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Karen 1
Clips from
Commodities
for your
files
HNC
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if you don 4
have
PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
FOR
ANN LEWIS
1 ON BACKGROUND -
Much of Gary Aldrich's book consists of regurgitated right
wing innuendo the kind of rank and reckless charges that
routinely appear on right wing internet home pages. With
few exceptions, Aldrich does not claim to have first-hand
knowledge of any of the matters he is writing about. These
bizarre and slanderous stories have been fodder for the
right wing conspiracy industry's attack machine for the last
three years.
Gary Aldrich's work has thus far appeared only on the
conservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and
in the form of a book published by a company committed to
putting out right wing books. Regnery and the Journal's
editorial page are notoriously anti-Clinton Administration.
Because of Regnery and the Journal editorial pages well-
known viewpoints, these attacks are almost never covered as
"news" by other journalists.
Regnery Press, the company which published the Gary Aldrich
book, is a conservative publisher of right wing screeds.
Works published by Regnery include: NRA president Wayne
Lapierre's tome espousing extremist views on gun control;
the American Spectator's editor Emmitt Tyrell's biography on
Bill Clinton; and Stacey Koon's book justifying his actions
in the beating of Rodney King.
The owner of Regnery Press is Tom Phillips who was described
by the Washington Times as "an influential force in modern
conservatism."
Gary Aldrich is being represented by the self-avowed
conservative Southeastern Legal Foundation. The foundation
receives hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from
right wing conservative recluse Richard Mellon Scaife.
Scaife, a major benefactor of the right wing conspiracy
industry, contributes millions of dollars to a long list of
extremist organizations dedicated to tearing down the
Clinton Administration. The Southeastern Legal Foundation
is closely linked to Newt Gingrich and GOPAC. Gingrich has
appeared at a fundraiser for the organization, and a number
of GOPAC's prominent members serve on the board of the
foundation.
According to reports, some of Gary Aldrich's publicity is
being handled by extreme right wingers Greg Mueller and
Craig Shirley two conservative political operatives who
were previously involved at one level or another with the
Willie Horton negative attack ad. Shirley previously served
as the publicist for Paula Jones and worked alongside Floyd
Brown to create the infamous Willie Horton negative attack
ad. Currently. he is an advisor for Bob Dole's Presidential
campaign. Mueller is Pat Buchannan's press secretary. His
clients have also included Rush Limbaugh, Oliver North and
Americans for Bush, the group responsible for the Willie
Horton ad.
JUN-26-96 wed
9:40
Feft
Markal VINCENT PULLER
DAVID F. KONDALL
. LANE HEARD III
LAW OFFICES
RAYMOND w. BERGAN
CREGORY D GRAIS
STOVEN a. KUNEY
WILLIAMS & CONNOLLY
JEREMIAH c COLLINS
JOHN J BUCKLEY. JR
CERSON A. zweifach
ROBERT L. WEINDERG
TERRENCE D'DONNELL
SARAW HOLENE DUCCIN
DAVID POVICH
DOUGLAS R MARVIN
PAUL mocin
725 TWELFTH STREET, N.W.
STEVEN M. WISIN
JOHN K. VILLA
HOWARD w GUTMAN
JOHN W. VARDAMAN
BARRY 5 SIMON
NANCY F. PREISS
PAUL MARTIN WOLD
KEVIN * BAINE
RICHARD 5 hofpman
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005
J ALAN GALBRAITH
STAPHIN L URBANCZYK
PAULA MICHELE ELLISON
john C. KESTER
PHILIP J WARD
STEVEN A. STEINDACH
WILLIAM B. MCDANIELS
prederick WHITTEN PETERS
MARK 3. LOVINSTEIN
(202) 434-5000
BRENDAN V SULLIVAN, JR
JAMBS A. BRUTON. III
MARY c. CLARK
AUDREY M. DANIEL, If
POTER J KAHN
VICTORIA L. RADD
FAX (202) 434.5029
RICHARD M. COOPER
JUDITH A MILLER
DANIEL , KATZ
GERALD A. PEPPER
LON 3. DABBY
NICOLA K. SOLICMAN
ROBERT P. WATKINS
MICHAEL s. SUNDERMEYER
ROBERT M KRASNE
JERRY L. SHULMAN
JAMES T FULLOR III
KATHLEEN L. BECCS
EDWARD DENNETT WILLIAMS (1920.1200)
LAWRENCE LUCCHINO
DAVID D AUPHAUSER
SVEN BRIK HOLMES
PAUL R. CONNOLLY (1922-1978)
LEWIS H. FERGUSON. III
BRUCE R. CENDURSON
WILLIAM R MURRAY. JR.
ROBERT 3 BARNETT
CAROLYN H WILLIAMS
TELECOPY
TO:
Maggie Williams
FIRM OR COMPANY:
The White House
TELECOPY NUMBER:
202-456-4520 6244
FROM:
David E. Kendall, Esquire
TELEPHONE:
202-434-5145
6-26-96
DATE:
MATTER NUMBER:
29522.0001
NUMBER OF PAGES INCLUDING THIS PAGE
5
IF THERE ARE ANY PROBLEMS RECEIVING THIS TRANSMISSION, PLEASE
CALL
(202) 434-5608 IMMEDIATELY. THANK YOU.
THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED FOR THE USE OF THE INDIVIDUAL OR ENTITY TO WHICH IT IS ADDRESSED AND MAY
CONTAIN INFORMATION THAT IS PRIVILEGED. CONFIDENTIAL AND EXEMPT FROM disclosure UNDER APPLICABLE
LAW. IF THE READER OF THIS MESSAGE IS NOT THE INTENDED RECIPIENT OR THE EMPLOYEE OR AGENT
RESPONSIBLE FOR DELIVERING THIS MESSAGE TO THE INTENDED RECIPIENT, YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED THAT
ANY DISSEMINATION, DISTRIBUTION OR COPYING OF THIS communication IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. IF YOU
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WILLIAMS & CONNOLLY TELECOPY NUMBER: (202) 434-5029
JUN-26-96 WED
9:41
:
LAW OFFICES
WILLIAMS & CONNOLLY
725 TWELFTH STREET, N.W.
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005
soward BCNNETT WILLIAMS (1920 10001
PAUL R. CONNOLLY (1922-1978)
(202) 434-5000
DAVID E. KENDALL
(202) 434-5145
FAX (202) 434-5029
June 25, 1996
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
BY FAX AND FIRST CLASS MAIL
Mr. W. Thomas Johnson, Jr.
President, Cable News Network
One CNN Center
Atlanta, GA 30348
Dear Mr. Johnson:
I represent Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton with regard to
"Whitewater" matters. Yesterday, on CNN's morning business
program, one Steve Bell declared that Mrs. Clinton was in serious
jeopardy of an indictment for obstruction of justice with regard
to "the Whitewater affair."
I recognize that CNN has an obligation to telecast what
it determines to be news, and I believe that CNN is usually fair
and accurate in its reporting. Viewers have a right to expect,
however, that "news" will be distinguished from "opinion," that
rumors will be designated as such (although I recognize that they
occasionally may rise to the level of newsworthiness), and that
any apparent bias of a commentator will be identified. The Bell
interview violates all these expectations. Mr. Bell's partisan
credentials (as a former Domenici staffer) were not identified,
he repeated a baseless rumor as though it were fact, and his own
basis for the assertion was neither probed nor examined. The
unskeptical presentation of partisan rumor as neutral fact
disserves your viewers and is inconsistent with CNN's general
standards of coverage.
I am designating this letter as "not for publication"
because I have no wish to fuel a baseless controversy.
sincerely,
Parsal David E. Kendall
CC: Mr. Lou Dobbs
DEK/bb
JUN-26-96 WED 9:42
Page 3
1ST STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright 1995 Cable News Network, Inc.
All rights reserved
CNN
SHOW: NEWS 6:38 am ET
June 24, 1996 09:00 Eastern Time
Transcript # 1378-5
SHOW-TYPE: Interview
SECTION: Election; News
LENGTH: 1104 words
HEADLINE: Analyst Says Filegate Could Be Repeat of Watergate
BYLINE: DEBORAH MARCHINI
HIGHLIGHT: Calling Filegate a "golden opportunity" for Bob Dole,
Washington-watcher Steve Bell says the GOP presidential candidate is playing it
"just right" by not harping on the scandal.
BODY:
STUART VARNEY, Anchor: Elsewhere now, Vice President Al Gore says the White
House will enact a new policy to prevent any president from having easy access
to confidential FBI files.
DEBORAH MARCHINI, Anchor: The Clinton administration has come under sharp
criticism in the past week after it was discovered a White House political
operative had, in fact, obtained 1,000 confidential FBI files on Republicans.
In an interview with CNN'S Late Edition from his farm in Carthage, Tennessee,
Gore defended the White House's handling of the files.
Vice Pres. AL GORE: The president and all of us in the White House have said
what happened here was wrong, and steps were immediately taken when we found out
about it to ensure that this kind of thing can never happen again. The
president apologized to the American people for what did take place, and the
investigation is now underway, and there will be a full and thorough and fair
independent investigation, and we will find out exactly what happened.
STUART VARNEY: well, now the big question is just how big a deal Bob Dole will
make of the FBI files matter in his campaign against Mr. Clinton.
DEBORAH MARCHINI: Joining us to discuss what some people are now calling
Filegate is our regular Monday visitor, Steve Bell of the Steve Bell Group, and
he is here this morning with us in New York, as opposed to Washington, from
which he usually visits us.
Steve, good to have you here this morning.
JUN-26-96 wed 9:42
P.04
Page 4
NEWS, June 24, 1996
STEVE BELL, Chairman, The Steve Bell Group: Glad to be here.
DEBORAH MARCHINI, Correspondent: First question-- a political one. Is Bob
Dole-- Whatever the truth is about Filegate, is Bob Dole making maximum use of
it, from a political standpoint?
STEVE BELL: I think SO. I think right now Dole mentions it but doesn't harp on
it, and I think that's important.
DEBORAH MARCHINI: Why is that good?
STEVE BELL: Because you've got a lot of work being done by the House and Senate
panels investigating it. The news media are on it very strongly, and I think
what Dole has here is a golden opportunity to let things just kind of take their
natural flow, and he doesn't have to be looking like a stern person or a
prosecutor. He can say, 'Hey, this stuff is coming out of the White House bit by
bit, unfortunately of their own volition.'
STUART VARNEY: During Watergate, the use of government agents [unintelligible]
Mr. Nixon's enemies list. Well, that was vigorously pursued in the media.
why-- We now have 400, 1,000 files at the white House of sometimes prominent
Republicans, but I don't see banner headlines. Do you think that the media is
treating this-- this president the same way it would treat a Republican
president?
STEVE BELL: Well, I think it is, to some extent. I would agree with you that
basically, if this were George Bush's White House, this thing would be five--
five columns big every day in The New York Times or at least on every television
program. But--
STUART VARNEY: It's not on the front page of The New York Times today. There's
no mention of it.
STEVE BELL: No, but I will tell you that, at some point, if you talk to the news
media, news people down in Washington like I do a fair amount, they think this
stinks to high heaven. You saw poor Al Gore drug out from his farm to have to
take the hit-- that's why they have vice presidents. I guess-- and saw him say,
'Oh, we've done good here.' Nobody in his right mind thinks they have done good
or even halfway well. And if you take a look at the similarities between
watergate-- the way it was handled-- and now Whitewater, Filegate, whatever you
want to call this whole series of messes, it is stunning. Too many lawyers, too
many changes of stories, and I expect the president or vice president to say at
some point now, 'No more bombshells,' as Mr. Nixon did about a week before his
last bombshell.
STUART VARNEY: I have to ask you, Steve. Is an indictment of the first lady on
grounds of obstruction of justice now likely?
STEVE BELL: I don't know if it's likely, because that's all up to Ken Starr.
But, certainly the consensus in Washington among-- the background consensus is
yes, "she is in serious jeopardy of an indictment over the Whitewater affair!
Also, you're going to have some real serious questions raised after this next
trial is completed, the Perry, Arkansas bank trial that Starr, the special
prosecutor, is undergoing right now. If you take a look at several people from
JUN-26-96 WED 9:43
P.05
Page 5
NEWS, June 24, 1996
the White House being indicted, an unindicted co-conspirator-- You remember the
most famous unindicted co-conspirator in American history, Richard Milhouse
Nixon, and now we have Bruce Lindsay.
DEBORAH MARCHINI: That's right. That being the case, this could be big
political trouble for the administration right up before the election.
STEVE BELL: It is, and here is the irony. Remember that Watergate broke in the
summer of 1972. President Nixon went on to a smashing re-election. It was
basically called by Republicans nothing but a media hysteria, It was all
nothing.
DEBORAH MARCHINI: Do you think we could be looking at a repeat of that?
STUART VARNEY: Is this really that bad?
STEVE BELL: I think when you get FBI files illegally-- when people who are not
authorized take a look at them-- This has not happened since Watergate. When
you have the FBI director saying, 'Hey, this was not on my watch.' When you have
the Secret Service saying, 'This was not on our watch. You couldn't get that
information from us.'
DEBORAH MARCHINI: Yeah.
STEVE BELL: You've got a serious problem. Career professionals are now starting
to say, 'we're not going to take the hit for you guys anymore.'
DEBORAH MARCHINI: Question, though, really briefly, before we go. Do you see a
possible parallel of Clinton being re-elected and perhaps being called upon to
resign?
STEVE BELL: I don't know about resign, but I think, if he gets re-elected, right
after that he'll have serious, serious political problems as this continues to--
DEBORAH MARCHINI: And legal problems, it sounds like, at least his family.
STEVE BELL: And those are there now.
STUART VARNEY: Steve Bell, always a pleasure. Thanks for being with us this
Monday. Thank you, Steve.
STEVE BELL: Thanks for having me.
The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although
the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid
distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against
tape.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: June 24, 1996
page 1 of 2
STATEMENT OF FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
JUNE 24, 1996
On Sunday, June 23, The Washington Post ran a front page excerpt
from Bob Woodward's latest book, The Choice, which recounts
meetings I had with Jean Houston and Mary Catherine Bateson and
suggests that Ms. Houston is my "spiritual adviser." While I
have had a number of conversation with Jean Houston, it is simply
not true that she is my spiritual adviser.
For more than three, I have met with a wide range of contemporary
thinkers, including Roman Catholic cardinals, bishops, nuns and
priests; Protestant clergy and lay leaders; Jewish rabbis; Muslim
clerics; theologians, ethicists and religious activists;
historians, political scientists, sociologists and
anthropologists; professional communicators, management
consultants and motivational speakers; business and labor
leaders, writers, artists, poets and entertainers, and many other
Americans from all walks of life who have interesting ideas or
insights into what's happening in our country today.
Mary Catherine Bateson and Jean Houston are two of many people
who have been generous in sharing their ideas with me. Mary
Catherine Bateson, the daughter of anthropologists Margaret Mead
and Gregory Bateson, is herself a distinguished field
anthropologist and author of a now classic book on women's lives,
Composing a Life. Jean Houston, who has published more than a
dozen books, has served as a consultant to companies such as
Xerox and IBM, as well as worked with the international
children's organization, UNICEF.
Both women were helpful to me in discussing their work in foreign
cultures as I prepared for a trip to South Asia in the spring of
1995. They were also helpful when I returned from South Asia and
was facing the task of writing my book about the challenges of
raising children in the modern world. One of the many meetings I
held at the time about the themes of my book included Jean
Houston and Mary Catherine Bateson.
During the hours of free-wheeling discussion, Jean Houston
suggested that I imagine a conversation with Eleanor Roosevelt,
who grappled with the difficult social issues of her day. This
was an interesting intellectual exercise to help spark my own
thoughts; it was a brianstroming session for my book -- not a
spiritual event. In fact, in previous public speeches, I had
used the device of an imaginary conversation with Mrs. Roosevelt
as a way of discussing what Mrs. Roosevelt would think about the
problems of contemporary society and how she would approach her
role as First Lady.
-more-
page 2 of 2
Statement by the First Lady
Imagine my surprise when what I have been doing since 1993 in
front of large audiences was now being reported as a sensational
revelation.
The bottom line is: I have no spiritual advisers or any other
alternative to my deeply held Methodist faith and traditions upon
which I have relied since childhood.
And I do wonder what Eleanor Roosevelt might think of all this.
###
For further information, contact Lisa Caputo at 202-757-5000.
SIU
DUD WOUDWARD
as one of the heroes of the Gulf War he was a symbol of internationalism
sional encouragers and supporters had badgered Sherman for nearly 20
McCurry argued that if Powell was in the Republican race it would tx
years after the Civil War. Did it never stop?
difficult for Republicans to run on race-baiting, racial quotas, immigra-
He read Sherman's May 28, 1884, letter to a friend carefully. "My
tion and isolationism.
career has been all my family and friends could ask," Sherman had writ-
"Who knows what it means anyhow?" Clinton said that day, shrug.
ten. "We are now in a good house of our own choice.
ging his shoulders. He wanted to find some way to use Powell to improve
"Military men have an absolute right to rest and to demand that the
race relations and wondered about setting up a commission or task force
men who have been schooled in the arts and practice of peace shall now
that would include Powell.
do their work equally well.
"I have my personal affairs in a state of absolute safety and comfort.
I owe no man a cent, have no expensive habits, envy no man his wealth
In the following days and weeks, as various people offered their
or power." Sherman said he would "account myself a fool, a madman, an
postmortems, analysis and speculation, Powell realized he would not to
155, to embark anew, at sixty-five years of age, in a career that may
totally free. He had entered into a political mythology of sorts, if only J
become at any moment tempest-tossed by perfidy, the defalcation, the
minor chapter. And political myth has a staying power and a curiosity.
dishonesty or neglect of any single one of a hundred thousand subordi-
His refusal seemed contrary to the great American drive. Was it plausible
nates utterly unknown to the President of the United States.
that someone would say no to such potential power for the stated rea.
"The civilians of the`United States should and must buffet with this
sons? "I just told it the way it was," Powell said afterwards. "People are
thankless office, and leave us old soldiers to enjoy the peace we fought
rooting around trying to find some smoking gun. There isn't any. People
for, and think we earned."
will root around. No. You heard it.
