The two women endlessly discussed and dissected every word of the President’s every phone call or message. Monica attached enormous importance to the President’s smallest utterance. (He, as he later told her, had no inkling that she read so much into what he said—that she was, in effect, building up her hopes on the flimsiest of foundations.) Tripp encouraged her to blame the President for the long delay in her return to the White House, which Monica had thought would happen soon after the November 1996 election. Tripp said she simply could not understand why it had all dragged on for so long, and that it was “ridiculous” that a job had not yet been found for her, especially as the White House created jobs all the time.
Around June 9, 1997, after her rebuff from Marsha Scott’s office, a furious Monica, aided and abetted by Tripp, wrote a terse note to the President saying that, if he were serious about her coming back to the White House, he should help her get a job. The note seemed to do the trick. A short time later Marsha Scott called Monica and apologized for what she called “the oversight,” saying that she herself had only just returned to the office after having surgery.
It was a friendly conversation; Scott said that she was perfectly well aware who Monica was but that her assistant did not have her details on her Rolodex file. Interestingly, in her Grand Jury testimony Scott denied that the President had asked her to find a job for Monica. She confirmed only that, the day before her conversation with Monica, she had received a call from Betty Currie, who had asked if Scott could help a young friend who was unhappy in her job at the Pentagon.
A few days later, on June 16, Monica met Scott in her office. During this interview, Scott asked a lot of questions about Monica’s relationship with the President, and about why she had left the White House. In answer, the younger woman offered what she called the “vanilla” story, explaining that she and the President had been friendly, and that senior White House staff, in particular Evelyn Lieberman, had felt that her behavior was “inappropriate.” Scott was also curious about why Monica wanted so badly to return to the White House that she was prepared to accept less pay, less responsibility and fewer perks than she enjoyed at the Pentagon.
Monica was dismayed by being asked such personal questions, especially those concerning the President. “I was so upset,” she told Catherine by e-mail on June 17. “i really did not feel it was her place to question me about that . .” She did not get the NSC job, though she was interviewed twice, reaching the shortlist. She telephoned Scott about it and, according to Scott, became indignant and upset. Scott later called this the “triple whammy” conversation. During it she informed Monica not only that the NSC position had been filled, but that two other potential avenues of employment at the White House, including working as a “detailee”—that is, in a temporary capacity, with a view to being taken on permanently later—were also closed to her.
A despondent Monica seemed in her e-mail to Catherine Allday Davis as though she might throw in the towel: “i found out today that i didn’t get the NSC job … i think I’m going to have to walk away from it all. i don’t know yet. i know it’s annoying—i’m always saying this and then i change my mind.”
Catherine was all in favor of a fresh start. Two days later she e-mailed back, “[Y]our email made me sad, Monica. I’m sorry for all the s—that went down with that woman . . In my opinion walking away sounds like the best thing because it sounds like you will just get the run around from those clowns and continue feeling bad . . I hate that kind of stuff. I hope you can put it behind you.”
Monica sent Scott a “gushy” note of thanks following their meeting, but in fact Scott had reawakened her deepest fear: that, for the last three months, the President had been lying to her about finding her a White House post. Andy Bleiler had lied to her and betrayed her. Could Bill Clinton now be doing the same?
Everywhere, doors seemed to be closing in Monica’s face.
Monica wrote to Betty Currie on June 24, outlining her disappointment over her meeting with Scott and her pain at the President’s refusal to see her. She rehearsed her concerns about Scott’s probing questions, and her surprise that Scott should have taken issue with the President’s judgment that Monica had got a “burn deal” in 1996 and should be given a good job in the West Wing, where the President works. Left unsaid, however, was Monica’s belief that at one time in their lives Marsha Scott and Bill Clinton had been “an item,” and that Scott was therefore the wrong person to be finding her a job at the White House. Near the end of the letter, she wrote, “Betty, I am very frustrated and sad. I especially don’t understand this deafening silence, lack of response and complete distancing evidenced by him. Why is he ignoring me? I have done nothing wrong . . I would never do anything to hurt him . . I’m at a loss, and I don’t know what to do.”
On June 29, encouraged by Linda Tripp, she sent a handwritten note to the President himself, imploring him to see her so that she could discuss her job search with him.
Dear Handsome,
I really need to discuss my situation with you. We have not had any contact for over five weeks . . Please do not do this to me. I feel disposable, used and insignificant. I understand your hands are tied but I want to talk to you and look at some options. I am begging you [she originally wrote here, “from the bottom of my heart,” but then crossed it out] one last time to please let me visit briefly Tuesday evening.
It is interesting to note that the words “I feel disposable, used and insignificant” were added by Linda Tripp.
The following day she called Betty Currie, only to be told that the President was too busy to see her. At this point, she says, “I started to get really annoyed and by the end of June, I was beside myself. I was a huge pest to Betty.” On one occasion Monica started crying on the phone to Betty, a woman of great calm and patience, who took the time to phone her back to soothe and reassure her. To add insult to injury, however, when Monica called on the day after she delivered her note to the President, he was, she found out later, actually standing beside his secretary. Betty told her that he would return her call in a day or two, but inevitably he did not.
