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

for a few days in mid-September. I was blessed with close friends, but once the relentless investigating started, I felt compelled to protect them from being dragged into any probe. After August 1998, I felt even more cut off and alone because I did not want to talk to Bill as I always had before. I spent a lot of time alone, praying and reading. But it made me feel better to have friends around who had known me forever, who had seen me pregnant and sick and happy and sad and could understand what I was going through now.

On September 17, during Diane and Betsy’s visit, Stevie Wonder called and asked if he could come over to see me at the White House. He had attended the state dinner for another of his fans, Czech President Vaclav Havel, and his new wife, Dagmar, the night before, and he wanted to return privately to play a song he had written for me. Capricia escorted Stevie, his assistant and one of his sons into the second-floor corridor of the residence, where a grand piano stood under a large painting by Willem de Kooning.

Diane and Betsy sat on a settee, and I sat in a small chair near the piano as Stevie began to sing a haunting, lilting melody. He hadn’t finished all the words, but the song was about the power of forgiveness, with the refrain, “You don’t have to walk on water …”

As he played, I kept moving my chair closer to the piano until I was sitting right next to him. When Stevie finished, tears filled my eyes and, when I looked around, tears were running down Betsy’s face and Diane’s. This was one of the kindest gestures anyone made during this incredibly difficult period.

I was also touched when Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour called to propose an article and photo shoot for the December issue of the magazine. It was gutsy of her to offer and counterintuitive for me to accept. In fact, the experience did wonders for my spirits. I wore a glorious burgundy velvet Oscar de la Renta creation for the cover shoot. For a day, I escaped into a world of makeup artists and haute couture. The Annie Leibovitz photographs were great, giving me the chance to look good when I had been feeling so low.

September 21, the day Bill addressed the opening session of the United Nations in New York, played out like an absurdist farce. When the Starr report didn’t force Bill to resign, the Republican leadership upped the ante and released the President’s videotaped grand jury testimony. As Bill entered the enormous General Assembly Hall to an enthusiastic and unusual standing ovation, all of the major television networks were simultaneously broadcasting a tape of his August interrogation by Starr’s deputies. As the hours of agonizing testimony droned on over the airwaves, Bill gave a forceful speech to the U.N. about the growing threat of international terrorism and the urgent need for a united response from all civilized people. I’m sure few Americans heard Bill’s warning about the dangers terrorists posed to us. When he finished speaking, the Presidents, Prime Ministers and delegates gave him another warm and prolonged ovation. The reception from his international peers affirmed Bill’s leadership, a timely recognition of the good work he had done as President.

Bill also met with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to discuss curbing Pakistan’s nuclear program and the overall threat posed by nuclear proliferation on the subcontinent, and with Secretary-General Kofi Annan about how to respond to Iraq’s continued defiance of U.N. resolutions. Later, he joined me at a forum on the global economy at New York University with Italian President Romano Prodi, Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov and our friend, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

By the time we returned to the White House the next day, it looked as if the Republicans’

publicity stunt had failed. The spectacle of the President keeping his composure while being barraged with prurient questions that no one would want to answer seemed to create more sympathy among the American people for Bill’s predicament.

The following evening, Nelson Mandela, who had also attended the U.N. session, visited us at the White House with his wife, Graça Machel. At a reception for African American religious leaders in the East Room, Mandela spoke about his genuine love and respect for Bill. After praising the relationship Bill had forged with South Africa and the rest of the continent, Mandela noted gently, “We have often said that our morality does not allow us to desert our friends.” He turned to Bill and addressed him directly. “And we have got to say tonight, we are thinking of you in this difficult and uncertain time in your life.” Mandela drew laughter and applause when he pledged not to “interfere in the domestic affairs of this country” But he was clearly making a plea to Americans to demand an end to the impeachment spectacle. Mandela, who had mastered his anger and forgiven his own jailers, was, as always, philosophical.

“But if our expectations, if our fondest prayers and dreams are not realized,” he said, “then we should all bear in mind that the greatest glory of living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall.”

I was still trying to rise. By seeing each hour through to the end, and starting over every morning, I was rebuilding my life imperceptibly, one day at a time. It was a challenge to forgive Bill; the prospect of forgiving the hired guns of the right wing seemed beyond me. If Mandela could forgive, I would try. But it was hard, even with the help of many friends and role models.

Some weeks after Mandela’s visit, the Dalai Lama called on me at the White House.

At our meeting in the Map Room, he presented me with a white prayer scarf and told me he thought often of me and my struggle. He encouraged me to