Powell was amazed. Sherman had covered every point. It was a per-
"I've been as honest as I can on this. And people will always want to
fect way to say what Powell had been feeling: Leave me alone. "My God,"
look for more, and they're welcome to do so, but you heard it."
Powell thought, "I'm a reincarnation."
Later, Powell filmed a public service announcement for the United
Negro College Fund as part of his new private life and continued to give
speeches around the country. Hundreds of letters were coming into the
office each day. He and Smullen threw themselves at the mail as the new
project. They doubled the size of the office. Powell was trying to answer
the mail very carefully. Maybe it wasn't that important, but he felt some
deep connection with these people. The mail was there, and it was some-
thing to do.
"It was never a yes," he said. "And everybody thinks that I was in a
binary situation where I had to bawl my brains out or go into politics.
and I never saw it that way."
Even before he decided, Powell had taken to introducing Alma onh
half-jokingly as "Mrs. Sherman," alluding to William Tecumseh Sherman
the Civil War hero who emphatically refused to run for president with
the famous statement, "I will not accept if nominated and will not sent
if elected."
Now, as a full private citizen, Powell was reading the letters of Geo.
eral Sherman and found them relevant. He was astonished that the profes.
06/05/96 WED 10:42 FAX
CREATORS SYNDICATE
+++ LISSA MUSCATINE
1.
002
TALKING IT OVER
BY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
An extraordinary woman is coming to the White House next week: Mary
Robinson, the President of Ireland. She is also a mother, a human rights lawyer, a law
professor, a force for reconciliation between Protestants and Catholics, and a voice for
women all over the world.
I met President Robinson last year when Bill and I were in Dublin. I admire her
efforts to legalize contraception and to help women win the right to sit on juries when
she was a young legislator in the Irish Senate. In outlining her philosophy, she has
quoted the early feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, who said 200 years ago: "I do not
wish women to have power over men but over themselves."
President Robinson's message about women's empowerment echoes the
thoughts and words of many other women I have spoken with around the world during
the past three and a half years.
Whether they are scholars, poets, historians, journalists, political activists or
stay-at-home mothers, women have much to teach each other about the choices and
challenges we face as we try to lead integrated lives.
As the writer Deborah Tannen has pointed out in her books about
communication and gender, women need to talk, and often they need to talk to each
other. It is that need for conversation and direct communication that distinguishes most
women from most men.
As women, talking can be our greatest friend. That's why I'm so excited that
President Robinson will be in the United States, spreading her message of humanity
and opportunity for the people of Ireland and for women everywhere.
It's also why I feel so fortunate to have had face-to-face discussions about
women's lives with everyone from the Prime Minister of Norway, to the Empress of
Japan, to a destitute mother of 10 children in a dusty village in rural Pakistan.
When the best-selling author Mary Pipher visited me recently at the White
House, we talked about our lives and the pressures confronting teen-age girls today.
The poet Maya Angelou teaches me about literature and life, particularly from
the perspective of an African-American woman who grew up in Arkansas and is now a
citizen of the world.
06/05/96 WED 10:43 FAX
CREATORS SYNDICATE
+++ LISSA MUSCATINE
1
003
TALKING IT OVER 6/4/96
Page 2
Rose Styron, the writer and human rights activist, always provokes my thinking
about the obligations we owe to men and women whose names are unknown, yet who
are suffering for the cause of freedom and democracy.
Historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Blanche Wiesen Cook both have shared
their thoughts about Eleanor Roosevelt, someone I wish I could have talked to in
person about the role of First Lady. In fact, I occasionally have imaginary
conversations with Mrs. Roosevelt to try to figure out what she would do in my shoes.
She usually responds by telling me to buck up or at least to grow skin as thick as a
rhinoceros.
Mary Catherine Bateson, an anthropologist and the daughter of Margaret Mead,
has written many books, including one called "Composing a Life." She and I have
spent hours discussing the ways in which women in different societies attempt to fulfill
their responsibilities to their families, jobs and communities.
Jean Houston, an expert on philosophy and mythology, has shared her views
with me on everything from the ancient Greeks to the lives of women and children in
Bangladesh.
I've even had the pleasure of sitting across the dinner table from Ann Landers,
asking advice on matters both trivial and not-so-trivial.
But of all the women I've had the chance to meet, I've probably learned the most
from those you've never heard of -- women who have never written a book, appeared
on television or been the subject of a newspaper article. From a poor barrio in
Managua, Nicaragua, to a grassy field in Indonesia, I've met women who find comfort
and unity in telling each other about their children, jobs, families, health, education
and all the issues that touch their lives.
I don't always agree with what I hear. What's important is to have the chance to
listen to women whose perspectives and ideas may differ from my own so that I can
broaden my understanding of women's lives and roles today.
Whoever is doing the talking, the stories we share contribute to our history as
women and our understanding of our own time.
I hope we will all make time to talk things over with each other.
COPYRIGHT 1996 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
June 4, 1996
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Nashville, Tennessee)
For Immediate Release
June 24, 1996
REMARKS BY THE FIRST LADY
AT FAMILY UNION V WELCOMING FORUM
Tennessee Performing Arts Center
Nashville, Tennessee
MRS. CLINTON: Thank you very much. I am delighted
to be here and regretful that I will not be able to enjoy the entire
conference. I want to thank the Vice President and Tipper for the
work that they have done that has made this conference such an
important part of what is happening in our country about our
families. Their example, as well as their efforts to help families
really inspires so many of us. And this conference is a terrific
way of bringing together people to talk about what is really most
important in our lives.
Shortly before I arrived I had one of my conversations
with Mrs. Roosevelt, and she thinks this is a terrific idea as well.
(Laughter and applause.) Because, you know, we've been worrying
about families and children for a very long time in America.
(Laughter.) But it wasn't until the Gores came up with the family
conference that we figured out a way how to focus on family life
that would bring people together to help solve the problems that all
of us talk about privately.
I cannot count how many times I've had conversations
about family and work, or the media, or the role of fathers and
mothers. But now those private conversations are being made public,
and we are all the better for it.
If one looks at what this conference has already
accomplished, it's quite an impressive list, as Dr. Erickson has
reminded us. We have seen innovations like new state initiatives
that approach families as whole systems. We've seen the fatherhood
initiative, Fathernet, and the mentoring program known as Father To
Father. And during the past 12 months we've had really substantive
discussions about the mass media's influence in our children's
lives, something Tipper Gore has been talking about for years. And
we've taken a big step forward with the V chip and the promise of
a voluntary rating system.
Now, today, the conference discussion turns to work
and family, a subject about which every parent -- and I would
expect, every child in America, too -- can claim expertise. None
of us, whether we are fathers or mothers or children, whether we
work in or out of the home, is immune to the stresses and anxieties
that come from trying to support our families financially and
emotionally, raise happy and secure children, and enjoy productive
and satisfying work lives.
I have worried about this issue, as the Vice President
has said, ever since I knew that I would be a mother. And it struck
me then as it strikes me now that SO much of what we should be doing
is common sense, but we can't act on that until we have a consensus
in the country.
Some years ago I had the privilege of chairing a
committee by the American Bar Association in its Commission on
Women. We looked at family problems, the conflicts between work and
family in the legal profession. I have to admit that when I was
first asked to chair the commission, although I had my own
child and I was worried myself, I wasn't sure what I would find.
I assumed that in the years since I had started practicing law that
many of the problems were being solved and that people were
accommodating.
Yet I saw firsthand and heard testimony from legal
secretaries and lawyers and others involved in that profession about
how difficult it really was. And with increasing financial
pressures on two-parent families and the extraordinary stresses on
single-parent families, what a difficult balancing act so many
mothers and fathers were attempting to do.
I'm even more concerned today because, as I travel
around the country I hear stories from so many people and I know
that for many of us, trying to figure out how we make sense of these
stresses is not just a personal quest. We are attempting to bring
our concerns into the workplace as well.
For those of us who grew up in the 1950s -- and
Secretary Reich and I were talking earlier because today is his 50th
birthday and we remember -- (applause) -- how life, whether it was
or not, seemed somewhat simpler in those days. I thought about that
when I wrote a column for Father's Day about my own father. And one
of the things I said was that he could not have explained what
quality time was, but he was always there. He was there for me and
my brothers at meals, on weekends, during holidays. The routine of
our life was set. He as the fixture around which the decisions and
the timing revolved.
Certainly history and circumstance helped, because when
I was growing up, fathers like mine had more set lives and, it
seemed, had more time. The pace of life was not so hectic.
said.
REUTER
**** filed by: RB-- (--) on 06/24/96 at 13:41EDT ****
**** printed by: WHPR(JEL) on 06/24/96 at 14:22EDT ****
page 1 of 2
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
STATEMENT OF FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
JUNE 24, 1996
On Sunday, June 23, The Washington Post ran a front page excerpt
from Bob Woodward's latest book, The Choice, which recounts
meetings I had with Jean Houston and Mary Catherine Bateson and
suggests that Ms. Houston is my "spiritual adviser." While I
have had a number of conversations with Jean Houston, it is
simply not true that she is my spiritual adviser.
For more than three years, I have met with a wide range of
contemporary thinkers, including Roman Catholic cardinals,
bishops, nuns and priests; Protestant clergy and lay leaders;
Jewish rabbis; Muslim clerics; theologians, ethicists and
religious activists; historians, political scientists,
sociologists and anthropologists; professional communicators,
management consultants and motivational speakers; business and
labor leaders, writers, artists, poets and entertainers, and many
other Americans from all walks of life who have interesting ideas
or insights into what's happening in our country today.
Mary Catherine Bateson and Jean Houston are two of many people
who have been generous in sharing their ideas with me. Mary
Catherine Bateson, the daughter of anthropologists Margaret Mead
and Gregory Bateson, is herself a distinguished field
anthropologist and author of a now classic book on women's lives,
Composing a Life. Jean Houston, who has published more than a
dozen books, has served as a consultant to major corporations, as
well as worked with the international children's organization,
UNICEF.
Both women were helpful to me in discussing their work in foreign
cultures as I prepared for a trip to South Asia in the spring of
1995. They were also helpful when I returned from South Asia and
was facing the task of writing my book about the challenges of
raising children in the modern world. One of the many meetings I
held at the time about the themes of my book included Jean
Houston and Mary Catherine Bateson.
During the hours of free-wheeling discussion, Jean Houston
suggested that I imagine a conversation with Eleanor Roosevelt,
who grappled with the difficult social issues of her day. This
was an interesting intellectual exercise to help spark my own
thoughts; it was a brainstorming session for my book -- not a
spiritual event. In fact, in previous public speeches, I had
used the device of an imaginary conversation with Mrs. Roosevelt
as a way of discussing what Mrs. Roosevelt would think about the
problems of contemporary society and how she would approach her
role as First Lady.
-more-
page 2 of 2
Statement by the First Lady
Imagine my surprise when what I have been doing since 1993 in
front of large audiences was now being reported as a sensational
revelation.
The bottom line is: I have no spiritual advisers or any other
alternative to my deeply held Methodist faith and traditions upon
which I have relied since childhood.
And I do wonder what Eleanor Roosevelt might think of all this.
###
For further information, contact Lisa Caputo at 202-757-5000.
page 1 of 2
STATEMENT OF FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
JUNE 24, 1996
On Sunday, June 23, The Washington Post ran a front page excerpt
from Bob Woodward's latest book, The Choice, which recounts
meetings I had with Jean Houston and Mary Catherine Bateson and
suggests that Ms. Houston is my "spiritual adviser." While I
have had a number of conversations with Jean Houston, it is
simply not true that she is my spiritual adviser.
For more than three years have met with a wide range of
contemporary thinkers, including Roman Catholic cardinals,
bishops, nuns and priests; Protestant clergy and lay leaders;
Jewish rabbis; Muslim clerics; theologians, ethicists and
religious activists; historians, political scientists,
sociologists and anthropologists; professional communicators,
management consultants and motivational speakers; business and
labor leaders, writers, artists, poets and entertainers, and many
other Americans from all walks of life who have interesting ideas
or insights into what's happening in our country today.
Mary Catherine Bateson and Jean Houston are two of many people
who have been generous in sharing their ideas with me. Mary
Catherine Bateson, the daughter of anthropologists Margaret Mead
and Gregory Bateson, is herself a distinguished field
anthropologist and author of a now classic book on women's lives,
Composing a Life. Jean Houston, who has published more than a
dozen books, has served as a consultant to major corporations, as
well as worked with the international children's organization,
UNICEF.
Both women were helpful to me in discussing their work in foreign
cultures as I prepared for a trip to South Asia in the spring of
1995. They were also helpful when I returned from South Asia and
was facing the task of writing my book about the challenges of
raising children in the modern world. One of the many meetings I
held at the time about the themes of my book included Jean
Houston and Mary Catherine Bateson.
During the hours of free-wheeling discussion, Jean Houston
suggested that I imagine a conversation with Eleanor Roosevelt,
who grappled with the difficult social issues of her day. This
was an interesting intellectual exercise to help spark my own
thoughts; it was a brainstorming session for my book -- not a
spiritual event. In fact, in previous public speeches, I had
used the device of an imaginary conversation with Mrs. Roosevelt
as a way of discussing what Mrs. Roosevelt would think about the
problems of contemporary society and how she would approach her
role as First Lady.
-more-
page 2 of 2
Statement by the First Lady
Imagine my surprise when what I have been doing since 1993 in
front of large audiences was now being reported as a sensational
revelation.
The bottom line is: I have no spiritual advisers or any other
alternative to my deeply held Methodist faith and traditions upon
which I have relied since childhood.
And I do wonder what Eleanor Roosevelt might think of all this.
###
For further information, contact Lisa Caputo at 202-757-5000.
To : Neel
Fr. Lisa
Please give
copy to m Curry
DCC. mags
Fisa
THE WHITE house
melanne
WASHINGTON
fissa
January 20, 1995
Mr. Edward Kosner
Editor-in-Chief
Esquire
250 W. 55th Street
New York, New York 10019
Dear Mr. Kosner:
You recently ran a story that I had met with Marianne
Williamson implying she was my "spiritual advisor" or "guru". As
with some press reports, it is factually true that I have met
with Ms. Williamson, but the conclusion is untrue. Let me
explain.
For nearly two years, I have met personally with a wide
range of Americans including Roman Catholic cardinals, bishops,
nuns and priests; Protestant clergy and lay leaders; Jewish
rabbis; theologians, ethicists and religious activists;
academicians (including historians, political scientists,
sociologists, and anthropologists) ; professional communicators,
management consultants and motivational speakers; business and
labor leaders, writers, artists, poets and entertainment
celebrities; and many other Americans from all walks of life who
have interesting ideas or insights into what's happening in our
country today.
I have shared many meals and cups of tea with these
visitors; some have spent the night with us. I have enjoyed the
chance to talk with stimulating people, many of whom care deeply
about what the President is trying to accomplish for America;
others are totally non-political, and some even oppose the
Administration, but have points of view I want to hear.
so, have I met with Americans of every stripe, some of whom
are controversial or "politically incorrect"? Yes, of course, I
have. I find it interesting that very few of these visits have
been publicized or viewed as significant unless those who oppose
the President or his goals or my role think they can score points
against us by using the old tactic of "guilt by association" or
unless the visitor decides it will benefit him or her to be seen
as associated with us in the public's eye. I have experienced
both forms of publicity.
Marianne Williamson, for example, is a political supporter
who has an intriguing view about popular culture today that she
shared with me; she is neither my "guru" nor spiritual advisor.
Edward Kosner
January 20, 1995
Page Two
I believe those who publicized her visit want to marginalize my
expression of faith as a Christian because they fear a view of
Christian witness and obligation that differs from the religious
right's could create political opposition to its agenda. Some
visitors have exploited their time with me for their own
purposes. The prime example of that is the magazine editor who
paid a short courtesy call in my office and has promoted the
perception that he is my "guru".
And what have I learned from all this? I suppose that no
matter what I do -- or do not do -- I will be criticized and
exploited by some. Yet, I will continue casting a wide net to
meet with as many different Americans as I can; to listen hard
and learn so I can grow and challenge myself, to understand
better what's happening in our country and world and put that in
an historical and social context so I can better explain the
President's vision for our future.
Well, your report provoked a long answer with a simple
bottom line: I have no "gurus", spiritual advisors or any other
New Age alternative to my Methodist faith and traditions. But, I
will continue eagerly to take advantage of this time in my life
to meet with all sorts of folks and try to do the best I can to
help the President and make my own contribution to our nation.
If you ever have any questions concerning me in the future,
please feel free to call me or my press secretary, Lisa Caputo.
And, if you could ever come to visit, I'd be glad to offer a cup
of tea and some conversation.
Sincerely yours,
Rochan
Clanton
Hillary Rodham Clinton
ESQUIRE
TEL :212-265-0234
Jan 25'95 11:45 No.001 P.02
Esquire
EDWARD KOSNER
EDITOR IN CHIEF
(212) 649-4270
January 25,1995
Dear Mrs. Clinton:
Thank you for your letter about about Esquire's Reality Check
item concerning you and Marianne Williamson. I can understand
your concern that your relationship with Ms. Williamson and
others may be misconstrued by the press, but I must point out
that the characterizations "guru" and "spiritual advisor" are
yours, not Esquire's.
I think it's always of interest when the President or the
First Lady consults with people identified with evangelical
religion, personal or spiritual development, astrology or
numerology and the like. Certainly the involvement of Pres-
idents with Billy Graham and Mrs. Reagan's association with
an astrologer were reported in the press, as is Speaker
Gingrich's admiration for Arianna Stassinopolous Huffington,
a keen follower of John-Roger. Similarly, President Clinton's
meeting with Tony Robbins, who was profiled in Esquire last
April, is legitimately of interest to the press.
That being said, I assure you that neither Esquire nor its
editor seek to "marginalize" you or diminish you or President
Clinton. Indeed, I was the editor of New York Magazine, when
many people thought that our Joe Klein was leading the press
campaign to make Governor Clinton the 1992 Democratic nom-
inee.
