My Life

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am particularly indebted to the many people without whom this book could not have been written. Justin Cooper gave up more than two years of his young life to work with me every day and, on many occasions in the last six months, all night. He organized and retrieved mountains of materials, did further research, corrected many errors, and typed the manuscript over and over from my illegible scrawling in more than twenty large notebooks. Many of the sections were rewritten a half dozen times or more. He never lost his patience, his energy never flagged, and by the time we got to the last lap, he sometimes seemed to know me and what I wanted to say better than I did. Though he is not responsible for its errors, this book is a testament to his gifts and efforts.

Before we began to work together, I was told that my editor, Robert Gottlieb, was the best there was at his craft. He turned out to be that and more. I only wish I’d met him thirty years earlier. Bob taught me about magic moments and hard cuts. Without his judgment and feel, this book might have been twice as long and half as good. He read my story as a person who was interested in but not obsessed with politics. He kept pulling me back to the human side of my life. And he convinced me to take out countless names of people who helped me along the way, because the general reader couldn’t keep up with them all. If you’re one of them, I hope you’ll forgive him, and me.

A book this long and full requires a mammoth amount of fact checking. This lion’s share of work was done by Meg Thompson, a brilliant young woman who carefully waded through the minutiae of my life for a year or so; then for the last few months she was assisted by Caitlin Klevorick and other young volunteers. They now have many examples of the fact that my memory is far from perfect. If any factual errors remain, it is not for lack of effort to correct them on their part. I can’t thank the people at Knopf enough, beginning with Sonny Mehta, the president and editor-inchief. He believed in the project from the beginning and did his part to keep it going, including giving me an amazed look wherever and whenever I ran in to him over the last two years; a look that said something like, “Are you really going to finish on time?”, and “Why are you here instead of at home writing?” Sonny’s look always had the desired effect.

I also owe thanks to the many people at Knopf who helped. I am grateful that the editorial/production team at Knopf is as obsessed with accuracy and detail as I am (even with a book on a slightly accelerated pace as mine was) and especially appreciate the tireless efforts and meticulous work of managing editor Katherine Hourigan; noble director of manufacturing Andy Hughes; indefatigable production editor Maria Massey; copy chief Lydia Buechler, copy editor Charlotte Gross, and proofreaders Steve Messina, Jenna Dolan, Ellen Feldman, Rita Madrigal, and Liz Polizzi; design director Peter Andersen; jacket art director Carol Carson; the ever-helpful Diana Tejerina and Eric Bliss; and Lee Pentea.

In addition, I want to thank the many other people at Knopf who have helped me: Tony Chirico, for his valued guidance; Jim Johnston, Justine LeCates, and Anne Diaz; Carol Janeway and Suzanne Smith; Jon Fine; and the promotion/marketing talents of Pat Johnson, Paul Bogaards, Nina Bourne, Nicholas Latimer, Joy Dallanegra-Sanger, Amanda Kauff, Anne-Lise Spitzer, and Sarah Robinson. And thanks to the staff at North Market Street Graphics, Coral Graphics, and R. R. Donnelley & Sons. Robert Barnett, a fine lawyer and longtime friend, negotiated the contract with Knopf; he and his partner Michael O’Connor worked throughout the project as foreign publishers joined in. I am very grateful to them. I appreciate the careful technical and legal review that David Kendall and Beth Nolan gave the manuscript.

When I was in the White House, beginning in late 1993, I met with my old friend Taylor Branch about once a month to do an oral history. Those contemporaneous conversations helped in recalling particular moments of the presidency. After I left the White House, Ted Widmer, a fine historian who worked in the White House as a speechwriter, did an oral history of my life before the presidency that helped me bring back and organize old memories. Janis Kearney, the White House diarist, left me with voluminous notes that enabled me to reconstruct day-to-day events.

The photographs were selected with the help of Vincent Virga, who found many that captured special moments discussed in the book, and Carolyn Huber, who was with our family throughout our years in the Governor’s Mansion and the White House. While I was President, Carolyn also organized all my private papers and letters from the time I was a little boy to 1974, an arduous task without which much of the first part of the book could not have been written.

