Georeactor Blog

It took another month,but I finished! The idea was to split my reviews into first and second term, but the halfway point was around January 1996. My bad.
I'm also discovering that the hardcover has the subtitle Wrestling History with the President. Maybe they can bring that back for "WWE Wrestling History with President Trump"

The Clinton Tapes: Conversations with a President, 1993–2001 (Taylor Branch, 2009)

While mired in Whitewater and other press obsessions, Clinton explores peace in several countries. In Northern Ireland, what starts with Clinton's visits and navigating IRA negotiation, turns to peace remarkably soon after Tony Blair and Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern enter office.

• In Bosnia, NATO moves gingerly within the Dayton Agreement to avoid renewed conflict.
• Progress in Russia seems to fall apart this term, along with Yeltsin's health. President Putin treats Clinton to a concert.
• Kashmir is described as "the gravest" event of the presidency, possibly worse than the Cuban missile crisis. Pakistani PM Sharif correctly predicts that General Musharraf will seize power over Sharif backing down in Kashmir. In Musharraf's autobiography, which I read several years ago, he claims not to understand the divisiveness which led to an almost accidental coup.
• Clinton views objections of Russia and China to NATO in Kosovo, to reflect their own fears around intervention in Chechnya and Tibet?
• A series of peace summits with Israel and its neighbors are halted by renewed violence, and refusals to meet with new PM Netanyahu. By the end of 1998, Clinton has narrowed focus to Israel and Palestine, visiting Bethlehem, Gaza's airport, and the Palestinian National Council (according to Wiki, the PNC has met only 1–3 times since).

The secrecy of the diary / historian project is challenging. At one point Branch writes a pro-Clinton profile for Esquire and they decide on "laundering" an official interview to collect the supporting details. The title is "Clinton Without Apologies". A credulous subtitle adds "Confessions of a former skeptic". In explaining their shared history to a new audience, Branch has time to think about this "naive and cynical" classmate who has surpassed everyone to become "a nobler figure".

In 1996–98, we get the first mentions of cell phones and the internet, and Al Gore and Newt Gingrich seem to be the first to 'get it'. Unusual alliances form over taxing tobacco (alienating the south, but finding support from Mormon conservatives).
We witness Clinton's first giddy uses of the ill-fated line-item veto, and several tangents about Chinese funding of the 1996 campaign (a lengthy scandal which I'd never heard of, along with Gore's visit to Hsi Lai Temple). Intelligence briefings tie TWA Flight 800 to Iran, before it is found to be an accident.
Bill wants to be a Renaissance man outside politics, discussing Elvis trivia, a visit to the set of Sneakers (pre-presidency), telling the Braves that their new stadium will have fewer foul outs, etc.

A reflection on race and the Kerner Commission inspires Clinton to make the One America Initiative, which seems mostly lost to history.
On other social issues, Clinton expresses regrets over signing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
George W. Bush is described as "miserable and hostile" in private, despite the post-presidency image.

On Whitewater, Branch finds the details too boring even as the president is recounting them. Despite their usual care, at least one tape accidentally includes Clinton's recap of the trials.
Clinton expresses frustration with Janet Reno bowing to requests for special prosecutors, but finds the alternative AGs equally troubling or being politically dangerous to remove from succession.
On the Paula Jones case, Clinton refuses to apologize because he insists that nothing happened. He remains curious about image, and even calls Branch to ask about the historicity of settling.
When Lewinsky's story joins the fray and becomes obviously true, Branch is "dreading" the next meeting. There are two lengthy gaps in appointments, but Branch sends a supportive fax and brings his son to play golf. As public opinion moves the Senate to acquittal, the tone of the author is relief, maybe seeing it as a triumph over the years of personal attacks. All seems to be forgotten until the 2000 campaign - in a final meeting with Gore, Clinton says he should have been allowed to campaign, and Al requests a more personal, no-BS explanation and apology over the Lewinsky scandal.

This mix of record-keeping, appearances by Hillary and Chelsea, and personal calls about scandals makes it difficult to track the direction of a real friendship at the core of the book. Two trends were difficult for me to read into: waxing and waning involvement with major speeches, and Clinton developing a habit of compulsively organizing his office as he talks, a frenetic energy which unsettles Branch's wife.
There are new rumors which the Clintons laugh about with Branch, but are nowhere online these days. Among these, Bill denies stories which I couldn't find in Lewinsky's grand jury testimony or the Starr report. Did Branch take some hyperbolic humor literally? Does it make sense to revive the rumors in print?

The book's retrospective voice is compounded by the sporadic diary format - Branch usually wouldn't follow the president on a landmark day or sit in on a meeting (two major exceptions happen this term: before bombing Iraq, and a day amid Camp David negotiations). A cloud of doom surrounds everything remembered about Gore's campaign. A frequent topic is Cabinet appointments, military appointments, replacements after the 1996 elections, etc. I don't know if this is a significant part of a president's day-to-day, Clinton wanted to hear an outside opinion, or it was something that the two intended to keep for history. It's also possible that Branch recorded some topics into dictation more than others?