25° W 55TH STREET NFW YORK NY 10019
TEL :212-265-0234
Jan 25'95 11:46 No.001 P.03
ESQUIRE
Your letter (omitting the last paragraph) will appear in
Esquire's April issue, out in mid-March.
I would be honored to visit with you whenever it's
convenient.
Very truly yours,
Edward KAMEL
Edward Kosner
Hillary Rodham Clinton
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
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18 ESQUIRE JANUARY 1095
AM-Mrs Clinton-Advisers, Bjt,930
First Lady Consulted Spiritual Adviser; Not Seances, White House Says
With AM-Woodward Book-Highlights; also moving nationally
By SONYA ROSS= Associated Press Writer=
WASHINGTON (AP) Hillary Rodham Clinton consulted with a spiritual adviser
who led her through imaginary conversations with her personal hero, Eleanor
Roosevelt, according to a new book about the 1996 presidential campaign.
Mrs. Clinton's spokesman said Sunday there's nothing new'' about the
consultations with author Jean Houston and an associate, Mary Catherine
Bateson, that were described in The Choice, a new book by Bob Woodward, an
assistant managing editor at The Washington Post.
``These were people who were helping her laugh, helping her think, said
Neel Lattimore, the first lady's spokesman. These were not seances.
The White House, hoping to minimize possible political damage like that
done by word of Nancy Reagan's use of an astrologer. depicted the
consultations as simple brainstorming sessions for Mrs. Clinton's book, ``It
Takes a Village.''
``To describe it as a consultation with psychics is to try to put it in
the wrong frame. We have to draw strength from wherever we can in order to
make it from day to day, White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta said on
CBS' Face the Nation.
She sat down with friends and advisers, talked through experiences,
sought information, sought knowledge,' Panetta said. `And I think that's
human.
In her syndicated column on June 4, the first lady listed Houston,
co-director of the Foundation for Mind Research, as one of many women with
whom she has consulted. She said Houston `has shared her views with me on
everything from the ancient Greeks to the lives of women and children in
Bangladesh.'
She also said she has spent hours discussing the roles of women in society
with Bateson, an anthropologist and daughter of famed anthropologist Margaret
Mead, as well as others, such as poet Maya Angelou and historians Doris Kearns
Goodwin and Blanche Wiesen Cook, who shared their thoughts on Mrs. Roosevelt.
Messages left for Houston and Bateson were not immediately returned.
``As women, talking can be our greatest friend, Mrs. Clinton wrote. ``I
don't always agree with what I hear. What's important is to have the chance to
listen to women whose perspectives and ideas may differ from my own.
Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, defended Mrs. Clinton, saying
the first lady was within her right to consult with Houston.
They have attacked her practice of law 15 years ago. Now they are going
into the way she brainstormed to write her book, the vice president said on
CNN's Late Edition.
Mrs. Gore, when asked by whether she felt the book's revelation about the
sessions with Houston was à cheap shot, she replied, ``Yeah, I do.'
As her friend, I think with the enormous scrutiny that is on the first
lady and the president just naturally, all of us should respect the right to
privacy that they ought to have, Mrs. Gore said.
Panetta encouraged people to read The Choice, which was excerpted at
length in Sunday editions of the Post and in the upcoming issue of Newsweek.
The book, to be previewed in three more installments, also reports on Bob Dole
and his wife Elizabeth and some of the inner workings of the presumptive
Republican presidential nominee's campaign.
In a three-page passage, Woodward wrote that the first lady also communed
with Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi during one meeting with Houston. But Mrs.
Clinton declined Houston's suggestion that she address Jesus Christ because it
would be ``too personal.
The consultations with Houston and Bateson, Woodward wrote, came during
the third year of Clinton's presidency, when Mrs. Clinton seemed jerked
around by the muddled role of first lady, as she swung between New Age
feminist and national housewife.'
Her sense of high purpose and doing good had been thwarted'' by the
health care reform debacle, Woodward wrote, and she was `reaching out and
searching hard.
Houston and Bateson followed up their initial weekend at Camp David with a
series of letters and subsequent sessions at the White House. President
Clinton was present at his wife's first session with Houston.
Houston believed in putting people into trances and has used hypnosis and,
for a period in the 1960s, conducted experiments with LSD. But she tried to
be careful with Hillary and the president, intentionally avoiding any of those
techniques, Woodward wrote.
He said one session occurred in a sun parlor atop the White House where
Mrs. Clinton and several members of her staff were present, including one who
tape recorded one of the first lady's `conversations'' with Mrs. Roosevelt.
Most people in the White House did not know about the sessions, Woodward
wrote, and some who did feared the sessions could trigger politically
damaging comparisons to Nancy Reagan's use of astrology, which had heavily
influenced President Reagan's schedule.
Astrology only changed timing and it was a kind of pseudoscience that
could be fun or worth a laugh, 11 writes Woodward. Yet the Reagans had been
ridiculed. Hillary's sessions with Houston reflected a serious inner turmoil
that she had not resolved.
The most recent session cited was March 21, 1996, in which Woodward
reports that Houston told some jokes and stories in an effort to lift what
seemed to be the first lady's sagging spirits.
**** filed by:APW-(ar) on 06/23/96 at 14:34EDT ****
**** printed by: WHPR (NLAT) on 06/23/96 at 14:42EDT ****
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
MEMORANDUM
TO: All Parties
FR: Lisa Caputo
RE: General Response Regarding First Lady Portrayal in Bob
Woodward's The Choice
o The First Lady meets with all kinds of people from all walks of
life all the time.
o As she stated in her June 4, 1996 syndicated column "Talking It
Over," "I don't always agree with what I hear. What's important
is to have the chance to listen to women whose perspectives and
ideas may differ from my own so that I can broaden my
understanding of women's lives and roles today."
O What Mr. Woodward talks about in his book reflects a
brainstorming session Mrs. Clinton, members of her staff, Jean
Houston and Mary Catherine Bateson had to exchange ideas for Mrs.
Clinton's book released earlier this year IT TAKES A VILLAGE.
BC-CLINTON-HILLARY (SCHEDULED)
First lady ``enjoyed'' talks with New Age adviser
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuter) - Hillary Rodham Clinton enjoyed talking to a
researcher in psychic experiences and altered consciousness to get ideas for a
book and to cope with tough times, her spokesman said Sunday.
Washington was titillated when Sunday's Washington Post ran the first of
four excerpts from The Choice, a new book by Watergate reporter Bob
Woodward, that said the president's wife found encouragement by talking to
Jean Houston, co-director of the Foundation for Mind Research, which studies
psychic experience and altered and expanded consciousness.
The book said Houston got Mrs. Clinton to hold an imaginary conversation
with Eleanor Roosevelt, who died in 1962, during an April 1995 session in the
White House solarium. Mrs. Clinton holds the wife of President Franklin
Roosevelt dear as a first lady who was as controversial in her time as Mrs.
Clinton is now.
Mrs. Clinton was also led into a conversation with the Indian leader
Mohandas K. Gandhi, who died in 1948, but drew the line when asked to talk to
Jesus Christ, the book said.
It said Houston, author of more than a dozen New Age self-help books,
asked Mrs. Clinton to close her eyes, focus her thoughts on Mrs. Roosevelt and
describe her own work on behalf of children.
After addressing Mrs. Roosevelt more personally on the difficult and
ambiguous position of the first lady, Mrs. Clinton was encouraged to respond
as if she were her predecessor.
I was misunderstood, Hillary replied, her eyes still shut, speaking as
Mrs. Roosevelt. You have to do what you think is right, the book said.
The revelations take up only a few pages of the book, which is about the
Republican presidential contest and the Clinton White House.
But they could lead to comparisons of Mrs. Clinton and Nancy Reagan, who
consulted an astrologer and used the information she gained to schedule
presidential trips and key events.
Mrs. Clinton's spokesman, Neel Lattimore, shrugged off the comparison, as
well as any suggestion that the first lady had engaged in channeling, a
technique in which someone supposedly becomes a conduit for a dead person, who
provides information about one of the inquirer's previous lives.
If you want to compare Mrs. Clinton to Nancy Reagan, the only person
Mrs. Clinton's been channeling with was her TV, and
I can assure you she was not tuned into the Psychic Friends Network, he
said.
He said the first lady, who is going on a 10-day goodwill tour of Eastern
Europe July 1, found her conversations with Houston therapeutic because she is
someone who makes you laugh and talk.
This is not a mystic, this is not channeling. This is just her talking,
especially at a time when she was working on her book, trying to get her head
in shape and helping her get through some tough times, Lattimore said.
Even more than her husband, Mrs. Clinton has been a lightning rod for
White House critics, from her failed health care reform plan in 1994 to her
involvement in the tangled financial Arkansas land deal known as Whitewater.
Lattimore described Mrs. Clinton's session with Houston as a
brainstorming session for It Takes a Village, the book about
child-rearing that Mrs. Clinton wrote. He said it was one of dozens of
meetings the first lady has had with a wide variety of women.
Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, came to Mrs. Clinton's
defense in a CNN interview. Mrs. Gore, asked if she felt the book passage was
a cheap shot, said, `Yeah, I do, and called it a violation of Mrs.
Clinton's privacy.
Gore criticized the first lady's political opponents. They have
attacked her practice of law 15 years ago. Now they' going into the way she
brainstormed to write her book, he said.
Her `sense of high purpose and doing good had been thwarted'' by the
health care reform debacle, Woodward wrote, and she was `reaching out and
searching hard.
Houston and Bateson followed up their initial weekend at Camp David with a
series of letters and subsequent sessions at the White House. President
Clinton was present at his wife's first session with Houston.
Houston believed in putting people into trances and has used hypnosis and,
for a period in the 1960s, conducted experiments with LSD. But she tried to
be careful with Hillary and the president, intentionally avoiding any of those
techniques,' Woodward wrote.
He said one session occurred in a sun parlor atop the White House where
Mrs. Clinton and several members of her staff were present, including one who
tape recorded one of the first lady's `'conversations'" with Mrs. Roosevelt.
Most people in the White House did not know about the sessions, Woodward
wrote, and some who did feared the sessions could trigger politically
damaging comparisons to Nancy Reagan's use of astrology, which had heavily
influenced President Reagan's schedule.
``Astrology only changed timing and it was a kind of pseudoscience that
could be fun or worth a laugh, 11 writes Woodward. `Yet the Reagans had been
ridiculed. Hillary's sessions with Houston reflected a serious inner turmoil
that she had not resolved.
The most recent session cited was March 21, 1996, in which Woodward
reports that Houston told some jokes and stories in an effort to lift what
seemed to be the first lady's sagging spirits.
**** filed by:APW-(ar) on 06/23/96 at 14:34EDT ****
**** printed by: WHPR (NLAT) on 06/23/96 at 16:06EDT ****
AM-Mrs Clinton-Advisers, Bjt, 930
First Lady Consulted Spiritual Adviser; `Not Seances, White House Says
With AM-Woodward Book-Highlights; also moving nationally
By SONYA ROSS= Associated Press Writer=
WASHINGTON (AP) Hillary Rodham Clinton consulted with a spiritual adviser
who led her through imaginary conversations with her personal hero, Eleanor
Roosevelt, according to a new book about the 1996 presidential campaign.
Mrs. Clinton's spokesman said Sunday there's nothing new'' about the
consultations with author Jean Houston and an associate, Mary Catherine
Bateson, that were described in The Choice, a new book by Bob Woodward, an
assistant managing editor at The Washington Post.
These were people who were helping her laugh, helping her think, said
Neel Lattimore, the first lady's spokesman. These were not seances.
The White House, hoping to minimize possible political damage like that
done by word of Nancy Reagan's use of an astrologer. depicted the
consultations as simple brainstorming sessions for Mrs. Clinton's book, It
Takes a Village.''
``To describe it as a consultation with psychics is to try to put it in
the wrong frame. We have to draw strength from wherever we can in order to
make it from day to day, White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta said on
CBS' Face the Nation.
She sat down with friends and advisers, talked through experiences,
sought information, sought knowledge, Panetta said. And I think that's
human.
In her syndicated column on June 4, the first lady listed Houston,
co-director of the Foundation for Mind Research, as one of many women with
whom she has consulted. She said Houston has shared her views with me on
everything from the ancient Greeks to the lives of women and children in
Bangladesh.'
She also said she has spent hours discussing the roles of women in society
with Bateson, an anthropologist and daughter of famed anthropologist Margaret
Mead, as well as others, such as poet Maya Angelou and historians Doris Kearns
Goodwin and Blanche Wiesen Cook, who shared their thoughts on Mrs. Roosevelt.
Messages left for Houston and Bateson were not immediately returned.
``As women, talking can be our greatest friend, Mrs. Clinton wrote. ``I
don't always agree with what I hear. What's important is to have the chance to
listen to women whose perspectives and ideas may differ from my own.
Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, defended Mrs. Clinton, saying
the first lady was within her right to consult with Houston.
`They have attacked her practice of law 15 years ago. Now they are going
into the way she brainstormed to write her book, the vice president said on
CNN's Late Edition.
Mrs. Gore, when asked by whether she felt the book's revelation about the
sessions with Houston was à cheap shot, she replied, Yeah, I do.
As her friend, I think with the enormous scrutiny that is on the first
lady and the president just naturally, all of us should respect the right to
privacy that they ought to have, Mrs. Gore said.
Panetta encouraged people to read The Choice, which was excerpted at
length in Sunday editions of the Post and in the upcoming issue of Newsweek.
The book, to be previewed in three more installments, also reports on Bob Dole
and his wife Elizabeth and some of the inner workings of the presumptive
Republican presidential nominee's campaign.
In a three-page passage, Woodward wrote that the first lady also communed
with Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi during one meeting with Houston. But Mrs.
Clinton declined Houston's suggestion that she address Jesus Christ because it
would be too personal.
The consultations with Houston and Bateson, Woodward wrote, came during
the third year of Clinton's presidency, when Mrs. Clinton seemed jerked
around by the muddled role of first lady, as she swung between New Age
feminist and national housewife.'
White House spokesman Mike McCurry said the book's passages about Mrs.
Clinton describe a graceful first lady who enjoys listening to women with
ideas and perspective that differ from her own. He called the book a
combination of the accurate and the not-so-accurate.'
Woodward's book said that in October and November 1995, Houston virtually
moved into the White House residence for several days at a time to help Mrs.
Clinton with her book, which earlier this year was a No. 1 bestseller.
In her weekly syndicated column June 4, Mrs. Clinton wrote she
occasionally has imaginary conversations with Mrs. Roosevelt to try to
figure out what she would do in my shoes. She usually responds by telling me
to buck up or at least to grow skin as thick as a rhinoceros.
REUTER
**** filed by: RB (--) on 06/23/96 at 14:52EDT ****
**** printed by: WHPR (NLAT) on 06/23/96 at 16:04EDT ****
TALKING IT OVER
BY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
An extraordinary woman is coming to the White House next week: Mary
Robinson, the President of Ireland. She is also a mother, a human rights lawyer, a law
professor, a force for reconciliation between Protestants and Catholics, and a voice for
women all over the world.
I met President Robinson last year when Bill and I were in Dublin. I admire her
efforts to legalize contraception and to help women win the right to sit on juries when
she was a young legislator in the Irish Senate. In outlining her philosophy, she has
quoted the early feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, who said 200 years ago: "I do not
wish women to have power over men but over themselves."
President Robinson's message about women's empowerment echoes the
thoughts and words of many other women I have spoken with around the world during
the past three and a half years.
Whether they are scholars, poets, historians, journalists, political activists or
stay-at-home mothers, women have much to teach each other about the choices and
challenges we face as we try to lead integrated lives.
As the writer Deborah Tannen has pointed out in her books about
communication and gender, women need to talk, and often they need to talk to each
other. It is that need for conversation and direct communication that distinguishes most
women from most men.
As women, talking can be our greatest friend. That's why I'm so excited that
President Robinson will be in the United States, spreading her message of humanity
and opportunity for the people of Ireland and for women everywhere.
It's also why I feel so fortunate to have had face-to-face discussions about
women's lives with everyone from the Prime Minister of Norway, to the Empress of
Japan, to a destitute mother of 10 children in a dusty village in rural Pakistan.
When the best-selling author Mary Pipher visited me recently at the White
House, we talked about our lives and the pressures confronting teen-age girls today.
The poet Maya Angelou teaches me about literature and life, particularly from
the perspective of an African-American woman who grew up in Arkansas and is now a
citizen of the world.
06/05/96 WED 10:43 FAX
CREATORS SYNDICATE
LISSA MUSCATINE
003
TALKING IT OVER 6/4/96
Page 2
Rose Styron, the writer and human rights activist, always provokes my thinking
about the obligations we owe to men and women whose names are unknown, yet who
are suffering for the cause of freedom and democracy.
Historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Blanche Wiesen Cook both have shared
their thoughts about Eleanor Roosevelt, someone I wish I could have talked to in
person about the role of First Lady. In fact, I occasionally have imaginary
conversations with Mrs. Roosevelt to try to figure out what she would do in my shoes.
She usually responds by telling me to buck up or at least to grow skin as thick as a
rhinoceros.
Mary Catherine Bateson, an anthropologist and the daughter of Margaret Mead,
has written many books, including one called "Composing a Life." She and I have
spent hours discussing the ways in which women in different societies attempt to fulfill
their responsibilities to their families, jobs and communities.
Jean Houston, an expert on philosophy and mythology, has shared her views
with me on everything from the ancient Greeks to the lives of women and children in
Bangladesh.
I've even had the pleasure of sitting across the dinner table from Ann Landers,
asking advice on matters both trivial and not-so-trivial.
But of all the women I've had the chance to meet, I've probably learned the most
from those you've never heard of women who have never written a book, appeared
on television or been the subject of a newspaper article. From a poor barrio in
Managua, Nicaragua, to a grassy field in Indonesia, I've met women who find comfort
and unity in telling each other about their children, jobs, families, health, education
and all the issues that touch their lives.
I don't always agree with what I hear. What's important is to have the chance to
listen to women whose perspectives and ideas may differ from my own so that I can
broaden my understanding of women's lives and roles today.
