All Too Human: A Political Education

by George Stephanopoulos

  Of course I didn't say everything on my mind, either on the phone or in the room. While I was impressed with the president's cautious deliberations that night — and more convinced than ever that he wouldn't prosecute a war to prove his manhood or improve his political standing — I also wondered if the worthiest option was the one we weren't allowed to discuss: assassination. Sure Saddam is difficult to target, but why not go for it? What could be more moral than killing the man most responsible? But while I believed assassination was justifiable, I understood it wasn't practical: Hussein slept in a different bed every night and was surrounded by Republican Guards. Assassination is also prohibited by American law. Although I hadn't yet been hauled before my first grand jury, I knew that you shouldn't discuss what you know you can't do.

  As the meeting wound down, the president polled the room. One by one, each of the principals voted for a cruise-missile strike. I was last in line, but I fully expected, and half wanted, the president to pretend I was part of the furniture. I was honored to be there and engrossed by the serious deliberations after weeks of defending half-brothers and haircuts, but I didn't want any attention called to my presence. Something about my age and my ignorance of war made me feel as if I didn't quite belong. I knew I didn't know all I needed to know. Maybe no one ever does. The president asked me what I thought. OK, George, don't blow it. Say something memorable and mature. But don't try too hard. Keep it simple. No one ever got in trouble for something they didn't say. “I don't think there's a choice, Mr. President.”

  It was unanimous. The first missile strike of the Clinton presidency was set for Saturday night.

  Our secret held through Friday as we drafted the speech the president would deliver from the Oval once the missiles landed in Baghdad. On Saturday, Clinton maintained the illusion of business as usual with jogging and a round of golf. On a smaller scale, I did the same, running errands I never had time for during the week but returning to the White House as zero hour approached.

  At 4:22 P.M. (EDT), cruise missiles were launched toward Baghdad from the USS Peterson, a destroyer, and the USS Chancellorsville, an AEGIS cruiser. Simultaneously, President Clinton sat in the Oval at a desk fashioned from the timbers of the British warship HMS Resolute (a gift to the U.S. from Queen Victoria) and began to consult with his counterparts. I sat in a maple chair by the president's phone, taking notes for the “tick-tock” accounts of the decision-making process that all the major newspapers would be writing that night.

  President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was first on the line: “Hello, Mr. President,” Clinton said. “Can you hear me? Thank you for taking my call. I'd like you to see my ambassador right away. I know what time it is. We need to maintain secrecy. But I'd like your support on this. Sorry for calling you this late.” I heard only Clinton's end of the conversations, but the calls were short and to the point. Yeltsin, true to form, was indisposed; his people couldn't find him. Yitzhak Rabin was already the foreign leader Clinton most admired: “He's a tough son of a bitch!” Clinton said after putting down the phone. The Kuwaitis and Saudis were enthusiastic, and Prime Minister Major offered his full support.

  Ironically, the president who seemed most reluctant was the one whose life and honor Clinton was defending. Yes, as Clinton would later tell the world, the plot against Bush was “an attack against our country and an attack against all Americans.” But it was also an attack against one man. I can only imagine what President Bush was thinking at 4:40 P.M. that Saturday afternoon when Clinton gave him the news: “We completed our investigation. Both the CIA and FBI did an excellent job. It's clear it was directed against you. I've ordered a cruise-missile attack.”

  “It's clear it was directed against you. I've ordered a cruise-missile attack.” The paradox of presidential power distilled into two sentences. Few people live as precarious a life as an American president. Every day, someone, somewhere, is plotting an assassination scheme — and the scary truth is that even the most effective Secret Service is no guarantee against a killer willing to die. But along with the vulnerability comes awesome power: the ability to move global markets with a single statement, to obliterate an entire country by ordering the turn of two keys, to avenge an attack on his predecessor by firing cruise missiles under his command.

