Gift from new president caps congressman's visit to Afghanistan
By Richard Powelson
Knoxville News Sentinel
January 8, 2005

The most valuable product often leaving Afghanistan is illegal raw opium, but an east Tennessee congressman managed to exit the country with a prize high in positive symbolism- its president's trademark hat.

President Hamid Karzai inaugurated only a month ago as his country's first president chosen by democratic election, often is photographed wearing his rectangular, gray animal-skin hat.

His first congressional visitors soon after his inauguration were U.S. Rep. Lincoln Davis, a Pall Mall Democrat, and three other House members. They said they went to congratulate Karzai, to praise his work to revive his war-torn country and keep it on a path of democracy, and talk about any needs.

Then Davis also complimented his hat.

He said that he and his wife,Lynda, liked the look of his hat and wondered where he bought it so Davis could get one. Oh, that model was not easy to find, Karzai said, and summoned his aides to get his two hats from a nearby drawer.

"He tried each one on my head," Davis recalled in an interview. One was newer, less worn that the other. "That's the best one," Karzai told him, "and that's the one you get to take. With my appreciation for the American people, here's my hat."

"I was shocked," Davis said. "I was wondering if I should take the hat. It is socially right, customwise? I thought he wouldn't have given me a hat if it wasn't. Here's the president of Afghanistan handing a country boy like me his hat. I said 'thank you, I'm happy, and when I get home and explain this to my wife, she will be happy.'"

He said he plans to keep it in a glass case in his Washington, D.C., office.

Ashraf Haidari, a spokesman for the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, said the people of his country are "hospitable, it's in their nature. People react positively when people compliment you on your clothes or cap. There is a chance they might give it to you."

Davis touted Karzai as a leader of the caliber of George Washington, the first U.S. president.

Over about a week, the congressional delegation attended meetings and took tours in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In many areas they rode in armored vehicles and wore bulletproof vests. But they encountered no violence.

What they did see was much poverty-dry, treeless areas, mud huts, open markets on the side of the road with hanging pieces of goat or beef for sale.

"I don't see how those people live over there," Davis said.

But aide from the United States is building roads and bridges to improve transportation and the economy, and U.S. troops are helping with security, he said. Japan and some European countries are financing construction of many schools, he said.

"Tell the American people," Karzai told the congressmen, "what you're doing is working in Afghanistan, so don't pull out. Stay until the job is done, and we will continue to work with you to be sure the job is done right."

To try to reciprocate for the gift of the hat, Davis is planning to clean his coonskin cap from 30 years ago wen he marched in a parade while president of the Tennessee Jaycees. He said he will send Karzai the cap and explain its general history from the days of Davy Crockett, born in Greene County and elected to Congress in 1827, to U.S. Sen. Estes Kefauver, D-Tenn., who wore such a cap on the Senate floor on his first day at work in 1949.