Whoever is doing the talking, the stories we share contribute to our history as
women and our understanding of our own time.
I hope we will all make time to talk things over with each other.
COPYRIGHT 1996 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
June 4, 1996
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
February 21, 1993
REMARKS BY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
AT FIRST LADIES OF song EVENT
New York city, New York
10:51 P.M. EST
MRS. CLINTON: Thank you so much, and thank everyone
from Frankie and James Roosevelt and the extended Roosevelt family
and -- Stone, and all of the first women of song and theater who were
here tonight, for making us all feel so good about our country and
about someone who, on a continuing basis, inspires us and prods us.
Thanks aslo to the first ladies of New York city and New York,
Matilda Cuomo and Joyce Dinkens who were here with us tonight, and
all of us who try in whatever way we can to do what these days should
be done.
As I was sitting here this evening I thought about all
of the conversations that I have had and might have with Mrs.
Roosevelt this year. (Laughter.) It's one of the saving graces that
I have hung on to for dear life. (Laughter.) The early
conversations were I'm sure not very satisfactory to her because,
early on as the campaign would go and things would happen, I would
shake my head and I would say, "Why me?" (Laughter.) And I wouldn't
get any answer at all.
A little while later, after some more time had passed
and I had read even more and more -- actually devoured more and more
about Mrs. Roosevelt, I realized that that was not a question that
she would ever give an answer to. One did what one was expected and
did it in in the best way possible.
So my conversations turned to really requests for
information how did you put up with this? (Laughter.) How could
you go on from day to day with all that would happen and the kind of
attacks and criticism that would be hurled your way? Again, I have
to confess, it was not a very satisfactory conversation, because as
you can see by looking at this wonderful, wonderful monument that
will be erected, she listened calmly and looked at me very serenely,
in my mind, but didn't say very much.
And then one day I had a wonderful revelation. And that
was when I learned that even before President Roosevelt was
inaugurated, newspapers were editorializing against Mrs. Roosevelt.
They were saying she should keep her opinions to herself, that her
husband had been elected President and no one in America wanted to
hear a thing that she had to say. Actually, one of the most
incredible editorials to that effect happened right here in this
city, if I recall.
And so it struck rie that what was really happening to me
wasn't anything very new at all. That it was an ongoing story of
what happens often as we relive history because we failed to learn
from it, and that what we all must do in the best way we can -- take
those lessons to heart.
So I began having much better and more satisfactory
conversations with Mrs. Roosevelt. (Laughter.) Because I began to
talk with her about what she was really interested in and how she
could help me. And now the conversations that I've had for the past
MORE
month have been especially gratifying to me. Because she has said on
several occasions as I have shaken my head over some problem or
another, or as I watch my husband work very hard on the economic plan
or some other important issue -- she's probably shaking her head, I
said in my mind, "I thought that would have been solved by now."
(Laughter.) "Since it's not, then you are just going to have to get
out there and do it and don't make any excuses about it."
So from my perspective, what Mrs. Roosevelt has done is
what she is still doing -- she says far better than I what I feel. I
was struck tonight that perhaps what I should do is just take all
these wonderful quotes we heard, write them down on notecards, and
when I'm ever asked a question, shuffle through them and just hand
them over. (Applause.)
But mostly I'm grateful because you will have this
monument. I will, I hope, someday have a small replica of it and
will -- because I hope that's one of the things which come from this.
-- that I can put on my desk or in the window of my study; and when I
feel a little discouraged or a little down, think about this woman
who, although born to privilege, did not have much of what I have
taken for granted -- a warm and loving and supportive family, an
education that went on beyond my 17th year, an opportunity to see
many things and have many experiences. But I don't feel that I was
as well prepared in many ways as she was, pursuing these
responsibilities. And I only hope that as the years go by, my heart
and my mind will expand and grow, so that some day I will feel worthy
of being mentioned in the same sentence with her.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
END
10:58 A.M. EST
"Good MORNING, MRS. PRESIDENT!"
107
ed one of the Clinton
least we had turned the gingerbread man around so that his golden
alk around the corner
rings didn't face the tour line. I came back later and took some pic-
:ky this time.
tures of the tree and "Mr. Gingerbread Man" with rings side out. I
ked at yet. What's this?
knew nobody would believe this without photographic proof.
have shells this time-
While I was working on the tree, Craig Livingstone happened to\
nication.
stop by. He was surprised to see me placing ornaments on Hillary's
posed to illustrate five
tree, but I told him I was an old hand at this decorating business. Liv-
rs grabbed my arm and
ingstone was leading Oliver Stone and Michael Douglas in a tour
around the White House. Stone was making Nixon, and Douglas was
A
it?"
making An American President. Stone looked stoned to me, as he
gazed around, obviously thinking of this "shot" or that. I wasn't
S
to me: the golden rings
impressed. Still, this must have been a great moment for Livingstone,
our White House security director, whose goal in life was to become
E
: rings"-and they had
a Hollywood producer.
bread man. How did he
But the cameras, surprisingly enough, soon fell not on Michael
I got it. There were five
Douglas or on the dazed Oliver Stone or the photogenically chal-
his ear, one in his nose,
lenged Craig Livingstone; they fell on me. I was interviewed by
button, and, of course,
Martha Stewart, who was doing a Christmas special to be aired later
on a major network morning show. She promised she would not
ornaments represented.
blow my cover when she learned I was an FBI agent.
X
1 something to hang on
As she looked around the tree she made "hmmmm" sounds. If she
hatred, and disrespect
didn't like the tree, she was very diplomatic about it. I wondered
country, a disgust obvi-
what she really thought. It seemed to me most people could have
e of artistic freedom.
only one thought: "Throw a tarp over it!"
s, and grandfathers walk-
oking at the first lady's
had possessed the White
Aside from displaying sex toys and self-mutilation devices on the
nation's Christmas tree, there was another "change" in the way the
nent-five gold-wrapped
White House celebrated Christmas. Hillary decided to delete spouses
ther condom ornaments,
from the invitation-only staff Christmas party. This caused a bit of a
S had been "blown" into
stir, not only because it broke with tradition, but because it raised a
what the connection was
question I had heard several permanent staffers ask: "Why is Hillary
in a pear tree?
so hostile to families?"
ee had all the beauty and
I think it's because they represent a sphere of loyalty outside her
control. And Hillary likes to be in charge.
e down, carefully looked
ounced it "perfect" and
d been our last, best hope
thought it was "neat." At
HEADLINE Politics & Policy:
*
SEC Asked to Seek
Data on Fund Used
By Hillary Clinton
By Christi Harlan
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
LENGTH
ESTIMATED INFORMATION UNITS: 4.4
WORDS: 418
DATE
02/01/94
SOURCE WALL STREET JOURNAL (J), PAGE A4
WASHINGTON -- Three House Republicans asked the Securities and
*
Exchange Commission for information about Hillary Rodham Clinton's
holdings in an investment fund that sold short several healthcare
stocks early last year.
Mrs. Clinton's holdings in ValuePartners I became public
knowledge in May 1993 when she and President Clinton filed federal
forms disclosing a variety of investments. Mrs. Clinton has been a
limited partner since 1986 in ValuePartners I, a hedge fund managed
by Smith Capital Management of Little Rock, Ark.
Hedge funds are among the most aggressive investment pools
because they can buy stocks with borrowed money and can sell stocks
short -- that is, borrow shares and sell them at current prices in
anticipation of replacing them at lower prices. Health-care stocks
were among the stocks sold short by ValuePartners I last year, when
many health-care stocks were falling in value because of the
uncertainty about the impending recommendations of the presidential
task force on health-care reform, headed by Mrs. Clinton.
In a letter to SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, Reps. Bob Lancaster of
Louisiana, Christopher Cox of California and George Gekas of
Pennsylvania asked for information about Smith Capital Management
and trading in the hedge fund in the time between President
Clinton's election and the transfer of the fund and other Clinton
assets to a blind trust in July.
"Both the President and Mrs. Clinton would certainly be aware of
the impact on the market of their statements about the
Administration's health care proposals," the Republican
representatives wrote to Mr. Levitt last week. "The ability of the
President and Mrs. Clinton to affect prices in the securities
markets is unique. The questions already raised publicly concerning
their investments, particularly short sales, must be addressed."
SEC officials said they are reviewing the letter but wouldn't
comment further.
Separately, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Donald Riegle again
rejected Republican requests for a hearing on the Clintons' Arkansas
real-estate investment. The Michigan Democrat said he wouldn't
consider committee activity until special counsel Robert Fiske Jr.
has completed his investigation of Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan
and Whitewater Development Corp.
Sen. Alfonse D'Amato of New York and seven of his fellow
Republicans on the Banking Committee have asked for hearings on the
Clintons' investment in Whitewater with the former chairman of
Madison Guaranty.
---
Corrections & Amplifications
REP. BOB LIVINGSTON of Louisiana is one of three Republicans
seeking data from the Securities and Exchange Commission about
*
Hillary Rodham Clinton's investments. An article yesterday
incorrectly called him Bob Lancaster.
(WSJ Feb. 2, 1994)
HEADLINE Gergen, Beggars, Hillary, etc.
LENGTH ESTIMATED INFORMATION UNITS: 2.0 Words: 246
DATE 06/05/93
SOURCE THE DETROIT NEWS (DTNS)
Edition: NDOT
Section: C
Page: 12
(Copyright 1993)
GERGEN COMES HOME: Those who worry that "Reaganite" David
Gergen won't be able to function effectively in the Clinton White
House might find consolation in the following quote from a 1981
profile of Mr. Gergen in the Washington Post: "I told him," Gergen
recalls of his job interview with (Nixon aide Ray) Price, "Look,
I'm a registered Democrat, and I didn't vote for Nixon in '68, I
voted for Humphrey."
CHAIRMAN BOU-BOU: Two days after declaring an "unalterable
commitment" to free speech, UN Secretary Gen. Boutros Boutros-Ghali
posted guards at UN headquarters to bar a speech by Chinese
dissident Shen Tong, a leader of the 1989 democracy movement. Mr.
Tong was invited by the UN Correspondents Association, which has
hosted a variety of opposition figures. The association has been
ordered to clear "objectionable" speakers or face eviction.
BEGGARS WITH ATTITUDE: Beggars who want to work in our nation's
capital had better be polite about it. The City Council has just
passed an ordinance that allows "polite" begging but outlaws
"aggressive" begging. The American Civil Liberties Union has
promised - what else? - a lawsuit, charging the First Amendment
protects the right to harass pedestrians.
*
DON'T SELL HER SHORT: Wondering what Hillary Clinton's health
care plan is likely to mean for you and the economy? Well, she
* isn't waiting to find out. Value Partners, the investment house
that manages part of the First Lady's portfolio, has been selling
short health care stocks since she became First Lady.
End of Story Reached
Copyright 1994 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
The Houston Chronicle
March 18, 1994, Friday, 2 STAR Edition
SECTION: A; Opinion; Pg. 24
LENGTH: 890 words
HEADLINE: Clintons' critics might save them yet
BYLINE: PAUL GREENBERG
BODY:
THE long ranch-style structure set back from Hinson Road out in West Little Rock
is the site of Smith Capital Management and a national story.
Inside is the office of Bill Smith, who runs his financial management service in part
of the building and rents out the rest of his Pleasant Valley Office Center. The other
day he found out just how high the Whitewater tide can rise, and who could wind
up neck deep in it.
For years now Bill Smith has managed a stock fund, called ValuePartners, in which
Hillary Rodham Clinton invested, and now 81 Republican congressmen have made
some serious charges about her involvement in it. "We believe," the congressmen
wrote the director of the Office of Government Ethics, ""that Ms. Rodham Clinton's
actions not only create the appearance of impropriety but may in fact violate the
prohibitions of 18 USC Sec.208.
""In 1986," the congressmen allege, ""Ms. Rodham Clinton first acquired an interest
in a nonpublic limited partnership called ValuePartners I." True enough.
""Some time during 1992," they add, ""her investment in this partnership increased.
" Not true enough. Possibly the congressmen, or whichever aides draw up these
accusations, noted that Hillary Clinton's share of the fund went from about .93 to .97,
and assumed she had invested more money. Actually, says Bill Smith, she hasn't
touched her investment since 1986. Her share of the fund increased minutely, he
explains, because other investors pulled out some capital.
""The personal investments of President and Mrs. Rodham Clinton were not placed
into a blind trust until July 4, 1993.
Consequently, prior to that date Rodham Clinton received
regular reports from Smith Capital. True. IIII
including specifically a minimum of six reports in 1992 and the first half of 1993,
detailing the short sale positions of ValuePartners I."
Not true, says Bill Smith. Because, he explains, once Bill Clinton began to rise in
the presidential polls early in '92, probably around March of that year, he took the
liberty of cutting off any reports about specific stocks to investors in ValuePartners I
A Reagan Republican who says he's never voted for a
Democratic presidential candidate, Bill Smith was taking no chances with the
Clintons. ""I think they've always been a bit careless about the appearance of
conflicts of interest," he told me, ""and if you're involved with their assets, you have
to be sensitive to the Clintons' position."
In effect, Smith created a blind trust for the Clintons more than a year before they
had the sense to do it for themselves. It occurs that if they had taken Smith to
Washington instead of some of their buddies, Whitewater might still be only the
name of a failed land development in the wilds of northern Arkansas, and not a
cloud over the White House.
""Ms. Rodham Clinton," the Republican congressmen assumed, ""was, therefore,
actually and constructively in receipt of information showing she had a direct and
personal financial interest in short sales of pharmaceutical and health-care stocks. "
The congressmen assume too much. ""ValuePartners had no investments in
pharmaceutical stocks during Mr. or Irs.Clinton's late 1992 and 1993 speeches on the
health-care system," says Bill Smith, displaying the fund's list of stock holdings as of
Dec. 31, 1992. ""The last investment in pharmaceutical stocks was closed out in May
of 1992, well before the election. "
As for the congressmen's charge that Hillary Clinton ""may have been in a position
to influence these investments," Bill Smith points out that by law limited partners in
such a fund may not influence its investment decisions or it would lose its favored
tax status -- a chance he isn't about to take.
The congressmen charge that Hillary Clinton's attacks on the pharmaceutical firms
slam-dunked their stock prices. True. ""At the time," they add, ""her personal
investment in ValuePartners I, of which she had repeated notice, was intentionally
structured to profit from price declines in pharmaceutical company stocks. Not true,
says Bill Smith: ""ValuePartners actually lost money on the crash in health-care stocks
following Hillary Clinton's February 1993 speech. In fact, the partnership lost $
286,000, of which Mrs. Clinton's share was about $ 2,800.
ValuePartners was long more in health-care stocks than short, and experienced one
of the worst months in years as a result. "
The congressmen say Hillary Clinton ""personally profited as a result" of her
speeches -- a charge that doesn't hold up on the slightest inspection.
Conclusion: By pouring Whitewater over everything in sight, the Clintons' most
fervid critics may yet be able to give the presidential couple a way out of this jam.
As if this
administration's lapses were not serious enough, those who exaggerate them may
succeed in transforming an ethically numb president into some kind of put-upon
martyr.
The unholy glee that has engulfed the whole Wall Street Journal-American
Spectator-Rush Limbaugh axis at Bill Clinton's troubles may yet allow the Comeback
Kid to make a comeback. Their zeal is not becoming - -- or effective. Or right. But
some folks have a knack for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
TYPE: Editorial Opinion
NOTES: Greenberg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist and editorial
page editor of the Little Rock, Ark., Democrat-Gazette.
LOAD-DATE-MDC: March 22, 1994
PAGE 5
7TH STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright 1994 Cable News Network, Inc.
All rights reserved
CNN
SHOW: NEWS 10:32 pm ET
March 14, 1994
Transcript # 658-7
TYPE: Package
SECTION: News; Domestic
LENGTH: 470 words
HEADLINE: Republicans Attack Hillary Clinton in Health Care Role
GUESTS: Rep. CHRISTOPHER COX, (R-CA.); BILL SMITH
BYLINE: BROOKS JACKSON
HIGHLIGHT:
Republicans say Hillary Rodham Clinton is violating ethics regulations in her
role as health care reform overseer. They say her investments in health care
stocks are of conflicting interest with her job.
BODY:
SUSAN ROOK, Anchor: Well, did Hillary Rodham Clinton violate federal ethics
laws by investing money in health care stocks, or are those allegations just an
example of partisan politics at its ugliest? CNN's Brooks Jackson gets to the
bottom of these questions in today's Focal Point.
BROOKS JACKSON, Special Assignment Correspondent: Republicans are saying
Hillary Rodham Clinton may have violated the federal ethics law when she
criticized drug companies last year. Now, 81 House Republicans are saying Mrs.
Clinton stood to profit from her official position as head of the health care
task force, because she was a partner in a fund that sold medical stocks short.
Short sellers profit when stock prices go down.
Rep. CHRISTOPHER COX, (R-CA.): It put Mrs. Clinton in a position of betting that
these companies were going to fail at the very time that commentators tell us
the result of her speeches and the president's speeches was to cause the share
price to decline.
JACKSON: But the manager of Mrs. Clinton's stock fund, who is also a Republican,
says those Congressmen never talked to him.
BILL SMITH: These fellows have it all wrong, and they need to back off.
JACKSON: Well, what are the facts? Mrs. Clinton did have $87,000 invested in
one of Mr. Smith's partnerships, called Value Partners 1, and, during the 1992
campaign, that fund did sell short two pharmaceutical companies -
Bristol-Meyers/Squibb and Merck - generating a small profit.
Mr. SMITH: Mrs. Clinton's percentage of that profit was, I mean the amount of
the profit was $25.
JACKSON: But that was well before the election, and Smith denies the fund has
had any pharmaceutical investment since.
Mr. SMITH: We didn't own any and we haven't shorted any pharmaceutical stocks
since early '92.
JACKSON: After the inauguration, the fund did have a fraction of its money
invested in other medical companies. Smith says those stocks lost money, but
Republicans say technically, that doesn't matter.
Rep. COX: The law doesn't even care whether you make money or not. But what the
law prevents is that you have a financial interest, and that you know you have
one.
