A great many people contributed to bringing this book to life, with research, fact-checking, editing, and publication, and, of course, through the work covered in its pages. Often those who helped me get the facts and events right were the same people who had worked so hard on the initiatives, campaigns, missions, and other events I’ve included here. There were also people and events I cared about that I didn’t cover because of the editorial constraints necessary to keep the story moving along. I am also profoundly grateful to those whose hard work was important and impactful, but whose contributions weren’t included.
My lawyer, Bob Barnett, was, as always, in my corner, urging me to include or delete things based on his vast publishing knowledge of what has to be covered and what should be cut.
During the writing of the book, we lost my publisher and friend, Sonny Mehta, who, starting with My Life, always made sure Knopf was a welcoming home for me. Sonny was succeeded by Reagan Arthur and Jordan Pavlin, who kept that tradition alive. Thanks as well to the talented executives at Knopf Doubleday Group: president and publisher, Maya Mavjee, deputy publisher, Chris Dufault, and director of marketing, Kristin Fassler.
At Knopf I was guided by three gifted editors, starting with the legendary Bob Gottlieb, who never stopped asking me to not only talk about what happened, but how I felt about it. When Bob stepped down at age eighty-nine, just a few years before he passed in 2023, Andrew Miller stepped into some very big shoes. He was a steady voice and a marvel at discerning the core truths behind various passages and helping me come up with the final order of sections and chapters.
Finally, Jennifer Barth saw the whole project through to the finish line with good humor, finesse, and a fine eye for both the larger themes and the sentence-by-sentence focus a book like this requires, supported by Tiara Sharma, Claire Leonard, Nicole Pedersen, Casey Hampton, Felecia O’Connell, Anne Achenbaum, Arianna Abdul, and Meredith Dros. The great jacket was designed by John Gall, and Todd Doughty and Erinn Hartman headed up the brilliant publicity campaign. Thanks as well to Laura Keefe and Abigail Endler in Marketing, Suzanne Smith and Serena Lehman in Rights, Beth Meister in Operations and Sales, Kim Shannon and Annie Schatz in Sales, and Donna Passanante, Lance Fitzgerald, and Dan Zitt, who worked on the audiobook.
I had two chiefs of staff during the years I worked on Citizen. Tina Flournoy, who led my office for eight years with great skill and a big heart, was an early guiding hand in getting the ball rolling. After Tina left, Jon Davidson kept the project moving forward and kept me focused. Both of them reminded me to explain how my life and work fit into what I had done before I became a private citizen, and how my work evolved against the backdrop of larger forces at work in the U.S. and around the world. My deputy chief of staff and director of communications, Angel Ureña, helped center me throughout the process with his always insightful perspective and seemingly infinite patience, all while managing my other communications and press needs wisely and building his own busy and loving family life. Amanda Catanzano, Michael Fuchs, and Amitabh Desai made sure all the international and governmental affairs details passed muster. Oscar Flores was tireless, especially during Covid, in keeping my drafts, research, and queries organized while simultaneously running our Chappaqua home along with Mara Soto. They all worked hand in glove with Steve Rinehart, my chief in-house editor, who saw me through multiple drafts over several years, and somehow kept it all organized. All the while my director of scheduling, Corey Ganssley, protected the time I needed to write, edit, and research the book, and my director of engagement, Rich Vickers, kept all the pieces moving and worked with everyone above to make sure I had what I needed at any moment.
Many other people brought their own unique experience as readers and fact-finders. From the Clinton Foundation, Kevin Thurm, the Clinton Foundation’s CEO during the period I wrote this book; Bruce Lindsey, my friend and trusted advisor for more than five decades; Craig Minassian, who’s been giving me excellent advice since serving in my White House; Amy Sandgrund-Fisher, the Clinton Foundation’s general counsel; Greg Milne, the Clinton Global Initiative’s CEO; Luke Schiel, CGI’s chief program and strategy officer; and Tom Galton, my longtime speechwriter, all lent invaluable help and guidance. For research into foundation initiatives, Julie Guariglia, Meghan Andrews, Chloe Sisselman, Liz Raftery, Eliza Oehmler, and Jesse Dozoretz were vital in tracking down briefings, correspondence, notes on trips, and other material I needed to flesh out the stories. Francesca Ernst Khan, Colin Bridgham, and Elise Barnes helped look through the thousands of photographs taken by dozens of gifted photographers over the years that included Joe Reilly, Barbara Kinney, Adam Schultz, and Sharon Farmer. In Little Rock, the Clinton Presidential Center, especially its director, Stephanie Streett, who has been with me since 1992, pitched in with research and guidance, with help from Ben Thielemier and colleagues Debbie Shock, Joy Secuban, Lena Hayes, and Tina Eoff. I’m grateful as well to the professionals at the National Archives and Records Administration, including Terri Garner, Dr. Jay Barth, Dana Simmons, and Shanna Weathersby, for their help in unearthing material from my administration throughout my postpresidency.
