American Evita: Hillary Clinton's Path to Power Read online

  Bill and Belinda were spotted skiing together in Aspen in January 2004, and reportedly made plans to see each other again two weeks later at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It was at this point, say friends of both Clintons, that Hillary called Bill and voiced her concerns.

  Belinda, meanwhile, insisted through her corporate spokesman that there had never been anything the least bit romantic between her and the former President. But friends of the glamorous young woman now being hailed as “The ‘It Girl’ of Canadian Politics” allowed that Belinda was “intrigued” by “his charisma and brain-power.” Nevertheless, she abruptly canceled her trip to Switzerland, leaving Bill to attend the conference alone.

  There was ample cause for alarm on Hillary’s part. At this point, while they struggled to determine the best way to move forward with The Plan, the Clintons did not need more headline-making gossip about his sex life. Further complicating matters was the fact that Belinda was surely no bimbo. She ranked at number two on Fortune magazine’s list of powerful businesswomen. And even after losing her bid to head up the Conservative Party in the spring of 2004, Belinda had, with Bill’s backing, established herself as a force to be reckoned with in Canadian politics. Polls had shown, in fact, that she stood a chance of someday becoming Canada’s first woman prime minister. In the meantime, Belinda’s appointment to the cabinet or another high-level position in a Conservative government was almost assured. An affair with a lounge singer or an intern was one thing, but even rumors—however baseless—of a relationship between the former President and the beautiful Canadian politician would be impossible to ignore.

  Nor, presumably, did Hillary appreciate the fact that Bill appeared to be serving as political mentor to another woman who wanted to run her country. Moreover, Stronach was a conservative who had more in common ideologically with George W. Bush than she did with the Clintons. “Bill Clinton must really like her a lot,” said one Canadian pol, “because they really don’t have much in common when it comes to the issues. That must gall Hillary, I would think.”

  Keeping a wary eye north of the border, Hillary was now forced to cope with renewed pressure to endorse front-runner Dean. From her standpoint, a Dean candidacy was highly attractive; she could show her unflinching loyalty to the party by campaigning all-out for the ticket, never worrying that Dean might actually win and block her chances for a run in 2008.

  But Hillary also remembered that, at this point in the nomination process back in 1991, polls showed her husband standing at only 4 percent among Democrats. As for who the Democratic candidate was going to be, Hillary allowed that it was “still a horse race.” If she was to maintain her status as the most powerful figure in the party, she did not want to make the mistake of backing the wrong horse.

  The senator’s caution paid off on January 19, 2004, when Howard Dean, after losing to John Kerry in the Iowa caucuses, cut loose with a primal scream that effectively ended his presidential aspirations. Delivered on Martin Luther King Day, Dean’s fatal remarks—ending in “Yeeeeeeeaarrrrrhhh!!”—would henceforth be known as his “I Have a Scream” speech.

  “Oh, my God!” Hillary said when she first watched video of Dean’s frenzied performance. She may have suspected that the scream would further undermine Dean’s already slim chances of beating Bush. But at the time, Hillary apparently had no inkling that it would cost him the nomination.

  Hillary watched with mounting concern as Dean’s candidacy evaporated and John Kerry—the only candidate she rightly believed had any chance at all of defeating Bush in November—racked up one primary victory after another. She was equally wary of North Carolina’s telegenic, charismatic John Edwards, who was now being touted as Kerry’s probable vice-presidential pick. Behind closed doors, Hillary would oppose Edwards being offered a spot on the ticket. He did not, she argued, have sufficient foreign policy experience. More to the point, Edwards, a youthful-looking fifty, posed a very real threat to her future candidacy.

  When it was clear that John Kerry had clinched the nomination, Hillary finally endorsed him on March 2—not in front of a bank of microphones on the Capitol steps, nor on the Today show or Larry King Live, but on Japanese television. “I will do everything I can,” she told a reporter for the Nippon Television Network, “to get him elected.” The nearly offhand remark was picked up by the wire services the next day.

  Pressure for Hillary to join the Democratic ticket as Kerry’s running mate was mounting by the minute. Were Kerry to beat Bush without Hillary on the ticket, she would “probably never be president of the United States,” their old strategist Dick Morris observed. “This cold, hard fact is staring the Clintons in the face….”

  To be sure, Kerry would find himself in an awkward position if Hillary let it be known that she wanted the number two spot—a job that would leave her open to run in 2008 if Kerry lost and in 2012 if he won. The Clintons, who installed Terry McAuliffe as Democratic National Committee chairman, still controlled the party. When Kerry hinted that he intended to replace McAuliffe if he won the nomination, Hillary informed him in no uncertain terms that “Terry stays.” Kerry backed down.

