I was doing a last run through of certain items on the Internet before bed and I ran across an interesting piece from David Gergen, a political analyst who served in the Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton administrations. He had a blurb from his book “Eyewitness to Power, “that spoke to leadership style and it’s impact on Government and the country. His blurb has to do with the Whitewater investigation by the Washington Post and how Bill Clinton handled the affair and the role Hillary Clinton played. Read the blurb, but here are also some excerpts without comment.
Coming back late one afternoon to my office in December 1993, I was uneasy when I saw the incoming phone message: “Bob Kaiser: Important.” Why was the managing editor of the Washington Post calling? It was like hearing that your doctor had just phoned after reading your blood tests.
Even so, I hardly appreciated that having finally gained high ground through his legislative victories, Clinton was now heading toward a cliff.
Five minutes later, Kaiser and I were connected. “You know I don’t call you very often,” Bob said, “and when I do, I hope you’ll think it’s serious. But we feel we’re getting the runaround over there on Whitewater and I want you to know about it.” At issue, he explained, was a letter that a Post reporter had sent to Bruce Lindsay, one of President Clinton’s most trusted advisers and longtime friend from Arkansas. The letter contained questions relating to the finances of the Clintons in the years before they came to Washington. It had arrived two weeks earlier, and so far Lindsay hadn’t answered. The Post its nose already twitchy about the Clintons’ past, was growing impatient.
Later, Gergen writes:
The next day, I made the case for full disclosure to McLarty. After the Post had a chance to look over the documents and begin reporting from them, we should make them available to the entire White House press corps. Of course, as reporters pored over the files, a barrage of negative stories would probably hit us. But if Watergate had taught us anything, surely it was that a president must come clean up front and take his lumps then, rather than hiding the facts, letting them be dragged out piece by piece, and stimulating his opponents to initiate a criminal investigation. The first course could be rough, but the second could be ruinous. McLarty agreed. He promised to set up a meeting with President Clinton at which Gearan and I could present our case.
When Clinton was confronted with Gergen’s argument, the book reads:
“I agree with you,” the President said. “I think we should turn over all of the documents.”
But, he added, he didn’t feel he could make this decision alone because his wife had been a partner in the Whitewater land transactions. Looking to me, he said, “You’ll have to speak to Hillary and get her agreement. If she agrees, we’ll do it.” It wasn’t clear why he had left it up to me to make the argument to his wife. I promised to see her.
That Monday morning, I called Mrs. Clinton’s office and asked for an appointment. “We’ll get back to you,” they promised. Checking later that day, I was told that she would like to see me but her calendar was full in the next few days. “Call back.” There were times when one could wander into her second-floor office in the West Wing and see Mrs. Clinton rather quickly; she was usually responsive to staff. This time, it was different: over the next several days, I got shrugs and cold shoulders. The stall was on. I couldn’t get an audience.
The Clinton’s did not fully disclose. The result was Kenneth Starr:
Perhaps the appointment of an independent counsel was inevitable for the Clintons. I don’t think so. I believe that decision against disclosure was the decisive turning point. If they had turned over the Whitewater documents to the Washington Post in December 1993, their seven-year-old land deal would have soon disappeared as an issue and the history of the next seven years would have been entirely different. Yes, disclosure would have brought embarrassments. Among other items, Mrs. Clinton’s investment in commodity futures apparently would have come to light. But we know today that nothing in those documents constituted a case for criminal prosecution of either one of the Clintons in their Whitewater land dealings. There wasn’t anything truly serious there, and disclosure would have shown that.
More to the point, by disclosing the documents, we would have punctured the growing pressure for an independent counsel. Edward Fiske and Kenneth Starr would never have arrived on the scene, we might never have heard of Monica Lewinsky (who had nothing to do with the original Whitewater matter), and there would have been no impeachment. The country would have been spared that travail, and the President himself could have had a highly productive second term.
So much can turn on a single decision in the White House.
He concludes:
It is tempting to blame Mrs. Clinton for the refusal to disclose. She should have said yes from the beginning, accepting short-term embarrassment in exchange for long-term protection of both herself and her husband. She listened too easily to the lawyers and to her own instincts as a litigator, instincts that told her never to give an inch to the other side. Whitewater was always more a political than a legal problem.
But to blame Mrs. Clinton is to accept the false premise that she was supposed to be in charge. She was not. Voters elected her husband to run the government, and he is the one who bears responsibility here. Decisions made within a White House about what to release or withhold from the press belong in the end to him. Should he not have listened to his own inner voice? Why didn’t he go to his wife and persuade her that it was in their mutual best interest to take a different path? Why didn’t he take charge?
Those questions ran headlong into something fundamental about Clinton and about the style of leadership he brought to Washington.
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