First Ladies

by Caroli, Betty

  Behind this flurry of talk lay an important point. The president’s wife was being interrogated about substantive, ethical matters, touching on money and power. This was no longer a question of pillow talk with the president—but of how she had used power in her own professional and political life. On Sunday, June 13, the point was made more clearly. In what the New York Times called “extraordinary sessions,” the special prosecutor, Robert B. Fiske, who had been named to investigate the Whitewater matter and report to Congress, went to the White House to take sworn testimony from both Clintons. Anyone interested in trivia would note that Fiske spoke with the president for ninety minutes and with the First Lady for sixty.

  In the end, she would be cleared of any wrongdoing in the Whitewater matter, but her troubles were far from over. When the Republicans registered big gains in the November 1994 election, taking control of both houses of Congress and winning nearly all sixty seats that switched party affiliation, the First Lady was assigned part of the blame. Did her highly publicized fight to reform health care steer voters into the Republican column? Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization of Women (NOW), announced that it was not the shift in party control that worried her but rather “the shift in political power to enemies of women’s and civil rights.”45

  Biographer Gail Sheehy, who detected an air of defeat in Hillary at the time, noted that the First Lady well understood her connection to the angry male backlash then surfacing. “ … [F]or many of these wounded men, I’m the boss they never wanted to have … the daughter who they never wanted to turn out to be so independent,” she told Sheehy.46 But Hillary Clinton also shrewdly noted that the changes went far beyond any one individual: “It’s not me, personally, they hate—it’s the changes I represent.”

  Hillary responded immediately to the electoral setback by altering her course. Rather than continuing to carve out a new role for the presidential spouse as legislative leader, holding hearings, and shaping laws, she reverted to the model of activist First Ladies Eleanor Roosevelt, Lady Bird Johnson, and Rosalynn Carter. She would still be highly visible, giving speeches and working for the causes she believed in, but she would stick to traditional turf for a president’s wife. In the syndicated weekly newspaper column that she began writing in 1995, she rarely broached controversial subjects; her speeches promoted mainstream ideas, such as the need to improve reading test scores and make mammograms more accessible. Work progressed on her book, It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Our Children Teach Us,47 but it made very few fresh observations, repeating what she had stated in previous publications. She continued to travel widely, including one twelve-day trip to Asia, with stops in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, but because she turned the trip into a mother-daughter outing with teenage daughter Chelsea, she broke no new ground.

  Her highly publicized trip to Beijing in September 1995 did ruffle some feathers, if only temporarily. Her staff had been preparing for months for her to attend the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women. Now, however, White House advisors worried that a visit to China, when it was making headlines for its poor record on human rights and brutal treatment of dissidents, might be misinterpreted. In the end, she decided to endure whatever criticism ensued rather than feel stymied into staying quietly at home. The speech she gave at the conference was anything but quiet. It included a rousing reaffirmation of women’s lives and their claim to respect, while also taking China’s leadership to task for suppressing human rights and permitting girls to be less valued than boys. China’s leadership gave no indication they even heard her, and the nation’s newspapers largely ignored her protest, but women in the audience were jubilant, “It was as good as I could have imagined,” one Tibetan woman told a reporter. “I was very encouraged.”48

  Although the success of that Beijing speech might have signaled a turning point for Hillary, the following months brought many more disappointments. In January 1996, suspicion increased about her complicity in the Whitewater affair. Doubts grew about her trustworthiness when billing records from her Arkansas law firm (originally subpoenaed by the independent counsel but reported as lost) suddenly turned up in a section of the White House where she frequently worked. William Safire, who had once written speeches for Richard Nixon, used his column in the New York Times to call her a “congenital liar.”49 Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr subpoenaed her to testify in front of a grand jury, the first time a president’s wife had ever been required to make such an appearance. Suggestions from the Clintons and their advisers that a deposition taken from her in the White House would serve just as well—without exposing her to the indignity of having to appear in a downtown Washington court house—were rejected. She testified for four hours.

  As Bill Clinton prepared to run for a second term, Hillary faced more problems. The revelation that she had followed the advice of New Age psychologist Jean Houston to boost her morale by engaging in imaginary conversations with people she admired only made temporary news. She mitigated the criticism by joking about how much she had learned from “talking” with Eleanor Roosevelt.50 But when the presidential campaign heated up, she encountered a more serious charge: she was accused of courting big donors by inviting them to the White House and rewarding the most generous givers with a chance to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom.51 Old rumors resurfaced about her role in the firing of White House travel office employees, a possible cover-up associated with Vincent Foster’s suicide, and the Whitewater real estate investment nearly two decades earlier.52

  Bill Clinton won re-election easily, and Hillary embarked on what might have been a tranquil, lame duck period; it quickly turned into one of the most tumultuous terms ever served by a First Lady. A new round of revelations about her husband’s extramarital liaisons began in January 1998, with Linda Tripp. A former White House aide, Ms. Tripp informed Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr that she possessed taped conversations documenting a sexual relationship between her one-time friend, Monica Lewinsky, and the President of the United States. As soon as the national media carried the story, the First Lady went on the popular Today show to defend her husband, labeling the story a creation of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” bent on destroying him.53 The president tried to distance himself from Lewinsky by announcing that he had never had “a sexual relationship with that woman.” Both statements would come back to haunt the president and First Lady. After Lewinsky presented physical evidence (a semen-stained dress) implicating him, Bill Clinton went on national television to admit that he had not told the full truth. He also admitted misleading his wife.

