Monica's Story

by Andrew Morton

  Unfortunately, for some reason the letter was never delivered, and in due course it was returned to its ostensible sender, David Bliss, who threatened to have Monica expelled when he discovered that she was the culprit. Knowing that Bliss was about to contact Bleiler about the matter, which would have meant Kate learning the truth, Monica tried to protect Bleiler by telling another lie. She told Bliss that her lover had known nothing about the letter, and Bliss accepted her written apology.

  Only her closest girlfriends—and, of course, Andy Bleiler, who subsequently twisted the facts of their affair at a now notorious press conference—were aware of the real story. Interestingly, the episode prefigures the aftermath of her affair with President Clinton, in particular the fact that she was prepared to sacrifice herself by signing a false affidavit to keep her ex-lover out of trouble. It was, too, another example of her readiness to put her loyalty to those she cared about over and above her desire to protect her own interests, invariably to her disadvantage.

  Her affair with Bleiler is important in explaining the psychology of her relationship with the President, but it would be wrong to think that her life was totally consumed with thoughts of him. There were long periods when she didn’t see him, and other times when their relationship reverted to one of just friendship. Indeed, after settling down at Lewis and Clark during her first year, she considers her second, final, year to have been the happiest and most fulfilling period of her life.

  For the most part her house-sharing experiment was a success, and she enjoyed the company of close, supportive and loyal friends with whom she spent weekends of barbecues, parties and trips to the movies or local restaurants. On one occasion their group spent a wintry weekend at Timberline, two hours’ drive from Portland, making snowmen, having snowball fights—in short, having a good time.

  Just how far Monica had developed since leaving Los Angeles was revealed the day after she graduated in May 1995. The new psychology graduate, who hates heights and describes herself as a “scaredy cat,” decided to watch her friend Zach Isenberg and his brother Josh make a bungee jump over the Lewis River in Washington state. The organizer convinced Monica to give it a try, and much against her better judgment she heard herself say “OK.” It was, she says, “the most unbelievable experience”; it was also something she would never have dreamed of doing during her Beverly Hills days. Nor would she ever have dreamed that she would have needed guidance on how to find a boyfriend. During a conversation with a fellow female student the talk turned to men, both women despairing of ever finding a mate. So they attended an evening lecture, each paying $40 for the privilege, to hear a woman explain how to find a partner. The audience, who were mainly middle-aged, were told that it was much more difficult to find a companion in later life—unlike when one was young and at college. Laughing, Monica and her friend described themselves as a couple of real losers and headed for the nearest bar. They ended up chatting to a group of guys, drinking too much and dancing in a club until the early hours. “It was one of the funniest evenings ever,” recalls her fellow student.

  Although Monica went on a number of dates during her time at college, she remained almost perversely faithful to Andy Bleiler—apart from the revenge fling with his brother. “In fact she is a very faithful person,” notes Linda Estergard, now a social worker. “She just makes the wrong choices.”

  Certainly academically she had begun to realize her potential. She had taken and thoroughly enjoyed numerous additional classes, and had built up a strong and affectionate rapport with her teachers, notably Tom Schoeneman and Nancy King Hunt. Indeed, as she talks about her life, she is at her most animated and enthused when describing her final year at Lewis and Clark.

  As a teaching assistant in Psychology of Sex, she led group discussions in a “sex lab” where students explored the relationship between sexuality, individualism and society. The other students were reticent in offering their ideas and opinions, so Monica broke the ice, giving her own frank views, culled from her unhappy experiences, on the links between physical appearance, weight and sexuality, views which impressed many of those present.

  Though Monica has been painted as a “scarlet woman”—or worse—in the course of the whole Clinton scandal, she remains firm in her conviction that one’s sexuality is nothing to be afraid of. “I don’t see sexuality as being something to hide away in the dark or be ashamed of. I think our sexuality is something to be honored, cherished and valued. In part it is a difference in generations. I come from a generation whose mothers burned their bras and said, ‘Make love, not war.’ Yet ours is the same generation who have grown up with the fear of AIDS, where caution and protection are an integral part of our sex lives.”

  One of her other courses, The Social Construction of Madness, had a profound effect on Monica. This dealt with the notion of “the Other,” and primarily with the way in which society labels people, which conveniently allows them to ignore the fact that they may be like each other. It is a theory used extensively by the military as a means of demeaning an enemy and denying his basic humanity, on the principle that soldiers will be prepared to kill those who have thus been demonized.

  A year after completing that course, Monica found herself discussing those self-same theories with President Clinton himself, and suggesting that he add a psychologist to a panel of experts who were, at the President’s much-publicized behest, examining how to improve race relations in America. She even gave him a book, Disease and Misrepresentation, in case he wanted to explore the matter further. It is a bitter irony that, since the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal broke, Monica herself has been made to reflect further on the concept of “the Other,” painfully observing the way that she has been demonized and mythologized in and by the mass media, scorned and ridiculed as someone beyond the normal boundaries of American family life.

