Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?
—MACBETH, ACT 5, SCENE 1
AMONG THE MILITARY WHO SERVED in the White House and the professional White House staff, the Clinton administration was renowned for its lack of professionalism and courtesy, though few ever spoke publicly about it.1
This aspect of the Clinton administration became apparent to me from my earliest golf outings with the president. It was telling to me how often he played golf with certain types of people—people like Terry McAuliffe, his campaign and fundraising guru, and the Rodham brothers, Hugh and Tony. They, like many of Clinton’s cronies, were remarkably pompous and inconsiderate individuals. The Rodham brothers are characters right out of The Sopranos, and they took full advantage of the fact that they were the first lady’s brothers. They were loud, obnoxious, demanding, and rude, and treated the military aide and the support staff as glorified caddies. They assumed that since we were there to assist the president, we were also there to serve them. They would think nothing of asking and expecting an Air Force or Army colonel to carry their golf bags for them. It was a perk of being a friend of Bill, a brother of Hillary. This might seem an inconsequential point, but it set a consistent tone to the administration, and in my mind it was impossible, over time, not to fit it into a larger picture. These people—McAuliffe and the Rodhams and so many other Clinton cronies—were people who regarded the Clintons’ electoral success as all about them and what they could get out of it. One significant exception to the sort of behavior we learned to expect from “friends of Bill” was White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles. He was a gentleman, and kindly admonished me when I tried to carry his clubs: “I’m ex–Coast Guard enlisted; no military officer is going to carry my clubs.”
With others, however, the arrogance and pomposity spilled beyond an antimilitary attitude into what appeared to be a racist attitude. President Clinton surrounded himself with minority cabinet members and celebrities, and devoted countless speeches and statements championing diversity, but some of the most racially prejudiced behavior I have ever experienced happened at the Clinton White House. I can only assume it was driven as much by sheer bad manners as by implicit racism. One cabinet member who struck me as particularly racist was Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman, herself an African-American woman. She treated the young African-American enlisted men who drove for the White House Transportation Agency like second-class citizens. And she had no qualms about ordering an African-American Navy officer who carried the presidential medical supplies, such as the defibrillator and plasma, to carry her luggage on and off the plane as well. This Navy officer’s primary duty was to ensure that nothing happened to the president, and in the event that something did, to tend to his medical needs. But to Alexis Herman, he was just another flunky at her disposal. I could see the hurt in his eyes; he expected more. And I felt for him. I was stunned to find that friends of Bill, like Jesse Jackson, treated African-American White House staff in the same way. This was an alien concept to me. The armed forces have spent decades overcoming racial divisions and inequities. Our standard now is based solely on merit and rank. On the other hand, it seemed to be a habit among some of Bill’s high-profile friends and colleagues that when outside of public purview they reflexively treated African-American service members in a manner I found appalling.
During the reelection campaign of 1996, we were visiting Tampa, Florida. As we departed Air Force One and the Tampa airport via motorcade, we passed directly in front of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers professional football team complex. Many of the players and coaches were outside, taking a break from practice, and watched in awe as the enormous presidential motorcade snaked by. President Clinton, quick to realize an opportunity when he saw one, had the motorcade turn around and return to the Bucs’ football facilities. The press corps was in tow, and this would make for a great off-the-record political news moment.
As we piled out of the vehicles, the president went from player to player, coach to coach, and shook hands. Tampa Bay head coach Tony Dungy, a dignified black man, a former professional player himself, and one of only a few African-American head coaches in the NFL, stood close by me and we chatted informally. At that moment, one of the senior white female staff members approached. She looked over our heads and around the scene, obviously looking for an older, white man, an “authority figure,” when she asked Mr. Dungy, “Can you tell me where the head coach is?” Chagrined for the staff, I told her, “You’re talking to him.” Dungy was a gentleman and handled it well, but even so, the senior advisor was unaffected. She just walked away, seemingly no remorse felt, and certainly no apology given.