JACKSON: Mrs. Clinton's stock fund went into a blind trust last July, ending any
potential conflict of interest.
Even the Clinton's friends wonder why they failed to set up a blind trust before
taking office, as every other president since Jimmy Carter has done. The
Clinton's delay left them open to this latest attack. Brooks Jackson, CNN
Special Assignment.
The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although
the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid
distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against
tape.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE-MDC: March 15, 1994
Copyright 1994 News World Communications, Inc.
The Washington Times
March 24, 1994, Thursday, Final Edition
SECTION: Part A; COMMENTARY; EDITORIALS; OP-ED; Pg. A19
LENGTH: 1028 words
HEADLINE: What did Mrs. Clinton invest and when did she do it?
BODY:
Recently, Hillary Rodham Clinton's investment in a Little Rock "hedge fund"
has gained national attention. Understanding why requires an appreciation of
the Ethics in Government Act, which regulates conflicts of interest in the
federal executive branch.
Under the act, it is a criminal offense for any federal employee to
knowingly maintain a financial interest in any specific area in which he or she
is "personally and substantially" involved. Since Ms. Rodham Clinton was
clearly so involved in health care as chairman of the president's Health Care
Task Force, and since in that capacity she has been adjudged a federal employee
(unlike other first ladies) by a federal court, there remains only one serious
question on her compliance with the Ethics in Government Act. Did she know her
money was invested in a partnership that was short selling health care and
pharmaceutical stocks?
The very limited financial disclosures by the Clintons thus far suggest,
tentatively, that the answer may be yes.
Despite the protestations of the partnership's Little Rock manager, Bill
Smith, those disclosures show that Ms. Rodham Clinton almost certainly knew not
only that nearly $100,000 of her money was invested in ValuePartners I, but also
that the partnership took short positions in certain health care stocks.
For this reason, 81 Republican members of Congress have asked the Office of
Government Ethics to investigate the complete facts. The request did not allege
wrongdoing by Mr. Smith, or by ValuePartners I. Nonetheless, Mr. Smith has
risen to the Clinton's defense, and in so doing has misrepresented several key
facts.
In an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's Paul Greenberg, Mr.
Smith noted that the Clintons have "always been a bit careless about the
appearance of conflicts of interest." That much is certainly true. Unlike
Presidents Reagan and Bush, who put their personal investments in a blind trust
before taking office, the Clintons couldn't let go of their money. They didn't
set up a blind trust until half a year into the Clinton presidency.
This, of course, put Hillary Rodham Clinton in a position to know where her
investments were. Not so, Mr. Smith told the Democrat-Gazette: He stopped
reporting to the Clintons about specific stocks in March 1992.
That is demonstrably false. A Dec. 31, 1992 report from Smith Capital is
attached to President Clinton's financial disclosure report of May 14, 1993. It
lists that day's short positions. They include Bioplasty, a surgical device
manufacturer; Cryomedical Sciences, a cryogenic surgical instrument provider;
Health Professionals, a health-care service company; and Royce Labs, a generic
drug manufacturer.
And while selling short these health care issues creates the most serious
appearance problem, the same report to the Clintons from Smith Capital also
shows that ValuePartners took long positions in Grancare, a long-term health
care company; Health Care and Retirement, also a long-term health care provider;
Lincare, a specialist in respiratory therapy services; and United Health Care,
which runs HMOs and preferred provider plans.
It is not just on this point that Mr. Smith misspoke. He also told the
Democrat-Gazette that the partnership's "last investment in pharmaceutical
stocks was closed out in May 1992."
This, too, is easily proven false. According to the May 14, 1993 disclosure
statement personally signed by Bill Clinton, in December 1992 ValuePartners was
short Royce Laboratories, a manufacturer of generic drugs. And according to the
May 21, 1993 Wall Street Journal, Mr. Smith acknowledged that "one of the
stocks shorted this year [1993] was Synergin, Inc., a biotechnology company
whose shares plunged 68 percent in value after the company announced poor
results for a major trial of its key drug."
Finally, Mr. Smith claims that none of this matters anyway, because
February 1993, when the partnership actually lost money on its health care
hedges, was "one of the [partnership's] worst months in years." But whether Ms.
Rodham Clinton lost money in a particular month is irrelevant, since her
investment covered all of 1992 and half of 1993. According to the Clintons' May
14, 1993 financial disclosure, she also profited at other times, and
specifically from short sales. Neither Mr. Smith nor Ms. Rodham Clinton has
been sufficiently forthcoming to provide information about short sales (and
profit or loss therefrom) for the entire period, which is one of the chief
reasons an investigation is necessary.
More to the point, the congressional request for an investigation accurately
noted that ValuePartners I "was intentionally structured to profit from price
declines of pharmaceutical stocks." Whether it succeeded in doing so is of no
moment under Ethics in Government Act. The law punishes anyone who knowingly
has a "financial interest" in the area of his or her particular responsibility.
It is being in a position where one has the opportunity to profit that
constitutes the criminal offense.
Surely, ValuePartners I intended to profit by virtue of its short sales of
health care and pharmaceutical stocks. If Ms. Rodham Clinton knew of these
investments, she is properly the subject of the law. Were it otherwise, the
criminal law would not punish attempted murders - only successful ones.
Compliance with the Ethics in Government Act isn't easy. It requires great
sacrifice by the men and women who serve in the executive branch - just ask any
cabinet secretary who's had to liquidate personal investments at a loss. The
Clintons' apparent unwillingness to make the same sacrifice as every other
senior federal employee can only undermine public confidence in our ethics
laws. At the very least, they now owe it to the American people to accept the
consequences of their failure to divest.
Christopher Cox, a member of the House Government Operations Committee,
served in the White House Counsel's office during the Reagan administration.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE-MDC: March 24, 1994
Copyright 1994 Plain Dealer Publishing Co.
The Plain Dealer
March 22, 1994 Tuesday, FINAL / ALL
SECTION: EDITORIALS & FORUM; Pg. 7B
LENGTH: 857 words
HEADLINE: CLINTONS MAKE THEMSELVES LOOK GOOFY
BYLINE: By TONY SNOW
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
Democrats and Republicans disagree about virtually everything when it comes to
Whitewatergate, except for this: Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton have created
trouble for themselves with some inexplicably dumb behavior.
One failure leaves politicians especially aghast. The Clintons, unlike every
presidential couple in decades, didn't put their assets in a blind trust before checking
into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. They maintained undiluted control over their stocks,
bonds and sundries until last July 23.
This departure from routine pitched Hillary Rodham Clinton into the maw of
criminal conflict-of-interest statutes. The controversy hinges on the fact that her single
largest investment last year was a stake in Valuepartners I, a fund that pumped
considerable money into health-industry stocks in 1992 and 1993.
Here's the problem: The Ethics in Government Act prohibits government
employees from influencing any policy that might affect their financial interests or
those of family, friends or business associates. According to regulations, "the dollar
amount of the effect on the financial interest is immaterial." It doesn't matter whether
a person makes or loses money on a questionable transaction. It's the appearance of
impropriety that counts.
Mrs. Clinton's actions as health-care czarina fit the conflict-of-interest profile. Her
work shapes the fate of every fund that dabbles in health-industry issues, including
Valuepartners, and in a big way. University of Michigan business professor Craig
Pirrong demonstrated last year that Clinton statements about pharmaceuticals
accounted for most of the $90 billion sell-off in drug-company shares between
mid-1992 and late 1993. When Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks, markets listen - and
tremble.
Valuepartners manager William Smith, a Reagan Republican, defends his most
famous client by noting that she knew nothing about the fund's contents. He decided
nearly two years ago to start printing only the most basic information on quarterly
statements. That way, he could shield Mrs. Clinton from direct knowledge of
health-related trades, while fulfilling his obligation to select the best mix of stocks for
his investors.
But despite Smith's efforts, the Clintons had some idea where their money was
going last year. Their financial disclosure forms include a "snapshot" of the
Valuepartners portfolio on Dec. 31, 1992. That statistical portrait revealed that the
fund was investing widely in health-industry stocks. Moreover, the Clintons could
have received detailed updates on Valuepartners until the moment they turned their
holdings over to an independent executor. Smith provides complete information on
the fund whenever his partners want, so ignorance of the first family investment
doesn't work as an excuse.
Neither, ironically, does the move to a "blind trust." Conflict-of-interest statutes
apply to whatever a person originally puts into the trust, and the laws don't loosen
their grip until a financial manager sells all the previously held assets.
The White House has tried to wriggle out of this difficulty by claiming that the
first lady shares the president's exemption from the Ethics in Government Act.
Administration lawyers assert that her wealth is wound inextricably with his, but
that's not so. The thoroughly modern Clintons hold many separate accounts,
including Valuepartners.
All of this raises two questions that continually stalk this White House: Do the
president and his wife believe they can ignore laws that bind everybody else? Or are
they innocent but sloppy?
Republicans in the House of Representatives have tried to get the answers by
asking legal experts at the White House, the Office of Governmental Ethics and the
Securities and Exchange Commission to supply crucial information, including: 1) a
ruling on whether Mrs. Clinton must obey the Ethics in Government Act; 2) a full list
of health-care trades conducted by Valuepartners while her money was parked there,
and 3) an account of any communication or correspondence between Mrs. Clinton or
her agents and Valuepartners.
Typically, however, the administration hasn't coughed up the facts.
But it should. This White House has been brought low by suspicions that its
occupants work hard but don't play by the rules. Although a president must endure
many ridiculous and unnecessary regulations, conflict-of-interest statutes are not
among them. The Ethics in Government Act tries to bolster faith in the embattled
institutions of Congress and the White House by preventing federal employees from
transforming positions of public service into platforms for private gain.
Incredibly, the Clintons, who swept into office vowing to set unassailable ethical
standards, constantly seem to flout the law - in this case, by clinging to controversial
assets after coming to power.
Republicans (and a few off-the-record Democrats) have decided to track the
Valuepartners matter because they fear that the Clintons' oversight may not have
been just dumb - but that in the first lady's case, it also could have been criminal.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE-MDC: March 23, 1994
Copyright 1994 The Times Mirror Company
Los Angeles Times
May 2, 1994, Monday, Home Edition
SECTION: Part A; Page 1; Column 2; National Desk
LENGTH: 2264 words
HEADLINE: RISKY VENTURES MARKED EARLY CLINTON INVESTING;
FINANCES: STRATEGIES OF PRESIDENT, WIFE HARDLY FIT SAFE PATTERN
FOR YOUNG COUPLES' NEST EGGS. IRAS WERE IGNORED.
BYLINE: By SARA FRITZ, TIMES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
BODY:
Shortly after they were married in 1975, Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton decided,
as the First Lady described it recently, "to create some financial security for our
family." Their goal, she said, was to accumulate enough money to educate their
yet-unborn daughter, finance their own retirement and help their parents in times of
need.
That explanation of the Clintons' now-controversial financial affairs doubtless
struck a responsive chord among millions of young, middle-class Americans.
Yet the investment strategies the Clintons pursued in the early days of their careers
did not fit the traditional pattern of safe, predictable, mainstream investments chosen
by most young couples who are seeking to build a nest egg.
They did not buy a permanent residence. They did not open individual retirement
accounts until much later in their marriage. They did not build a portfolio of
carefully chosen blue chip stocks.
Instead, their financial records show, the Clintons repeatedly put their scant
resources into highly risky and speculative ventures: commodities futures, oil-drilling
leases, limited partnerships and real estate speculation, among other ventures.
Their partnership in the Whitewater Development Corp. and Hillary Clinton's
wildly successful commodities trades the two investments at the heart of the
current investigation of the Clinton family finances -- represent only a fraction of
many investments that appear to have been designed more to strike it rich or to
shelter income than to assure long-term security for the family.
In the early 1980s, for example, the Clintons made more than $45,000 by investing
$2,014 in a cellular telephone franchise. They also earned a handsome return from
investing in a highly exclusive stock fund with a reputation for buying on the margin
and selling short. In addition, they enjoyed considerable tax advantages by investing
in Forest Drilling Partners, a Colorado-based oil exploration company.
Of course, the Clintons were no ordinary couple. He, as governor, and she, as
Arkansas' First Lady and member of the state's premier law firm, had plenty of
knowledgeable people willing to help them with their investments. That kind of
guidance can mitigate the risk most people would face pursuing such a high-risk
strategy. And the Clintons did succeed.
Republicans and other critics charge that many of the Clintons' investments smack
of possible ethical or legal impropriety -- receiving favorable financial opportunities
from individuals and companies seeking favors from the state government, for
instance. Those suggestions, which the Clintons have unequivocally denied, are being
examined by a special counsel and a federal grand jury.
But whatever the outcome of the investigation, the pattern of the Clintons' early
investment activities offers fascinating insight into how they approached one of the
most important issues any young couple must face -- the question of financial
security. And when it came to decisions like that, the Clintons were clearly not cut
from common cloth.
Professional financial planners know from experience that, in any group of
middle-class investors, there are always a few who say they want safety and security
but who have the steely nerves and appetite to go after the big killing. Such investors
would rather go for large gains, and risk large losses, than plod tortoise-like through
a lifetime of small but safe steps toward financial security.
The Clintons appear to be among those who wanted to run with the hares.
"If you look at Mrs. Clinton's investments, they are more aggressive than you
might normally see with people in her income bracket," said Bill Smith, owner of
Smith Capital Management and Hillary Clinton's primary investment adviser for the
last 16 years.
"Look at Whitewater," Smith said. "It was a high-risk, high-potential deal. And I'd
put commodities trading and hedge funds in the same category. Anyone who uses
leverage in their investing and uses shorting is rightly perceived as an aggressive
investor."
In part, analysts say, the Clintons' investment strategy reflected their unique
political lifestyle and the go-go impulses that prevailed during the late 1970s and
early 1980s -- particularly in Arkansas, where firms such as Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods
Inc., J.B. Hunt Transport and TCBY Enterprises were growing rapidly and creating
new wealth.
Moreover the Clintons moved in a small, elite circle of the state's wealthiest
citizens, many of whom were clearly willing to share their investment expertise with
the aspiring young couple.
"It's not uncommon in the circles in which they traveled to make those sorts of
risky investments," said Mark S. Rogers, a Little Rock tax attorney. "From the looks of
their early investment decisions, they felt under pressure to live up to their
reputation as rising stars."
It was Jim Blair, Tyson Foods' general counsel and a millionaire, who persuaded
Hillary Clinton to enter the commodities market. And she has acknowledged that his
guidance helped her parlay a $1,000 investment into $100,000.
Likewise, James B. McDougal, a real estate developer and former thrift owner, has
said he cut the Clintons in on the Whitewater deal in hopes of helping them to get
rich quick. David Watkins, an advertising executive and former Clinton political
adviser, was responsible for recruiting Hillary Clinton to invest in the cellular
telephone franchise.
As their financial records show, the Clintons began married life in debt. Not only
was Bill Clinton still paying off loans for his education at Georgetown University,
Oxford University and Yale Law School, but he also had gone $25,000 further into the
hole to mount an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. House in 1974.
During a term as attorney general and five terms as governor, Clinton himself
never earned more than $35,000 a year. Prior to becoming President, he reported his
highest annual income of $55,000 in 1981 from the law firm of Wright, Lindsey and
Jennings, where he worked for two years after being turned out of the governorship
after his first term.
Nor, it seems, did Clinton pay much attention to the family finances.
Thus it fell to Hillary Clinton to be the main breadwinner, money manager and
investor. She went to work for the Rose Law Firm in 1977, receiving $14,800 in salary
that year. Her compensation quickly grew and exceeded $100,000 by the time she left
last year.
The First Lady said she chose to invest because she had grown up reading stock
tables with her father, who taught her the value of "income and saving and
investing." At the time she began investing, Rogers said, the word among Arkansas
investors was: "Buy Wal-Mart stock."
Yet despite her upbringing and the popularity of such local issues as Wal-Mart,
Hillary Clinton did not begin by buying stocks. In fact, she made many of her riskiest
investments long before she had sufficient disposable capital to be sure of covering
her potential losses.
In 1978, the same year Clinton was first elected governor, the couple's combined
wages totaled $51,173. Yet they put themselves in a highly precarious financial
position by putting their money into two risky investments: Whitewater Development
and commodities futures.
Even though Hillary Clinton was required to put down only $1,000 to begin
trading in commodities futures, she herself has noted that she risked having to ante
up thousands more had her trades been less successful. Likewise, to buy the
Whitewater land, the Clintons and their partners, the McDougals, took out loans
totaling $203,000 for which they were personally liable.
Also, between 1978 and 1981, Hillary Clinton purchased and sold 170 shares in
DeBeers diamond mines in South Africa, with capital gains of $769. Her aides say the
shares were purchased by her broker without her knowledge and were sold quickly
because of her opposition to apartheid in South Africa.
In 1980, she put $6,500 into one of the hottest investments of that era -- an
oil-drilling partnership. Until tax laws were changed in 1986, investors in such
partnerships could share personally in the tax deductibility of the venture, with the
prospect of big profits if the drillers struck oil.
Zack Hager, director of investor relations for Forest Energy Inc. in Denver, said
Hillary Clinton was one of about 1,700 people -- including such luminaries as golfer
Jack Nicklaus -- who bought into the company's first such oil-drilling partnership.
In 1983, she and two of her law partners, Vincent Foster and Webster Hubbell, put
up $15,000 each to form a partnership known as Midlife Investors. Roy P. Drew, the
stockbroker who set up the venture, said that by mutual agreement, the other
partners -- not their spouses -- were designated as beneficiaries.
That same year, Hillary Clinton joined with a group of investors who obtained a
federal cellular telephone franchise. In order to help the Arkansas Cellular group win
the franchise, according to her fellow investors, Hillary Clinton not only bought a
2.5% interest with $2,014, but also personally guaranteed a $60,000 loan. When the
franchise rights were sold to McCaw Cellular Communications Inc. for a profit of
about $2 million, she got a check for $48,000.
In 1986, when Smith went into business for himself by creating Smith Capital
Management, Hillary Clinton was one of the first investors in his Valuepartners fund,
which buys stock on the margin and sells short. With 40 partners, it is a highly
exclusive fund that is not marketed to the public. The Clintons' current stake in the
$8.7-million Valuepartners fund is about $100,000.
