Day 82- 24/07/2007 Tuesday

Day 82- 24/07/2007 Tuesday

 

 

Another busy day in Washington. Started early on at NCMEC with interviews from 6.15am for the five major US TV networks morning news shows. A very serious issues programme 20-20 was also recording our visit to the America, as they will also be producing a piece on the search to find Madeleine.

 

Late morning we had a visit to the White House to meet with the First Lady's deputy chief of staff Sarah Armstrong. This visit was facilitated by Lady Catherine Meyer, founder of the British charity PACT, which is an affiliate of ICMEC and has done so much to raise awareness of missing children in the UK. Mrs Bush is a strong supporter of child welfare issues and is in fact an Honorary Board member of ICMEC. They were already aware of Madeleines disappearance and I took the opportunity to fill them in on my visit to Washington, particularly the work we are doing with ICMEC and the meeting we had with the attorney general. We finished with a very quick tour of the public areas in the White House which is a very impressive building and we also met one of the Presidents Scottish terriers! Immediately following the visit I did a few interviews for the British Media in front of the White House.

 

After a very brief lunch it was on to Capitol Hill for meetings with politicians who have been instrumental in getting the Adam Walsh BIll and others passed. We met with Democrat congressman Nick Lampson and Republican Senator Robert Shelby who both know the board members of NCMEC very well. They were both very keen to do what they could to help find Madeleine and the support during the visit we have received has been tremendous.

 

I spoke to Kate and the kids, whose telephone skills are developing very quickly which is nice for me when I am away like this. Kate has stayed on in Portugal and has been keeping in touch with the police but there are no major developments to report. In the evening I managed to meet up with a friend from Glasgow who is also a cardiologist and working in the Washington area. We went for a bite to eat and it was good to sit down quietly with a familiar face for an hour or two.