Shultz, a retired diplomat, virtually adopted Holmes and defended her against his own grandson.
In 1997, he moved to Phoenix to live with Bibby's mother, Virginia, who virtually adopted him.
Ono has virtually adopted Peaches, the Canadian singer infamous for her gynaecologically forthright songs and outrageous stage-wear.
Now, according to several people present, his Vice President, Mr. Habibie, whom he had virtually adopted at the age of 13, said he had had enough.
Their relationship goes back 48 years, to the time when Mr. Suharto was a military commander and virtually adopted the 13-year-old boy when his father died.
After the war, during which her only surviving son died, Martha virtually adopted two of her grandchildren, and they substituted in many ways for the children she and George never had.
At Oxford he had met the Sitwell brothers, Osbert and Sacheverell, by whom he was virtually adopted, and he spent most of the next decade traveling with them or living with them at Chelsea.
This brought him to the attention of the leading West End producer Binkie Beaumont and his partner, John Perry, who virtually adopted him, becoming, Bedford said, "the parents I always wanted".
He has never built a strong political base, secure in the patronage of the one man who counted, Mr. Suharto, who virtually adopted him as a boy of 13 and has enjoyed his company ever since.
Movingly, for a man who lost his own much-loved son to an inexplicable heart attack at a young age, he tells how he was virtually adopted by some very distinguished climbers, whose other identities as military leaders, university professors or city mayors were concealed in the democracy of corduroy trousers, tattered jackets and tenpenny plims.
