The Clinton Tapes
Description
This book rests upon a secret project, initiated by Clinton, to preserve for future historians an unfiltered record of presidential experience. During his eight years in office, between 1993 and 2001, Clinton answered questions and told stories in the White House, usually late at night. His friend Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch recorded seventy-nine of these dialogues to compile a trove of raw information about a presidency as it happened. Clinton drew upon the diary transcripts for his memoir in 2004.
Branch recorded his own detailed recollections immediately after each session, covering not only the subjects discussed but also the look and feel of each evening with the president. The text engages Clinton from many angles. Readers hear candid stories, feel buffeting pressures, and weigh vivid descriptions of the White House settings.
Branch's firsthand narrative is confessional, unsparing, and personal. The author admits straying at times from his primary role -- to collect raw material for future historians -- because his discussions with Clinton were unpredictable and intense. What should an objective prompter say when the President of the United States seeks advice, argues facts, or lodges complaints against the press? The dynamic relationship that emerges from these interviews is both affectionate and charged, with flashes of anger and humor. President Clinton drives the history, but this story is also about friends.
The Clinton Tapes highlights major events of Clinton's two terms, including wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, the failure of health care reform, peace initiatives on three continents, the anti-deficit crusade, and titanic political struggles from Whitewater to American history's second presidential impeachment trial. Along the way, Clinton delivers colorful portraits of countless political figures and world leaders from Nelson Mandela to Pope John Paul II.
These unprecedented White House dialogues will become a staple of presidential scholarship. Branch's masterly account opens a new window on a controversial era and Bill Clinton's eventual place among our chief executives.
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Content
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- CONTENTS
- Half Title Page
- ONE Twin Recorders
- TWO Reunion
- THREE The Truman Balcony
- FOUR Culture Clashes: From Bosnia to a haircut
- FIVE Passages: NAFTA, China, Whitewater
- SIX A Mother's Death and the Special Prosecutor
- SEVEN Clinton and the Press
- EIGHT Missiles in Baghdad
- NINE Supreme Court Choices
- TEN Foreign Travels
- ELEVEN Hillary's Dream
- TWELVE Haiti: The Brink of War
- THIRTEEN Yeltsin and the Gingrich Revolution
- FOURTEEN Tirades: "I Really Let Them Have It"
- FIFTEEN Bailout, Bombs, and Recovery
- SIXTEEN Oklahoma City
- SEVENTEEN Girding for Showdown
- EIGHTEEN Pope John Paul ii: "Tell Me How You See the World"
- NINETEEN The Murder of Rabin
- TWENTY Triumph and Fury: "You Live to Have Only a Few Days Like That"
- TWENTY-ONE Family Feuds: From Greenspan to Saddam Hussein
- TWENTY-TWO Primary Season
- TWENTY-THREE Terrorism, Welfare Reform, and the Chicago Convention
- TWENTY-FOUR Reelection 1996
- TWENTY-FIVE Bittersweet Renewal
- TWENTY-SIX Whitewater Tapes: On the High Wire
- TWENTY-SEVEN "I Think They're Pretty Good Rumors"
- TWENTY-EIGHT The Jones Case
- TWENTY-NINE Chinese Land Mines
- THIRTY Buddy and Socks
- THIRTY-ONE Lewinsky
- THIRTY-TWO Impeached
- THIRTY-THREE The Trial
- THIRTY-FOUR Kosovo, Columbine, and Kashmir
- THIRTY-FIVE To the Millennium: Peacemakers and Treason
- THIRTY-SIX ON to New Hampshire
- THIRTY-SEVEN Camp David
- THIRTY-EIGHT Jerusalem and the Three Ps
- THIRTY-NINE Deadlock 2000: "This Election Is Tight as a Tick"
- FORTY Farewell
- Afterword
- Acknowledgments
- Index