  Clinton closed the conversation by assuring Bush that he had done everything he could to minimize the loss of life. Maybe that's what Bush needed to hear most; maybe his bred-in-the-bone patrician modesty made him a little embarrassed by all the trouble everyone was going to for him, or maybe a tiny thought he wasn't proud of whispered that if he'd only ordered our military to march on Baghdad in 1991, Saddam would be gone, he'd still be president, and this wouldn't be happening today. All I know is that when Clinton put down the phone, he seemed to be convincing himself that Bush was behind him, instead of the other way around. “I think he thinks we did the right thing,” he told me. “Thought it was a tough call.”

  Clinton wanted and needed Bush's approval as much as Bush needed — although he may not have wanted — Clinton's protection. Bush may have been the only man in the country, with the possible exception of Colin Powell, who could have singlehandedly stopped the attack. All it would take was a well-placed leak to the press, or a sotto voce call from Brent Scowcroft to Tony Lake. The message would suggest, perhaps, that Bush would publicly criticize Clinton for a hollow, opportunistic gesture — a hasty retaliation, based on shaky evidence, that was more about propping up Clinton's political fortunes than punishing Saddam Hussein. But that wasn't Bush's style. Whatever made him diffident at the prospect of having a military strike ordered in his defense, he kept it to himself. Presidents, especially gentleman presidents, didn't do that to each other.

  It's a small, select club, a peerage, the few men alive at any one time who have served as president. What unites them, ultimately, overwhelms partisan differences or even the bitter memories of past political battles. Only they know what it's like to be president — to order troops into battle; to hate the press; to sacrifice privacy in return for power; to face the nation from the West Front of the Capitol and swear to defend the Constitution against all foes, foreign and domestic, so help you, God; to sit alone in the Oval Office late at night and contemplate the imperfect choices that are the stuff of history. Just that week, I had watched Clinton make a condolence call to Richard Nixon after his wife's death. “Nixon's so awkward” was Clinton's only comment; but it sounded less like a judgment than a wish — that somehow, someday, his fellow president would find some inner peace.

  Presidents scrutinize each other across the ages as well. Not only do the White House walls have ears, they're packed with presidential eyes. Everywhere you turn, another president is staring down in silent judgment. Thomas Jefferson overseeing the cabinet table, the Roosevelts in a room of their own, John Kennedy brooding in brownish gray by the Red Room. A marble bust of George Washington stood guard on a pedestal outside the ceremonial door to the Oval Office; inside, a tiny bronze of Lincoln watched Clinton work from a small alcove carved into the wall.

  Clinton returned their gaze by reading their histories. A new biography was always in his leather satchel or in a stack on the table behind his desk. A whole wall of his study was devoted to the lives of the presidents. At times it seemed as if his predecessors were the only people who could understand him. He railed at the scandal mongers in the press with Jefferson; sympathized with Wilson, whose body broke under the burdens of the office; envied Lincoln his enemies, knowing that it takes a moral challenge to create a memorable presidency. JFK inspired intense jealousy. “The press always covered up for him,” Clinton said. Ike's daily rounds of golf just made him laugh. “George,” he told me, “if I had won World War Two, I'd be able to play golf in the middle of the week too.”

  Later in the term, Clinton did learn to relax like Ike. But immediately after the Bush call, he became nervous. Tony Lake entered the Oval to report that twenty-three out of twenty-four missiles had cleared the ship cle
anly. But we wouldn't know where they had landed for at least an hour. The president went upstairs to shower and change. He was scheduled to speak to the nation around seven.

  At 6:20, he was back on the phone, this time to me. “What's going on?” he asked. “I can't go on without confirmation.” I relayed the president's anxiety to Lake, who checked with Powell at the Pentagon. We'll know when we know, Powell said. Lake dryly reminded Powell that “the president's not into existentialism. He can't go on without confirmation.” Powell knew that too, but there was nothing he could do. So Tony returned to my office and told the president that we would have to be flexible on the timing of the speech. “I think this is a sign we failed” was Clinton's superstitious reply.

