GEORGE Bush was ahead in the polls, the Democrats were running Congress, Bill Clinton was running Arkansas and Ross Perot was only running a business. It would be a boring presidential election campaign, I was told when I arrived here from Moscow in 1991. You won't have a very interesting time in America. Four more years of Bush!
It seems so long ago now, since those days when Marion Barry was still in jail, Johnny Carson was on the Tonight Show, Los Angeles was peaceful, Waco was unburnt, Oklahoma City unbombed and Nicole Simpson was alive.
Bill Clinton came out of Arkansas to upset Bush's re election plan. The truth was Bush had no re election plan, as the end of the Cold War had left him vision impaired. The Governor of Arkansas campaigned on the slogan, "It's the economy, stupid." He promised to fix health care and reduce the debt. He felt your pain.
On the campaign he was hit with Whitewater, draft avoidance Gennifer Flowers, and the opening of his passport files by the British. As George Bush said 1992 was a weird year. Clinton was down and out many times but never gave up. He became the comeback kid. (Just as Bob Dole is now trying to become the comeback adult).
In January 1993, he and Hillary arrived in town from Little Rock which some people think is as far away as Moscow. They got off to a bad start, upsetting the brass by promoting gays in the military and nominating rich lawyers with undocumented nannies to the Supreme Court.
Vincent Foster committed suicide. Hillary failed to reform health care. It turned nasty. Right wing newspapers and talk radio turned their venom on the Clintons. Shots were fired at the White House. A demented amateur pilot crashed his plane into it.
My time here was marked by some spectacular episodes of violence. Los Angeles was convulsed by riots which followed the acquittal of the police who beat Rodney King. This was my most frightening experience. For three days the city was trashed by the mob. Helicopters brought live pictures of people being savagely killed.
The eye in the sky revolutionised news coverage in America. Two years later we followed OJ Simpson's white Bronco in the slow speed chase along the LA freeways, thanks to camera crews hanging out of choppers. In Belfast a helicopter means the British army, in America it's Channel 9 News. The Simpson trial made celebrities out of lawyers.
After the movie about Watergate a generation of Americans wanted to be journalists. The present generation aspires to the bar.
Then came the siege of the armed Branch Davidians at Waco. Part of Texas became a war zone. News helicopters were banned and we were kept away by military vehicles blocking side roads.
Retribution came when extremists blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, two years later to the day. It was the worst act of terrorism on American soil.
Until then, we had not appreciated the threat from the fascist fringes of American society. The media suddenly discovered that militias were training in several states, feeding on a paranoia about gun control and a United Nations takeover. A heavily armed "colonel" of the Michigan militia, who believed Russian troops had infiltrated America, told me on his door step he was worried about his safety, as "there are a lot of crazy people out there.
These events coincided with a conservative wave rolling across the United States. People wanted to pay less taxes, in this, one of the most under taxed countries in the world. They wanted the government to pay off the national debt and cut entitlements.
Republicans took over Congress in the 1994 mid term elections. Newt Gingrich inherited the Speaker's chair of Tom Foley and came back to town like a president. Bill Clinton wondered aloud if he was relevant any more.
But the Republicans failed to reduce taxes, frightened people with their slash and burn attack on government agencies and entitlements, and shut Washington down in a failed attempt to force a harsh budget on President Clinton. Now Gingrich is deeply unpopular, the Republicans are in disarray, and Clinton has stolen the centre.
Clinton was the first post Cold War president. He rejected isolationism and grappled with an international peace maker role.
As a baby boomer he lacked a shared wartime experience with the British and the special relationship with Britain didn't mean buttons to him. At the same time he discovered his roots. He said: "I mean, I sort of - I look Irish. I am Irish."
He engaged Britain in a series of Irish visa wars. Britain had the American establishment on its side, the State Department, Justice, FBI, CIA. But Clinton listened to Ted Kennedy who listened to Albert Reynolds and John Hume and his sister Jean in the Dublin embassy. Policy on Northern Ireland was hijacked from the State Department with the first Gerry Adams visa and entrusted to Nancy Soderberg and Tony Lake in the west wing of the White House.
And the normal channels of diplomacy were hijacked by Niall O'Dowd in New York and Trina Vargo in Kennedy's office, who acted as a back channel linking the White House with Sinn Fein, as secretive and as effective as anything Kissinger ever set up with the Russians.
The special relationship fell apart over Ireland. "The worst crisis since Suez", the Daily Telegraph called it. At one point John Major refused to speak with Clinton for a week.
But the American involvement drew everyone in. Unionists who once shunned Washington became regular pilgrims to the White House. They made the rounds of the Irish Americans on the Hill. They were invited to Clinton's St Patrick's Day parties. This was truly revolutionary. It reached the point where David Trimble attended this year's St Patrick's Day party while Gerry Adams was left outside, because of the Canary Wharf bombing.
All this activity led to some interesting social events. Dinner parties where journalists mix with political figures are a way of life in Washington. When Gerry Adams came to town I put him at our dinner table between Mary McGrory, who wasn't impressed with him, and Nancy Soderberg, who was. The British were pressing Sinn Fein to say the ceasefire was permanent. Mary McGrory asked him why he wouldn't say "permanent". He replied "OK. Permanent, Permanent, Permanent."
The loyalist politician came by for a party, and brought some of the black humour of Belfast. One played The Fields of Athenry on my guitar and several Irish guests joined in. "I watched who was singing: now we know who the republicans are," he then announced gleefully.
Barriers were breaking down everywhere and the Americans played a big part. Clinton's investment conference in 1995 brought all the Irish parties - paramilitary, slightly constitutional and otherwise - from North and South, under one roof for the first time ever, anywhere. It was organised by Ron Brown and Chuck Meisner, both of whom died in a plane crash trying to do similar work in the Balkans.
At every White House party we all got to shake hands with the president. I kept turning up. The first time he gripped my arm like an old buddy. He knows me, I thought. Then I read (in the anonymously published book Primary Colours) that he does that to everybody. But it was quite an experience to be caught up in a story of such proportions and to get calls returned by the White House.
The highlight of five years in the United States? Seeing a sun dance performed by Lakota Sioux Indians in South Dakota, a rare privilege for a white man, especially considering that Irish born General Sheridan slaughtered their buffalo and their livelihood. "The only good Indian I ever saw was dead," he said. The Irish luncheon club in Washington called the "Sheridan Circle" should change its name.
Washington is a lovely city to live in. In Moscow we lived in a 7th story apartment in a concrete city square, and yearned for grass; here everyone has a lawn. In Moscow the shops were half empty; in Washington our local foodstore is appropriately called "Giant". In Moscow the streets had potholes; in Washington... well two out of three isn't bad.
There are lots of things I shall miss about living here: the azaleas, almond croissants in Montgomery Mall, hot coffee at the Seven-11, National Public Radio, Borders book store C-Span television, the Larry Sanders Show on HBO, the Weather Channel on Cable, people saying "Have a nice day" - and meaning it.
I shall not miss junk mail, Rush Limbaugh, big bums in shorts huge portions in restaurants, excessive political correctness and people saying "Have a nice day": and not meaning it.
There is a Chinese saying, "May you live in interesting times." It's actually a curse. I shall be writing from China in the near future. People say I am going at an interesting time.
Tell me about it.