I am deeply indebted to those who read all or part of the book and made helpful suggestions for additions, subtractions, reorganization, context, and interpretation, including Hillary, Chelsea, Dorothy Rodham, Doug Band, Sandy Berger, Tommy Caplan, Mary DeRosa, Nancy Hernreich, Dick Holbrooke, David Kendall, Jim Kennedy, Ian Klauss, Bruce Lindsey, Ira Magaziner, Cheryl Mills, Beth Nolan, John Podesta, Bruce Reed, Steve Ricchetti, Bob Rubin, Ruby Shamir, Brooke Shearer, Gene Sperling, Strobe Talbott, Mark Weiner, Maggie Williams, and my friends Brian and Myra Greenspun, who were with me when the first page was written.

Many of my friends and colleagues took time to do impromptu oral histories with me including Huma Abedin, Madeleine Albright, Dave Barram, Woody Bassett, Paul Begala, Paul Berry, Jim Blair, Sidney Blumenthal, Erskine Bowles, Ron Burkle, Tom Campbell, James Carville, Roger Clinton, Patty Criner, Denise Dangremond, Lynda Dixon, Rahm Emanuel, Al From, Mark Gearen, Ann Henry, Denise Hyland, Harold Ickes, Roger Johnson, Vernon Jordan, Mickey Kantor, Dick Kelley, Tony Lake, David Leopoulos, Capricia Marshall, Mack McLarty, Rudy Moore, Bob Nash, Kevin O’Keefe, Leon Panetta, Betsey Reader, Dick Riley, Bobby Roberts, Hugh Rodham, Tony Rodham, Dennis Ross, Martha Saxton, Eli Segal, Terry Schumaker, Marsha Scott, Michael Sheehan, Nancy Soderberg, Doug Sosnik, Rodney Slater, Craig Smith, Gayle Smith, Steve Smith, Carolyn Staley, Stephanie Street, Larry Summers, Martha Whetstone, Delta Willis, Carol Willis, and several of my readers. I’m sure there are others I’ve forgotten; if so, I’m sorry and I appreciate their help as well.

My research was also helped greatly by many books written by members of the administration and others, and of course by the memoirs of Hillary and my mother.

David Alsobrook and the staff of the Clinton Presidential Materials Project were patient and persistent in recovering materials. I want to thank them all: Deborah Bush, Susan Collins, Gary Foulk, John Keller, Jimmie Purvis, Emily Robison, Rob Seibert, Dana Simmons, Richard Stalcup, Rhonda Wilson. And Arkansas historian David Ware. The archivists and historians at Georgetown and Oxford were also helpful.

While I was absorbed in writing for much of the last two and a half years, especially the last six months, the work of my foundation continued as we built the library and pursued our missions: fighting AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean and providing low cost drugs and testing around the world; increasing economic opportunity in poor communities in the United States, India, and Africa; promoting education and citizen service among young people at home and abroad; and advocating religious, racial, and ethnic reconciliation across the world. I want to thank those whose donations have made possible my foundation work, and the construction of the Presidential Library and the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas. I am deeply indebted to Maggie Williams, my chief of staff, for all she did to keep things moving and for her help on the book. I want to thank members of my foundation and office staff for all they did to continue the work of the foundation and its programs while I was writing the book. A special word of thanks goes to Doug Band, my counselor, who helped me from the day I left the White House to build my new life and who struggled to protect my book-writing time on our travels across America and the world.

I also owe a debt to Oscar Flores, who keeps things going at my home in Chappaqua. On the many nights when Justin Cooper and I worked into the wee hours, Oscar went out of his way to make sure we remembered to have dinner and that we were well supplied with coffee. Finally, I cannot list all the people who made the life chronicled in these pages possible—all the teachers and mentors of my youth; the people who worked on and contributed to all my campaigns; those who worked with me in the Democratic Leadership Council, National Governors Association, and all the other organizations that contributed to my education in public policy; those who worked with me for peace, security, and reconciliation around the world; those who made the White House run and my trips work; the thousands of gifted people who worked in my adminstrations as attorney general, governor, and President without whose dedicated service I would have little to say about my years in public life; those who provided security to me and my family; and my friends of a lifetime. None of them are responsible for the failures of my life, but for whatever good has come out of it they deserve much of the credit.