Acknowledgments

My relationship with the Bill Clinton story has been driven by serendipity. Like anyone with an interest in politics, I was fascinated by this arresting new figure who arrived on the national stage in the 1992 presidential campaign, and I watched his tumultuous first two years in office with curiosity.

Professionally, however, I was content with my job in 1994 covering the military for the Washington Post. Unexpectedly, one of the paper’s two positions on the White House beat opened up at the beginning of 1995. My editors suggested I spend a couple of years working with (and, as a practical matter, for) Ann Devroy, the Post’s indomitable senior White House correspondent.

As it happened, a couple of years stretched to six—the balance of Clinton’s tenure in office. Tragically, Devroy fell ill in 1996 and died the following year at age forty-nine, leaving me and a succession of partners to try to match her high standards. When I first started reporting on Clinton, in January 1995, the Republicans had just taken over the Congress and Clinton looked to be a beaten man. The leader who later came to be seen widely as one of the world’s larger-than-life personalities at that moment loomed rather small—almost physically diminished, to my eye, and demoralized and tentative in his manner. Over the next two years, I witnessed his remarkable comeback as he triumphed in his confrontation with Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress and won easy re-election. It continued to be a wild ride. After following the Clinton story through the Lewinsky scandal, impeachment, acquittal, the Kosovo war, the Camp David talks, and Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign—along with overseas trips that took me to some forty countries—it was with satisfaction and relief that I left the White House beat when Clinton’s second term ended in January 2001.

It turned out I was not quite through with Clinton. Again the unexpected happened, this time in the form of a call in the summer of 2001 from an editor at Random House asking whether I might be interested in writing a history of this controversial presidency. That call and subsequent conversations led to this book. I undertook this project with a sense that the history of the Clinton presidency has a certain paradoxical quality. On the one hand, I feel sure that fascination with Clinton and his legacy will continue for decades. On the other, I know perhaps more acutely than most how perishable much of this history is. Even in younger people, memories recede with surprising speed. Recollections tend to get edited by the mind into a few polished anecdotes. The millions of documents stored in the impressive presidential library that Bill Clinton built on the banks of the Arkansas River in Little Rock—now owned by the federal government and managed by the National Archives—will be an invaluable resource for scholars for decades. However, it seemed to me as I undertook this project that time was running short to capture what day-to-day life was really like in the Clinton White House—the personalities, the political maneuvers, the hopes and anxieties of people who lived through history. Thus, The Survivor is an interview-driven book, written immediately in history’s wake.

For this reason, the first acknowledgment I owe is to the many dozens of veterans of the Clinton White House who helped me in this project by sharing their recollections. Bill and Hillary Clinton attracted many very talented and interesting people to work with them. Most of them are justifiably proud of their public service. Getting to know these diverse people, as I did while covering the White House and while working on this book, was the fun part of the job. Thanks very much to everyone who helped.

I must also be extravagant with thanks to my friends at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. This wonderful organization, dedicated to the promotion of transatlantic relations, is part foundation, part think tank. GMF housed me during my leave from the Post and helped fund the foreign policy research for this history. The time I was there, 2002 and 2003, was a period of intense debate over the role of the United States in the world. European perspectives on Bill Clinton are often quite different from conventional wisdom in America. Talking about Clinton and his legacy in the world amid the fertile intellectual atmosphere GMF sponsors was a terrific opportunity. Thanks especially to Bill Antholis, Craig Kennedy, and Phil Henderson for making this happen.

Thanks also to the folks at the Brookings Institution, where I briefly hung my hat and where I have many valued personal and professional relationships. E. J. Dionne, Tom Mann, Mike O’Hanlon, and Strobe Talbott have all given valuable advice on this project.

Any historian of the Clinton presidency must be especially grateful to several participants in the administration who have written memoirs of their experiences. These include Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, of course. But there are several other indispensable works, including those by George Stephanopoulos, David Gergen, Dick Morris, Sidney Blumenthal, Dennis Ross, Strobe Talbott, and Michael Waldman.

My job in reconstructing the Clinton years would have been vastly harder—and impossible in places—were it not for outstanding work written contemporaneously. The Washington writer Elizabeth Drew deserves special notice for her two richly reported books on Clinton’s first term.

Then there is the giant in the room: my colleague Bob Woodward. One of the advantages of working at the Washington Post is the privilege of knowing some of the legends of journalism, and of working with them in a commonplace, everyday sort of way. But there is nothing commonplace about Woodward. Only someone who has worked to understand the Clinton presidency in retrospect can truly appreciate the magnitude of Woodward’s achievements in capturing so many essential facts and truths about the political and policy dramas of those years at the very moment they were unfolding. His 1994 book, The Agenda, tells the story of the passage of Clinton’s first-term economic program better than it will ever be told; his next book, 1996’s The Choice, is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Clinton’s personal evolution on the problem of Bosnia. Of course, these are routine achievements in the context of his career. Bob has worked similar miracles during every presidency since Nixon’s. He was uncommonly generous with advice to me on this project, just as he has been for countless other colleagues over the years. In addition, he helped facilitate with Mrs. B. A. Bentsen the release of his 1993 and 1994 interviews with former Treasury secretary Lloyd Bentsen, who was too infirm to participate in interviews for my book.

While on the subject of legends, there are a couple of others here in the newsroom to whom I’m indebted. David Maraniss’s First in His Class, now a decade old, remains the best source for the story of Bill Clinton’s rise to power in Arkansas. Like everything David writes, this biography is also a delight to read. On the sad story of the Clinton administration’s failed effort to reform health care in 1993 and 1994, David S. Broder wrote the best book, The System, with Haynes Johnson. For four decades now, David has been the anchor and conscience of the political staff at the Washington Post, and he is a lodestar for journalists throughout the business. What a privilege it is to work beside him.