  For the remainder of 1998, dubbed by Gail Sheehy as the “Year of Monica,” the nation’s attention stayed glued to the subject of the president’s sex life. Television talk show hosts bantered about berets and cigars; school children tittered about new additions to their vocabularies; sociologists offered their own explanations for “sexual addiction.” For months, the Lewinsky story pushed all others, including those of enormous importance dealing with the economy and foreign policy, off the front page. On December 18, the U.S. House of Representatives voted, for only the second time in American history, to impeach a president, and Bill Clinton faced trial for obstructing justice and committing perjury. After the Senate returned a verdict of “not guilty” on both counts on February 12, 1999, speculation slowly diminished but revelations of the past months had become part of the public record.

  While the president was undergoing his own ordeal, public opinion changed perceptibly on his wife, now viewed as the “wronged woman.”54 Many Americans expressed dismay that anyone with her considerable resources (including a law degree and years of experience working with powerful professionals) would remain married to a man that exposed her to such humiliation.55 Critics suggested that Hillary stayed in the marriage to satisfy her own gigantic personal ambition and to keep herself connected to the power center of the nation. Supporters worried that she had been reduced to the role of “loyal wife,” a label she had strongl
y rejected during the 1992 campaign when she asserted “I’m not sitting here like some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette.”56 Wendy Wasserstein, the dramatist, expressed disappointment that Hillary’s “impressive personal qualities of idealism, strength and poise under pressure [were] being used to maintain domestic tranquility, and that maintaining the dignity of her marriage [would be] seen as her greatest professional triumph.”57 It seemed incredible that this was the same woman whom presidential historian Michael Beschloss had singled out in January 1997 as “easily the most influential First Lady in history.”58 But many Americans apparently preferred the “loyal [subjective] wife” to the strong achiever, and the First Lady’s popularity ratings rose dramatically, to the highest level since she moved into the White House.

  Although she refused to divulge much about her feelings during those difficult months, Hillary began showing signs of a new determination, a realization that her turn had come. Her husband’s second and final term would soon end, leaving both of these relatively young, highly energetic people considering how to spend the rest of their lives. Former presidents always present special retirement cases but few had faced the prospect of such an extended post–White House period as Bill Clinton; he would be only fifty-four when he left office. Theodore Roosevelt had finished his second term at age fifty, but without the ban on third terms, he could continue to try to regain the presidency until his death. For Bill Clinton, that avenue was closed, but not for his wife. Former First Ladies had typically retired beside their spouses, and only two widows, Eleanor Roosevelt and Jacqueline Kennedy, had embarked on careers of their own. None had run for public office.

  When rumors began circulating in late 1998 that Hillary Rodham Clinton might seek a political office of her own, opinions were mixed. Skeptics maintained that she had never really enjoyed the flesh-pressing of a campaign or the hectic schedule of a politician. Unlike Bill, she was a “policy person” rather than a “people person.” Others insisted that her reluctance to campaign had dissipated with practice and she relished the idea of showing what she could do on her own. Election to a potent, nationally visible platform—such as the U.S. Senate—would liberate her from the shadow of a husband who had humiliated her.59

  By November 1998, a coveted spot opened up when Patrick Moynihan, the professorial and respected New York Senator, announced that he would not be seeking a fifth term in 2000. Within weeks, the First Lady announced she would embark on “listening tours” throughout New York state to learn more about constituents’ needs and worries. Since she had never resided in the state, she knew she would face the same kind of carpetbagger charges that plagued Robert Kennedy in 1964; unlike Kennedy, she had more than a year to overcome those charges. By July 1999, she was ready to announce the formation of the Hillary Rodham Clinton for U.S. Senate Exploratory Committee, generally acknowledged as a first step in running for office. She doggedly persisted in learning the intricacies of economic conditions in upstate counties and ethnic conflicts in New York City. She memorized the state’s official flora and fauna choices, and read up on its authors and sports teams.60 When the Clintons announced that they would spend part of their summer vacation in the Adirondacks, a considerably less fashionable location than Martha’s Vineyard where they had previously vacationed, it was taken as evidence that she had decided to run, although the formal announcement would not come until the following February.

  Hillary Clinton thus initiated a new chapter in First Lady history—leading to new criticism. None of her predecessors had used the special vantage point of presidential spouse to launch her own election campaign.61 Charges quickly arose that she was taking advantage of White House perks to advance her own senate race. The content and budget of each trip was scrutinized. In March 2000, House Republicans released documents showing that the twenty-six trips taken by the First Lady between June and December the previous year cost $182,471 and she had reimbursed taxpayers for only about one-sixth of the total.62 How to decide whether it was First Lady work or a candidate’s operation? Was she still devoting adequate time to White House duties?