Although she was thousands of miles away in Tokyo, Catherine caught Monica’s mood, and on July 2 e-mailed her, anxiously urging her to think seriously about leaving Washington. “I’m worried about you, Monica. Again, I think your idea to leave the area or get out of gov’t work is a good one. I think you are in the midst of a dangerous, psychological situation. It all sounds so painful for you . . I cannot help being very concerned.”
After sending her letter to the President, Monica stewed for a couple of days. Then she boiled over. She woke up on the morning of July 3 determined to write to him and tell him what she really thought. In a three-page handwritten note, opening “Dear Sir,” she chastised him for breaking his word over helping her to find a job at the White House, and wrote angrily about her treatment at the hands of Marsha Scott. Then, although she never intended it as a serious threat, she reminded him that she had left the White House like a “good girl” in April 1996, and hinted that she might have to disclose the nature of their relationship to her parents, so that they would at least understand why she was not returning to the White House. “I only intended him to realize what not helping me meant,” she explains.
She also raised for the first time the possibility that, if she could not work at the White House, the President could at least help her find a post with the United Nations in New York. “It was,” she recalls, “a real stream-of-consciousness letter, saying how he reminded me of my mom because, like her, he was an ostrich, putting his head in the sand because he didn’t like confrontation. I told him that if he wasn’t going to bring me back, just tell me.” She ended by saying that she had always followed her heart and that she was doing so in this matter, allowing him one last chance to atone for his earlier behavior.
She sealed the letter in an outsized envelope addressed to “Mr. P.,” her usual sobriquet for him, and handed it over to Betty Currie at
the North West gate of the White House. A few hours later Betty called and told her to be at the White House at nine-thirty the following morning, Independence Day. It was rather early in the day for fireworks, the traditional way of celebrating the Fourth of July, but they were not long in coming when the President and Monica met.
He came out of his office and coolly looked her up and down before beckoning her inside. As they went into the back study, Betty caught her eye and said, “Remember—no tears,” before leaving them alone together. They took their usual places, the President in his rocking chair, and Monica in the black swivel chair at his desk. Then he told her reproachfully, “I have three things to say to you. First, it is illegal to threaten the President of the United States,” at which Monica butted in angrily: “I didn’t threaten you.” “Second,” he continued, ignoring the interruption, though Monica heard a hint of nervousness in his voice, “you sent me this letter.” Before he could go on she asked him if he had read it, but he told her that he had read only the first paragraph before throwing it away. Then, his third point forgotten, he delivered a stern lecture in which he said that she should not talk to him in that manner, that he was trying to help her, that she should not commit sentiments like that to paper and that she was ungrateful. Monica retaliated by running through a litany of his shortcomings, in particular his failure to help her secure a job. Then, despite Betty’s words of warning, she burst into tears.
At once Clinton went over to her and began hugging her and stroking her hair, saying, “Please don’t cry.” She nestled against him with her head on his shoulder, but then she noticed a gardener working outside and suggested that they move. They went near the bathroom, and as he leaned against the door hugging Monica’s disconsolate figure he told her, “People like us, we have fire in our belly, and there are a lot of people who don’t know how to react to people like us. We’re bright and passionate about things but we can get so angry, and you have to learn to curb your temper and to control yourself because it scares people. I can handle you but Betty can’t.”
While they talked, he continued to hold and stroke her, in a way that was romantic, but also emotional and needy. Monica says: “I had never felt so complete as I did in his arms that day and it sustained me for the next few months. He was someone who complemented but completed me. That was how I felt.” He complimented her on her beauty and spoke of the bright future that lay ahead for her, ruefully adding, “I wish I could spend more time with you. I wish I had more time for you.” Monica replied, “Maybe you will in three years,” meaning that when he was no longer President he would have more free time. His answer shocked her: “I don’t know, I might be alone in three years.” Then she jokingly spoke about them being together, saying, “I think we’ll make a good team,” to which he replied, “Yeah, but what are we gonna do when I’m seventy-five and I have to pee thirty times a day?” He smiled when she said, “We’ll deal with it.”
Monica went on to talk about his marriage, something they had rarely done. “I know it’s not my business,” she told him, “but I think that you and your wife connect at a level that most people can’t understand. I don’t doubt that you have a deep bond, but to me I think she has cold eyes. You seem to need so much nurturing and the only person you seem to have worth for is your daughter. You are a very loving person and you need that, and I think you deserve it.”
Remembering that conversation today, Monica says, “That’s how I always saw him, his guilt from childhood and from his religion, his feeling that he doesn’t deserve to be happy. But he does, which is why he has these illicit relationships. It’s getting what he needs but he doesn’t think he deserves it. Dick Morris [Clinton’s former political consultant] once said that he has a Saturday-night personality where he gives in to his desires and a Sunday-morning personality where he goes to church full of remorse. I agree with that.”
