By Benjamin Gleisser
By 1990, he was preparing documents for and helping to organize U.N. conferences around the world. In 1999, the U.N. named him director of its conference services division in Geneva, where he ran a 120-person staff. One of the most interesting dignitaries he met was Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who hosted several U.N. conferences and attended many others. Castro wore his trademark green fatigues and cap to every seminar, and he always had a cigar handy. “Castro was a very charming man who appreciated our work,” Bunch said. “He loved the spotlight and he loved to talk. He had an orator’s voice, which held your attention. Onstage, he was certainly an actor and, boy, did he know how to play the part. Conference speakers always had time limits, but Castro never thought time limits applied to him.” The 1994 conference on population and development in Cairo was his most challenging event. Rushing down a hall with arms filled with stacks of papers, he collided with an equally-in-a-hurry Al Gore. Papers went flying. “He’s a big, solid man and knocked me flat on my butt,” Bunch said with a smile. “He apologized profusely and helped me pick everything up.” Another knock came later when members of the Arabicspeaking delegation asked him to change the Arabic language version of a document on reproductive policy and women’s rights so it would read differently than the official version, already agreed upon by the conference attendees. Bunch explained that was not possible: documents had to have same wording in each of their six languages (English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic) to make them legal. With his partner, Gary B. Rodgers, at the Ta Promh temple in Angkor, Cambodia.
THE HANOVERIAN • SPRING 2014 | www.hanover.edu | 19