Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
mountaineer? To convince the reader of the authenticity of his memory, Herzog re-
produces a forty-seven-year-old dialogue verbatim, as though he had a tape recording
of it.
All the fetes and soirees that Herzog attended, in the wake of Annapurna, brought
him into contact with the famous and the great. They, in turn, were eager to learn
more about the ordeal of France's newest hero. The “tacitum and introverted” adoles-
cent that Herzog once thought himself had by now been well submerged in a charm-
ing, gregarious adult.
When I interviewed her in 1999, Françoise Rébuffat acerbically mimicked the public
performer that Herzog became: “He can cry whenever he wants. He puts on a trem-
bling voice. 'I have in my pocket a letter from a little boy in deepest France. No, I can't
show it to you. Yes, I shall. No. Yes.' Finally he reads it: ' “M. Herzog, you are the
greatest hero in the world.” ' ”
When Charles de Gaulle came into power in 1958, he appointed Herzog Minister
of Youth and Sport, a post he held for the next eight years. With that appointment,
he ended his work as a director of Kléber-Colombes. During the next decades, Herzog
would serve on advisory boards for all sorts of businesses, but he never again had
to hold down a true desk job in a company. From 1968 to 1977, he was mayor of
Chamonix; then, from 1981 to 1984, president of the company in charge of the Mont
Blanc tunnel.
Over the years, Herzog served as a consultant and representative to a number of
bodies, ranging from Olympic committees to parliamentary missions for nuclear af-
fairs. His résumé bristles with titular honors: President of Ofexport (an organization
exporting sports equipment), President of Triton France (an oil and gas consortium),
President of Forces Motrices de Chancy-Pougny (a Swiss dam project).
Some observers give Herzog high marks for his public career. Benoît Heimermann,
a writer for
L'Equipe
magazine, says, “In the 1960 Olympics, the French performed
awfully. De Gaulle said, 'We have to do something about this.' As Minister of Youth
and Sport, Herzog was responsible for opening lots of stadiums, swimming pools, and
so on. He did lots of good things.
“As an industrialist, Herzog was very influential. He was a good Minister of Youth
and Sport. But it's hard not to be disappointed in this guy. He built his whole life on
Annapurna. He did one thing, and after that he became a politician.”
Writing about that public career in
L'Autre Annapurna,
Herzog lapses into shame-
less name-dropping and ill-disguised pats on his own back. On meeting John F.
Kennedy, then the junior senator from Massachusetts, Herzog shares his idea of
creating an “army” of young people pledged to work in underdeveloped coun-