Even though Hillary Clinton's investing gradually built her family nest egg into an
impressive portfolio valued at something approaching an estimated $1 million today,
many of her investments went sour.
Whitewater Development was by no means the only high-risk, speculative
investment on which the Clintons lost money. Other losers included the partnership
that owns the Rose Law Firm building, Forest Drilling Partners, Midlife Investors,
Kaiser Steel preferred securities and an early venture in Hong Kong and Shanghai.
She lost $2,532 in one day in 1987 with financial futures contracts.
The Clintons even lost money when they rented out a house they owned briefly in
the early 1980s because the rent did not cover their mortgage payments. According to
Lisa Caputo, Hillary Clinton's press secretary, the couple owned three houses at
different times during the first eight years of their marriage, but did not keep any of
them for very long.
Because mortgage interest payments are deductible, a home is the primary
investment of most middle-class Americans. Although the Clintons lived much of
their married life in the Arkansas governor's mansion, it is unusual for politicians not
to have a permanent residence of their own.
As Rogers sees it, the Clintons made many investment mistakes in the early years
of their marriage, but none as serious as their failure to take advantage of the law
allowing couples to shelter up to $4,000 of pre-tax income in an independent
retirement account, or IRA.
"That really glared at me when I read their tax returns," he said. "Here are people
with access to the best tax advice, and they made the worst decisions."
Their failure to invest in IRAs until 1981 is particularly puzzling. Presumably the
Clintons could have used the tax shelter during 1978 and 1979, when she made big
profits in commodities. It is also unclear why the Clintons failed to take a capital loss
on their taxes for the sum of about $40,000 they claimed they lost by investing in
Whitewater Development.
It was not until the mid-1980s that the Clintons' investment portfolio began to
resemble the typical holdings of couples in their income bracket, with a combination
of safer investments such as municipal bonds and more speculative ventures such as
Valuepartners.
Hillary Clinton frequently denies that Whitewater Development or any of her
investments created a conflict of interest for the governor, who was responsible for
regulating securities dealers and all other industries doing business in Arkansas.
Nevertheless, Smith told The Times that during the 1992 presidential campaign he
created "a de facto blind trust" for the future First Lady to protect her from
allegations that by investing in pharmaceutical and other medical stocks, she stood to
profit from her husband's pledge to reform the health care system.
"I quit sending out reports on the securities in the partnership," Smith said. "I did it
to avoid any conflict of interest. I didn't want them to be on the line."
The Clintons did not put their investments into a blind trust until after they moved
into the White House in January, 1993.
The Clintons' Income
Despite relatively scant resources, the Clintons embarked on a high-risk investment
strategy in the late 1970s that has paid off over time.
WAGES
TOTAL INCOME FEDERAL TAXES
1977
40,856
42,626
8,194
1978
51,173
85,214
22,627
1979
74,236
158,495
58,388
1980
81,388
87,556
17,380
1981
106,448
110,601
25,886
1982
90,536
95,731
21,497
1983
116,857
123,787
30,196
1984
107,989
114,585
22,280
1985
90,382
102,407
18,791
1986
124,138
147,051
30,485
1987
133,358
165,890
36,969
1988
106,870
191,947
39,734
1989
146,444
199,000
37,883
1990
159,711
268,646
50,939
1991
147,887
237,576
49,828
1992
237,699
297,177
70,228
1993
191,640
293,757
62,670
Source: Clinton family tax returns
GRAPHIC: Table, The Clintons' Income / Los Angeles Times
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE-MDC: May 3, 1994
Copyright 1992 The Time Inc. Magazine Company
Money
July, 1992
SECTION: ONE CANDIDATE'S FINANCES; Pg. 112
LENGTH: 2871 words
HEADLINE: How Hillary Manages the Clintons' Money
BYLINE: BY GREG ANRIG JR. AND ELIZABETH M. MACDONALD
BODY:
At the moment later this month when, barring a disaster, Bill Clinton gets formally
crowned as the Democratic presidential nominee, Madison Square Garden will erupt
into the predictable, exuberant, red-white-and-blue spectacle. As you watch the
Rhodes scholar candidate presiding benevolently over the noisy party faithful
wearing silly hats, you might wonder: What does this middle-aged guy of 45 really
know about the "forgotten middle class" he so often mentions?
What, indeed. MONEY's conclusion is this: Without wife Hillary's 110,000
income as a lawyer and her investing smarts in building a personal portfolio of more
than $ 470,000, the Arkansas governor might know much, much more. That's
because his own salary, not counting perks, is a squarely middle-class $ 35,000 a year.
Without question, Hillary Clinton who at 44 is educated, successful, confident
and outspoken - typifies women today who are taking charge of family money
matters (see MONEY's June cover story). And she has made the family, which
includes daughter Chelsea, 12, what they are today: in a word, rich. The Clintons'
joint earnings of $ 223,587 last year catapults the family into the top 1% of U.S.
households, and their $ 697,000 net worth ranks in the highest 3%.
In our two-month investigation of the Clintons' finances, MONEY enlisted the help
of 15 investment and tax experts to scour the Clintons' federal and state tax returns
filed since 1980, their financial disclosure forms and other documents. The Clintons
themselves declined to answer any of MONEY's questions about their finances.
Campaign staffers did provide some data, however. We, in turn, reviewed the family
net worth statement released in late May in making our estimates of the Clintons'
current holdings. We also conducted interviews with Hillary's Little Rock investment
manager, her mother and family friends. Among the highlights we learned:
* Hillary, whose total earnings have more than tripled in the past 11 years to $
179,920 in 1991, accounted for nearly 70% of the $ 1.6 million that the couple
collected in salaries and fees since 1980. As you might guess, beyond her own many
skills, being the wife of the governor hasn't hurt her in attracting clients or seats on
boards of prominent corporations, including two based in Arkansas. Bill's
gubernatorial pay -- fixed by law at $ 35,000 since 1976 relegated him to an
also-ran in the family's income derby, as well as the lowest-paid governor in the
nation.
* Presumably because she earns most of the family dough and also, perhaps, to
eliminate politically embarrassing suggestions of any conflicts of interest, Hillary
owns outright roughly two-thirds of their $ 862,500 in assets. * When Bill invests --
which isn't often -- he tends to stick with ultrasafe U.S. Treasuries. Comparatively,
Hillary comes off as the financial swinger. She has dabbled in adventurous
investments ranging from oil drilling partnerships to Standard & Poor's stock-index
futures. Moreover, the money manager of the investment partnership she belongs to
hedges by engaging in tricky short sales, borrowing shares that he then sells in hopes
of being able to buy them back at a lower price.
Overall, our financial experts gave Hillary - and by extension, the Clintons high
marks. Considering Bill's low pay and lack of family inheritances, their ability to
build a $ 697,000 net worth since getting married in 1975 is impressive. Says Mark
Gallagher, a tax partner at Campos & Stratis in Atlanta: "They are living within their
means and managing their money well."
Moneymaking alone doesn't appear to be at the top of the family agenda and
apparently never has been. Two years ago, before the recession, Bill Clinton told the
Arkansas media: "If it was important to us, I think we could be millionaires, because
we both were fortunate enough to get a good education, we've stayed healthy, and
we both work real hard." The details of the Clintons' money:
* Salaries and perks. Set aside Bill's lousy 35 grand and the measly $ 5,500 he
received in honoraria for speaking engagements last year. Arkansas takes care of its
governor through perks that would be worth at least $ 100,000 a year if he had to
pay for them. The Clintons live in Little Rock's 11,000-square-foot, three-bedroom
brick Governor's mansion -- no money down, no mortgage and no maintenance costs.
A $ 51,000 annual mansion allowance covers utilities, gardening, catering and the
like. Bill also has access to a $ 19,000 "public relations fund," a quirky alternative to
other governors' expense accounts. In addition, the Clintons have a chauffeur-driven
$ 22,000 Lincoln Town Car available round-the-clock, even for pleasure trips. (They
also own a paid-off 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass for personal use and Hillary's 2
1/2-mile commute to work.) And then there are some extra extras, like gratis
50-yard-line sets 20 each) for Arkansas Razorback football games and free
membership in three Little Rock-area country clubs. That last perk, of course, hurt
Clinton politically earlier this year when he was photographed at one of the three, a
racially exclusive club he belongs to and has frequented since 1979.
MONEY also learned that Clinton accepts around 1.4 million worth of admission
tickets each year to a top Arkansas tourist attraction, the state-regulated Oaklawn
horse racetrack in Hot Springs. He hands out the passes to people who seek them,
including state legislators and campaign contributors. The practice dates back to the
1950s in Arkansas, but our calls to seven other major racing states including
Maryland, New York and Kentucky found no similar giveaways currently. "It's a
mistake for a public official to accept gratuities," said Michael Josephson, an authority
on governmental ethics. "It creates appearances of impropriety. It visibly underlines
a relationship between a governor and a racetrack, which is gambling. I'm stunned
frankly at the amount. It's a staggering amount." Clinton spokesman Betsey Wright
said she thinks Clinton considers the free passes "a great nuisance," and added: "I
guess the potential is there for a conflict of interest, but we never let it be a conflict."
While Bill's earnings have stayed flat, Hillary's soared from $ 50,579 in 1981 to
nearly $ 180,000 last year. Most of it comes from her 12-year-old partnership in the
prestigious Rose Law Firm. Last year she also ranked in $ 5,500 in speaking fees and
$ 64,700 for serving on three boards: the Arkansas-based $ 44 billion Wal-Mart and $
321 million frozen-yogurt chain TCBY, as well as $ 1.6 billion Lafarge, a Virginia
cement maker. In May, citing time constraints, she resigned from those lucrative
posts, forgoing about $ 68,000 worth of future TCBY stock options and tax-deferred
compensation at Wal-Mart. But she remains an unpaid director of nine nonprofits,
including the Children's Defense Fund, the Children's Television Workshop and
Public-Private Ventures, a Philadelphia group that helps teenagers.
* Investments and savings. In addition to earning most of the money, Hillary is also
the one making it grow. Says Susan Thomases, a New York City lawyer and a
longtime friend of the governor's: "I think Bill is, at best, totally indifferent toward
investing." According to his 1991 and 1992 Federal Election Commission
financial-disclosure reports, the only assets he owns outright are about $ 40,000 in the
ultraconservative Fidelity U.S. Government Income Fund, $ 25,000 in Individual
Retirement Accounts (the statements don't specify IRA holdings), about $ 10,000 in a
state employees deferred-compensation plan and a Northwestern Mutual life
insurance policy that has roughly $ 7,500 in cash value. Jointly, the Clintons hold
some $ 100,000 in bank accounts, CDs and money funds.
The only flier he has taken failed utterly. In 1979, during his first term, he and
Hillary put up $ 68,380 for a half-interest in an Ozark Mountain land development
deal. Not only have they apparently lost the entire sum, but they also suffered
politically when a front-page New York Times story last March suggested that the
venture, known as Whitewater Development, amounted to a conflict of interest. The
article noted that the Clintons' Whitewater partner, James McDougal, later became
majority owner of a state-regulated savings and loan while Clinton was still
governor. Clinton has denied any impropriety, saying that he has held on to the
investment because he doubted he could find a buyer for the money-losing venture.
Hillary's now famous demeanor - cool with occasional bursts of heat -- seems to
mark her approach to money management as well. "She has always been careful and
wise with her money," her mother Dorothy Rodham, 73, told MONEY. "Her father
had a constant theme when Hillary was growing up that everything is too expensive,
and you have to save for your retirement." Hugh Rodham, an 81-year-old retired
textile executive, must be proud of his daughter. Although she is two decades away
from retirement age, Hillary has already put aside about $ 120,000 in her law firm's
profit-sharing plan and $ 150,000 in other retirement accounts, money market funds
and bank certificates.
Hillary is sometimes prone to flashy impulses, though. In the early '80s, when tax
shelters were the rage, she invested several thousand dollars in oil drilling programs.
And in March 1987, she plunged into highly volatile S&P stock-index futures. One
day later, after prices moved against her, she closed out at a $ 2,532 loss.
Today, Hillary owns three stocks that she chose including two where she was a
director: Wal-Mart (her holdings: roughly $ 85,000 as of late May), the women's
apparel maker Liz Claiborne ($ 15,000) and TCBY ($ 1,500). She also owns about $
82,000 in tax-free municipal bonds and bond funds, $ 40,000 in a Fidelity taxable U.S.
Government bond fund and another $ 4,000 or so in the G.T. Pacific Growth
international stock fund.
The remaining $ 80,000 of her portfolio is lumped with 49 other investors in a
go-go partnership known as ValuePartners I. The private fund is run by Hillary's
former stockbroker, Bill Smith, 52, who manages money in Little Rock for about180
well-heeled clients. Minimum initial investment today: $ 250,000. According to
audited figures, ValuePartners has run up a 17% compound annual return since 1985,
compared with only 11% for the NASDAQ index that most closely reflects the
smaller companies Smith prefers.
Hillary told the Arkansas Gazette in 1990 that she chose Smith because of his
conservative investment approach. But if he's conservative, Ronald Reagan is a
bleedingheart liberal. In an interview with MONEY, Smith said: "Playing it safe with
established blue chips won't produce the gains that younger companies can generate."
As for Smith's short sales, they recently included such household names as
BristolMyers Squibb, Campbell Soup and Reebok. In late May, his shorts were
showing an unrealized 11.5% gain.
The Clintons have apparently begun a college savings fund for Chelsea, who will
enter eighth grade in a Little Rock public school this fall. She has about $ 42,000 in a
money fund and the bank, plus more than $ 3,000 of Nynex, Bell Atlantic and Bell
South stock. Her mother, a Yale law graduate like Bill, also holds about $ 35,000
worth of Arkansas college savings bonds, which can be used to pay for college in any
state.
Although roughly 60% of the couple's assets are in Hillary's name, as noted above,
she and Bill own their only real estate holding other than Whitewater jointly: half a
share in her parents' $ 180,000 Little Rock townhouse condominium, bought in 1987.
(They use the place, and its swimming pool, as a weekend getaway.) And oh, yes: If
the Clintons divorce, Bill would be entitled by state law to divide equally all the
assets they accumulated during their marriage, even ones in her name.
* Taxes. Accountants who reviewed the Clintons' tax returns for MONEY described
the couple as conservative about taking write-offs. In the past decade, they paid
between 20% and 26% of their adjusted gross income in federal income taxes each
year, including last year's 22%, or $ 48,608. But the Clintons and their Little Rock tax
preparer, Yoly Redden, could be more careful. Their 1990 return failed to note $
11,662 the Clintons had given to 19 charities in addition to the $ 25,213 listed.
Redden filed an amended 1040,and the Clintons got an additional $ 3,861 refund
from the IRS.
* Spending and debt. Clinton associates say Hillary organizes the household budget
and pays the bills. And friends and family agree that both Clintons would much
rather save a buck than spend it. Still, says Arkansas Times "Insider" columnist Max
Brantley: "They dress a heck of a lot better than they used to." The garish plaid sports
coat and striped pants ensembles that a longhaired Bill wore in his 1979-80
administration have been replaced by conservative Southwick and Corbin designer
suits costing $ 375 to $ 500 at Mr. Wicks, a Little Rock men's store. Hillary shops at
local boutiques, typically spending 250 to 350 for custom-made and off-the-rack
suits. The couple rarely eat out, though Bill has a soft spot for the local McDonald's
65 hamburgers and 50 coffee. He also has an eye for antiques, especially cameo pins.
The Clintons generally keep their debts low, limiting credit-card interest payments
to under 200 annually. Aside from two 1990 gubernatorial campaign loans totaling
$ 100,700 from a local bank, the couple's only debt is their half of the 129,600,
15-year mortgage on her parents' condo. ell on their way toward becoming quite
wealthy." The
pros who studied the Clintons' finances for MONEY think that the couple's
investments should be lon's election mean to their finances? Not much immediately.
His salary would nearlnner Mary Malgoire of Malgoire Drucker. "If they are trying
to make their money grow, they should have 50% of their portfolio in stocks, rather
than the 35% they have now. And they ought to raise their bondholdings to perhaps
35%, from 20%." Lewis Altfest, a New York City financial planner, applauds Hillary's
retirement savings but thinks the couple should invest Chelsea's college fund more
aggressively. "I'd tell th-- perhaps with a higher pay. Arkansas voters will decide in
November whether to approve a state constitutional amendment to raise the
governor'sntons' wealth adds up ASSETS
Stocks, bonds, mutual funds
$ 95,000Miscellaneous
Personal property
$ 54,000
Life insurance cash value
15,000
1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass
3,500
fic Growth Fund
4,000
Schwab Tax-Exempt Bond Fund
2,000
372,000Savings and checking accounts,
CDs, savings bonds and money funds
$ 143,000Retirement plans
Hillary's profit sharing
$ 120,000
IRAs and Keoghs
50,000
Bill's state employees savings plan
10,000
$ 180,000Real estate
Half-share in Hillary's
parents' condominium
$ 80,000
Rose Building limited partnership
15,000
$ 95,000Miscellaneous
Personal property
$ 54,000
Life insurance cash value
15,000
1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass
3,500
$ 72,500
TOTAL ASSETS $ 862,500LIABILITIES
Bank loans used to finance 1990
gubernatorial campaign
$ 100,700
Mortgage on Hillary's
parents' condominium (half-share)
64,800
TOTAL LIABILITIES $ 165,500
NET WORTH
$ 697,000
The Cliton campaign staff provided some figures. Asset totals may be midpoints for
dollar ranges listed in campaign filings. Values of some stocks an savings are
MONEY estimates, based on the Clintons' tax returns.
The Clintons' net worth of nearly $ 700,000 puts them well up in the top 3% of U.S.
households. Roughly two-fifths of their assets are in stocks, bonds and mutual funds
-- a fraction financial experts consulted by MONEY described as cautious for a couple
in their forties with an adolescent daughter. A conservative 17% is in savings and
checking accounts. The couple's debt load is admirably low -- less than 20% of
assets.