As much play as the media gave to the Bill Clinton–Jesse Jackson relationship, that arrangement also struck me as somewhat disingenuous. The president liked to refer to himself, as a writer had done, as the nation’s “first black president.” His actions, at least those that I could see, spoke otherwise. Many times, Reverend Jackson would try to place calls to the president. The military aide would be the call screener at places like Camp David, on the golf course, on vacation, wherever normal White House staff and operators were unavailable. I’d put the caller on hold, ring the president, and ask, “Sir, it’s so-and-so. Do you want me to put them through?” Almost without exception, Clinton would refuse calls from Jackson. I can’t tell you how many times I had to tell Mr. Jackson that the president was unavailable and would have to get back to him. Most of the time, he never did.
But when it came to rudeness and such, it was Hillary Clinton who was the most feared woman in the administration.
When I first met Mrs. Clinton, it was on Marine One headed for Camp David, and I confess I was nervous. The other military aides had warned me, “Whatever you do, don’t piss off the first lady.” The first couple had notorious tempers, but hers was the worst. She was the one who could rip your heart out.
She was guardedly gracious and warm as she held out her hand and said, “Major Patterson, Hillary Clinton. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Hello, ma’am, Buzz Patterson. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
In turn, she introduced me to Chelsea seated across from her on the couch in the helicopter’s distinguished rear compartment. Designed for the first family, Marine One had large leather chairs for the president and first lady, and couch seats lining each side of the rear compartment. Chelsea, hair pulled back, in blouse and blue jeans, was polite and quiet.
The protocol on Camp David trips was that the military aide accompanied the first family as part of a small retinue. In addition to our normal responsibilities, we assumed the duties typically held by the personal aide, secretary, and valet. As such, I helped load the family luggage onto and off the helicopter. I helped them get situated into “Aspen,” their Camp David cabin, and I stood by for anything that they might need to complete their daily schedules.
One of my fellow aides, a Camp David veteran, advised me, “Make sure you put Mrs. Clinton’s luggage in their bedroom specifically where she wants it.” And I quickly knew how right he was after I shook the first lady’s hand and she introduced me to Chelsea on Marine One. I noticed that she was visibly concerned about her many hatboxes and bags. Judging from Hillary’s laser-like attention, the most important piece of luggage was a plastic box of files. My compatriot had instructed me, “Only you [the military aide] should handle the files and only in the presence of Mrs. Clinton. Place them beside her on Marine One. When you get to Camp David, place the files in a conspicuous location in her bedroom. Make sure that she sees you when you’re moving them and she sees exactly where you leave them.”
Pretty significant box of files, I thought. I never knew exactly what these files contained, but as events unfolded over the next several months, I developed strong suspicions. Earlier in the year, some long-subpoenaed Rose Law Firm Whitewater billing records had surfaced in the residence after two years of absence. Now Senate investigators were asking Mrs. Clinton for more information concerning her handling of Vincent Foster, Castle Grande, and Rose Law Firm records. Concurrently, there were House hearings into the improper collection of FBI background files and an ongoing legal battle over documents related to the Travel Office firings. Whatever files these were, they were important luggage.
And she was hawklike about it. That opaque plastic file box never left her sight. Whenever she left the White House, those files—the handling of which, in her opinion, was the chief responsibility of the military aide—went with her. One of my colleagues warned me early on, “Don’t screw up those files. Those files need to get to where she wants them, now, ASAP—they are very important.”
I learned very quickly that the administration’s day-to-day character, whether inside or outside Washington, depended on the presence or absence of Mrs. Clinton. Her personality preceded her. As part of my early training, I was told by my predecessor that “when Mrs. Clinton is ‘moving’ through the halls, make yourself as inconspicuous as possible.” The general advice was that Hillary did not want to see the staff, with the exception of key senior members, in the halls of the White House. Many a time, I’d see mature, professional adults scurrying into office doorways to escape Mrs. Clinton’s line of sight. I’d hear whispered, “She’s coming, she’s coming.” I could be walking down a West Wing hallway, midday, and find people busier than hell doing the administration’s work in the press office, medical unit, wherever. She’d come in, and they’d scatter. She was the stern schoolmarm, and the rest of us were expected to hide as though we were kids in trouble. It was ridiculous but understandable. Hillary could be harsh, difficult, and unpredictable.