It was an intense interlude, and one that left Monica in an emotional daze, still trying to come to terms with what he had said about the future. Later that day she saw Ashley Raines and told her about the meeting, adding that, in her heart, she believed that the President was in love with her. She realizes now that she will never know what really lay behind his words. “No one will ever know what he meant except him. He’s the only one who knows the truth—and he never tells the truth.” Wiser heads than Monica Lewinsky’s have noticed this characteristic in Bill Clinton. As Democratic Senator Bob Kerry once said, “Clinton is an unusually good liar. Unusually good.”
Before she left, however, it was Monica’s turn to be less than honest. The Kathleen Willey business had been bothering her, especially because Linda Tripp had told her Michael Isikoff was snooping around again. Monica felt that if she failed to alert the President, and a damaging story were to come out, she would have let him down. She had discussed her concerns with Tripp, who had encouraged her to tell the President. She therefore said that an unnamed Pentagon colleague had been approached by a Newsweek reporter about Kathleen Willey. Monica was concerned, she said, because she didn’t want to see him landed with another Paula Jones case, and opined that, if Willey was given a job, the issue would go away.
The President considered all this, then confirmed that Willey had spoken to Nancy Hernreich, Director of Oval Office Operations, the previous week, claiming that Michael Isikoff was hounding her and asking Hernreich’s advice on what to do. This seemed strange to Monica, who knew that as long ago as March Willey had given Isikoff an off-the-record briefing, plus the names of several corroborative witnesses, including Tripp. Monica told the President that Willey was trying to play both ends against the middle because of the intervention of her unnamed friend, who had already watered down the story when she met the Newsweek reporter. As to whether or not the President had indeed groped Willey, he merely said off-handedly that she wasn’t his type, anyway—because she was flat-chested.
Unknown to the President, when Monica left the White House after this meeting, she reported their conversation to Tripp. The latter seemed anxious about whether the President knew her name, yet at the same time excited by the idea that he might. “It’s very clear to me now that she really wanted to be a player,” says Monica. “She secretly had a crush on him, and, while she enjoyed living through me, there was another part of her that was jealous of my relationship with the President.” (Indeed, during her testimony to the Grand Jury, Linda Tripp boastfully claimed that she had been moved from the White House because the President had been attracted to her and the First Lady had become jealous.) There the matter rested for the time being.
Just a few days later—and three thousand miles away—Monica and the President saw each other again when they both attended a NATO conference in Madrid. Monica, who was part of the Pentagon delegation, made eye contact with the President at a reception in the US Ambassador’s residence, and for a time it reminded her of the good old days of light-hearted flirtation. While she was in Spain, Linda Tripp called her and said that there was a story about Kathleen Willey on The Drudge Report, an Internet gossip site run by Matt Drudge. Clearly, the Willey scandal was beginning to heat up. After a whirlwind tour of other European countries, including Hungary, the Ukraine and Bulgaria, Monica arrived home weary and jetlagged. She got a call from Betty Currie summoning her to the White House to see the President.
On July 14, as Monica got ready for the meeting, she fondly imagined that a combination of the intensity of their meeting on Independence Day and the sexual tension in Madrid meant that the President’s determination to end the affair was weakening. That illusion was quickly dispelled. Although, as usual, she had brought him a gift—a wooden letter B with a frog inside which she had bought in Budapest, he was cold and distant toward her; furthermore, he was in pain, complaining about his back. They went into Nancy Hernreich’s office nearby, and Monica sat on the sofa. The President sat on a chair, and only came and sat next to her at her insistence.
Almost without preamble, he asked her point-blank if the “unnamed
” woman in her office was Linda Tripp. Monica confirmed that she was. He then told her that Willey’s lawyer had called Nancy Hernreich that week and complained that the White House was trashing his client to Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff, and that the journalist knew that Willey had previously spoken to Hernreich. Only four people—himself, Hernreich, Willey and Monica—knew that fact, yet Isikoff had found out. It followed, he said, that Monica must have told Tripp, who in turn had spoken to the journalist. Through Monica confirmed this, she also lied and said she had told Tripp that the source of the information was Betty Currie, not the President. He asked, “Do you trust this woman?” Monica replied that she did, adding that Tripp was a great admirer of his, even displaying his picture on her desk. At this he nodded, then asked Monica to try and convince Linda Tripp to contact Bruce Lindsey again, to discuss how she should handle the matter. She said she would try, but added that Tripp was a proud woman and had been angered by Lindsey’s previous rebuff.
Looking back on this conversation, Monica reflects, “Everyone has tried to make a huge deal out of this meeting, as though the President was obstructing justice and trying to get me to suborn perjury. That’s baloney. At this time Kathleen Willey hadn’t even been pulled into the Paula Jones case. All we were trying to do was squash a negative Newsweek story.”
From that moment on, though, Monica began to grow wary of Linda Tripp, because she was leaking information to Isikoff. When the two women next met, Tripp confirmed that she had spoken to Isikoff at that time, but denied that she had told him of Willey’s call to the White House. Now on her guard, Monica did not mention her July 14 meeting with the President, but even so managed to persuade Tripp that she should contact Bruce Lindsey again.
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