| By Fuat Kircaali |
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| October 20, 2008 10:00 PM EDT |
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SYS-CON Media headquarters is located at the two story marble building where President Richard Nixon maintained his offices between November 1988 and April 1994, at the time of his death. He spent a good portion of every day in this building, deep in his writings. He was visited here by a parade of national and international figures, including President Ronald Reagan. A plaque was erected in the lobby of the building by Mario Paul Perillo of Perillo Tours (you may remember the late Mr. Perillo's "Mr. Italy" TV commercials from the 1980s) in recognition of the important work the President did for peace and freedom throughout the world during those years.
President Ronald Reagan visits President Richard Nixon on May 12, 1992 in his office, in this building
This Independence Day week I was traveling through Europe, where I attended a speech by Thomas M. DeFrank on board "Crystal Serenity" in Venice, Italy. Actually he had two talks on two separate days; in his first talk he went over his new book: "Write It When I'm Gone - Remarkable Off-the-Record Conversations with Gerald R. Ford" which I read. We learn from the book that Ford knew Nixon was on his way out from his Presidency and he would be the next President long before it became apparent. In 1974 DeFrank, then a young correspondent for Newsweek, was interviewing Ford when the Vice President blurted this out to him, came around his desk, grabbed DeFrank's tie, told him he could not leave the room until he promised not to publish it until Ford died.
Tom DeFrank with Fuat Kircaali, author of this blog, on July 4, 2008,
in Venice, Italy
Also in the book, DeFrank writes about Ford's opinion of Bill Clinton's addiction to women. Ford says about Clinton: "He's sick - he's got an addiction. He needs treatment. He's sick. You know there is treatment for this kind of addiction. A lot of men have gone through the treatment with a lot of success. But he won't do it, because he is in denial."
DeFrank saved his thoughts on the upcoming election for a separate speech which he gave the next day. "If Obama wins, he will win by a landslide margin. If McCain wins, it will be a very small margin," thinks DeFrank.
I ran into Tom in the elevator later in the week, where his son Andrew took our picture above.
As a registered republican who participated in Bush / Cheney fund raisers including President's Dinner, I will be voting for Senator Obama in the upcoming elections, in Boca Raton, Florida, where I live.
Fuat Kircaali is the founder and CEO of SYS-CON Media. Kircaali came to the United States from Zurich University, Switzerland, in 1984, while studying for his PhD, to design computer systems for SH-2G submarine hunter helicopters for the U.S. Navy.
He later worked at IBM's IS&CG Headquarters as a market research analyst under Mike Armstrong's leadership, an IBM executive who later ran IBM Europe and AT&T; and Fuat was the Director of Information Systems for UWCC, reporting to CEO Steven Silk, one of the top marketing geniuses in the country.
Kircaali founded SYS-CON Media in 1994, a privately held company with sales exceeding $100 million. SYS-CON Media was listed twice by Inc 500 and Deloitte and Touche as one of the fastest-growing companies in North America. Kircaali launched Ulitzer, Inc. new media company in mid 2009.
He completed Bogazici University Business Administration program in 1982 with a Bachelor's Degree. He was one of 50 students accepted to the program out of over 1 million high school graduates.
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