I’m particularly grateful to so many others who picked up the phone when I called and filled in facts, figures, dates, and events, many of them from the early years of my personal office and the foundation, including longtime aides Maggie Williams, Eric Nonacs, Terry Krinvic, Bob Harrison, and Ed Hughes. Former members of my administration were also generous with their time and thoughts, including John Podesta, Paul Begala, Leon Panetta, Richard Clarke, Erskine Bowles, Gene Sperling, Bruce Reed, Marc Dunkelman, Kris Engskov, Minyon Moore, and Capricia Marshall. From Chelsea’s team, we relied heavily on her chief of staff, Bari Lurie, and Sara Horowitz and Emily Young, and from Hillary’s current and former colleagues we got help from Huma Abedin, Dennis Cheng, Nick Merrill, Dan Schwerin, Jake Sullivan, and Lona Valmoro, all of whom were generous with insights and anecdotes.
I’m also thankful for the many books, articles, and papers I’ve drawn on over the last twenty-three years to help jog my memory and organize my thoughts and make sense of the changing world. I’m especially indebted to Joe Conason’s book Man of the World for his perspective on my postpresidential work. It brought our work to the attention of a lot of people who might otherwise have known only about my occasional involvement in politics and other high-profile events.
Finally, I’ll be forever grateful to the scores of professionals who make my postpresidential work possible, beginning with my United States Secret Service detail, who keep me safe from Chappaqua to China and points in between. All of those travels are coordinated by skilled Advance teams who make sure all the movements go like clockwork, many of the members of which have been with me since the administration.
And of course, I’m grateful to Hillary and Chelsea, who read multiple drafts, fact-checking and offering valuable suggestions on what to add, delete, or rewrite, with their unique perspectives on the nearly quarter century the book covers, including their own full lives and their tireless work over the years with the Clinton Foundation. None of this would be possible without them. I love them very much.
All of the foundation efforts included in this book, and many dozens more, depend on the hard work and support of the Clinton Foundation staff, CHAI staff, scientists, healthcare professionals, advisors, on-the-ground workers and volunteers, friends, and, every so often, on the kindness and generosity of strangers who start their days thinking there can always be better tomorrows than yesterdays. They number in the thousands, and very little of what you read in this book would have been possible without them. I could fill easily another 450 pages with stories of their dedication, focus, and enormous humanity. Space doesn’t allow me to thank them all here, but I urge you to take a moment to visit PresidentClinton.com/CitizenThankYou and read through a more comprehensive account of the talented people who’ve made such a big difference in so many lives. They deserve a book of their own.
In the limited space I have in the meantime, I want to thank a few categories of people in particular. My personal office, with all of its myriad projects and responsibilities, was enriched and enlivened over the years by Laura Graham, Marc Gross, Jim Kennedy, Michael Kives, Matt McKenna, Hannah Richert, Helen Robinson, Ben Yarrow, and John Zimmerebner. On the foundation side, I’m particularly indebted to those who worked day to day to keep everything running smoothly, including Valerie Alexander, Elizabeth Bibi, Traci Carpenter, Brian Cookstra, Scott Curran, Lee Dugger, Omar Faroul, Erika Gudmundson, Linda Jean-Louis, Betsy McManus, Fred Poust, Trooper Sanders, and Zayneb Shaikley. And finally, the various foundation initiatives could not have been as successful as they were without the tireless leadership of Ragina Arrington, Mark Gunton, Sarah Hamilton, Jan Hartke, Rain Henderson, Kathy Higgins, Christy Louth, Terri McCullough, Patti Miller, Walker Morris, Scott Taitel, Christian Thrasher, Rachel Tulchin, Dymphna van der Lans, Howell Wechsler, and Bill Wetzel.
I would like to particularly thank the members of the CHAI and Clinton Foundation boards over the years. CHAI has benefited greatly from the experience and wisdom of its CEOs Ira Magaziner and Buddy Shah, and past and present board members Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Ray Chambers, Awa Marie Coll-Seck, Aliko Dangote, Dame Sally Davies, Mark Dybul, Mala Gaonkar, Luis Alberto Moreno, Joy Phumaphi, Alan Schwartz, Bob Selander, Ann Veneman, and two very special people we lost, Paul Farmer, and Dr. Tachi Yamada. Our Clinton Foundation board, past and present, has helped guide our larger work invaluably through the years, and for that I am grateful to Frank Giustra, Rolando Gonzalez-Bunster, Dr. Eric Goosby, Robert Harrison, Hadeel Ibrahim, Lisa Jackson, Ann Jordan, Bruce Lindsey, Terry McAuliffe, Cheryl Mills, Janet Murguía, Maura Pally, Cheryl Saban, Donna Shalala, Rodney Slater, and Nima Taghavi.
Finally, the hard work and guidance of our staff and board members hinges on the generous help of donors and supporters, from small donors, to annual givers of larger awards, to large individual business and foundation contributors, and to support from government agencies, conservation groups, and affiliated programs from all over the world. I am so grateful to everyone who supported our work in ways small and large, and in particular those individuals whose generosity kept our work going over the years, including Danny and Ewa Abraham, Bill and Tani Austin, Carlos Bremer, Beth and Mike Coulson, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Frank Giustra, Edythe and Eli Broad, Susie and Mark Buell, Susie Buffett, Fred Eychaner, Tom Golisano, Tom Hunter, Joe Kiani, Rolando Gonzalez-Bunster, Mack and Donna McLarty, Denis and Catherine O’Brien, Victor and Olena Pinchuk, J.B. and M.K. Pritzker, Haim and Cheryl Saban, Michael Schumacher, Carlos Slim, Nima Taghavi, Eddie Trump, Rumi Verjee, Ted and Michele Waitt, Alice Walton and the Walton Family Foundation, and Casey Wasserman and the Wasserman Foundation.