  Although our intelligence sources wouldn't confirm the attack, the news was starting to break all around the world. CNN went live from Baghdad and Bethesda, with Wolf Blitzer broadcasting over a cell phone in his car as he drove to the White House from his home in the Maryland suburbs. A flashing red dot superimposed on a map of the beltway tracked Wolf's progress. “Pretty pitiful visual,” quipped the vice president, who had come to my office to watch the coverage and wait for Clinton with Tony and me. Soon enough the talking blip was replaced by talking heads. In a case study of preemptive punditry, CNN's Capitol Gang assessed the political impact of Clinton's military strike before we even knew where the missiles had landed.

  But that was somehow appropriate, because CNN served as the president's intelligence agency that night: David Gergen got word from CNN's president, Tom Johnson, that several missiles had hit the target, which General Powell was then able to confirm from official sources. The president delivered his speech, and his first military attack was a qualified success — small, self-contained, ultimately inconclusive, but still a short-term victory. Relieved at the outcome, the president stood by Betty Currie's desk before heading home and told me that he had just had a “great” talk with Colin Powell. “He said our process was great. All of the options were properly explored.”

  A welcome coda. Someone who'd been there before had given us his seal of approval. But I detected more than gratitude and pride in Clinton's eye as he recounted the conversation. He was looking ahead. By telling me of Powell's praise, Clinton was also taking out a kind of insurance policy. Only a few months into our first term, what remained of the old Georgetown salons were already buzzing with the rumor that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs could be a president on horseback like Washington, Grant, and Eisenhower. The president and I understood without saying that every Clinton decision endorsed by Powell was another potential campaign issue denied. The general might one day enter the club of presidents. If and when that happened, Clinton would welcome him with open arms. But not yet, not without a fight.

  Me neither. I made a note of the call.

  HAMLET ON THE HUDSON

  “I can't believe you've descended to this level of groveling exploitation.”

  Mario Cuomo's words look harsher now than they sounded then — the morning of March 30, 1993. Gene Sperling and I were standing over my speakerphone, but for all Cuomo knew we were on our knees. The two of us were begging him to take a seat on the Supreme Court, and he seemed to be loving every minute of it.

  Earlier that morning, I had drafted talking points for the call, all the reasons Cuomo had to take the Court:

  •This will be the fulfillment of your career.

  •You could read and write on the big issues.

  •No other job leaves a longer legacy.

  •Look at history: Frankfurter, Holmes, Brandeis.

  •One hundred years from now your words will still be changing people's lives and protecting their rights.

  •You've been training for this all your life.

  Gene and I were trying to convince Cuomo that joining the Supreme Court was both his destiny and his duty; that he owed it to himself, his president, his country — and to us. Although Cuomo's regular reprises of Hamlet were exasperating, he was still our hero. The possibility of having Clinton in the White House and Cuomo on the Court was too good to be true. From the day Justice Byron White had announced his retirement two weeks earlier, Gene and I had done everything we could to make it happen.

  That morning, Cuomo was still ducking the president. Clinton had called him the day before, but Cuomo's secretary didn't put the call through, saying that the governor was in the middle of budget negotiations and couldn't be disturbed. Yeah. Cuomo didn't take the call because he couldn't decide what to do — again.

  Clinton was ready to appoint Cuomo, assuming (as we did) that the background check didn't reveal anything disqualifying. He was the only person Clinton had publicly cited as a possible Supreme Court nominee, and Clinton's criteria — “A fine mind, good judgment, wide experience in the law and in the problems of real people, and someone with a big heart” — had been enunciated with Cuomo in mind.

  But Clinton hated how Cuomo always made everything so difficult. Despite Cuomo's rousing nomination speech, despite the fact that Clinton had appointed Cuomo's son Andrew to a top administration post, the two of them were still an uncomfortable couple. Cuomo thought Clinton should consult him more and be more enthusiastic about Cuomo and his causes. Clinton thought Cuomo should defer to him a bit more; after all, he was president. Seeing them interact was like watching porcupines mate.

  Andrew also wanted his father to take the Supreme Court — for all the same reasons we did, plus one more. A tough-minded political pro who'd managed his father's previous campaigns, Andrew knew that getting Cuomo reelected to a fourth term as governor the next November would be an uphill fight. Better to leave the voters begging for more, and what could be a better exit strategy than accepting a seat on the Court? Like Earl Warren before him, Cuomo would be making the historic switch from big-state governor to justice of the United States.