  It is clear from her suggestion to the President that Monica, while relishing the intellectual challenges of her degree course, also enjoyed the practical application of psychology in society. As she considered life after Lewis and Clark, she once more thought about going on to graduate school to get a Ph.D. in forensic psychology and jurisprudence.

  For her practicum during her senior year she had worked in the Public Defender’s Office in Portland under Marsha Gruehler, an experience which focused her mind on the possibilities of making a career in this field. During her time there she had analyzed the impact of new legislation, relating to juveniles, on the work of court psychologists, and had devised a questionnaire to help assess the costs involved in implementing this measure. This was practical, intellectually challenging work which harnessed her analytical skills effectively. Her father, who with his wife, Barbara, had traveled to watch Monica receive her Bachelor of Science degree in psychology at the graduation ceremony in May 1995, encouraged her thoughts about a career in the Public Defender’s Office, arguing that she should try to get a full-time job there. Besides the satisfaction she would gain from working in a fulfilling career, she already had a house and friends in Portland; even more importantly, she seemed much more settled and at peace with herself.

  What Dr. Lewinsky did not know, though, was that Andy Bleiler had moved to the same city as Monica and was still seeing her. Her mother did know and, aware of the pain and damage the relationship caused her daughter, had tried unsuccessfully to get her to give him up. The truth was that the “Bleiler effect” was uppermost in Monica’s mind as she wrestled with her future options. “I loved Andy dearly but the relationship was tumultuous, emotionally damaging and clearly immoral. Leaving Portland seemed to be the only way to begin to put him behind me,” she recalls. Added to this were other factors: many of her friends were leaving Portland; she needed a higher score on her GREs if she wished to take postgraduate courses and would have to take them again; she did not want to go back to Los Angeles; and she missed her mother, Michael, and Aunt Debra.

  As it happened, the fateful decision to move to Washington originated not with Monica, or her fa
ther, or even with Andy Bleiler, but with her mother. During a conversation with her daughter, Marcia told her that the grandson of her friend Walter Kaye, a wealthy Manhattan insurance mogul, donor to the Democratic Party and an acquaintance of the First Lady, had been an intern at the White House—White House internships are prestigious, highly selective, unpaid temporary jobs—and had much enjoyed his time there. If the idea appealed to Monica, Marcia said, she would talk to Kaye and see if he could put in a good word for her. Help came from another quarter as well. One of her customers at the Knot Shop, Jay Footlik, now worked at the White House and promised to speak up for her when the candidates were being assessed.

  The more Monica thought about her mother’s suggestion, the more excited she became. It made sense to work in the White House for six weeks during the summer, as it would allow her a short break before resuming her academic studies, as well as giving her a chance to spend time with her mother. Marcia had long wished to leave Los Angeles, but in the turbulent aftermath of the divorce Monica and Michael had, in Marcia’s words, “wanted to stay where they felt ‘at home,’ and they were right.” However, when Debra and Bill Finerman moved to Virginia, Monica was at college in Portland and Michael “had recovered somewhat from the divorce, and this time, when I suggested moving, the kids were enthusiastic.” In order to be near her sister, Marcia had moved to Washington and taken an apartment in the Watergate building, where Debra and Bill had a pied à terre which they used for overnight stays and at weekends. While working at the White House, Monica would be able to live with her mother, and would also be able to see Aunt Debra often.

  Monica duly applied, completing an essay section where she discussed the need for psychologists to work in government to understand better the “human dimension” in society—and was delighted to be accepted as one of the class of two hundred young interns that year. Before she left Portland, she took a long, tearful farewell of Andy Bleiler. Proud and excited that she was going to Washington, he wished her well. For her part, though she still loved him, she had little expectation of seeing him again soon—if ever. “I bawled my eyes out at the airport and cried all the way to San Francisco,” she admits. “I was so sad to be leaving him. It was really hard for me—I told him that after we had said goodbye I didn’t want to see him again.”

  On the long flight to Washington she was mournful at leaving her old life behind, yet could not suppress her feelings of anticipation as new horizons beckoned her. Contemplating her days to come at the White House, she thought, “It’s a great addition to my resume. It will be exciting. It’s only for a short time, and it can’t hurt.”

  With a rueful smile, she now says, “How wrong I was.”

  Arguably, her mother has even more reason to regret that fateful decision, for it was she who encouraged Monica to come to Washington not only to get away from Portland and Andy Bleiler, but also to live with her. Yet there was another, secret, motive that informed all Marcia’s thinking about her daughter’s future.

  “Like all mothers tend to do,” she confesses, “I thought she would meet a nice young man.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Monica Goes to Washington

  IT WAS THE SMELL of eucalyptus wafting along the powder-blue-carpeted corridors that first seduced Monica. Then the sight of a slightly bored-looking Secret Service agent standing by a heavy-framed mahogany door made her heart skip a beat. For behind that door was the hallowed Oval Office.