GRAPHIC: Graph, SHE BRINGS HOME THE BIG MONEY; Picture 1, The run for the
White House may be all his, but the family earnings race has gone to Hillary Clinton
every year since 1981. Her $ 179,920 income last year -- from private practice,
directors' fees, and speeches -- more than quadrupled his $ 43,667 in governor's pay
and honoraria. RICK FRIEDMAN/BLACK STAR; Picture 2, Clinton money manager
Bill Smith doesn't shy away from shorting stocks. LARRY TRUSSELL; Picture 3, The
Clintons lunch in the Governor's mansion in 1979, just before they barred
photographers there. The staff was, and is, integrated. ENRICO FERORELLI; Picture
4, The Clintons have about $ 80,000 in a college fund for Chelsea, 12. STATON
BRIENDENTHAL
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
Copyright 1993 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
The Houston Chronicle
August 17, 1993, Tuesday, 2 STAR Edition
SECTION: A; Opinion; Pg. 12
LENGTH: 762 words
HEADLINE: First lady, or top government official?
BYLINE: WILLIAM SAFIRE; Staff
BODY:
IN the weeks before Vincent Foster's death, he was working on overcoming ethical
concerns about one of Hillary Rodham Clinton's assets by putting the Clintons'
financial holdings into a blind trust.
The guilt-ridden deputy counsel may have mishandled a potential conflict of
interest in Value Partners, an investment group in which Hillary Clinton held nearly
1 percent; her estimated share is $ 100,000.
]
The partnership was about 14 percent invested in health-care stocks at last year's
end; it had ""short" positions in companies like Health Pro, Cryomedical Sciences and
Bioplasty, betting their prices would drop. The partnership manager, William Smith,
tells me he spoke to Foster ""three or four times" this year.
Hillary Clinton's public pronouncements about health and her hints at the need for
particular price controls had a predictable effect on stocks in that field. Foster
assured her she had no conflict-of-interest problems because she was not a
government employee.
Then came the lawsuit demanding she open health-reform meetings to the public.
The Federal Advisory Commission Act says that such meetings can be closed if
attended only by ""full-time officers and employees" of government. White House
counsel won the case by claiming Clinton was indeed a federal official for purposes
of that act.
But appellate Judge Laurence Silberman put a pregnant footnote in his June 22
opinion: ""We do not need to consider whether Mrs. Clinton's presence on the Task
Force violates any conflict-of-interest statutes. H
Had Foster's victory in court subjected the first lady to a Justice Department
investigation based on the Criminal Code's section 202?
Faxed about this, Counsel Bernard Nussbaum faxes back: ""The decision did not
purport to affect the question whether the first lady is an officer or employee for any
other purposes, including application of the conflict of interest laws.
About the propriety of these holdings: ""She had no role whatsoever in the
investment decisions of the fund. Its holdings included some assets that are
health-related, but the total of these assets is a minor portion of the fund's entire
portfolio -- to our knowledge, less than 10 percent. Foster was aware of these facts.
The matter was not discussed with the Office of Legal Counsel."
Reasonable ethicists will grant that Hillary Clinton's health-related holdings are, as
Nussbaum writes, ""clearly insubstantial, because they are both a small amount of
money and an insignificant part of the Clintons' total assets. Nobody suggests she
was out to make a buck on short sales of medical stocks.
But what may well have contributed to Foster's gloom was the need to protect the
first lady from the consequences of his FACA victory with legal legerdemain. His
solution was to put this active official outside the reach of the law.
Section 203 specifically exempts the president and the vice president from the
conflict-of-interest law. Adds the redoubtable, likable Nussbaum: ""It is the view of
the White House counsel, consistent with the views of prior administrations, that the
first lady, like the president, is not covered by the conflict of interest statutes and
regulations.
"
That's the Foster-Nussbaum doctrine, not the law. The
non-coverage of this most governmentally energetic first lady was not sanctioned by
Congress, not approved by the courts, not even reviewed by the Justice Department.
Justice's much-ignored Office of Legal Counsel, once led by such luminaries as
Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia, was again bypassed by
the White House. (The de facto boss at Justice, Hillary's former law partner, Webster
Hubbell, even took over the poor guy's office space.) Nussbaum says that President
Reagan's Office of Legal Counsel ""opined that the first lady was not subject to these
laws" -- as if Nancy Reagan ever claimed to be a government official for any purpose.
The blind trust finalized three days after Foster's death does not clean up a
half-year's dealings of an asset that a lawyer sensitive to the appearance of conflict
should have ordered divested on Inauguration Day.
What must have added to Foster's mental burdens? Not the money made by
Hillary Clinton's $ 14,000 piece of health stocks; that's chicken feed. It was the trap
set for her by her own counsel: She must seek to join the president and vice president
as the only full-time government officials exempt from the
conflict-of-interest law.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
TYPE: Editorial Opinion
NOTES: Safire is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist of the New York Times.
LOAD-DATE-MDC: August 18, 1993
Copyright 1994 Gannett Company, Inc.
USA TODAY
May 18, 1994, Wednesday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 4A
LENGTH: 461 words
HEADLINE: Clintons' assets: Up to $ 1.6M
BYLINE: Judy Keen; Bill Montague
BODY:
The Clintons had assets of $ 633,015 to $ 1,620,000 last year, financialdisclosure
forms released Tuesday show.
President Clinton's assets were between $ 96,000 and $ 266,000. Hillary Clinton's
holdings: $ 516,000 to $1.05 million.
Chelsea Clinton's assets were estimated at between $ 23,000 to $ 140,000.
The forms require holdings to be listed in broad ranges. In 1993, the Clintons
reported assets between $ 534,000 and $ 1.7 million. The Clintons put most assets in a
blind trust last July to avoid ethical conflicts:
-- Clinton's investments earned him $ 1,600 to $ 6,100. His salary was $ 189,167.
Hillary Clinton had investment earnings of $ 18,000 to $ 63,700.
-- The first lady's portion of the blind trust was valued at $ 500,000 to $1 million;
his was worth $ 15,000 to $ 50,000.
Among the assets transferred to the blind trust were her holdings of $ 50,000-$
100,000 in Value Partners I, a limited partnership with holdings in health-related
firms.
But the report appears to confirm Hillary Clinton did not profit improperly from
her interest in Value Partners.
Republicans in Congress have questioned her stake in the fund while she was
drafting the administration's health reform proposal last year.
Trading records released with the report show Value Partners did not reap
windfall gains on its investments in medical stocks in early 1993.
Health stocks tumbled early in 1993 on rumors Clinton's proposal would cap
health-care costs. Investors feared the plan would slash profits.
The Clintons' 1992 financial report showed Value Partners routinely sold
health-care stocks short - in effect, betting their prices would fall.
But the fund's manager, Bill Smith, has said the fund lost money in 1993's slump in
health-care stocks.
While Value Partners sold at least five health stocks short in early 1993, it made
money on only one - Synergin, which plummeted when an experimental drug failed
a key test.
Meanwhile, Value Partners lost money on several health stocks it bet would rise in
price.
Because the fund shares are in a blind trust, it's impossible to determine their
current value. When placed in the trust, Hillary Clinton's shares amounted to less
than 1% of the fund's total value.
The Office of Government Ethics decided Value Partners' investments were not a
potential conflict of interest because health reform affects everyone, not specific
companies.
The report showed the Clintons received gifts worth 10,775, including jewelry,
ties and athletic shoes. Singer Carly Simon gave a $ 1,200 painting. Actor Tom Hanks
gave $ 530 worth of picture frames.
Vice President Gore's form shows he and his wife, Tipper, had assets of $ 1.04
million to $ 1.6 million, and mortgage debt of $ 165,000-$ 350,000.
Copyright 1994 The Washington Post
The Washington Post
April 12, 1994, Tuesday, Final Edition
SECTION: FIRST SECTION; PAGE A1
LENGTH: 1254 words
HEADLINE: Clintons Pay $ 14,615 in '80 Back Taxes ;
Money Is to Cover Profitable Commodities Deals, Lawyer Says
SERIES: Occasional
BYLINE: Ann Devroy, Charles R. Babcock, Washington Post Staff Writers
BODY:
President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday paid $ 14,615 in
additional 1980 taxes and interest after discovering the First Lady's commodities
trading produced more profit than they had declared.
In a shift from the original White House description of Hillary Clinton's short
career in the commodities market, the Clintons' personal lawyer and White House
officials yesterday produced a stack of trading records and statements showing that a
commodities account that was originally described as losing money in fact made a $
6,498 short-term capital gain in trading from October 1979 to May 1980.
Federal and state taxes on that gain, plus interest, equaled the $ 14,615 the Clintons
paid yesterday, David Kendall, the Clintons' personal lawyer said. He noted that the
Clintons paid the amount, even though they had no legal obligation to correct "newly
discovered errors from 14 years ago."
Kendall said they were unaware the error had occurred until it was discovered
over the past week as he and others worked to reconstruct commodities trading
records in the face of continuing news media inquiries.
For the White House, the story of Hillary Clinton's foray in the volatile and risky
commodities market has turned into a long-running correction. The White House at
first said Mrs. Clinton turned $ 1,000 into a $ 100,000 profit by studying the Wall
Street Journal and getting advice from friends, including James B. Blair, then the
outside counsel for Tyson Foods Inc.
In recent days, a more complicated story has emerged. Over the weekend, the
White House acknowledged that Blair, not Hillary Clinton, executed most of the
Clinton trades in her profitable account at Ray E. Friedman & Co. known as Refco.
This may have been a technical violation of commodities regulations because Hillary
Clinton's account required that she place the orders herself.
White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers said yesterday, "I don't think we were
as clear as we should have been on how exactly the trades were executed" in the
original White House explanation.
The original White House explanation that Hillary Clinton stopped trading and left
the market when she became pregnant and got cold feet because of the
"nerve-wracking" nature of the business is at odds with the records. They show her
continuing in the market for three months after her daughter's birth.
Until yesterday, the White House had said little about the second account opened
with Stephens Inc., in Little Rock, Ark., in October 1979. Their explanation that
Hillary Clinton opened the account with $ 5,000, had small net losses and then closed
it in March 1980 is also incorrect, yesterday's records show.
President Clinton's statement in a town meeting last week, when he was pressed
on the commodities trading, that his wife got a "margin call" when she was pregnant,
got nervous about the market and got out, is also, an official said, "no longer
operative." There were no margin calls in the relevant period, the records show.
A senior official said the White House, pressed daily on inconsistencies and lack of
records on the commodities trades, said, "We're damned if we do and damned if we
don't" provide information because some information released publicly in the face of
media pressure has turned out to be incomplete.
"We are talking about recollections of 16 years ago," said the official. "We are trying
the best we can to reconstruct this" from old and incomplete records.
The second account, which Hillary Clinton opened with a $ 5,000 wire transfer to
Stephens Inc., produced the $ 6,498 gain on which they paid the taxes yesterday. The
White House had originally pointed to the second account as evidence that the First
Lady, in playing the market, had not always been successful.
Officials described the failure to report the gain on the Clintons' 1980 returns an
honest mistake growing out of the failure of a commodities firm, ACLI International,
to send year-end statements that included capital gains and losses on trades. The
year-end statement, provided to reporters, showed only information on securities and
bonds.
The White House said that the Clintons owed $ 3,315 in federal taxes and $ 514 in
state taxes on the $ 6,498 unreported short-term capital gain. In addition, they owed $
10,134 in federal interest and 652 in interest to Arkansas on the unpaid taxes.
The White House also said that the Clintons' 1979 tax return -- in which most of
her commodities profits were reported - were audited by the Internal Revenue
Service in 1982 and no additional taxes were found to be owed, according to
documents.
The new documents detailing Hillary Clinton's trading activities show many trades
in addition to the cattle futures first described by the White House, some of which
caused substantial daily gains and losses. She posted, for example, an $ 11,435 profit
in trading sugar futures in February 1980, offset about a month later when she lost $
11,250 on copper futures. She traded futures in soybeans, hogs, lumber, wheat and
U.S. Treasury bonds.
The White House attached to its records a statement by Leo Melamed, a former
chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange who was asked to assess the Clinton
records. He called the continuing questions over the trades "a tempest in a teapot"
unless there are additional records to indicate otherwise. He added that her account
"was at times thinly margined and that on occasion she traded with insufficient
margin."
The White House acknowledged several days ago that occasionally Hillary
Clinton's account was significantly in the red and her broker did not require her to
come up with the cash to cover the losses. In all cases, subsequent gains covered the
losses.
The batch of records the White House released on Hillary Clinton's original
account at Refco showed that most of her positions were held for several days or
weeks and thus would not have been subject to allocation of winning "day trades" to
favored customers' accounts, as Refco was accused of at the time.
Melamed noted that only two of her 32 trades in 10 months were day trades. One
was July 17. That was the same day she took her biggest loss, $ 26,460, and three
days before she made her last transaction with Refco in the cattle futures. That day
her account bought and sold 50 contracts for live cattle and made a $ 10,500 profit
before paying a $ 1,950 commission.
The White House release did not include the records of her first Refco trades,
where her account records show she made a $ 5,300 gain on a $ 1,000 in one day.
Experts have said this would have been impossible because $ 1,000 would only
control one cattle contract and the most one contract could make or lose in a day was
$ 600.
White House officials said they couldn't find the records for those trades and had
no explanation for the quick profit except a belief that her trades were ordered a few
days earlier than the monthly statement showed. Hillary Clinton's second account
was handled by Stephens Inc., one of the largest investment banking firms in the
country beyond Wall Street with interests in about a dozen Arkansas banks. It is
controlled by the influential Stephens family, whose holdings have been estimated at
more than $1 billion.
Her broker was William Smith, who also managed for years an investment
partnership called Value Partners in which Hillary Clinton held an interest. Smith
had total discretion to place trades for Hillary Clinton in that commodities account.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO, HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, WHOSE COMMODITIES
DEALS HAVE CREATED CONTROVERSY, ADDRESSES THE ALZHEIMER'S
ASSOCIATION'S PUBLIC POLICY FORUM. AP
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE-MDC: April 12, 1994
Copyright 1994 The New York Times Company: Abstracts
Information Bank Abstracts
WALL STREET JOURNAL
February 1, 1994, Tuesday
SECTION: Section A; Page 4, Column 2
LENGTH: 49 words
HEADLINE: SEC ASKED TO SEEK DATA ON FUND USED BY HILLARY
CLINTON
BYLINE: BY CHRISTI HARLAN
JOURNAL-CODE: WSJ
ABSTRACT:
Three House Republicans ask the SEC for information about Hillary Clinton's
holdings in Value Partners I, an investment fund that sold short several health-care
stocks early in 1993; the hedge fund is managed by Smith Capital Partners of Little
Rock (M)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE-MDC: February 1, 1994
Copyright 1994 American Political Network, Inc.
The Hotline
March 16, 1994
SECTION: WHITEWATE
LENGTH: 800 words
HEADLINE: OTHER NEWS: OTS OFFICIAL HAD MADISON PROBE REQUEST
REJECTED
BODY:
Brian McCormally, the top enforcement official for themidwest division of the
Office of Thrift Supervision, recommended a probe of Madison Guaranty S&L in '93,
only to have the request turned down by his DC supervisors, acting OTS counsel
Carolyn Lieberman and acting OTS Dir. Jonathan Fiechter. The RTC had already
been investigation Madison. The OTS and RTC "have overlapping jurisdictions and
often conduct separate
investigations into failed (S&Ls). But the (OTS) has a larger staff and greater
enforcement powers, and has handled many of the most significant investigations of
(S&Ls) and their lawyers and accountants." The rejected request "is likely to raise
new questions in Congressional hearings scheduled for next week about whether
officials in Washington tried to narrow potentially embarrassing inquiries into
Madison." Lieberman and Fiechter "report to senior political appointees at the
Treasury
Department, and rarely make major decisions without high-level consultations."
Treasury spokesperson Michelle Smith: "There was no involvement by Treasury.
Treasury would only be involved on policy matters, not specific cases" (Labaton, N.Y.
TIMES, 3/16). Treasury officials had established "rules for monitoring, but not
influencing, politically sensitive cases" before dealing with the WH inquiries. During
a 5/93 RTC suit against Rep. Wm Jefferson (D-LA), "Treasury said it wanted to be
notified before any suit was filed, but officials emphasized they hadn't any intention
of interfering in the case" (Bacon/Karr, W.S. JOURNAL, 3/16).
CLINTON TAX LOSSES: A tax return prepared last year at thedirection of Foster
suggests that Whitewater Development "was closer to breaking even" than the '92
audit commissioned by the Clinton campaign asserted (Engelberg, N.Y. TIMES, 3/16).
MONEY magazine audited the Clinton tax returns from '80-92 and concludes the
Clintons may owe up to $45,411 (N.Y. POST, 3/16).
VALUE PARTNERS: AR DEM-GAZETTE's Greenberg counters therequest from
81 House GOP members that Hillary Rodham Clinton answer questions regarding
ValuePartners, a stock fund in which she invests. GOPers want to know if she could
affect the price of pharmaceutical stocks in the fund in drawing up the health plan.
Greenberg writes fund manager Bill Smith, a self-avowed "Reagan Republican," went
the "extra mile," and took "additional precaution to guard against even the
impression of wrongdoing. Bill Smith created a blind trust for the Clintons more
than a year before they had the sense to do it for themselves" (3/16).
ANOTHER MCDOUGAL INTERVIEW: In an interview on ABC's "GMA, "Jim
McDougal refused to disclose the details of his press conferences which he claims
will completely clear Bill Clinton. Asked whether the press conference will do the
same for Hillary: "That I can't tell until the White House sends me back the
Whitewater records, which they are contractually obligated to do. When I receive
those records, I hope that I'll be able to make the same assurance about Mrs. Clinton."
McDougal, on whether he could take a lie detector test on HRC's innocence: "I think I
can, as soon as I review the Whitewater records and refresh myself. I have every
hope I can." On the controversy in general: "This is simply a crypto-fascist witch
hunt" (3/16).