  But the father didn't share his son's ambition or foresight. On Thursday, April 1, Clinton finally reached Cuomo from Air Force One, and Cuomo told him that he was leaning against being considered but would think about it. Although Clinton's patience was threadbare, he let the matter rest while he went on to the Yeltsin summit. By the next week, however, various versions of their pas de deux started to leak; the clock was running out. On April 7, I called Andrew. “We have to pull the trigger one way or another,” I told him. “It can't go on like this. It's not fair to the president. We need an answer.”

  Andrew called his father, and he told me later that they spoke for two and a half hours. We needed a decision by day's end, and Mario finally told Andrew: “If you want me to, I'll call Clinton and take it.” But an hour later, the governor faxed the president a letter saying that his duty to New York outweighed his desire to be on the Supreme Court. Another chapter in the saga of Clinton and Cuomo had drawn to a close.

  The president, however, still had to fill a vacancy on the Court.

  Inside the White House, we compiled semipublic lists of the most credible candidates, but everyone had a private dream pick. Clinton's favorite was Richard Arnold, the scholarly friend he had passed over for attorney general. Harvard Law's Laurence Tribe was the heartthrob of liberal lawyers who wanted someone with a pen as sharp as that of Justice Scalia. We brainstormed “outside the box” by tossing around the idea of appointing a brilliant political philosopher instead of a practicing attorney. (The Constitution does not require a law degree for service on the Supreme Court.) Professor Stephen Carter of Yale fit that bill, as did Harvard's Michael Sandel. Both had the added bonus of being younger than Clarence Thomas; they could write opinions for forty years. The wildest fantasy hit closest to home: Wouldn't Hillary look great in a black robe?

  But the “advise and consent” clause of the Constitution prevented the selection process from becoming a mere exercise in high-concept politics. Clinton's choice had to be ratified by the Senate, where Republicans hadn't forgotten the rejection of Robert Bork, and Democrats were reeling from their recent encounters with Zoe Baird, Kimba Wood, and L
ani Guinier. Sexy was good, but safe was better. We simply couldn't afford another failed nomination.

  April and May passed without a decision. The president was preoccupied and unsatisfied with the candidates presented to him. He wanted a “big, bold” choice and kept asking for new names. By June, we were up against a wall. If the president didn't nominate someone very soon, there wouldn't be time for confirmation hearings and a vote before the Senate recess, and we'd run the risk of starting the October term of the Court one justice short. June 15 was the new internal deadline.

  The final candidates fell into three categories. A “politician” — someone who could use formidable people skills to forge a progressive coalition on the Court. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, the former Arizona governor and presidential candidate, was at the top of this pile. A “brain” — someone with a superior legal mind and literary bent who could match Scalia and Rehnquist brain cell for brain cell, brief for brief. Federal appeals court judge Stephen Breyer, a former top staffer to Senator Edward Kennedy, was the favorite here. Or a “first” — someone whose personal story would make a powerful statement, like Washington attorney David Tatel, who would be the first blind man on the Court, or Judge Jose Cabranes, the first Hispanic. But the demand for diversity was less fashionable in June than it had been in December, and there was no obvious favorite. Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg emerged near the end of the process. Like Breyer, she would be the first Jewish justice since Abe Fortas, and the first woman to be appointed by a Democrat. More important, she was a pioneer in the legal fight for women's rights — a female Thurgood Marshall.

  On Friday night, June 11, a group of us met in the Oval to review the final bidding. Babbitt and Breyer were the front-runners, but both had drawbacks. The interior secretary's aggressive attempts to reform grazing fees and mineral rights had enraged many Senate Republicans and more than a few Democrats, who had accused him of waging a “war on the West.” Even Babbitt's home-state Democratic senator, Dennis Deconcini, called Clinton to advise against Babbitt. Choosing the interior secretary would also create another high-level vacancy, an unwelcome prospect given our overloaded appointment process.