Diary Prequel Package — page 151

George Stephanopoulos was MC and I spent time catching up with him (knew him from Clinton White House days). Was a coldish night outside. Chris and Meg and Ali went off to California (Big Sur/Monterey) for Spring break. Wish I could have gone, but POTUS briefing tomorrow. March 21, 2007 - Briefing of POTUS today at 2:30 - 3:30 PM in Roosevelt Room on Pandemic Flu preparedness. Secretary Leavitt, Bill Raub and I briefed him. I did most of the formal briefing on state of the threat, vaccines, antivirals and diagnostics. Bill spoke on community mitigation strategy and the stockpile. MOL spoke on overall responsibility of the USG versus states. Present were the POTUS, VP, Karl Rove, Josh Bolten, Joel Kaplan, Dan Bartlett, Fran Townsend, Candi Wolff, Mike Chertoff, Paula Dobriansky (Undersecretary of State), several people from Joint Chiefs of Staff, Rajeev Venkayya, Joel Bagnell. Briefing went very well. POTUS was as usual very friendly and deferential to me. Was at times serious and at times jocular with his characteristic joking around. When he came into the room, he looked at me and said "Fauci, glad to see you Tony. I see we have the first team here today". It was the first day of Spring and it was unseasonably cold out and cloudy. March 29, 2007 - Very interesting day. First, Megan received notification that she is accepted at Columbia, Barnard, and Yale with waiting list at Harvard and Dartmouth. Her top choices are Columbia and Dartmouth and so she will wait to hear more from Dartmouth before making choice. Went to a reception given by National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) given at a private home in Georgetown (3032 - N Street, N.W.) in honor of Mayor Adrian Fenty. Got to meet him again and chat. Did not previously know this, but his mother is an Italian American. Ran into my old idol from Brooklyn - Ken Aspromonte (brother of Bobby Aspromonte also my idol from the old days), baseball great from Lafayette High School and Brooklyn sandlot baseball who then played in Major Leagues. He was born and raised in Bensonhurst like me and we shared some warm discussions. Beautiful Spring evening. After the reception went to Café Milano and had dinner with the NIAF Board of Trustees. Towards the end of the dinner, got up to go to men's room and ran into Franco Nuschese, owner of Café Milano (who has always been very warm towards me). He insisted on taking me into a private party in the restaurant that he was throwing for prominent blacks in DC and the nation. I immediately ran into Secretary of State Condi Rice and Colin Powell who were very warm and engaging with me. This was particularly true of Colin Powell who threw his arms around me and gave me a bear hug with a kiss on the cheek. Over the past couple of years, I have gotten to be friendlier and friendlier with Colin, having seen him at various functions such as Sam Donaldson's Christmas Party, etc. All in all, a good evening. April 17, 2007 - Scooter Libby contacted me and asked that I write a letter to Judge Reggie Walton via Scooter's lawyer William Jeffress to serve as a character reference for Scooter. Scooter has been found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson CIA leak (see above). He is appealing the