Living History by Unknown (best non fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

game of paintball. The Marines stationed at the camp were only a few years older than the guests, so they organized opposing bands of camoclad teenagers who ran through the woods and tagged one another with paintballs. Bill kept shouting directions and battle strategies for whichever team seemed to be lagging. After the birthday dinner in Laurel Lodge, complete with a gigantic carrot cake prepared by the incomparable White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier, we regrouped in Hickory Lodge for movies and bowling in the alley installed by President Eisenhower. Sometime after midnight, Bill and I finally admitted to ourselves that we were no longer sixteen.

Chelsea and her friends already were looking beyond high school, and although it made me heartsick that we wouldn’t have her at home much longer, I tried not to burden her with my feelings about it. I just crossed my fingers that she would choose a campus close to Washington.

Every year, Sidwell Friends School hosts a “college night” for juniors and their parents.

Bill and I went along with Chelsea to hear representatives from different colleges talk about what you have to do to qualify and how to apply. Chelsea was quiet during the short drive back to the White House. Then, out of the blue, she said, “You know, I think I might be interested in visiting Stanford.”

Forgetting everything I know about reverse psychology and mother-daughter dynamics, I blurted out, “What! Stanford is too far away! You can’t go that far away. That’s all the way over on the West Coast―three time zones away. We’d never get to see you.”

Bill squeezed my arm and said to Chelsea, “Honey, you can go wherever you want.”

And, of course, I knew that if she wanted to go to Stanford and was accepted, I’d be thrilled for her. I well remembered my father ruling out choices, and Bill and I vowed never to do that. I did fervently hope, however, that she’d stay in the Washington time zone. But the conversation forced me to face reality: regardless of where she went, in a year and a half she’d be leaving us. She might have been ready, but I wasn’t, and I was determined to spend even more time with her, or at least as much as she’d let me!

The State Department had asked me to go as an emissary to Bosnia-Herzegovina to reinforce the importance of the Dayton Peace Accords, which had been signed in November.

Gains on the ground by the Croat-Muslim coalition that the U.S. had helped support, coupled with the NATO airstrikes that Bill had advocated, finally forced the Serbs to negotiate a settlement. I was also scheduled to make stops at U.S. military bases in Germany and Italy, and spend a week in Turkey and Greece, two important U.S. and NATO

allies that had a difficult, tense relationship over Cyprus and other unresolved issues.

Bill and I discussed whether Chelsea should skip the Bosnia leg of the trip. We weighed the security risks and decided that if we took appropriate precautions, she and I would be fine. She was mature enough to grow from the experience. Besides, we’d be traveling with a USO troupe including singer Sheryl Crow and comedian Sinbad, all of whom were willing to take the risks associated with the trip.

I thought Bill, Secretary of State Warren Christopher and his special envoy, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke had pulled off a miracle in Dayton convincing Serbs, Croats and Muslims to end the fighting and agree to a new governing framework. In order to isolate the warring groups and establish basic security, the United States had sent over eighteen thousand peacekeeping troops, who would join forty thousand from other countries.

The administration wanted to send a strong signal that the peace accords were to be honored and would be enforced. My staff used to tease me, suggesting that the State Department had a directive: If the place was too small, too dangerous or too poor―send Hillary. That was fine with me, because the out-of-the-way and dicey venues were often the most compelling. I was honored to go to Bosnia.

On Sunday, March 24, our converted 707 arrived at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, near Baumholder, home to the First Armored Division, which provided most of the U.S.

forces in Bosnia.

The German people had warmly welcomed Bill and me to a celebration of German unity in Berlin two years earlier, when we walked through the Brandenburg Gate with Chancellor and Mrs. Kohl and stood on ground that, until 1989, had been part of Communist East Germany. An engaging, emotional and even playful man, Helmut Kohl became Bill’s friend and political partner. Kohl was dedicated to transcending forty years of division in his country and merging East and West into one German nation. He was also instrumental in building the European Union, adopting a common currency and supporting U.S. efforts to end conflict in the Balkans. Cooperation between our countries was a vivid example of the postwar alliance working to achieve peace and security in Europe.

After arriving at Baumholder, Chelsea and I attended church services, met with the families of our troops, and enjoyed a brief performance in the mess hall by Sheryl and Sinbad. Around 6:30 the next morning, our entourage boarded a C-17 transport plane and took off for Tuzla Air Base, Bosnia-Herzegovina. In addition to the entertainers, we brought pallets of mail and gifts for the troops, including donations from American companies of 2,200 long-distance calling cards and 300 movies on video. The White House contributed six cases of M&M’s with the presidential seal on every box. For the children in Bosnia, who had lost years of schooling because of the fighting, American companies donated school supplies and toys.

I spent the hour-and-forty-minute flight wandering around the cavernous metal belly of the huge transport plane, chatting with the crew and members of the press corps, who were strapped into benchlike jump seats. It was like touring the inside of a blimp, but louder. The pilot, then one of just four female