Our trips to Camp David were a case in point. Camp David is run by the military, and it was our job, as military aides, to notify the commander and his staff of first-family visits. We were also counted on to alert key support agencies such as the Secret Service, the White House Communications Agency, the White House Medical Unit, and the valets. And we were to arrange the transportation with Marine One. The trouble was that Hillary’s staff would not communicate with us.
One of my fellow military aides got caught in this Hillary trap. He spent days trying to confirm rumors of a trip. On Friday night, after exhausting all available sources, he finally concluded that there wasn’t going to be a trip this weekend. On Saturday morning, early, Mrs. Clinton called him. “Where are the helicopters? Where is Marine One? I’m ready to be picked up,” she demanded.
“Ma’am, we need two hours, minimum, to arrange the logistics and you’re giving me fifteen minutes.” In Hillary fashion, she snapped, “You were told last night,” and she slammed the phone down.
My compatriot jumped to and made the necessary arrangements. In minutes, Marine One rotors were spinning and en route to the South Lawn. The Secret Service, Camp David staff, White House Medical Unit, White House Communications Agency, and Press Office all received rushed “we’re going” phone calls and went into their own crisis modes. That was standard operating procedure from Hillary’s staff. And it was not necessarily the staff’s fault.
Kelly Craighead was Hillary’s personal aide while I was there. It was an unenviable position. Her boss gave her frequent tongue-lashings along the lines of “You didn’t tell me this person was going to be at the social event,” or “Kelly, I’m late for this and I shouldn’t be late,” or “Kelly, this dress is the wrong color for this event.” The words were snapped with a distinctive, bitter nastiness. She was like that with people in her inner circle.
In early January 1997, the Clintons and entourage were going to St. Thomas, the Virgin Islands, for a vacation. The trip had been planned for weeks and most of the logistics were set. But as soon as Air Force One touched down in St. Thomas, I knew something was amiss. Mrs. Clinton was visibly upset. The staff quickly learned that Chelsea had left her backpack full of books in Hilton Head, South Carolina, where the Clintons had been attending their annual Renaissance Weekend, a gathering of government, business, media, and academic leaders. But it wasn’t Chelsea’s fault, of course, because, according to Hillary, the valets were to blame.
The president is served by career Navy enlisted men as valets. These valets, Filipino by birth, have a long, proud tradition of serving the first family. In my experience, they were loyal, devoted, impeccable employees. They worked diligently to attend to every detail—no matter how small.
It seemed to me amazing that the idea of holding Chelsea responsible—Chelsea was a senior in high school—never crossed Hillary’s mind.
Kelly Craighead asked me to find a way to get the books down to St. Thomas tout de suite. Chelsea had finals approaching and needed to study. We sprang into crisis mode. I called back to Hilton Head, catching my fellow milaide before she caught her return flight to Washington. She sounded the alarm, gathered remaining White House staffers, and scurried to find the backpack. Once the backpack was safely in hand, we dispatched one of the president’s valets via commerical airliner to deliver the goods. Just another day in the Clinton White House—the quick assignment of blame, and a relatively minor issue mushrooming quickly out of control.
The president’s mood also greatly depended on the presence or absence of Hillary. When she wasn’t around, he had more fun. He played golf and played cards with Lindsey, Podesta, or Bowles. He’d stay up to all hours of the night smoking cigars and talking to anyone who’d listen. When she was along, he toed the line. He was on time and he’d go to bed. He feared her, it seemed.
Within my first few months, I witnessed just how intense her fury at her husband could be. We were on our way to a Washington fundraising event. I knew it was going to be a bad night when the limousine pulled up at the hotel and there was a long delay before the first couple stepped out. They were arguing in the backseat.
Finally, the president, the first lady, two Secret Service agents, the doctor, and I crowded into the loading dock elevator to reach the party at the top of the hotel. Mrs. Clinton had just received some bad news about the Whitewater investigation and her immunity. As soon as the elevator door closed, she exploded at the president with a spew of four-letter words.
