BILL CLINTON
Biography
William (Bill) Clinton, at age 46, was the youngest person to be elected President of the United States since John F. Kennedy won election in 1960 at the age of 43. But despite his youth, Clinton entered the White House with considerable experience in executive government. At the time of his election victory in 1992, he had already served for nearly twelve years as governor of Arkansas, his native state. There, too, Clinton had been distinguished for his youth as well as his accomplishments. With his rise to the presidency, he was the first of the generation born after World War II, the so-called baby boomers, to achieve the country's highest office.
Early Career and Marriage
Clinton served briefly as a staff lawyer for the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, before joining the faculty of the University of Arkansas Law School in 1974. The same year he tried, unsuccessfully, to launch his own political career, running for Congress against a popular four-term Republican. Although Clinton lost, he received more votes than any other Democratic candidate in the district had in 25 years. One reason Clinton did so well was that many voters had turned against the Republicans that year because of the Watergate scandal that forced President Nixon's resignation.
In 1975, Clinton married Hillary Rodham, whom he had met while attending the Yale Law School. Mrs. Clinton established her own very successful law practice in Little Rock. The Clintons have one child, a daughter named Chelsea.
Clinton’s second try for political office was more successful, winning him election as attorney general of Arkansas in 1976.
Governor of Arkansas
Two years later, Clinton was elected governor of Arkansas. Then 32, he was the nation's youngest governor. Arkansas voters, however, unhappy with tax increases that Clinton had imposed on gasoline to pay for improving the state's highways, rejected his bid for re-election in 1980. But in 1982, when he ran for governor again, he won easily and went on to win re-election three more times.
The 1992 Presidential Campaign
In announcing his intention to seek the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton called for a jobs plan to lift the country out of its economic recession, tax cuts for the middle class, and a form of national health insurance. During the campaign, Clinton was pursued by questions about his character. He was attacked by some for evading military service and appearing to cover it up.
Nevertheless, he won enough delegates to assure his swift nomination at the 1992 Democratic convention. For his Vice-Presidential running mate, Clinton chose 44-year-old Senator Albert (Al) Gore of Tennessee.
Capitalizing on the poor state of the nation's economy, Clinton won 370 Electoral votes to 168 for his Republican opponent, President George Bush. The entry into the campaign of a strong independent candidate, H. Ross Perot, a Texas billionaire, made it a three-way race. No candidate won a majority of the popular vote, but Clinton won a plurality of 43 percent, compared to 38 percent for Bush and 19 percent for Perot. It was only the second time in 28 years that a Democrat had won the presidency.
Clinton's Presidency - First Term
Domestic Affairs: Soon after taking office, Clinton called for nearly $500 billion in tax increases and spending cuts. Although Republicans and some conservative Democrats opposed his plans to raise taxes, Congress finally gave the new president much of what he had asked for. Clinton also won congressional approval for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico.
However, one of Clinton’s top priorities—health reform—met with stiff opposition. Critics complained that his proposal would cost too much and lead to government interference in the health care system. Clinton had to abandon the idea.
Meanwhile, Clinton devoted considerable time to dealing with allegations of misconduct prior to his election as president. One controversy stemmed from investments that he and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton had made in the Whitewater Development Corporation, an Arkansas real estate development firm. The other concerned charges of sexual harassment made by a former Arkansas government employee, Paula Jones. These issues contributed to the Democratic Party’s defeat in the 1994 midterm elections and helped the Republicans gain control of Congress for the first time in 40 years.
But the efforts of congressional Republicans to balance the budget while cutting back spending and reducing taxes led to a shutdown of the federal government. This angered the American people, many of whom sided with President Clinton, who had opposed the Republican moves. Clinton emerged as the victor in this struggle, and that success paved the way for his re-election in 1996.
Foreign Affaris
In international matters, Clinton helped bring about an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) concerning self-rule for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And in the Balkans, he sent 20,000 American troops to serve as part of an international peacekeeping force.
Second Term
In the 1996 elections, Clinton won 49 percent of the popular vote and 379 electoral votes. His opponents were the Republican candidate, former U.S. senator Robert (Bob) Dole of Kansas, and independent candidate H. Ross Perot.
