Living History (54 page)

This interview had been scheduled for January 9, 1996, long in advance, to promote It Takes a Village on the eve of its publication. Now I expected Barbara, whom I admired and liked, had other topics on her mind. It was not the best way to kick off an eleven-city book tour, but I welcomed the chance to respond to the latest volley of allegations. When the cameras began to roll, she got straight to the point.

“Mrs. Clinton, instead of your new book being the issue, you have become the issue.

How did you get into this mess, where your whole credibility is being questioned?”

“Oh, I ask myself that every day, Barbara,” I said, “because it’s very surprising and confusing to me. But we’ve had questions raised for the last four years, and eventually they’re answered and they go away and more questions come up and we’ll just keep doing our best to answer them.”

“Are you distressed?”

“Occasionally I get a little distressed, a little sad, a little angry, irritated. I think that’s only natural. But I know that that’s part of the territory and we’ll just keep plowing through and trying to get to the end of this.”

When Barbara Walters asked me about the missing records, I said: “You know, a month ago, people were jumping up and down because the billing records were lost and they thought somebody might have destroyed them. Now the records are found and they’re jumping up and down. But I’m glad the records were found. I wish they had been found a year or two ago, because they verify what I’ve been saying from the very beginning.

I worked about an hour a week for fifteen months. That was not a lot of work for me, certainly.”

Barbara had trouble visualizing why the documents were so hard to find.

“What does it look like up there with your records?”

“It’s a mess… .”

“That’s hard to understand.”

“But I think people do need to understand that there are millions of pieces of paper in the White House, and for more than two years now, people have been diligently searching.”

It was difficult to convey the disarray we had lived with ever since moving into the White House. We had arrived in 1993 with all of our worldly possessions haphazardly packed in boxes, largely because we didn’t own a home where we could store things.

Shortly after we moved into the residence, we found ourselves in the midst of a major renovation of the heating and airconditioning systems to bring the White House up to environmental energy standards. We had to stuff boxes into closets and spare rooms while workers put new ducts into the ceilings and walls. It seemed that each week we had to move around boxes again, just to stay one step ahead of the construction.

During the summer of 1995, duct work was being done on the roof and on the third floor, an informal area with extra guest rooms, the Solarium, an office, an exercise room, a laundry room and several storage areas. One of these, which we called the “book room,”

was a storage area where we had built shelves to handle our overflow of books. With several doors leading from it to the laundry room, exercise room and a small hallway used by the residence staff, it was one of the busiest spots in the residence, with people marching through at all hours of the day and night. We had set up tables in the book room for the boxes of papers and personal effects that were regularly shuttled from an off-site warehouse to the White House and back again so that they could be examined and cataloged.

Carolyn Huber also had several file cabinets in the room for papers she was organizing.

And complicating matters, the tables were often covered with drop-cloths to protect them from plaster and dust raining down from the ceiling during construction work.

The ongoing search for documents in response to subpoenas added to the mess. David Kendall asked us to set up a copying machine in the book room so that he and his assistants could copy documents before turning them over to the Office of the Independent Counsel. And that was where, in the summer of 1995, Carolyn later testified that she found a sheaf of folded papers on one of the tables. Carolyn thought they were old records that had been left for her to file. Unaware of their significance, she tossed them into a box of other records that was taken to her office, already jammed with boxes she planned to sort through when she had more time. Months later, when she started sifting through all of these items, she unfolded the papers and recognized them as the long-lost billing records.

Carolyn did the honorable thing by calling David immediately to tell him about her discovery. She had been doing her best to stay ahead of an avalanche of paperwork and subpoena requests, and by her own admission, it sometimes took her a while to get through it all. I have not talked to Carolyn about the billing records or the investigation because I never wanted to be accused of influencing her testimony. But I trust her completely and know that her oversight was an innocent and understandable mistake.

Senator D’Amato’s committee immediately proceeded to look for evidence-never found-of obstruction and perjury in the discovery of the billing records. The committee immediately requested additional funding for a two-or three-month extension to complete its hearings, which had already cost taxpayers nearly $900,000. A few months later, the RTC filed a supplemental report confirming that the billing records supported my account of my legal activities. I certainly had no reason to conceal them and regretted that they had not been found earlier.

And so it went. The hearings and the media coverage continued, and every time I sat down for an interview with another radio host or morning talk show personality to discuss It Takes a Village, I was asked about the billing records. The only bright moments that month were my appearances in bookstores, schools, children’s hospitals and other programs supporting children and families around the country. The crowds were huge and the audiences warm and supportive, further evidence of the disconnect between Washington and the rest of the nation.

This disconnect is one of the reasons I wanted to write It Takes a Village. When I thought about the growing pressures on children in America, it struck me how ineffectual the increasingly partisan rhetoric in Washington was in solving the problems that these children face.

Many of my beliefs about what is best for children and families don’t fall easily into any category of politics or ideology, and a lot of the people I met on my book tour said that they felt the same way. The people who stood in line for hours didn’t want to talk about the most recent episode of mudslinging in the nation’s capital. They wanted to talk about how hard it is to find quality, affordable child care; the challenges of raising children without the support of extended families; the pressures of raising children in a mass culture that too often celebrates risky behaviors and distorts values; the importance of good schools and affordable college tuitions; and a range of issues weighing on the minds of parents and other adults in today’s fast-changing world. I was heartened by these conversations, and hoped that my book would help promote a national conversation about what is best for America’s children.