Every vulgar word you’ve ever heard poured from her mouth: “Goddammit,” “you bastard,” “it’s your fucking fault.” On and on and on. What grabbed my attention was not so much that she was saying these things but the way the president reacted. He looked like a beaten puppy. He put his head down and didn’t try to fight back. He said, “Yes, I understand. Yes, dear, I know.” The rest of us weren’t supposed to make eye contact anyway, so I blended in with the carpeted walls of the elevator and avoided the alarmed glances of the doctor and agents. The president, embarrassed, placated her as best he could. “Yes, I know. Of course, that’s right. I’ll take care of it,” he muttered between her volleys of expletives.
At the top floor of the hotel, the elevator door opened onto the crowded hallway for our arrival, and she reverted to Hillary Clinton, the First Lady. I witnessed several incidents like this; and while I got used to Hillary’s wrath, her ability to turn it on and off amazed me.
One time, though, her wrath was turned on me. It was on the president’s trip to the Netherlands in May 1997. The president was commemorating the Marshall Plan at the foot of the architecturally stunning Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam. The Dutch audience was wonderfully receptive. At the same time, back in America, a lady named Linda Finch was completing a seventy-three-day journey around the world flying a vintage Lockheed Elektra propeller-driven aircraft, emulating the failed attempt of Amelia Earhart. It was a journey that was being followed by the American press, but Finch’s achievement was not even on the president’s or the first lady’s radar. They tended not to care about things that did not involve their own immediate interests. Thanks to a young enlisted military member sitting duty in the White House’s Presidential Emergency Operations Center, however, we were tracking Linda Finch’s progress. The young seaman called to notify me that Finch had arrived safely in Oakland. He would check on her availability for a potential presidential phone call. He kept me informed minute by minute.
I pulled the president and his personal aide aside and said, “Sir, Linda Finch has just completed an around-the-world flight, in Amelia Earhart fashion. She’s now back in California with about thirty to forty-five minutes on the ground. Then she’ll rest and head home to Texas. Would you like to make a phone call and congratulate her?”
He looked at me incredulously. “No, Buzz, not right now… maybe later.”
The Clinton press office and staff had not been following the flight. It was the enlisted seaman who thought that he was making a useful contribution by suggesting the call. I thought he was right. But obviously it was the president’s decision. Nevertheless, en route back to The Hague and the Noordeinde Palace, where we were staying, the staff discussed the possibility of a phone call during the motorcade over our secure White House Communications Agency radios. I told Kirk Hanlin, presidential trip director, that we were running out of time. “Kirk,” I said, “Ms. Finch is going to get some rest and then fly back to her Texas home. We need to call now or not at all. She won’t be available once she gets airborne.”
Instead, the president and first lady decided to make an O.T.R. visit—an “off-the-record” visit—to the historic Dutch town of Delft. Delft is known for its porcelain dinnerware and rich history. Essentially, this little side trip superseded the phone call.
The unanticipated side trip to Delft turned a quaint Dutch town on a Friday night into a gridlocked security nightmare. At one point, the presidential motorcade was stuck on a narrow cobblestone street hemmed in by hundreds of people, many of them intoxicated and pounding their fists on the vehicles. As the scene grew uglier, I was genuinely concerned for the president’s safety. Finally we managed, through the professionalism of the Secret Service, to untangle ourselves and depart safely. An hour or so later, we returned to our accommodations at the Royal Palace, the phone call to Finch seemingly forgotten.
It was one in the morning local time, and we were all ready to turn in. But then Mrs. Clinton approached me in the hall, just outside their suite, and asked, “Are we going to make that phone call, Buzz? Get her on the phone right now.”
“No, ma’am,” I answered. “I believe Ms. Finch is in an aircraft flying to Texas right now. We missed our window on this. The opportunity to call her passed hours ago.”
“Why didn’t I know about this?”
