Mark Friedman had just arrived at his Swampscott office in November 1997 when he was told he had a "really weird" phone call. It was someone from the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem calling to say they had a dignitary staying there who had a problem and wanted to see a chiropractor.

Friedman drove to the hotel, was led to an elevator by Secret Service agents and up to the room of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan. She had a migraine headache and was scheduled to speak that night at Salem State College.

"I expected this woman to come out with flowing garb and, to my surprise, she came out looking like a typical Western woman," he said. "She had her hair down and was strikingly pretty."

Memories of Bhutto came flooding back to Friedman yesterday after he heard she had been assassinated in Pakistan. Her death, it turns out, resonated not only across the globe, but here on the North Shore.

"I first heard this morning, I think around 6:30," said David Williams of Salem, an international pollster and public opinion research specialist who met with Bhutto twice last year to discuss her return to Pakistan after years of exile.

"It was hard to really process the enormity of it," said Williams, who was in Pakistan last week preparing for next month's parliamentary elections. "She was a terribly brilliant woman. She was committed to bringing democracy back and strengthening democracy in Pakistan."

Williams last saw Bhutto in September, when he visited her in Dubai to present the results of a political survey on conditions in Pakistan. During a four-hour meeting at her residence, they discussed a broad spectrum of topics over lunch. She mentioned everyday matters, such as the fact the salad contained vegetables from her backyard. And she talked openly about the dangers she faced returning to Pakistan.

"She knew she was in personal danger because she was a very galvanizing figure," Williams said. "... She had a lot of enemies coming from a lot of directions."

'Very dangerous position'

Not everyone in Pakistan admired Bhutto, as Ipswich Rotarian Rachel Williams discovered while visiting the country on humanitarian missions following the devastating 2005 earthquake. She returned from her most recent trip last Friday.

"It's bad when anybody dies, but she was in a very dangerous position," Williams said. "(Pakistani President Pervez) Musharraf could be dropped at any minute."

Williams said Pakistanis are "very puzzled" by the perception of Bhutto in America.

"She was a very corrupt feudal landlord," Rachel Williams said. "She led the country to ruin. Bhutto isn't the shining light of democracy."

Bhutto, a two-term prime minister, was charged with corruption while in office.

Congressman John Tierney had a lengthy phone conversation with Bhutto prior to his fact-finding trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan last April. She told the Democrat from Salem of her desire to return to Pakistan and hoped that the United States would support the democratic impulse of the Pakistani people and not put all "its eggs in one basket," referring to Musharraf.

"It's definitely a blow to Pakistan, and it's not helpful to our situation," Tierney said.

Free and fair elections would legitimize the country's next leader in the eyes of the Pakistani people and give that leader the backing and authority needed to crack down on extremist forces in the country, he said.

"Democracy is more than one person," Tierney said, "but (Bhutto) was an influential and important player in the effort in Pakistan to get to a democracy.

"We knew there was danger involved," Tierney said, "but we were hoping that the government could provide adequate security and that we could get through the elections."

Welcomed in Salem

When Bhutto spoke at Salem State College in 1997, she was escorted around the city by Richard Bane, the former trustees chairman.

"She was extremely gracious and incredible well-received by the audience," he said. "She loved the Boston area, and our audience loved her."

Bhutto spoke to a crowd of 1,600 at the O'Keefe Sports Complex even though it was obvious, at least to college officials, that she was ill.

"She apparently was prone to migraine headaches and developed one as she was arriving at the Hawthorne," said Karen Cady, a college spokeswoman. "I remember she got down to the cocktail reception kind of late, and you could tell she was not feeling well."

Friedman, the chiropractor, said he is grateful he was able to relieve enough pain for her to speak that night. He spent more than an hour working on her in a room at the hotel.

"By the time I finished, she was very happy and she asked me if she could pay me. I said I really wished that she wouldn't."

Bhutto went to another room and returned with a metal frame engraved with her autograph, which she presented as a gift.

All of those thoughts came rushing back to Friedman yesterday when he heard the terrible news. He felt shock and had a sick feeling in his stomach.

"I had my hands on her neck," he said, "and she was shot in the neck."

Staff writers Steve Landwehr and Matthew K. Roy contributed to this report.