  If Hillary wanted the second spot on the ticket, Kerry would have ample reason to give it to her. The Massachusetts senator, argued Morris, would be “pulling knives out of his back the entire race” if he “spurned” Hillary. “Kerry cannot afford to leave the Clintons sulking, like Achilles, in their tent. Otherwise, Troy will go Republican.”

  Yet Kerry, who worried that he would be overshadowed by Hillary if she ran with him, prayed that she wouldn’t ask to be his running mate. “There are a lot of people—Democrats as well as Republicans—who really hate her,” a Kerry aide said. “John knows that. They would turn out in the millions just to vote against her. And if John won, all the attention would be on her. Nobody in their right mind would want Hillary Clinton as their vice-president.”

  Underscoring that sentiment, Hillary was chosen as one of the “25 Toughest Guys in America” by Men’s Journal—the first woman to make the list. Hillary offered a tongue-in-cheek objection to her twenty-fifth-place ranking behind rapper 50 Cent, who was shot nine times and drove himself to the hospital, and human crash-test dummy Rusty Haight, who volunteered to be in 740 car wrecks. Asked why Hillary was picked, the magazine’s senior editor, Tom Foster, explained, “I think just looking at what she’s been through and what she represents, that sort of stood for itself.” Besides, Foster added, “would you mess with her?”

  Sweeping into the Capital Hilton wearing a floor-length black satin coatdress that made her look like a distaff Darth Vader, Hillary took her place on the dais at Washington’s annual Gridiron Club Dinner. Fittingly, she was on hand to trade one-liners with the man most likely to square off against her at the polls, either in her race for reelection to the Senate in 2006 or her own run for White House in 2008—Rudy Giuliani.

  While W met with Mexican President Vicente Fox at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, Hillary and Giuliani took good-natured jabs at each other. One of the former mayor’s remarks was particularly revealing. “I fully suspect,” Giuliani mused, “that come this November, when all is said and done, behind the sanctity of the voting booth curtain, I and Mrs. Clinton will be voting for the same person: George W. Bush.”

  Two days later, Hillary’s longtime pal and staunch supporter Martha Stewart was found guilty on four counts of obstructing justice and lying to investigators regarding her fortuitously timed sale of ImClone stock—a conviction that could cost her $1 million in fines and land her behind bars for up to twenty years. She had raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Clintons, but now Martha was persona non grata in Hillaryland. Stewart had not heard a word from her dear friend the senator in the two years since her legal nightmare began. This was in stark contrast to other high-profile friends like Rosie O’Donnell and Bill Cosby, who showed up in court to lend their support.

  Before the trial got under way, Martha had actually tried to contact the
senator. According to friends of Stewart, Hillary refused to take Martha’s calls. “She acted like she understood—she’s a strong woman,” said one. “But I think it broke her heart.”

  Still, by all accounts Martha appreciated the delicate position Hillary was in and was willing to overlook the fact that the senator appeared to have turned her back on a friend in need. Until, on the very day Martha was convicted, Senator Clinton delivered the coup de grâce. Once told of the verdict that would likely send her pal Martha to federal prison, Hillary took immediate action. “I’d better,” she said without skipping a beat, “send her the money back”—the $1,000 donation, now presumably tainted by Stewart’s criminal status, that Martha had made to Hillary’s Senate campaign.

  As her sentencing approached, Stewart sent a letter to one hundred friends asking them to write to Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum and plead for leniency on her behalf. “If you would be so kind to write such a letter, please include your opinion of my character, my work ethic, my integrity and my probity,” Martha suggested. “If possible, include any memorable experiences you have had with me to explain the basis of any expressed opinion(s).” Stewart then gave the address of the judge, as well as that of her legal team. Hillary received one of the letters, but made a conscious decision not to get involved.

  Once Martha was out of jail, Hillary would have no trouble taking Stewart’s money and employing the domestic diva’s talents and connections to raise even more. But while Martha languished behind bars, the senator would have to keep her distance. So, too, would the former President. Hillary cautioned her husband not to contact their friend. For the moment, Hillary sighed, Martha’s brush with the law had rendered her “radioactive.”

  In April 2004, the Clintons’ strategy for putting Hillary in the White House took an intriguing turn when she told NBC’s Katie Couric that she would not be John Kerry’s running mate under any circumstances—even if he called and pleaded with her to take the number two spot on the Democratic ticket.

