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Posted on 11/30/2001 6:19:24 AM PST by Nora

Bush's close shave with a scissors-wielding Afghan

Fortunately Zahira Zahir is one of Mr Bush's most ardent admirers. She also happens to be his hairdresser.

Since September 11, she has lost two dozen regulars because of her nationality. "It's hurtful," she said yesterday. "Some of them I considered my friends."

But Mr Bush has remained loyal. "He's been very kind, generous and gracious and was shocked when I told him I had lost some clients," she said in her Watergate Hotel salon overlooking the Potomac River.

Mrs Zahir, who has groomed three presidents, numerous prominent Republicans and Baroness Margaret Thatcher, seldom gives interviews but made an exception because she wants "the world to know this president isn't fighting a war against the Afghan people because otherwise I would be the first one to be fired."

The 56-year-old cuts Mr Bush's hair in a small salon in the family quarters. The two of them are alone.

She does not volunteer her views. "It's the only peaceful half-hour the poor guy has," she said. "Basically he just closes his eyes."

The President does sometimes ask her opinion, she admits, and as the daughter of a former Afghan prime minister she does have strong ideas.

She supports his conduct of the war "100 per cent because what's been going on in Afghanistan is unacceptable to any Afghan and any human being."

She believes that Afghanistan's exiled King Mohammed Zahir Shah, who attended her wedding, should be reinstated because "he's the only one who can reunite the country".

She charges $30 for their haircut the advice comes fre.

Mrs Zahir is the embodiment of the American Dream.

She came to the US in 1975 when her former husband was appointed Afghanistan's deputy ambassador to the UN. In 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, making it too dangerous for her to return. She found herself in New York with an unemployed husband and three young children, and began cutting hair to make ends meet.

In 1985 she moved to Washington and found a job with the late Milton Pitts, President Ronald Reagan's barber.

She would accompany Mr Pitts to the White House to give Mr Reagan a manicure while her boss cut his hair, but one day Mr Pitts fell ill and the Gipper asked her to stand in.

"I was nervous as hell because Nancy always checked his hair," she recalled.Before she knew it, Mrs Zahir had become the Republican party's designated hairdresser. Her customers included George Schultz, Casper Weinberger, James Baker and the elder George Bush who kept her on when he became president and became a close friend.

She calls him "41" because he was the 41st president. He and Barbara Bush invited her to last year's Republican convention in Philadelphia as their guest. She cut their hair before their son's inauguration in January.

Through Mr Reagan she also became Lady Thatcher's hairdresser when she visited Washington. However, former president Bill Clinton did not use her, preferring to pay $200 for the services of Christophe of Beverly Hills.

Nor does she have many other Democrats on her list.

That may be because her initial contact was a Republican, but also because Democrats have different demands.

Republicans like short back and sides. "They want very conservative haircuts," she says. "Democrats have longer hair ... and don't pay as much attention to their grooming."

( The Times, London)
Martin Fletcher in Washington

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