Living History by Unknown (the lemonade war series txt) 📗

and important celebrations-and we didn’t blacklist anyone who disagreed with our politics. This made for the occasional awkward moment on the receiving line. On January 21, 1998, just after the Lewinsky story broke, Bill and I were hosting a black-tie dinner to celebrate the completion of fundraising for the White House Endowment Fund, a nonprofit organization that raises private money to pay for restoration projects at the White House. The fund, initiated by Rosalynn Carter and continued by Barbara Bush, set a fundraising goal of $25

million. About half that amount had been raised when I became First Lady, and I was pleased that we were able to meet and then exceed the original goal. This for me was a labor of love for the White House, and the dinner was an opportunity to thank all the donors who had contributed.

Bill and I were greeting our guests in the Blue Room when a moonfaced man reached out to shake hands. As the military aide announced his name and a White House photographer prepared to snap his picture, I realized it was Richard Mellon Scaife, the reactionary billionaire who had bankrolled the long-term campaign to destroy Bill’s Presidency. I had never met Scaife, but I greeted him as I would any guest in a receiving line. The moment passed unnoticed, but later, when the guest list was released, some journalists were shocked to learn that I had approved him. When asked why he had been invited, I said that Scaife had every right to attend the event because of his financial contribution to White House preservation during the Bush Administration. But I was astonished that he chose to stand in line to meet the enemy.

Our next gala event was the official dinner in honor of Tony Blair on February 5, 1998. Given the friendship Bill and I had developed with Tony and Cherie, as well as the historic ties and special relationship between our nations, I wanted to pull out all the stops for the Blairs. And we did, with the largest dinner we ever hosted inside the White House, held in the East Room because the State Dining Room was too small. For the after-dinner entertainment, I lined up Sir Elton John and Stevie Wonder to perform together, a truly great Anglo-American musical alliance.

When Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich accepted our dinner invitation, I decided to seat him on my left, while Blair, as expected by protocol, would sit on my right. Gingrich admired Blair as a transformational political leader, a term he had once used to describe himself. I was curious about what they might say to each other and also hoped to glean Gingrich’s thoughts on the latest Starr charges. A spate of commentators had introduced the specter of impeachment, and although there was no legitimate constitutional basis for such a move, I knew that might not deter the Republicans from trying. Gingrich was the key: If he gave the go-ahead, the country was in for a rough ride.

After a long discussion at our dinner table about NATO expansion, Bosnia and Iraq, Gingrich leaned in my direction. “These accusations against your husband are ludicrous,”

he said. “And I think it’s terribly unfair the way some people are trying to make something out of it. Even if it were true, it’s meaningless. It’s not going anywhere.” That was what I had hoped to hear, but I was surprised. I later reported to Bill and David Kendall that Gingrich seemed to believe that the allegations against Bill were not serious. He completely changed his tune when he led the Republican charge for Bill’s impeachment. For the moment, though, I took this conversation as evidence that Gingrich was more complicated and unpredictable than I had thought. (Months later, when his own marital infidelities were exposed, I better understood why Gingrich may have wanted to dismiss the issue.) In February, Starr decided to subpoena members of the Secret Service to compel them to testify before the grand jury. Starr was looking for something that would contradict Bill’s deposition in the Jones case, and wanted the agents to report on conversations they might have overheard or activities they might have witnessed in the course of protecting the President. It was unprecedented to force Secret Service agents to testify, and Starr’s subpoena put them in an untenable position. The agents are non-political professionals whose job involves long hours, difficult conditions and tremendous pressures. Inevitably they are privy to the confidences of those under their watch, confidences they know they must not compromise. If the agents aren’t trusted by the President, they won’t be allowed the proximity necessary to do their job, which is to keep the President and his family out of harm’s way―not to eavesdrop on behalf of the independent counsel or other investigative bodies.

I respect and admire the agents I’ve met over the years. The protector and the protected make an extraordinary effort to maintain a professional distance, but when you spend nearly every waking hour in each other’s company, you develop relationships of trust and caring. My family and I have also come to know the agents as warm, funny and thoughtful human beings. George Rogers, Don Flynn, A. T Smith and Steven Ricciardi, who successively served as my lead agent, invariably struck the right balance of informality and professionalism. I will never forget Steve Ricciardi’s calm presence after the September 11 attack when he got on the phone with Chelsea, who was with her friend Nickie Davison in lower Manhattan, to make sure she was safe.

Lew Merletti, a Vietnam veteran who had led the Presidential Protective Division (PPD) and then became the director of the Secret Service, met with Starr’s operatives and warned them that forcing agents to testify would compromise the necessary trust between agents and Presidents, undermining presidential safety now and in the future. Having guarded Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton, Merletti based his assessment on long experience in the field. Previous heads of the Secret Service concurred. The