Edition: U.S. / Global


Published: January 23, 2001

Home Plate, Multiplied

Now, about the mystery of the plates used at the lunch for PRESIDENT BUSH in Statuary Hall in the Capitol on Saturday: Yesterday, a New York collector said that 12 of the plates were his, that they had been made for Thomas Jefferson's inauguration in 1801 and that he had bought them at a flea market in 1985.

But the collector, BARRY LANDAU, denied that he had refused to provide the plates unless he received a ticket to the lunch, as one of the caterers asserted over the weekend. He said he had been promised a ticket all along. ''Who holds plates hostage?'' he said. ''The caterer said that because until they got the plates the day before, they didn't know what plates they were using.''

So 12 plates were at the head table, he said yesterday.

He and everyone else at the lunch ate from plates copied from the Jefferson originals. Mr. Landau said he had ordered the copies at the request of the joint Congressional committee involved in planning the inaugural ceremony.

Mr. Landau, 52, said that the Bush inauguration was the 10th in which he has played a role, going back to Lyndon B. Johnson's in 1965, when he was a White House fellow and arranged for entertainers like HARRY BELAFONTE and TONY BENNETT to attend.

Before long he was buying inaugural memorabilia, he said -- he now has coat-check tickets from Ulysses S. Grant's inauguration, among other items -- and he said he paid about $70 for each of his 12 plates.

He said that he had offered to lend the Jefferson plates and 180 other plates from his collection, but that the joint committee needed 220 plates -- and matching plates.

''I said, 'I'll loan you the 12 for the head table and we'll make reproductions.' '' He said the approximately 400 copies had cost ''less than $50,000 but close,'' and that he was underwriting much of the cost.

He said he was nervous during the lunch. ''I kept thinking, 'They're going to wind up in the dishwasher,' and what can you say? 'Easy with that, Mrs. Armey?' 'Easy with that, Mrs. Lott? Don't cut too deep.' ''

Two Cardinals On a Single Path

Two of the three Americans who were named cardinals by Pope John Paul II on Sunday shared another milestone 44 years ago: When THE REV. AVERY DULLES celebrated his first Mass after being ordained, the altar server was THEODORE E. McCARRICK.

THE REV. JOSEPH A. O'HARE, the president of Fordham University, said yesterday that Archbishop McCarrick was a seminary student at the time. Father Dulles had been ordained by Cardinal Francis Spellman after working as a professor of philosophy at Fordham and studying at Woodstock College and the Gregorian University in Rome. As the server at that first Mass, Archbishop McCarrick took bread and wine to the altar and, before the consecration, washed Father Dulles's hands.

Father O'Hare said that they had met a year or two earlier, when Archbishop McCarrick was an undergraduate at Fordham who joined a campus devotional group that Father Dulles oversaw. ''When McCarrick entered the seminary, Mr. Dulles, because that's what he was called, saw even then that Ted McCarrick would be a bishop someday,'' Father O'Hare said.

Musical, Mutual Admiration Society

First WYCLEF JEAN played Carnegie Hall. Then he played waiter, grabbing a bottle of Champagne from the bar at the nightclub Lotus and threading his way through the crowd to serve STEVIE WONDER and the record-industry entrepreneur CLIVE DAVIS.

''Clive and Stevie are legends to me,'' said Mr. Jean after filling their glasses. ''I'll serve them Champagne anytime. Clive was like a father to me and Stevie influenced me with his music.''

Mr. Wonder said that he and Mr. Jean had agreed to perform on each other's next albums. ''I wanted to play on his, and he wanted to play on my mine,'' Mr. Wonder said, ''so we are going to do something together soon.'' JAMES BARRON