“I discussed it with President Clinton and the personal aide. We had an opportunity of about forty-five minutes to make the call, and we didn’t make it. I’m sorry, but she is no longer accessible.”
“Damn it, that’s unacceptable! Why didn’t I know about this? We can’t miss opportunities like this. You get her on the phone!” she said, her voice raised and her face red. She spun toward Bruce Lindsey, who was standing nearby, clearly disappointed in me. “Bruce, you handle it,” she demanded, and she walked away.
Lindsey turned to me and said, “You keep working that phone call. I’m going to bed.”
Like hell, I thought, and I went to bed myself.
Linda Finch would miss her phone call. She was somewhere in the air—over Colorado, I was guessing. Vice President Gore would call her the next morning.
On a similar trip, as we lifted off a helicopter pad in Marine One en route to Air Force One for the journey home, Hillary suddenly shouted, “Put this back on the ground! I left my sunglasses in the limo.” By this time, however, Marine One was safely scooting to an awaiting 747. The required support for even a helicopter flight was involved and extensive. The Secret Service, White House Communications Agency, and administration staff were pulling down communications lines, lifting barricades, and driving off in vehicles.
“Ma’am,” my fellow military aide responded, “we can’t safely do that.”
“I need my sunglasses. We need to go back!”
The onboard Secret Service agent chimed in, “Yes, ma’am, the milaide is correct. That wouldn’t be wise.” She acquiesced, but not without obvious disdain in her eyes. Security be damned, those were her sunglasses!
Events and trips without her were akin to a frat house. It was hard to know which was better—the Nazi-like edge that emerged when she was around or the pseudo–Animal House atmosphere that emerged when she wasn’t.
On Air Force One, the entire mood was altered by the absence of Hillary. The president felt free and acted like it. His whole demeanor changed. Even the menu for the flights was comically different. With Hillary, it was salads, low-fat dressing, and fruit plates. Without her, it was barbecue, Mexican food, and Philly cheese steaks.
The president had a swagger reserved for times like these. He told jokes and eyed attractive women. He sauntered down the aisle of the plane on takeoff and landing, when he should have been buckled in.
But when Hillary was with us, she ran the show. She was the power behind the throne, and her priorities came first. When the Clintons ran for president in 1992, they said they were giving the American people a two-for-one deal. What the American people might not have realized was that she was the more important part of the deal.
Of course, most of my travel was with the president, rather than the first lady. And it was equally disillusioning given what I assume most Americans consider acceptable behavior and acceptable priorities from American presidents.
Presidential scheduling for domestic White House travel seemed to me a cynical exercise. I noticed that most scheduled events were fundraisers for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and not “official” presidential events. The president’s schedule would typically include one or two “official” events and then at least as many, if not more, fundraisers or “political” events. And the “official” events, like school visits or labor union luncheons, were a transparent cover to make him available, at taxpayers’ expense, to groups from whom he could raise the most cash for the DNC. A quick visit to an elementary school would be followed by a DNC luncheon, an expensive dinner party at a swanky hotel, and a late-night DNC-sponsored “Saxophone Club” event, where President Clinton would toot his sax and raise money with famous musicians like Michael Bolton, Art Garfunkel, or Tony Bennett. I could see Clinton’s charisma pulling in the money.
But it appeared to me that something very important was being lost—namely, the president was spending more time raising money than governing the country. Even Clinton complained about the volume of fundraisers. “I can’t think. I can’t act. I can’t do anything but go to fundraisers and shake hands,” Clinton told his political advisor, Dick Morris. “You want me to issue executive orders; I can’t focus on a thing except the next fundraiser.”2 Still, they went on and on.
There was nothing inherently “illegal” in this approach, but I wondered about the ethics involved. I wondered if the average American taxpayer would approve of Air Force One, Marine One, the massive footprint of White House communications, and the salaries of the hundreds or thousands of traveling White House staffers being diverted to political use.