It is the nature of being a White House correspondent that one works constantly with many colleagues on the story of the moment—it might be politics one day, social policy the next, and foreign policy the day after, or sometimes all three on one day. Only the assistance of other beat reporters on this improvisational work saves the White House reporter from embarrassment (at least usually). Of necessity, this list of colleagues to whom I am grateful in the Post newsroom is only a fraction of what it should be. At the top, executive editor Len Downie and his deputies in the Clinton years, Bob Kaiser and Steve Coll, set a standard of excellence, and were all encouraging of this project. I’m grateful also to national editors Karen DeYoung, Jackson Diehl, and Liz Spayd. In the trenches, where the hard work of White House and political journalism takes place, I was incredibly fortunate to have two wise friends as my boss, Bob Barnes and Maralee Schwartz. In Washington, Schwartz is so well known for her commitment to the Post, her reporters, and first-rate coverage of politics that people all over town refer to her simply by her first name. Other colleagues and friends who helped me immeasurably during my time at the White House or in the drafting of this book include Mike Abramowitz, Mike Allen, Jo-Ann Armao, Chuck Babington, Don Baker, Dan Balz, Tom Edsall, Bill Hamilton, Al Kamen, Ruth Marcus, Robert Melton, Dana Milbank, Ellen Nakashima, the late Richard Paxson, Sue Schmidt, and Jim VandeHei.

I mentioned above the famous Ann Devroy. For nearly a decade now, in both Clinton’s second term and the presidency of George W. Bush, the community of journalists and political operatives in Washington has asked, “I wonder how things would be different if Devroy were still around.” It’s quite a fair question; she was that good a reporter. After Ann was stricken with cancer, I was joined at the White House by Peter Baker, with whom I had been working since we were both young reporters covering Virginia. After publishing a book that is the essential history of Clinton’s impeachment, and a tour as Moscow bureau chief, Peter returned to the White House beat in 2005 to cover George W. Bush. I have watched his work with admiration and awe for nearly two decades, and I can say that Peter deserves the highest praise I know how to give a reporter: He is as good as Devroy.

As people can see from the photographic pages of this book, I’m indebted to the expertise of the people who captured these images. From the Washington Post photo department, thanks especially to Joe Elbert, Mary Lou Foy, and Katherine Frey. Diana Walker is one of Washington’s most talented and fascinating photojournalists; I’m very grateful to her for allowing me to reproduce some of her work. Several photos also come from the Clinton Presidential Library. Thanks to archivist John Keller, and to Robert McNeely, who took most of these images as a White House photographer. People who want to see more arresting images of the presidency should see two books, McNeely’s The Clinton Years: The Photographs of Robert McNeely, and Walker’s Public & Private: Twenty Years Photographing the Presidency.

It would probably surprise outsiders to know how people covering the White House can simultaneously be competitors and friends with colleagues from other news organizations. Among the many people in this group, I owe special thanks to James Bennet, John Broder, Josh Gerstein, Mara Liasson, Bill Nichols, Bill Owens, and Todd Purdum for their wisdom and friendship.

Thanks also to Mark Halperin and Karen Avrich for their friendship and advice during several stages of this project, as well as to my friend and teacher Steve Schier of Carleton College. It was also my honor while undertaking this book to receive advice from Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., who shared some of his notes from his own encounters with Bill Clinton. Arthur, of course, is among the greatest historians and writers America has ever produced. His work as a public intellectual, public servant, and advocate for a liberalism that lays claim to the “vital center” makes him one of the most outstanding and consequential citizens of the twentieth century. To know and receive encouragement from this generous man was an incomparable privilege.

My friend Scott Moyers was the first to see promise in this project and the notion of my undertaking it. Toward the end of the process, Lisa Chase gave wise advice for tightening the text. Dave Ohls, a 2004 graduate of Carleton, came to my rescue by helping tackle the endnotes and some final research with vast intelligence and diligence. Kayeen Thomas, a current Carleton student, also lent a hand.

For most of my time away from the Post on book leave, I was joined by a research assistant, Will Bohlen. Will is everything an author would want: smart, conscientious, curious, well organized, independent-minded, funny, and uncommonly decent. More than a helping hand, Will quickly became a valued friend, which he remains.

The sheer logistics of book publishing, I’ve found, are dizzying. Fortunately, I have been in good hands. Thanks to my agent, the creative and loyal Andrew Wylie. And thanks to all the folks at Random House. These include Jonathan Jao, a shrewd and patient editor (or at least he learned to be patient working with me), and Jonathan Karp, the brilliant editor in chief of the Random House Publishing Group. I first worked with Karp in the summer of 1985, when we were both summer interns at the Washington Post. Anyone might have guessed that he was a future big shot. Being reunited with him after many years has been a delight.

I did not know what I was getting into by writing a book, but most of my family and friends—more aware of my habits than I am of my own—surely had a hunch. My best friends—Tom and Karin Kullman Freedman, and Rick and Jane Ward—have my thanks for making sure that fun and laughter stayed in my life even during periods of frustration. My sister, Catherine Harris, and brother, James Harris, likewise kept my spirits high during the long march. My mother, Nancy Hamlin, gave me a love of language from an early age. It is one of life’s disappointments that my father, Carl M. Harris, who died in 1995, is not here to see this book. My three wonderful children—Liza, Griffin, and Nicola—suffered through a grumpy and behind-schedule father with their usual good cheer. And Ann O’Hanlon, to whom this book is dedicated, brought a huge heart and a wise mind—not to mention quite a good editor’s eye—to this project. She has brought the same rare qualities to everything we have done together since our first date in 1994.

 

John F. Harris
March 25, 2005