After transcribing Johnson administration calls for his research, Branch discusses new findings on the Vietnam War, and Bill expresses regrets for records which will be lost to history.
Yet in the 2004 epilogue Clinton is rushing to write the presidency to My Life on a tight deadline - painfully careless. Branch is named in the memoir's acknowledgements, but we get the author's message that the tapes' potential was squandered. At one point the author muses that they will be available after their deaths, and around 2000 Clinton talks about putting them as a centerpiece of his presidential library. We know that they were digitized and transcribed.
For all the lead-up and historicity, The Clinton Tapes was not a bestseller. Possibly there was a falling-out, maybe the Clintons didn't like that he chose his own book over ghostwriting. Maybe it was the readers - our national Clinton fatigue after the 2008 election, the winds of change from Obama, the whiff of protectionism from leaving the actual tapes in the vault.

Extras

Here's a very 2015 interview of Taylor Branch talking about reception of the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANNJhaFgvAM

Pre Fox News, a frustrated Bob Dole suggests that voters boycott TV news. And Clinton describes the Republican message as "let us rule, and we promise to be nice" which (mumbles about Dems in disarray).

The Clintons haven't read Primary Colors but are aware of the more scandalous parts. Branch names the author, but it's unclear what they knew at the time.
(I was going to put the Euphoria meme "is this fucking play about us" meme here)

One aside in the Lewinsky chapter was difficult to parse, so I googled for context. Over time Branch's dictations have become available. In audio shared by the Washington Free Beacon in 2016, he blames former colleague Vernon Jordan's "recreational view" of affairs for Clinton's failures. Not a great look.

Clinton expresses some interest in a Caribbean NAFTA (partly realized as the CBTPA) which I'm learning expires in 2030. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean_Basin_Trade_and_Partnership_Act

Someone on Reddit shared an anecdote from a Clinton biography, and when asked to source it, linked an article that they found on Google - a Kosovo denial article. People aren't aware that these articles are still being written about the US backing a cabal of organ-harvesters. Also they don't understand the value of sourcing - if someone asks about a screenshot on Twitter, they're not too stupid to Google a webpage with that text; either find a source or say where you saw it.

At the Ford museum in Grand Rapids, I learned about Betty Ford's campaigning on CB radio, and President Ford's 1987 summit on Humor & the Presidency. The highlights reel is not that watchable, but it's a good archive.

Where are they now?

I broke from my previous standard and included a bunch of people here who weren't in the summary.

Yah Lin Trie, who ran the Clintons' favorite Chinese restaurant in Little Rock, later admitted to accepting payments for access to events. I didn't find any news about him after 2000. Years later co-conspirator Ng Lap Seng was arrested by the FBI for separate UN bribery issues, ending with repatriation to Macau. Arkansas Online reported on Trie's former restaurant changing ownership again in 2015.

Henry Cisneros, a HUD secretary entangled in investigations over admitting to an affair, eventually pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, and received a pardon on Clinton's last day in office. He's now chairman of CityView, a property management company.

As described in the book, PM Nawaz Sharif was spared from execution with the intervention of the US and a Saudi offer of exile. He would return as PM in 2013–17, leave Pakistan again in the wake of the Panama Papers, and recently returned to Pakistan late last year.

General Joseph Ralston, who had an affair revealed during his vetting for the Joint Chiefs, continued on as vice chairman, then got a role at NATO, then was Bush's Special Envoy against the Kurdish PKK. Despite many online sources claiming this is an ongoing position, he resigned in 2007.
In 2009 Ralston shared several Clinton-era stories about international military cooperation: https://www.crestedbutteforum.org/speakers/general-joseph-ralston-the-uss-evolving-roll-in-international-security

Turki al-Faisal, Clinton's former classmate and Saudi intelligence chief during the 90s, reportedly asked the Taliban to extradite bin Laden, but these talks failed after Clinton's missile strikes. Al-Faisal later served as ambassador to the UK and the US. He takes legal action against claims of terrorism ties. After retiring in 2007, he continues to be active in diplomacy / think tank / media circles.

Golfer Greg Norman offers Clinton the choice of a scoring round or a teaching round of golf. I don't know anything about golf, but it strikes me as a kind way to engage with fans. Norman is now CEO of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tournament.

The author describes a last-minute, peaceful change to succession in the Jordanian monarchy in 1999. In 2021, the king's half-brother was accused of a plot to overthrow him, and remains under house arrest.

Author Gabriel García Márquez connected with the Clintons on Martha's Vineyard. The Clinton Tapes captures Bill reading an early English translation of News of a Kidnapping. Márquez died in 2014. His papers include letters from both Clinton and Castro.
In 2022, News of a Kidnapping was adapted into a TV miniseries on Amazon Prime. I found the first episode to be slow, but a solid fit for Clinton as it features a couple who met on a campaign, and extradition of narco-gangs to the US.

Updates to Previous Reads

I took an initial look at a Plains Indian Sign Language book for decolonization reads, and it noted that the term deaf-mute was once used for virtually anyone Deaf; there was less investment into speech therapy back then. This adds some vagueness to records of my grandma's Deaf ancestors in Jacksonville.

I already unsubscribed to "Little Chinese Everywhere" but YouTube recommended her video where she's returned to Xinjiang and is invited into a Uyghur home. The comments are getting… weird.