Improper use of taxpayer-funded support is one thing. But I was an unfortunate witness to the Clintons’ taking fundraising to new lows when they rewarded big donors with nights at the White House or rides on Air Force One. I spent many nights on duty while the Clintons hosted donors and supporters. Visitors included politicians like Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco and Governor Lawton Chiles of Florida, businesspeople like Harry and Linda Thomason, or Hollywood stars like Tom Hanks, Jane Fonda, and Richard Dreyfuss. Private showings of recently released movies were held in the White House Theater. Guests could bowl in the White House bowling alley. The ushers would provide fresh popcorn, and the guests would have an evening of informal entertainment followed by a night in the Lincoln Bedroom. The Clintons, as everyone would learn, were selling the sanctity of the White House.
But President Clinton somehow managed to convince the American people in the midst of every apparently politically deadly scandal that all was well, and that, if anything, he was the victim. That this was transparently false was clear to me from watching him.
His cynicism never ceased to astound me. In February 1998, for example, President Clinton and the staff decided to visit a tornado-ravaged area of Florida. We did an “I feel your pain” helicopter flight over and around the areas so that the president could survey the damage in which forty people were killed.
Colonel Ron Berube, the commander of the Marine One squadron and Presidential Marine One pilot, flew from one area of destruction to another, giving President Clinton and his senior staff a running commentary. He went to great lengths to plan the flight route and position the helicopter so that the president could get a real sense of the damage. The military aide had maps out to show the president just where they were and the extent of the devastation.
The president, however, was busy playing a game of hearts with his pals White House counsel Bruce Lindsey and press secretary Joe Lockhart. He couldn’t be bothered—not even to look out the window occasionally. When it was time to align Marine One with the press helicopter for a picture, the president quickly peered out the window, feigning an interested and grief-stricken expression. The sole reason for the trip, in his mind apparently, was for that photograph. This playacting by the president was something I never ceased to marvel at—especially at how effective it was with his target audience. While he made a few mistakes—like walking in with a broad smile at Ron Brown’s funeral—he almost always knew what to do to impress his audience. In that regard, he and the first lady were soul mates.
The behavior of the first lady and the cynical way the president approached his duties made my position difficult—at least to square with my conscience. But I reminded myself that I was an apolitical entity serving the office of the president—the office, not the man. That’s how I approached each and every day at the White House. That’s how I had to approach it, as the glow of that first Clinton handshake that had impressed me so much gave way to a more sober reflection on the president and his character.
In the military, spin doesn’t very often triumph over substance, because the blunt edge of force—the reality of risk and potential casualties—cuts through spin pretty damn fast. But in the Clinton White House, the attitude was that spin could triumph over anything—and electorally for the Clintons, if not in the reality of foreign policy, it did.
And even when it came to foreign policy, President Clinton appeared to assume that the image of the well-traveled statesman would make up for a lack of actual foreign policy achievement. No president in our nation’s history traveled more than Bill Clinton. In part, this was because he was trying to escape the scandals that followed him in Washington. But it was also because President Clinton was intent on leaving his own foreign policy legacy, just as every Democratic president had done since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Defining that legacy, I saw, was a conundrum for him.3 But the search for it took him around the world. President Clinton made 133 trips to seventy-four foreign nations or entities, a number never before approached by previous presidents. During his eight years as president, Clinton made more foreign visits than Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon combined. In his two terms, Clinton visited almost as many nations as Presidents Carter, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush combined.
Personally, I accompanied President Clinton on official state visits to the Philippines, Denmark, the Netherlands, Argentina, Germany, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Italy, and South Africa. For the White House Travel and Advance staff, I visited Thailand and Australia, as well.
All of this from the president who, during the 1992 presidential campaign, criticized President George H. W. Bush for spending too much time overseas and not enough time on domestic matters. “It’s time for us to have a president who cares more about Littleton, New Hampshire, than about Liechtenstein; more about Manchester than Micronesia,” declared candidate Clinton.4 In actuality, President George H. W. Bush never made it to Liechtenstein or Micronesia, but President Clinton did, visiting Micronesia when he visited Guam.
President Clinton’s biggest travel year was 1998, the same year he was hit with the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment. His foreign travel in 1998 accounts for one-fifth of his total travel over the eight years. Interestingly, President Richard Nixon’s highest travel year was also the year he resigned the presidency.
