that followed.
Along the way La Grange met world
leaders and celebrities, becoming the
gatekeeper to Mandela, as well as his
caretaker. But ahead of his death on Dec.
5 , La Grange was sidelined by some
Mandela family members. She recounts
their cruelty toward his third wife Graca
Machel, whom he married in 1998, and
whom La Grange describes as “the only
person who really made him happy.”
Here are the nine best tidbits from La
Grange’s book:
1) A private viewing of Lenin
Lenin's mausoleum in Moscow. (Natalia
Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images)
On Mandela’s last official trip as South
African president, in 1999, he traveled to
Moscow and visited the mausoleum on
Red Square where Vladimir Lenin’s
embalmed body is exhibited.
A visit to see Lenin, recounts La Grange,
is an incredibly solemn occasion, and the
South Africans were briefed by a Russian
protocol officer on the rules — chief
among them, no talking.
“What we had forgotten was that the
president’s hearing was already not
good,” La Grange writes. Mandela most
likely didn’t hear the officer’s
instructions.
“We were all quiet, almost admiring the
body of the dead Communist leader,” La
Grange writes. “It was kind of spooky.
And then, without any warning, the
president with his booming loud voice
said: ‘So, how long has he been lying
here?’”
No one responded, and so Mandela
repeated his question. At which daughter
Zenani, who was accompanying him, said:
“Daddy, you are not allowed to talk.”
Mandela whispered back, still loud
enough for everyone to hear: “Oh OK, I’m
sorry.”
2) A royal visit with "Elizabeth"
Queen Elizabeth and Nelson Mandela at
Buckingham Palace in 2003. (Kirsty
Wigglesworth/AFP/Getty Images)
Mandela had a warm relationship with
Queen Elizabeth. La Grange recounts a
visit to London to see the Queen, whom
Mandela always greeted as “Elizabeth.”
“I think he was one of the very few
people who called her by her first name
and she seemed to be amused by it. I was
entertained by these interactions,” La
Grange writes.
“When he was questioned one day by
Mrs. Machel and told that it was not
proper to call the Queen by her first
name, he responded: ‘But she calls me
Nelson.’”
“On one occasion when he saw her he
said, ‘Oh Elizabeth, you’ve lost weight!’
Not something everybody gets to tell the
Queen of England .”
3) Dinner with Gaddafi
Mandela and Gaddafi in Cape Town in
1999. (Anna Zieminski/AFP/Getty Images)
Mandela was old friends with Muammar
Gaddafi, who had been a staunch
supporter of the African National
Congress during the years of struggle
against apartheid. According to La
Grange, Mandela was “shocked” when
Gaddafi was killed in 2011.
“It was always entertaining to see the
Brother Leader,” writes La Grange,
recounting a visit to Libya shortly after
Mandela ended his single term as
president. Gaddafi went out of his way to
be hospitable to his South African guests.
“Earlier in the afternoon Madiba and I
had a discussion about camel meat as we
drove past camels and, when asked by the
Brother Leader what we wanted for
dinner, Madiba felt it was appropriate to
ask for camel meat. ‘Of course,’ the
Brother Leader responded.
“The camel meat tasted exactly like lamb.
I was later told that they had to slaughter
baby camels as the meat became tough
the older the camel grew. I was not going
to encourage the slaughter of baby
animal
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