  “I made it clear I don’t want that to happen,” insisted Hillary, who did the Couric interview to promote the paperback edition of her memoirs. “And what my answer will be—no—if it does happen. I’m not prepared to do that.”

  When Couric asked if she wanted to be President, Hillary replied, “It’s not the way I think. I never thought I would end up being the senator from New York.” Then, the woman who thirty years earlier had bragged to anyone who would listen that she was marrying a future President, told Couric, “I never thought that the long-haired, bearded boy I married in law school would end up being President. I don’t think like that.”

  What Senator Clinton and the former President were really thinking became clearer just ten days later, when—as John Kerry began sinking in the polls—it was announced that Bill Clinton’s memoirs would be published in late June. Despite pleas from the Kerry camp for Clinton to hold off on publication until after the general election in November, Bill timed the book’s release and his subsequent publicity tour perfectly to steal the spotlight from John Kerry as he prepared for his coronation at the Democratic convention in late July. “The Clintons are obviously convinced Kerry can’t win,” said one veteran New York Democratic Party leader, “and they’re doing what they can to make sure he doesn’t. Hillary can talk about how much she wants Bush defeated, but with him in for another four years, she’s got a clear shot at 2008. I mean, you’ve got to admire her chutzpah.”

  As Hillary once said of herself, “I don’t quit. I keep going.” Over the course of a thirty-five-year political career that stretched from the Black Panther and Vietnam antiwar movements to the impeachment of her scandal-plagued husband to her own Senate career, Hillary has never doubted for a moment that she should be the one in charge—of a student body, of a husband, of a nation. No investigation, no scandal, no charges of corruption, deception, conspiracy, perjury, or impropriety would impede her progress to power.

  Ruthless. Brilliant. Grasping. Arrogant. Conniving. Compassionate. A victim. A saint. A schemer. All these words—and a few less savory ones—have been used to describe Hillary Rodham Clinton, just as they were used to describe Eva Perón. Like Evita, Hillary was the architect of her husband’s rise to the presidency. Like Evita, Hillary was condemned by some and praised by others for wielding power as unofficial co-President. Like Evita, Hillary, along with her husband, was accused of corruption on a massive scale. Like Evita, Hillary dreamed of becoming her country’s first woman President, and plotted relentlessly to make her dream a reality.

  But then Hillary had one thing Evita didn’t:

  The Plan.

  Acknowledgments

  For better or worse, Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of those larger-than-life figures for whom the oft-abused word icon was created. To millions, she is nothing short of heroic—Joan of Arc crossed with Eleanor Roosevelt. Equal numbers view her as the Antichrist. It is hard to believe that only now, after a dozen years spent fanning the flames of controversy, Hillary is at last embarking on a political career of her own—the second, highly anticipated (and to some, nervous-making) installment of The Plan.

  Over the course of nine years and ten books, I have had the great pleasure of working with the talented people at William Morrow. Once again I am indebted to my editor, Maureen O’Brien, who brought the same high degree of commitment, insight, and editorial skill to American Evita that she did to George and Laura: Portrait of an American Marriage and Sweet Caroline: Last Child of Camelot. I am grateful, as ever, to all my friends at Morrow and HarperCollins, especially Jane Friedman, Cathy Hemming, Michael Morrison, Laurie Rippon, Lisa Gallagher, Debbie Stier, Lindsey Moore, Michelle Corallo, James Fox, Mark Jackson, Beth Silfin, Chris Goff, Kyran Cassidy, Richard Aquan, Brad Foltz, Kim Lewis, Betty Lew, Christine Tanigawa, Jo Ann Metsch, and Camille McDuffie of Goldberg-McDuffie Communications.

  After running out of ways last year to thank my longtime agent, Ellen Levine of the Trident Media Group, I resorted to expressing my gratitude in Japanese. Well, we’ve passed the twenty-two-year mark as agent and author, and I’ve come up dry again. So this time it’s muchas gracias, Ellen, for your friendship above all else. My thanks as well to Ellen’s talented associates, Melissa Flashman, Julia TerMatt, Sara Crowe, and Shannon Firth.

  No son could have asked for wiser parents than Edward and Jeanette Andersen, though I’m certain they would be the first to take issue with that. Though they are two distinct personalities, my daughters Kate and Kelly share many common traits—brains, beauty, the courage of their convictions, and, most important, an abiding sense of humor about themselves and the world around them. They inherited all of these qualities from their mother, Valerie—the person to whom I owe the most thanks of all.