Obviously, it is important for presidents to travel, as statesmen and world leaders. How much, though, should probably be answered by the taxpayers.
President Clinton’s foreign travel cost the American taxpayers an estimated $500 million over his eight years. The figure is based on a National Taxpayers Union and General Accounting Office study of fifty-four trips.5 This figure does not take into account Mrs. Clinton’s or Vice President Al Gore’s individual foreign travel. As first lady and vice president, they were authorized to use Air Force VIP aircraft, and they took advantage of it.
The first lady, for example, traveled to Africa, Portugal, Austria, the United Kingdom, Ireland, India, Russia, Panama, and Canada in 1997. She visited Switzerland, France, Germany, South America, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Central America in 1998. In 1999, she traveled to Jordan, Africa, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Middle East, Greece, and Turkey. These were trips above and beyond those she took with her husband, and the costs in taxpayer dollars were estimated at about $12 million.
When she was campaigning for the Senate seat in New York, she routinely jetted up and back in an Air Force C-9A or C-20. The C-9A runs $3,366 an hour; the C-20, $3,587 an hour. As first lady, she made at least seventy solo trips to New York.6 The real cost in terms of manpower and military capability to cover all of the Clintons’ travel, foreign and domestic, may never be known.
The Clinton administration didn’t just visit a foreign country; it invaded… and sometimes not so peacefully. When the president goes on a foreign trip, it involves an entourage that includes, at a minimum, staff from the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Secret Service, and a number of other federal agencies, as well as an entourage of cooks, drivers, telephone operators, radio operators, speechwriters, stenographers, White House coordinators, facilitators, guests, members of Congress, and business and church leaders.
On my last trip with President Clinton, to Africa in 1998, one of the stated objectives was “to promote U.S. investment, trade, and economic growth.” The accompanying staff totaled 1,302 federal officials. The Commerce, Treasury, and Trade Departments sent a total of eight people. The White House and U.S. Information Agency sent more than three hundred people.7 Among the guests and staff were President Clinton’s secretary, Betty Currie, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Mrs. Clinton and Chelsea came along and spent most of their time sightseeing. There were more than nine hundred members of the U.S. armed forces along for support, enough to form an army battalion. We invaded, and I’m not sure the continent was ready for us. The sheer impact of the White House was almost comical. When I checked into our hotel in Johannesburg, the polite young lady behind the desk asked with a concerned look on her face, “When are you and your people leaving? There is too much commotion.”
Air Force One is only one small piece of the logistical puzzle. In fact, most of the people and equipment necessary to support the president for a given location were carried by other U.S. military aircraft. For the Department of Defense, this means the massive airlift of people and equipment in advance of the president’s actual trip by the Air Mobility Command, at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.
The Air Mobility Command’s primary mission is to move U.S. troops and equipment to battle, which, until my assignment to the White House, had been my mission. In the Department of Defense prioritization system, presidential trips and the associated support are coded “1A.” What this means to the scheduler at the headquarters allocating the aircraft is that there is no other mission that takes priority. Not war, not common sense.
In real terms, whenever the president travels, soldiers and war-fighting equipment don’t. For example, on Clinton’s trip to Africa, the Air Mobility Command flew 144 cargo missions, transporting several hundred passengers and nearly 6.5 million pounds of equipment using primarily C-141 and C-5 heavy-transport aircraft. The Air Mobility Command flew an additional 110 aerial refueling missions using KC-10 and KC-135 airborne tankers. The Africa trip alone cost taxpayers at least $43 million.
