From : Time on line
Photo : Stephen J. Carrera
(Stephen J. Carrera) to not show image description -->
Former President Clinton contemplates a response during an interview with Senior Pastor Bill Hybels at the annual Leadership Summit at the Willow Creek Community Church, Thursday, Aug.10, 2000, in South Barrington, Ill.
The story behind this book reads like the plot of a Hollywood movie. It is November 1992. The distinguished American historian Taylor Branch is at home in Baltimore. The telephone rings. Would Branch care to come to a dinner in honour of President-elect Bill Clinton? Branch is mystified. He hasn’t seen Clinton for 20 years — not since they both worked in Texas for George McGovern’s failed presidential campaign. When he arrives he finds, to his astonishment, he has been seated next to Clinton himself. “Can you believe all this?” asks Clinton cheerfully. He then makes his former colleague an offer: will he come to the White House every few weeks to tape Clinton’s private reflections, for the historical record?
It gets better. Because of the risk of subpoena, the existence of the tapes must be kept secret, even from the president’s closest aides. And so, on more than 70 occasions over the next eight years, mostly at night or at weekends, Branch is smuggled into the White House and whisked upstairs to the family’s private apartments, where Clinton — in between watching sports on TV, chewing on an unlit cigar, filling in the New York Times crossword, playing solitaire and taking calls from his cabinet — describes his impressions of events to Branch. At the end of each session Branch gives the tapes to Clinton, who hides them in his sock drawer.
Almost a decade later, Branch has published not the tapes — which were used by Clinton for his memoirs — but, more interestingly, his account of how they were made. The result is an unexpected treasure-trove. Here is Clinton out of hours and off his guard: alarmingly exhausted (“his irises rolled up beneath his eyelids and he would be gone for 10 or 15 seconds”), frail (“I noticed that his hands were especially pale and yellowish, almost jaundiced”), clearly besotted with his wife (“I fidgeted through their mysteriously long embrace”) and yet unable to resist betraying her (Clinton on the Lewinsky scandal: “I think I just cracked”).
As in all good movies, the two main characters make an odd couple. Clinton is the earthy political boss, Branch the cautiously high-minded academic. Once, when the president wants to describe Hillary’s tense mood, he declares she is “tighter than Dick’s hatband”. Branch notes primly: “I didn’t understand the phrase and debated whether to ask.”
It gets better. Because of the risk of subpoena, the existence of the tapes must be kept secret, even from the president’s closest aides. And so, on more than 70 occasions over the next eight years, mostly at night or at weekends, Branch is smuggled into the White House and whisked upstairs to the family’s private apartments, where Clinton — in between watching sports on TV, chewing on an unlit cigar, filling in the New York Times crossword, playing solitaire and taking calls from his cabinet — describes his impressions of events to Branch. At the end of each session Branch gives the tapes to Clinton, who hides them in his sock drawer.
Almost a decade later, Branch has published not the tapes — which were used by Clinton for his memoirs — but, more interestingly, his account of how they were made. The result is an unexpected treasure-trove. Here is Clinton out of hours and off his guard: alarmingly exhausted (“his irises rolled up beneath his eyelids and he would be gone for 10 or 15 seconds”), frail (“I noticed that his hands were especially pale and yellowish, almost jaundiced”), clearly besotted with his wife (“I fidgeted through their mysteriously long embrace”) and yet unable to resist betraying her (Clinton on the Lewinsky scandal: “I think I just cracked”).
As in all good movies, the two main characters make an odd couple. Clinton is the earthy political boss, Branch the cautiously high-minded academic. Once, when the president wants to describe Hillary’s tense mood, he declares she is “tighter than Dick’s hatband”. Branch notes primly: “I didn’t understand the phrase and debated whether to ask.”
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