  Additional thanks to Ed Koch, Judith Hope, Rick Lazio, John Peavoy, Marsha Laufer, Carol Yeldell Staley, Paul Fray, Alan Schecter, Steve Baranello, Juanita Broaddrick, Ernest Dumas, Richard Schaeffer, Susie Tompkins Buell, Dr. Arthur Curtis, Robert Moschetti, L. D. Brown, Kathleen Willey, Clare Ackerman, Dolly Kyle Browning, Dick Morris, Ann Henry, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Cliff Jackson, Woody Bassett, John Perry Barlow, Esme Taylor, Bonnie Engle, David Leopoulos, Richard Winnie, Larry Nelson, Richard Atkinson, Rene Rockwell, Dr. Bobby Roberts, Morris Henry, the late Robert Treuhaft, Ellery Gordon, Joan Watkins, Rudy Moore, Parker Ladd, Paula Dranov, Frances Peavoy, Bernice Kizer, Joanne Webber, Joseph Ruggiero, Thomas Mars, Gaye Landau-Leonard, Adam Parkhomenko, Joe Dillard, Lawrence C. Moss, Brian Farber, Debbie Larkin, Marsha Smolens, Madelaine Miller, Jill Iscoll, Simon Webber, Harry Criner, Robert McCleskey, Vada Sheid, Carl Whillock, Larry Gleghorn, John Kearney, Joe Newman, Jeanette Peterson, Jane Barber Smith, Stephen Pollack, Ernie Wright, Tom Freeman, Connie Burns, Brownie Ledbetter, Ed Coulter, Marcia Smolens, Brigit Dermott, Janet Lizop, Mary Sheid, Robert Lange, Sally Greenspan, Nancy Weiss, Dudley Freeman, Andrew Nurnberg, Anne Vanderhoop, Michelle Lapautre, Valerie Wimmer, Gary Gunderson, Bill Bushong, Kenneth P. Norwick, Larry Klayman, Lawrence R. Mu
lligan, David McGough, Lucianne Goldberg, Lou Ann Vogel, Larry Schwartz, Ray Whelan Sr., Hazel Southam, Rosemary McClure, Jean Chapin, Everett Raymond Kinstler, Barry Schenck, Tobias Markowitz, Wes Holmes, Yvette Reyes, Ray Whelan Jr., Betsy Loth, Arturo Santos, Betty Monkman, Ray Whelan, Kevin Hurley, Park Ridge Public Library, the Gunn Memorial Library, the White House Historical Association, the New York Public Library, the Clinton Presidential Center, the Clinton Materials Project, the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, the Litchfield Library, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley, the New Milford Library, the Southbury Public Library, Wellesley College, the Woodbury Library, the Silas Bronson Library, the Brookfield Library, the University of Arkansas, Oxford University, Yale University, Georgetown University, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the Associated Press, Reuters, AP/Wide World, Globe Photos, Sipa, Corbis, and Design to Printing.

  Sources and Chapter Notes

  The following chapter notes have been compiled to give an overview of the sources drawn upon in writing American Evita, but they are by no means all-inclusive. The author has respected the wishes of many interviewed sources who wish to remain anonymous, and accordingly has not listed them either here or elsewhere in the text. These include officials still serving in Washington and in state and local government, as well as friends, schoolmates, neighbors, colleagues, advisers, fund-raisers, volunteers, mentors, protégés, volunteers, and staff members scattered across the globe. The archives and oral history collections of numerous institutions—including the Clinton Presidential Center, the John F. Kennedy Library, Wellesley College, Georgetown University, Yale University, Oxford University, Columbia University, and the University of Arkansas—yielded a wealth of information. Court documents and sworn depositions generated by numerous civil and criminal investigations—ranging from the testimony of the Arkansas State Troopers in the Paula Jones case to the mountain of testimony and evidence contained in the Starr Report to the investigations into Pardongate and 9/11—proved valuable. Needless to say, there have also been thousands of news reports and articles concerning Hillary Clinton that predate any coverage of her husband—all the way back to her controversial Wellesley address in 1969. Over the decades, these reports on Hillary appeared in such publications as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, the Arkansas Democrat, the Arkansas Gazette, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Time, Life, Newsweek, the New York Observer, U.S. News & World Report, USA Today, the (London) Times, Paris-Match, Le Monde, and carried on the wires of Reuters, Knight-Ridder, Gannett, and the Associated Press.