On top of the cost in dollars, this trip to Africa caused the Air Force to cancel or refuse twenty-six missions and postpone thirty others. “The American taxpayer has no idea how many people get involved in these things,” said one Air Force commander at Scott.8 “It’s excessive, and there’s no accountability,” another Air Force officer said.9
The president’s trip to southern Asia in the spring of 2000, after I had left the White House, required 354 scheduled airlift missions. “This boondoggle will cost the Air Force over $50 million and limit its ability to execute its regular operational mission,” an Air Force officer noted. These sorties “are enough to transport two Army divisions with all their stuff anywhere on Planet Earth,” he added.10
In addition to directly supporting the globe-trotting of the Clintons, the Air Mobility Command was also forced to support domestic presidential junkets, and it took a huge toll on aircraft and aircrews, wearing out both machinery and personnel on missions of dubious importance. All of this at a time when the president was downsizing the military and compromising capability.
Virtually everywhere President Clinton traveled, he and his staff would insist on the availability of Marine One to move them from an airfield to another location, rather than rely on motorcades. Because Marine One was tasked with carrying not just the president and his immediate entourage but also additional staff and the press corps, it usually entailed at least four Marine helicopters.
The logistics of pre-positioning helicopters in cities across the globe are massive. In order to have Marine One and backup alert helicopters in Johannesburg, South Africa, for example, they have to be flown there. Not, however, as you would think. Helicopters are not capable of flying long distances over seas. The helicopters would have to be broken down by Marine maintenance crew chiefs, loaded into the back of the massive C-5, flown to the host city, often with several refuelings on the way, and reassembled by the Marine crew chiefs on the other end. The manpower expended is tremendous, and several days of dedicated support by the Marine Corps maintenance technicians would be required. The dollars spent were exorbitant. The cost to mission capability was devastating, particularly in a time of military downsizing.
For the Clinton administration trip to South America in October 1997, the Marine Corps had to supply the necessary helicopters to transport the press corps covering the president’s arrival. “Showtime” was always an administration priority.
Of the many responsibilities that a military aide takes on when he works at the White House, the most demanding of his time is the travel, which involves advance work on the locations and detailed security plans developed in close coordination with the Secret Service—plans that make the military aide the quarterback in charge of moving the president and his staff safely away from any threat.
In my years in the Clinton White House, the military aides were also increasingly relied upon to take over the planning of simple political events that were too complex for the many young, inexperienced staffers that surrounded the president, many of whom were hired as repayment for political favors or campaign support, rather than for job-specific professional skills and experience.
In late November 1996, a junior political staff member was energetically planning an event for President Clinton’s visit to the Asian Pacific Economic Conference in Manila, the Philippines. I was the military aide working most of the military logistical angles for this highly visible, important three-day visit. The staffer was a young Cecil B. DeMille type when it came to orchestrating events. Nothing was too large, too outrageous, or too creative when it came to putting the president’s agenda across.
In an effort to arrange a fifteen- or twenty-minute photo opportunity with members of the U.S. Navy, the staffer requested that the Pentagon divert one of the Navy’s carrier battle groups from off the coast of Australia into Manila Bay. “Then,” he explained, “we could helicopter the president out for a quick ‘grin and grip’ with the sailors on the flight deck. It would be awesome.”
Over several days, though, and through many phone calls to Navy headquarters in Honolulu, we discussed the potential cost in taxpayer dollars and otherwise. “You can’t just move a carrier battle group,” I explained. “There are real-world implications. It could be construed as ‘saber rattling’ or send diplomatic signals that aren’t intended. Plus, the cost in dollars would be staggering.” I was finally able to convince him that whatever political hay he might make through the resulting CNN sound bites would be greatly outweighed by the cost in dollars and common sense. His dreams dashed, slump-shouldered and with a defeated look on his face, he agreed.
The Clinton staff could be publicly embarrassing as well. During the May 1997 presidential visit to Holland, our Dutch hosts rolled out the red carpet. Each Royal Palace room was stocked with food and a complete liquor bar for every staff member. A very thoughtful gesture, I thought, since we were getting in so late—a snack and a drink sounded great. The next morning, as we were leaving for Air Force One and our next country, the Dutch military aide pulled me aside to complain. “Your people took all of the liquor,” he said under his breath, obviously embarrassed for me. “And they stole crystal and china, too,” he added. He was completely floored by the audacity of the Americans from the White House. I apologized for the White House staff. But I’d seen it before. This presidency was all about them.