It Takes a Village offered information about ideas and programs developed at the community level that were making a difference in the lives of children and families. Often, a model program in one community isn’t replicated elsewhere because there are few channels for communication. A concerned group of parents in Atlanta, for example, might benefit from learning about an innovative afterschool program for at-risk teens in Los Angeles. I wanted to give visibility to successful grassroots efforts that would resonate in communities around the country. I also hoped I could generate royalties for children’s charities since I was giving all the author’s proceeds away. In the end, I was able to contribute nearly one million dollars.

My book tour also offered moments that were personally comforting. In Ann Arbor, Michigan, on January 17, dozens of people showed up at the bookstore wearing “Hillary Fan Club” T-shirts. Ruth and Gene Love, a retired couple from Silver Spring, Maryland, had started the club in their kitchen in 1992. There were hundreds of members around the country and a few international chapters. The Loves, aptly named, became wonderful friends who invariably seemed to know when I needed a boost. They would send out their “fans” to greet me with smiles, T-shirts and homemade signs when I traveled.

In San Francisco, James Carville hosted a dinner for me at a restaurant he had just bought and invited some of my closest friends to come, mostly to cheer me up. My freespirited friend Susie Buell said she didn’t follow all of the dramas going on back in Washington, but she did have something to say to me: “Bless your heart.” That was all I needed to hear.

During my book tour, I spoke at my alma mater, Wellesley College, on January 19, 1996, and spent the night at the gracious home of its superb President, Diana Chapman Walsh. The President’s house sits on the shores of Lake Waban, and I got up early and went for a long walk along the trail that encircles the lake. I had just returned when David phoned to tell me that Kenneth Starr had issued a subpoena to call me before the grand jury to testify about the missing billing records. This time there would be no quiet deposition in the White House. I would have to testify before the full grand jury the following week. I was upset, yet I knew I couldn’t express my feelings to anyone other than Bill or my lawyers.

Melanne had insisted on traveling with me because she knew how difficult the book tour would be with the daily pressure of press questioning. This act of personal friendship cost her emotionally and financially, since she had to ride out the tough times with me and pay her own way, too. That day at Wellesley was especially hard because I could not tell Melanne what was happening. Ever acute, she picked up on my agitation and ran interference for me. I will never forget her kindness and loyalty.

I returned to the White House discouraged and embarrassed, worried that this latest turn of events might destroy whatever credibility I retained, and I worried about what it would mean for Bill’s Presidency. Bill was upset and concerned for me. He kept telling me how sorry he was that he couldn’t protect me from all this.

Chelsea was worried for me, too. She followed closely the developments in the investigation, more so than I sometimes wished. Just as I wanted to shield her, she wanted to protect and comfort me. At first I tried to avoid burdening her with what I was experiencing, but eventually I realized that, as she grew older, she felt better when she knew what I was feeling.

Bill had outmaneuvered the Republicans over the government shutdowns, but his political success could not protect either of us from the misuse of the criminal process. He felt powerless in the face of Starr and his allies. Anger is not the best state of mind in which to prepare for a grand jury appearance. Being a lawyer helped me somewhat because I understood the process. But I couldn’t eat or sleep for a week before my appearance, and I lost ten pounds―not a diet I would recommend. Although I worked on my testimony, which was simple and straightforward, I was more focused on how to control my anger at the whole process. The grand jurors were performing their duty as citizens.

They deserved my respect, even if the lawyers working for Starr did not.

David argued strongly to the Starr prosecutors that calling me before the grand jury was unjustified and a misuse of the process. I could be questioned privately under oath as I had been before, even on video tape. But Starr insisted on summoning me to the courthouse.

One of his goals may have been to humiliate me publicly, but I was determined not to let him break my spirit. I might be the first wife of a President to testify before a grand jury, but I’d do it on my own terms. David told me we could avoid the photographers and TV crews outside the courthouse by driving the Secret Service limousine into the basement parking lot and taking an elevator to the third floor. I rejected the suggestion.

Sneaking into the building would make me look as though I had something to hide.

When my car pulled up in front of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia at 1:45 on that brisk afternoon, January 26, 1996, I got out, smiled and waved at the crowd, and walked into the federal courthouse. I knew I had to conceal my true feelings about Starr and his absurd proceeding. All week I had prepared myself mentally and spiritually for this moment. Breathe deeply, I kept telling myself, and pray for God’s help.

As I prepared to enter the grand jury room, I waved at my hardworking lawyers and said, “Cheerio! Off to the firing squad!”

The grand jury met in the large courtroom on the third floor. Under the federal procedures governing grand juries, witnesses cannot take a lawyer into the grand jury room. I was on my own. All but two of the twenty-three grand jurors were in attendance―ten were women, and most were African American. They seemed entirely representative of the district where they served. Each of Ken Starr’s eight male deputies looked just like him.

Starr left the questions to one of his deputies while he sat at the prosecutor’s table and stared at me. I answered all of the questions, many of them over and over again. I was out in the hallway during one of three breaks when a juror walked over and asked if I would sign his copy of It Takes a Village. I looked at David, who was grinning, and then I signed the book. I later learned that after an investigation into this “incident,” the juror was dismissed from the panel.

After four hours, it was over. In a side room, I quickly debriefed my lawyers, David and Nicole Seligman and Jack Quinn, the new White House counsel, and Jane Sherburne.

We talked about what I would tell the reporters who were anxiously awaiting me. As I walked to the exit, I passed by offices and noticed that no one seemed to have gone home. Many people were hanging around so they could wave to me or say something supportive.

It was already dark when I stepped outside and agreed to take a few brief questions from the media. They wanted to know how I was feeling.

“It’s been a long day,” I said.