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

urged to begin on a warm day back in May, when Gary Walters, the chief usher, said to me, “You know, Mrs. Clinton, it’s getting late to start preparing for Christmas.” He told me I had to settle on a design for the White House Christmas card, pick a theme for the decorations and plan the parties we would hold in December. I love Christmas, but Thanksgiving had always been a fine time to start thinking about it, so this represented a big change in my planning style. I dutifully adjusted and soon began sorting through pictures of snowdrifts on the White House lawn as the scent of magnolias wafted through the windows.

All those months of preparation paid off. I decided to make American crafts my theme and invited artisans from around the country to send in handmade ornaments, which we hung on the more than twenty trees placed throughout the residence. We hosted, on average, one reception or party every day for three solid weeks. I liked planning menus and activities and overseeing the dozens of volunteers who flock to the White House to help hang ornaments. One sad result of the attacks of September 11, 2001, is that the White House is no longer as open as it was during our time there. That first Christmas season, some 150,000 visitors came through the public rooms to view the decorations and sample a cookie or two. Because we wanted to include people of all faiths in the holiday season, we lit the menorah I had commissioned for the White House that December to celebrate Chanukah. Three years later, we held the first Eid al-Fitr event in the White House to honor the end of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting.

Christmas is always a big event in the Clinton family. Bill and Chelsea are enthusiastic shoppers, gift wrappers and tree decorators. I love watching them trim our tree together, pausing to reminisce about the origin of each ornament. This year was no different, although it took a while to find the family Christmas decorations. Many of our possessions remained in unlabeled boxes stuffed in rooms on the third floor of the White House or in the presidential warehouse in Maryland. Finally, though, our treasured Christmas stockings hung from the mantel of the fireplace in the Yellow Oval Room, in a house that was starting to feel like home.

This would be the last Christmas for Virginia, who was getting weaker and now required regular transfusions. The indomitable Mrs. Kelley was determined to live every last moment of her life to the hilt, and Bill and I wanted her to spend as much time as possible with us, so we convinced her to stay for a week. She agreed but insisted that she couldn’t remain through New Year’s because she and Dick were going to Barbra Streisand’s concert in Las Vegas. Virginia had formed a deep friendship with Barbra, who had invited them to be her guests at her long-awaited return to the concert stage. I think Virginia willed herself to live long enough to make the trip, because there was nothing she enjoyed more than a swing through the casinos and a chance to see Barbra Streisand perform.

The media fixation with Whitewater continued throughout the holiday season as The New York Times, The Washington Post and Newsweek competed for scoops. Republicans in the House and Senate―particularly Bob Dole―called for an “independent review” of Whitewater. Editorial writers hectored Attorney General Janet Reno to appoint a special counsel. The Independent Counsel Act, which had been voted into law after the Watergate scandal, had recently expired, and investigations now had to be authorized by the Attorney General. The pressure was mounting every day, though there were no facts that came close to meeting the only criterion for appointing a special counsel: credible evidence of wrongdoing.

Vince Foster was being hounded beyond the grave. A week before Christmas, the press reported that some of his files, including Whitewater documents, had been “spirited”

out of his office by Bernie Nussbaum. The Justice Department was well aware, of course, that the personal files had been retrieved from his office in the presence of lawyers from the justice Department and FBI agents, handed over to our lawyers and were being turned over to the justice Department for examination. But the leak of this “news”

tossed fuel on a smoldering fire.

Then we were confronted with an outrageous partisan attack. On Saturday, December 18, I was hosting a holiday reception when David Kendall reached me by telephone.

“Hillary,” he said, “I’ve got to tell you about something very, very ugly…”

I sat down and listened as David summarized a long, detailed article that would appear in the American Spectator, a rightwing monthly that regularly attacked the administration.

The article, written by David Brock, was filled with the most vile stories I had ever heard, worse than the salacious garbage in supermarket tabloids. Brock’s main sources were four Arkansas troopers from Bill’s former bodyguard detail. They claimed―among other things―that they had procured women for Bill when he was Governor. Years later, Brock would recant, writing a stunning confession of his political motives and directives at the time.

“Look, it’s just a lot of sleaze, but it’s going to be out there,” said David. “You’ve got to be prepared.”

My first thoughts were for Chelsea and for my mother and Virginia, who had already been through too much.

“What can we do about it?” I asked David. “Is there anything anyone can do?”

His advice was to stay calm and say nothing. Comments from us would only help publicize the article. The troopers were doing a reasonable job of discrediting themselves, shamelessly boasting that they expected to cash in on their stories. Two of the four agreed to be identified, and they were shopping around for a book deal. Even more telling, they were being represented by Cliff Jackson, another of Bill’s most vehement political enemies in Arkansas. Most of Brock’s tales were too vague to be checked on, but certain specifics