Now that the party's over, a 295,000-dollar bill is coming due for US Defense Secretary William Cohen's Beverly Hills bash for Hollywood celebrities last week, the Pentagon said Thursday.
At a cost of 218 dollars a plate, Cohen wined and dined 350 people at the Beverly Hills Hilton on November 30 and put on a show that featured military entertainers who were flown in from around the country to perform for Hollywood's royalty.
Among the guests: director Steven Spielberg and actors Michael Douglas, Cuba Gooding, Piper Laurie, Elizabeth Shue and Janet Leigh.
Cohen also presented World War II veteran Jack Valenti, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America, with the newly created Citizen Patriot Award.
The cost of transportation, hotels and meals for the musicians, singers, honor guards and drill teams brought in for the night came to 165,000 dollars, and the dinner itself totaled 76,000 dollars, according to Defense Department spokesman Kenneth Bacon.
"You have to put it in context," he said when asked about the 295,000-dollar bill.
"It involves renting the place. It involves the food. It involves beverages. It involves decorations, etcetera," he said.
A dinner Cohen recently threw in Washington for the visiting Argentine defense minister cost 265 dollars a plate, Bacon said.
Two 30-second recruiting commercials cost about as much as the party did, and movies are a powerful medium to excite prospective recruits about the military, he said.
"We're trying to find ways that will catch people's attention, and Secretary Cohen has worked very hard on working with entertainment figures and sports figures to try to get them to understand the military and to portray it in the most positive way," he said.
"Obviously, we have no control over how Hollywood portrays the military, but to the extent they understand it, to the extent that they get to meet troops, to the extent they get to see how well the troops perform and do their job, I think it helps us," he said.
Bacon dismissed speculation that Cohen, who leaves office next month, was trying to raise his profile in Hollywood, calling it "simplistic and wrong." – Albawaba.com.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