RESEARCH-FOR-HIRE: Conservative activist Floyd Brown was atthe Nat'l Press
Club where he handed out a "treasure trove of information" on Whitewater to
reporters "who grabbed them up like goodies." Brown, creator of the '88 Willie
Horton ad, doesn't plan Whitewater TV ads -- "at this time" (DEM-GAZETTE, 3/16).
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE-MDC: March 16, 1994
Copyright 1993 American Political Network, Inc.
Health Line
June 9, 1993
SECTION: THE PLAYING FIELD
LENGTH: 907 words
HEADLINE: INDUSTRY WATCH: AFFECTED BY THE DIRECTION OF REFORM
BODY:
RESEARCH: L.A. TIMES reports on the "trend" towardprivatization of medical
research. NIH estimates 59% of biomedical research in the U.S. is financed by the
private sector, an increase of 19% since '79. L.A. TIMES: "The benefit is that studies
that might not be conducted receive funding. But the drawback, critics say, is that
special interests are subtly and perhaps not so subtly - shaping the course of
medical research and possibly coloring findings as well. The trend also means that
basic research is giving way to applied research, studies directed toward
developing drugs and medical devices that will make a profit." Univ. of MN Center
for Biomedical Ethics' Arthur Caplan: "Are we going to wind up bringing the
bottom-line mentality into the laboratory? Are we going to raise a generation of
scientists whose first impulse is to patent, or keep a trade secret rather than to share
news with their colleagues? This is tearing at the very moral fiber of academic
(research) centers" (Sheryl Stolberg, 6/8).
BIOTECH EXECS: L.A. TIMES reports biotech stocks havedropped 40% since
Clinton took office. Genelabs Technologies Pres. John Kung: "The health care reform
cyclone has put a tremendous damper on investor attitudes about biotech. We are
being unduly punished." TIMES: "If the market fails to rebound soon, biotech
executives say, there will be a fundamental transformation of the industry, with a
trend toward consolidation accelerating. Additionally, they say, foreign drug firms
will probably take an increasing share of the American-born industry as they sense
there are bargains to be had." Eli Lilly, which has invested in 40 biotech companies,
has responded by
"tighten(ing) its standards to the point that it will no longer buy into a biotechnology
company that has only one or two drugs in the pipeline." Some attribute the "cooling
off" of the industry's stocks to "simply a stage in the maturing of a still young
industry." Amylin Pharmaceuticals' Howard Greene: "Whereas in the past you
dazzled them with science or laboratory or animal experiments, now (potential
investors are) focused on human clinical trial results" (Chris Kraul, 6/7).
DRUG COS.: DETROIT NEWS profiles Upjohn, noting that withthe death of its
Chair and CEO Ted Cooper earlier this year and with four of its products coming off
patent over the next year, the co. is "reeling." NEWS: "However, the short-term
problems pale in comparison with Clinton's attack on drug pricing." According to the
NEWS, Vice-Chairs William Parfet and Mark Novitch and Pres. Ley Smith have been
vigorously defending accusations of price gouging on Capitol Hill, to the media, to
business groups and in public forums. NEWS: "Parfet becomes almost evangelistic
when defending the industry. Drug costs account for 7 percent of health care
spending, he said, yet drug makers are bearing a big portion of the blame for
spiraling costs." Parfet: "We've always been reluctant to state our case before, but no
more" (Bill Vlasic, 6/3). JOURNAL OF COMMERCE reports Miles Inc. has agreed to
limit overall price increases of its prescription drugs to the level of inflation. Miles'
Helge Wehmeier: "We believe that voluntary price restraints are better than
government-imposed price controls which might be considered, because over a long
period such restraints would cause problems" (6/8).
STOCK BROKERS: "Health care stocks have been reboundingsince early April.
But it may not pay to bet just yet that the bounce will last. In fact, some industry
insiders are betting the opposite, using the two-month rally as an opportunity to sell
shares at the highest prices since late last year," writes USA TODAY (Daniel Kadlec,
6/8). DETROIT NEWS: "Wondering what Hillary Clinton's health care plan is likely
to mean for you and the economy?" NEWS reports Value Partners, the investment
house that manages Clinton's portfolio, "has been selling short health care stocks
since she became first lady" (6/5).
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE-MDC: June 9, 1993
THE NEW YORK TIMES,
MONDAY, JUNE 24, 1996
White House Plays Down a Visit by a Psychic
'By FRANCIS X. CLINES
hatma Gandhi, the book said, but the
WASHINGTON, June 23 - A new
THE CHOICE
First Lady drew the line at a sugges-
book has caused a stir with its de-
tion that she imagine a conversation
tailed descriptions of White House
with Jesus, saying such an exercise
visits to Hillary Rodham Clinton by a
would be too private.
New Age psychologist, but President
In her newspaper column two
Clinton's spokesman said today that
weeks ago, Mrs. Clinton cited both
the meetings were nothing more
women in a longer list of female
than "a brainstorming session" for
writers, historians and thinkers she
the First Lady's book-writing
praised as creative and provocative.
project.
She described Dr. Houston as an
"Nothing mysterious here," said
expert on philosophy and mythology
Michael D. McCurry, the White
who had "shared her views with me
House press secretary, commenting
on everything from the ancient
on a detailed account of one meeting
Greeks to the lives of women and
in which Dr. Jean Houston, a human-
children in Bangladesh."
potential-movement psychic, pro-
Mrs. Clinton wrote: "As women,
posed that Mrs. Clinton imagine mo-
talking can be our greatest friend. I
rale-building conversations with fa-
don't always agree with what I
mous figures she admires, including
hear."
Eleanor Roosevelt.
She did so, Mr. McCurry said, as
BOB
WOODWARD
Both women had been members of
a group of self-help authors and lead-
"a graceful First Lady who enjoys
Simon & Schuster
ers of the New Age human-potential
listening to women with ideas and
A book - "The Choice," above
movement invited by President and
perspective that differ from her
says Hillary Rodham Clinton met
Mrs. Clinton to Camp David as they
own."
Two White House meetings with
with a New Age psychologist.
sought to come to grips with the loss
of Congress in 1994 and other politi-
Dr. Houston are described in a new
cal setbacks. That visit was previ-
book about the 1996 Presidential
expectations placed on her.
ously reported, just as Mrs. Clinton
campaign by Bob Woodward, an as-
Dr. Houston has described herself
had earlier noted how she regularly
sistant managing editor and investi-
as a "sacred psychologist" and
felt the need for an inspirational chat
gative reporter for The Washington
"global midwife" who in 30 years of
with Mrs. Roosevelt.
Post, which devoted two front-page
research, world travels and practice
In her column two weeks ago, writ-
articles today to the book. Newsweek
has studied trances, hypnosis and
ten as the Woodward book was near
magazine, which is also promoting.
drugs as tools of therapy. The Wood-
publication, Mrs. Clinton noted: "I
the book, "The Choice" (Simon &
ward book stresses that none of these
occasionally have imaginary conver-
Schuster), characterized the visits
were employed in the White House
sations with Mrs. Roosevelt to try to
as séances, a term that Mr. McCurry
visits, only self-help.conversation.
figure out what she would do in my
criticized as far from factual.
Administration officials, mindful
shoes. She usually responds by tell-
"I think that's very, very unfortu-
of the controversy that engulfed the
ing me to buck up or at least to grow
nate," he said, adding that "Hillary's
White House after it-became known
skin as thick as a rhinoceros."
recollection is that it was, in fact,
that Nancy Reagan, while she was
Asked whether Mrs. Clinton had
nothing more than brainstorming"
First Lady, regularly consulted an
expected Dr. Houston's White House
for her book, "It Takes a Village."
astrologer, described Dr. Houston's
visits to remain private, Mr. McCur-
Commenting on Dr. Houston, Mrs.
visits as far from occult.
ry replied that "normally, friends
Clinton's deputy chief of staff, Me-
"There's a lot less here than the
keep confidences," but that, in any
lanne Verveer, said: "She is neither
people marketing the book would
case, Mrs. Clinton had advised Dr.
a spiritual adviser nor a policy advis-
have you believe," said George Ste-
Houston to simply "tell the truth" if
er. Any suggestion that emerges
phanopoulos, senior adviser to the
the subject arose. "The sad truth
from the book that she is a central
President. He said it was as common
now is the First Lady expects people
figure in the First Lady's activities
for White House figures to ponder
to mischaracterize things," Mr. Mc-
or world view is inaccurate."
history and imagine what their pred-
Curry said.
The Woodward book is about the
ecessors might have done as it was
President Clinton had no direct
Clintons and Bob Dole, the Republi-
for "titillating" exaggerations to be
comment on the visits. His chief of
can candidate for President. It de-
offered in the marketing of books
staff, Leon E. Panetta, said the book
scribes Mrs. Clinton's efforts to
about the White House.
excerpts merely showed that Mrs.
imagine meeting Mrs. Roosevelt, an
Present at the session with Dr.
Clinton reaches out regularly to
earlier First Lady who stirred con-
Houston was Mary Catherine Bate-
friends and experts to draw strength
troversy and faced heated criticism.
son, an anthropologist, who consid-
from other experiences in order to
That session was tape recorded, ac-
ered the meeting "a kind of medita-
bear up under White House pres-
cording to the book, which, however,
tion, reflection or even prayer," ac-
sures. Speaking on the CBS News
paraphrased Mrs. Clinton as saying
cording to the Woodward book. A
program "Face the Nation," Mr. Pa-
in the meeting that the White House
similar self-help lesson was attempt-
netta said, "I can't tell you how
had been a shock for her in terms of
ed in imagining guidance from an-
many Hail Marys I've said since I've
the attention she attracted and the
other of Mrs. Clinton's heroes, Ma-
taken this job."
Defying Odds in Mississippi,
rural Mississippi, in Columbus, to a
woman who had three sons by three
different men, who each abandoned
Black Carries G.O.P. Torch
her.
She made their living by taking in
ironing and washing, and working as
a maid. They lived in a two-room
By RICK BRAGG
house. Mr. Covington took his first
JACKSON, Miss., June 21 - The
"Republicans are making some ef-
indoor shower at the University of
poverty runs longer and deeper
fort to be more inclusive, and some
Mississippi, where he went on a band
through Mississippi's. Second Con-
African-Americans are feeling com-
scholarship. He played the tuba.
gressional District than anywhere
fortable inside the party," said Ste-
If his mother could survive without
else in America. From the three-
phen Schaffer, a professor of politi-
welfare, he said, so can others. If he
room shanties of Jackson to the skin-
cal science at Mississippi State Uni-
could climb out of poverty, so can
ny blacktop of the Delta, this is a
versity. "Probably, on moral issues,
they.
postcard of failed dreams. Women
African-Americans are more conser-
While others look at the Delta and
still tote water in plastic buckets to
vative, but it's a problem in general
see only hopelessness, he said, he
bathe their babies, and the first of
on economic issues."
sees people who are struggling to
the month remains a time of great
But Mr. Covington believes other-
make house and car payments and
expectation because so many people
wise. He said he was not trying to
raise their children properly, but
exist on welfare, food stamps and
take milk from babies or food from
also many people who do not try at
Government peanut butter.
old people, "but some guy who can
all. Mr. Thompson told them he
The Republican Party - the party
bench-press 300 pounds, has all 10
would take care of them, Mr. Coving-
of Newt Gingrich, Patrick J. Buchan-
fingers and can see real good, he
ton said, so there is no reason to find
an, welfare reform and the Contract™
should work," Mr. Covington said.
a job. "He's a poverty pimp," he said
with America - wants their votes.
"And if he commits a crime, we'll
build more prisons" and put him in
of Mr. Thompson.
Danny Covington, a 40-year-old
black man running for office for the
jail.
Mr. Thompson responded: "I
What was once unthinkable is
know almost 900 African-American
first time, could deliver this desper-
ately poor district to the Republi-
shaping up in Mississippi as, at least,
elected officials in Mississippi, and I
a real contest, political experts and
don't know one that's had to run on
cans, if he can persuade 12 to 15
percent of black voters to join with
Republican Party officials say. Some
the Republican ticket to win. We
black voters laughed out loud when
need to have that kind of representa-
the overwhelming white support he
is expected to get to unseat Bennie
asked if they would vote for a Repub-
tion rather than the Republicans'
finding somebody at the last minute
Thompson, the liberal black incum-,
lican, of any color, but others said
to run for office."
bent.
they would consider it. The reason:
Years of Democratic leadership has
It is not expected to be a gentle-
The obvious question: Why would
manly campaign.
that ever happen? To many black
done little to lift the wéight of pov-
Mr. Covington, a tall, thin, ebul-
people in this traditionally Demo-
erty here.
lient, rapid-walking man who worked
cratic district, voting for a Republi-
The district includes the whole
Delta, an area where outhouses are
in several campaigns, including
can, even if that Republican is a
those for Mississippi's stridently
black man, would be like a possum
still a common sight in back of rag-
conservative Gov. Kirk Fordice and
snuggling up to a speeding car.
ged houses that lean between vast
Senators Trent Lott and Thad Coch-
"African-Americans and minor-
fields.
ran, has not tried to pass himself off
ities in general are conservative in
"I'm a lifelong Democrat, but I'm
as a toned-down conservative who
nature, and we believe in the fam-
beginning to wonder," said 73-year-
would be palatable to black voters.
ily," reasoned Mr. Covington, a for-
old Bennie Evans, who came to hear
He does not try to justify his place in
mer parole officer and civil servant
Mr. Covington speak at the Mount
a party that many blacks view as
from Vicksburg who served in the
Zion Youth Center outside Jackson.
1980's as a Congressional aide to
"We want somebody who can change
threatening. He simply denies the
things."
threat.
another Mississippi Republican,
But Democratic leaders said that
"I don't think there's a Republican
Webb Franklin.
as bad as life in the Delta and other.
anywhere in America who wants to
"We don't have to have a constitu-
poverty-stricken districts might be,
see people starve, see people home-
tional amendment to support prayer.
it could get worse if the Republican
less, see people go without medical
We believe that a 4-year-old child
proposals on welfare and other social
treatment," he said.
should not be in a position to raise
programs were passed.
When pressed, he conceded that,
Momma and Daddy," he said, refer-
Mr. Thompson, in Congress since
yes, there are some Republicans who
ring to Aid for Dependent Children
1993, sees it as just one more case of
would drastically cut social welfare
checks, on which whole families sub-
political opportunism, and betrayal.
programs without apology. But while
sist. "We also believe that life is
"It just appears to be a shortcut to
he is loyal to his party, he said he
good, life is precious, and life begins
what they think is the head of the
would be his own man.
at conception."
line," said the 50-year-old Congress-
Mr. Thompson has been here be-
Mr. Covington is one of 24 black
man, who lives in tiny Bolton, near
fore. He defended his seat against
Republicans who are running for
Jackson. A former alderman, he has
Bill Jordan, a black Republican, in
been a politician all his adult life, an
1994. Mr. Jordan, whom some Repub-
Continued on Page B6, Column 1
uncompromising proponent of gov-
licans criticized for failing to run a
ernment programs for the poor.
hard race, still won 41 percent of the
Continued From Page Al
"For any self-respecting African-
vote in a district that is 63 percent
American to run on an anti-affirma-
black, but where the voting-age popu-
Congress, in addition to 2 who are
tive-action plank, wanting to cut
lation is just 58 percent.
already serving in the House.
Medicare and Medicaid, reduce edu-
Mr. Covington disdains any com-
He and two others are believed to
cational funding, is suicide. You can't
parison between this race and that
have the most realistic chances.
represent a district like mine and not
one. He ignored his Republican oppo-
They are Joe Rogers of Denver, a
make sure that basic services are
nents, whom he easily defeated in a
moderate seeking the seat held by
available to the people," he said.
primary, and focused on Mr. Thomp-
Representative Patricia Schroeder,
But that, Mr. Covington said, is the
son. He drives hundreds of miles
who is retiring, and Teresa Doggett
whole reason why he believes he can
every day, stopping at community
of Austin, Tex., running against a
unseat the incumbent: He said the
centers, churches, stores. He works
Democrat, Lloyd Doggett (they are
district was stagnating, as Mr. Ev-
the crowd at the Church's Fried
not related), in a white-majority dis-
ans said, held fast in never-ending
Chicken and the barber shop at the
trict with a growing Republican con-
poverty and dependence on welfare.
Edison Walthall Hotel in Jackson. On
stituency. The two black Republi-
Mr. Covington said Mr. Thompson
Wednesday, he crisscrossed the Del-
cans in the House are Representa-
could stay in power only if his dis-
ta with his campaign manager, Lin-
tives Gary A. Franks of Connecticut
trict remained poor, remained
da Brombach, putting 500 miles on
chained to welfare checks.
his car.
and J. C. Watts of Oklahoma.
Although black Republicans, espe-
"He wants people to be downtrod-
"Covington is doing a different
cially in the South, remain an oddity
den," Mr. Covington said. "That's his
sort of campaign: going out and
- just 2 percent of the party - their
platform. It's like he feasts on pov-
meeting people," said Mr. Schaffer,
numbers are climbing as blacks
erty."
the political science professor.
grow increasingly dissatisfied with
Mr. Covington lives in a house in
"It'll be an uphill race for Coving-
their place in the Democratic Party.
the country with a Jacuzzí in the
ton," he said, "but he does have lots
Charles Barkley, the Phoenix Suns.
back and campaigns in perfectly fit-
of political experience."
basketball star from Auburn Univer-
ting suits and ties that did not come
What he must do, some voters here
sity who earned the nickname The
from Kmart. But he was born in
said, is convince them that he is not a
Round Mound of Rebound in college
lap dog for Mr. Gingrich and other
because of his pudginess, has said he
Republican leaders. Mr. Covington,
would like to run for Governor of
who has been in the party since he
Alabama as a Republican.
joined the Young Republicans Club
at Ole Miss 20 years ago, said he
could better represent people Kere
because "I can take things to the
THE NEW YORK TIMES,
table" and deal with Mr. Gingrich,
Mr. Lott and others.
MONDAY, JUNE 24, 1996
But there is little disagreement
among them. He is against abortion,
even in cases of rape or incest. He
supports Republican tax cuts and
opposes gun control.
"I'm a conservative," he said.