  In order to establish residency in New York state so Hillary could run for office, the Clintons purchased a home in Chappaqua, just north of Manhattan, in late 1999. She began spending more time away from Washington. But she still had to figure out ways to meet First Lady responsibilities three hundred miles south in the capital—host state dinners and make other official appearances. Daughter Chelsea sometimes filled in, taking time off from Stanford studies, but mostly Hillary learned to divide her time, covering two fronts on the same day.63

  The presumed Republican opponent, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, dropped out of the race six months before the election, when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Rick Lazio, a relatively unknown Long Island congressman stepped in to replace him. But Lazio quickly gained national attention as the underdog in an important race, and contributions poured in from across the country to help him mount a full campaign against a much better known candidate. Eventually this became one of the most costly senatorial races in history, with Hillary Clinton spending $29 million, including about $9.6 million in “soft” money,64 and Rick Lazio disbursing nearly $40 million, a record for a losing candidate.65

  On November 7, 2001, Hillary entertained jubilant supporters at her victory celebration at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Manhattan by summing up the race: “Sixty-two counties, sixteen months, three debates, two opponents and six pantsuits.”66 In fact, she had won handily, and some observers expressed surprise that she had done so well with women voters who favored her over her Republican opponent by roughly three to two. Throughout the campaign, the media focused on the “why I hate Hillary” syndrome among female voters, who disapproved of her ambition, distrusted her explanations on the lost billing records and other matters, and denigrated her decision to defend and stay with a husband who had treated her so shabbily. But the candidate’s stands on important issues, including an unequivocal support for Roe v. Wade and her hard work in the long campaign, paid off. She had defeated Lazio by 12 percentage points.67

  For the next few weeks, Hillary made history by juggling two demanding roles, lame duck First Lady and senator-elect from one of the nation’s largest states. She continued to preside over a busy presidential mansion, taking advantage of her last few weeks at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to entertain hundreds of people at receptions and dinners. Her new book, An Invitation to the White House, dealt with typical First Lady fare, including favorite family recipes, anecdotes about invited guests, and many photos of the mansion’s interior.68 But she also attended briefing sessions for newly elected legislators and gave her own share of interviews about what she considered the most pressing among national issues, such as health care and education. A U.S. senator needs a residence in the capital, and in December, the Clintons purchased a six-bedroom house in northwest Washington, a house big enough, she explained, to accommodate researchers examining her First Lady records. When the time came to sign a contract for her autobiography, she set another record for presidential spouses by drawing an $8 million advance.69

  Her first eight months in the U.S. Senate brought few surprises and little notice. Assigned to committees dealing with some of her favorite interests, she was able to champion bills that helped her constituents with expanded school budgets and improved transportation.70 Then, with the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, everything changed for the freshman senator from New York, and she moved into a far more prominent role, trying to help New York City and those most harmed.

  Before she had completed two years in the Senate, Hillary Rodham Clinton was already being mentioned as a possible candidate for president in 2008. She disavowed any interest in running, but shrewd observers pointed out that her chances had improved considerably in the last few years: many voters in 2008 would have come of age recently, with little memory of her troubles in the early White House years; time and hard work would obliterate some of th
e negatives once associated with her; and people would see her, not as a humiliated First Lady who eventually ran for office, but as powerful New York senator who had once lived in the White House. Much would depend on how she used the Senate years.

  In the 2000 presidential campaign, the candidates’ wives made a point of showing how much they differed from Hillary. In fact, they shared much with her. The four women whose husbands headed the major party tickets (Laura Bush and Lynne Cheney on the Republican and Tipper Gore and Hadassah Lieberman on the Democratic) were all well educated, with at least one graduate degree each, and Cheney boasted a Ph.D. in English literature. Two had published books and all four had run enough charities and voluntary organizations to feel confident about undertaking an executive role. All four had been coached about the most flattering makeup and clothing choices, and they had spent enough time in the nation’s power hub to feel comfortable in front of TV cameras. None suffered from the “microphone fright” that paralyzed Mamie Eisenhower or the insecurities that dogged capital newcomer Rosalynn Carter.

  A comparison with their counterparts in the presidential election a century earlier shows how very much women’s lives had changed. Before their marriages, the spouses of the candidates in 1900 had all shown considerable spunk, but by the time their husbands vied with each other to lead the nation they had learned they could best advance their husbands’ political careers by keeping their mouths shut. Ida McKinley, who as a young woman had flaunted tradition by taking a job in her father’s bank, matured into a sickly, possessive, doll-like mannequin who rarely spoke but simply sat by her husband’s side wearing lavish lace and costly jewels. Edith Roosevelt, whom her brainy husband praised as better read than he, shunned interviews of any kind and avoided making comments that could be construed as even mildly controversial. Mary Bryan, who held the same law degree as her husband and often helped research and write his speeches, had already paid a price for showing she had a brain. In the previous election, when her husband had first been chosen to head the Democratic ticket, she was castigated as a “woman who aims to do too much.”71 Letitia Stevenson, wife of the Democratic vice presidential nominee (and grandmother of Adlai Stevenson who later ran twice for the presidency), had met her husband when they were both college students, but in their thirty-four years of marriage, she had learned to defer to him.