First Year: 1997. On the domestic front, the president’s first major accomplishment of his second term was to reach an agreement with the Republican Congress on how to achieve a balanced budget. Despite tax cuts worth $95 billion, the balance was to be achieved by trimming $263 billion from federal expenditures, including $122 billion from Social Security over a five-year period.
Meanwhile, in addition to the Whitewater investigation and the Paula Jones case, Clinton and Vice President Gore were accused of questionable fund-raising activities for the 1996 campaign. Clinton insisted that they had acted “within the letter of the law” and called for campaign finance reform.
In foreign affairs, the president persuaded Russian president Boris N. Yeltsin to accept the expansion of NATO by admitting three former Soviet Bloc countries as members.
Second Year: 1998. At the start of the year, President Clinton set out to build on his previous accomplishments in the White House by supporting the Social Security system, aiding education, and reforming health care. But even before he could outline his goals in his State of the Union message, his plans were disrupted by the latest and most serious scandal to confront his presidency. This controversy sprang from charges that he had had an improper relationship with a former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, and then tried to cover up the relationship. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, who had been investigating the Whitewater case, began looking into whether Clinton had committed perjury by denying the affair with Lewinsky in a sworn deposition in the Paula Jones case, and whether he had tried to get Lewinsky to lie in her own sworn statement in the Jones lawsuit.
At first Clinton denied the charges, and his supporters accused Starr, a conservative Republican, of seeking to embarrass the president, a Democrat. The public continued to give Clinton high ratings in the polls. But then Lewinsky confirmed the affair in testimony before Starr's grand jury, and Clinton was forced to admit that he had not told the truth. Starr meanwhile sent a report to the House of Representatives, contending that the president's alleged actions of committing perjury and obstructing justice could be grounds for impeachment.
Despite this personal turmoil, Clinton continued to play an active role in foreign affairs. He threatened to launch air strikes against Iraq until that country agreed to cooperate with United Nations inspections of its weapons facilities. After terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Clinton ordered retaliatory strikes at terrorist hideouts in Afghanistan and Sudan.
In the 1998 mid-term Congressional elections, Democrats won more seats than was expected, indicating that a majority of Americans continued to support the president. But on December 19, Clinton was impeached by the House on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. As the case moved to the Senate for trial, popular support for the president grew, making removal from office appear unlikely.
Despite this turmoil, Clinton continued to play an active role in foreign affairs. After terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Clinton ordered retaliatory strikes at terrorist hideouts in Afghanistan and Sudan. The president also ordered the bombing of Iraq when that country refused to allow United Nations inspection of its weapons facilities. In a peacekeeping role, Clinton helped negotiate a Mideast pact between Israel and Palestinian leaders. Israel agreed to withdraw its troops from land claimed by the Palestinians in return for a promise to stop terrorism against Israel.
Third Year: 1999. Clinton began the year facing an impeachment trial in the Senate (which, like the House of Representatives, was controlled by the Republican Party by a margin of 55 to 45). But the president had an advantage in the Senate, because a guilty verdict on impeachment charges requires a two-thirds majority, or 67 senators—a dozen or so more than were likely to vote against him.
On February 12, the president was easily acquitted on both the impeachment and perjury charges, with his accusers failing to get a majority on either vote. But soon after the Senate verdict, the Lewinsky affair caused him further embarrassment. Clinton was found to be in contempt of court and fined nearly $90,000 for giving false testimony in the Paula Jones case in 1998. Thus he became the first president to be cited for contempt.
In the midst of his impeachment trial, Clinton delivered his State of the Union address. The president proposed using most of the anticipated budget surplus to strengthen the social security system and Medicare. But Republicans wanted to use much of the surplus for a tax cut of nearly $800 billion, which the president threatened to veto.
In international affairs, Clinton launched the biggest military operation of his presidency on March 25, joining other NATO countries in a massive bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. The aim was to force Yugoslavian president Slobodan Miloevi to stop attacks on ethnic Albanians in the province of Kosovo. After ten weeks of bombing, Milosevic agreed to withdraw his forces from Kosovo. Clinton claimed victory, and without losing a single soldier in combat.
William A. DeGregorio
Author, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents
Reviewed by Robert Shogan
National Political Correspondent, The Los Angeles Times