  Her supervisor, Tracey Beckett, who accompanied the young intern on her first ever visit to the West Wing of the White House, explained that the reason why the door to the Oval Office was closed was that the President was inside, working, and that was also why a Secret Service agent was stationed outside the door. “I was in awe,” Monica remembers. “All I could think of was ‘Wow!’ My excitement wasn’t because it was President Clinton on the other side of the door, but because it was the President.” Wide-eyed with excitement, she naturally couldn’t wait to tell her friends that, after just two weeks working as an intern at the White House, only the thickness of a door separated her from the world’s most powerful man.

  On July 10, 1995, Monica had joined two hundred other young graduates making nervously light-hearted conversation in Room 450 of the Old Executive Office Building (OEOB), as they waited to be told their assignments as unpaid interns for the next six weeks. Most of her anxious colleagues had degrees in politics or related subjects; Monica, however, had often joked with her college friends that a degree in psychology was the one really essential requirement in the febrile atmosphere of Washington.

  After the new group of interns had listened to a series of lectures they received their assignments. Monica was detailed to work in the correspondence section of the office of the White House Chief of Staff, Leon Panetta. She was delighted to learn that she would have her own desk and computer in Room 93 of the OEOB and that, because she had written an excellent essay, her duties were to be much more than simply answering the phone and copying documents; she would also from time to time deliver sorted mail to the West Wing, where the Oval Office is. Nevertheless, the pink pass around her neck—all interns have to wear one—signified that she was definitely at the bottom of the White House hierarchy, and could not move around the building unless accompanied by a White House supervisor. In the White House an orange pass gave access to the OEOB but not to the East or West Wings, while an administrator with a blue pass could go anywhere. Topically Monica, always feeling entitled to the best of what was on offer, immediately set her heart on getting a blue pass. It is worth noting that this was before she had even seen, let alone met, the President.

  Unlike other interns, Monica had no political ambitions—indeed, she wasn’t even interested in politics—and certainly hadn’t brought with her to Washington an agenda, sexual or otherwise. In a buttoned-down, secretive community in which every move is calculated, she was a little too willing, too open and too straightforward for her own good. When, in her characteristic eagerness to please, she made coffee for her colleagues, or gave them small gifts, she failed to notice the quizzically raised eyebrow or the suspicious glance questioning the motivation behind her unbidden generosity. “I didn’t know it was a crime in Washington to be nice to people,” she says.

  Monica flirted innocently with a couple of the other interns, and joined in games and picnics, but found that, although she was enjoying her time at the White House, she was not really a Washington type. Despite being bright, lively and motivated, she never fitted into the mold of a White House worker.

  In a world where every action, however trivial-seeming, is considered and controlled, she was too reckless with her heart, too vulnerable to criticism and too prone to self-doubt, while patience and self-restraint have never formed part of her repertoire. Above all, she lacked worldly wisdom, as her mother observes: “While the two years she had spent in Portland had been good for her, she knew very little of the real world. She was an innocent abroad in a very sophisticated and cynical town.”

  When Monica arrived in Washington that summer of 1995, she was too preoccupied to notice or even consider the social and political undercurrents swirling around the White House. Before she started work she, Marcia and Michael had spent a few weeks in Virginia, staying with Aunt Debra and her husband. Monica spent much of that time pining for Andy Bleiler and her friends in Portland. Indeed, during the Fourth of July weekend, only days before she took up her post at the White House, she had returned to Oregon to see her chums and to spend a few hours with her lover. The visit resolved nothing, save that Monica returned to Washington determined to throw herself into her summer job before resuming her studies for a retake of the GRE so that she could take a postgraduate degree.

  Although for the most part she found the work stimulating and exciting, it didn’t take her long to realize that the White House gossip factory went into overdrive whenever one subject came up in conversation: Bill Clinton. The President had a reputation as a flirt and a womanizer, and hi
s large circle of female admirers shared gossip, making knowing remarks about certain women in the White House who may or may not have been among his many alleged mistresses.

  Monica was mystified. “I had only ever seen him on TV and I never thought of him as attractive,” she says. “With his big red nose and coarse, wiry-looking gray hair, he’s an old guy. There were tons and tons of women in the White House with crushes on him and I thought, ‘These people are just crazy. They have really bad taste in men.’ I mean, girls my own age were saying that this old guy was cute, that he was sexy. I thought, ‘Gee, this place is weird. What’s wrong with Washington?’”

  That July, however, she first saw President Clinton in the flesh and came to realize exactly what the “tons and tons of women” were talking about. Her mother’s friend Walter Kaye had invited Monica and Marcia to watch an arrival ceremony for the President of South Korea on the South Lawn of the White House. It was an intensely hot and humid day. As they stood behind the gold ropes in the VIP section, Monica, in a sundress and wide-brimmed straw hat, was more concerned about not passing out than about watching the passing parade.