fragments from the Bill Clinton oral history at the Miller Center

The University of Virginia’s Miller Center collects oral histories on recent presidents. Sometimes I go poking around in them and rarely do I come away unrewarded:

Dale Bumpers, US senator from Arkansas, remembers a first encounter:

All politicians consider anybody that has—I don’t know what the precise word is, but any politician who sees another politician with a lot of talent, speaking ability, intelligence, social mores, customs and so on can’t help but worry about the future. On the way home, I said to one of my aides, “I hope I don’t ever have to run against that guy.” We were discussing Clinton’s speech at the Democratic rally in Russellville, Arkansas, on the campus of Arkansas Tech. I had never laid eyes on him, but I had heard quite a bit about him, about how brilliant and charismatic he was. He was handsome. He had a good speaking voice. He had everything that a politician needs. 

…

So he stood at the podium without a sign of a note or a prop and talked to the audience. He talked into the microphone but he looked that audience over all the time he was talking. He did everything precisely the way you’re taught to do it if you ever go to a speaking school. It was beautiful. Every sentence followed the other one perfectly. I could not believe that he could deliver a flawless speech like that without a note of any kind. But after it was over some of his staff who were with him were standing at the door handing out copied of the speech. He had written the speech, memorized it, and delivered it from memory. It was roughly, I’d say, three to five minutes, which at most political events is quite long enough.

Charlene Barshefsky, US Trade Representative:

The first time I met Bill Clinton was in the Oval Office to brief him on the Framework talks. The second time was in Tokyo in July of 1993. My kids know the date because I was pulled away from our Fourth of July holiday to go back to Tokyo to finish the talks. I was in Tokyo. We had been negotiating all day. There were a couple of things I wanted that we didn’t yet have and it was 1:30 in the morning, maybe 2:00 in the morning. 

Mickey, Warren Christopher, and I went up to the President’s suite at the hotel where we were all staying—the Okura. He was at the dining room table of his suite and he was dressed in khakis and a plaid shirt, looking reasonably rumpled. He was reading a newspaper when we walked in. He barely looked up. To the left was a book, open, facedown—Marcus Aurelius Meditations. To the right, the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen.

We walked in. He lowered the newspaper—he was wearing his reading glasses—looked up, and said to me, I’ve been waiting to see you, which took me somewhat aback. I said, Well, here I am. We sat around the table, and he looked at Warren Christopher and said, Chris? and Chris said, The negotiations over the Framework are at a very delicate phase and I thought Charlene should brief you and tell you what she needs. 

The President nodded and looked at me. The newspaper came up again covering his face. I remained silent and Chris motioned, [whispering] Go ahead. I thought, Well, all right. Mr. President, this is a complicated topic. We’re at a delicate point. There are a couple of trades I could make. I don’t want to have to make any of them, and so I want to lay out a plan of action. 

As I’m talking, the hand comes out from behind the newspaper, picks up the book, turns it over and he starts to read the book. About a minute goes by. The book gets put back down. The paper goes back up, he turns the page. A hand comes out to the right, and he fills in a word on the crossword puzzle. This is all true—I am not exaggerating. This is going on, and I’m thinking, I don’t care how smart this guy is, this is a completely disastrous briefing session. I finished what I needed to say, and the newspaper finally came down. 

He looked at me, and he said, I think we have an inconsistency between your briefing two weeks ago and where you are now. Let me see if I can spell it out. And he went through the briefing I had done several weeks earlier in the Oval perfectly. He also went through what I had just said and concluded that there might be an inconsistency in our approach. I explained why there wasn’t. He poked and prodded some with respect to a couple of other points I had made. He had caught the nuance in what I was saying, not only the words in the order in which I had said them. At the end, we agreed on the game plan and we were off and running. We concluded the Framework agreement the next day. 

I walked out of the room and Warren Christopher and Mickey both burst out laughing and said, Your expression went from astonishment, to disdain and despair in the beginning of the briefing, to amazement that he could multitask to this degree and miss nothing.

Dee Dee Meyers, press secretary:

Riley

The death penalty situation wasn’t a hang-up?

Myers

No. It was not my favorite thing, but by then I think I was probably convinced that a Democrat couldn’t be anti-death penalty and win a national election.

Freedman

Did that ever come up? Did you ever have a substantive conversation with him about capital punishment?

Myers

Yes, later, but just over time. Flying around, we talked about everything. I told him that that was one place where I disagreed with him. These are just snippets of memory, but I don’t remember him making a big philosophical thing about it. It’s just, “Well, that’s the way it has to be.” I think it was a very practical decision as a politician from Arkansas.

Edward Widmer, speechwriter:

 He’s a remarkable human being. He is routinely described by people as the smartest person they’ve ever met. I feel that that’s true. Also he has these shifting abilities. I mentioned earlier that he can talk to a car mechanic one second, a short-order chef the next, and then Stephen Hawking the minute after that. I wanted someone with those skills. I was not aware that he was a prodigy when I was simply someone reading the papers. I was a well-educated person living in Boston but I was not aware that a prodigy occupied the White House.

When I got there I began to become aware of it. I wanted the rest of America to become aware of what I was becoming aware of. I thought we should really maximize these speech opportunities. I’m not sure we ever did. That speech in Memphis that he gave off the top of his head may have been his best speech as a President of the United States. It’s an argument without end. He gave a lot of speeches. Not as many as I would have liked soared, you know, just jumped out at you off the page the way that Memphis one did. But if I talk about every speech in this much detail we’ll be here for 20 hours.

Back to Myers:

Nelson

Would he tease you guys?

Myers

Not about stuff like that. He loved to make people blush about whatever it was. So he would try to find your blush button and then he loved to, gently—

Freedman

For example.

Nelson

Give us some good buttons.

Myers

This woman, Wendy Smith, who was the trip director. He would tease Wendy. “I saw that Secret Service agent looking at you.” Stuff like that, which of course was always true. Wendy was doing everything in her power to get that agent to look at her, but the fact that he would catch her at it—She would blush. Then of course he would always watch, and she would always know that he was watching. Then as soon as he would even look at her she’d blush, because he would see her. He loved that kind of stuff.

Nelson

Did he flirt?

Myers

Yes, definitely.

Nelson

Say more, because that ended up being an important part of his Presidency, the flirtation—

Myers

He flirts with men and with women. I don’t necessarily mean that as a sexual thing.

Nelson

That’s what I meant.

Myers

He’s good, flirting is really about establishing a little bit of intimacy, which he was good at doing.

Nelson

What about the hundred million people at the same time?

Myers

A rope line of a hundred people—He could do that with each person individually and every one of them thought that he or she was the one person the President was going to remember at the end of the day.

Riley

The men and the women?

Myers

The men and the women, yes. 

These are compelling reading, cheers to the Miller Center.