NEWSWEEK: The memo says, “Foster regularly informed me that the First Lady was concerned and desired action–the action desired was the firing of the Travel Office staff.”
Mrs. CLINTON: I just don’t have any memory of that. What I do remember is having a conversation with David Watkins, at Vince Foster’s suggestion, in which Watkins told me that [the accounting firm] Peat Marwick had begun its investigation into the financial management of the Travel Office. And I said, it looks like that’s what should be done.
Do you feel that the Whitewater Investigation has become targeted at you?
I don’t know. It’s been going on a long time. We’ve tried to cooperate in every way we can because nobody would like this matter over with more than I would. But the ground keeps shifting about what it supposedly is about.
In 1992 you said you had done “minimal” work for Madison. But recently, notes taken by Susan Thomases say you had “numerous conferences” on the subject. Hew do you reconcile that?
Based on the evidence that we’ve seen, the Rose Law Firm represented Madison for about 15 months. And over those 15 months I did about an hour a week worth of work. There is no way that I think of an hour a week over 15 months as being a significant amount of work.
One area of confusion is the documents in Foster’s office after his death. Wars you concerned about law enforcement having unfettered access to them?
No. No documents were taken out of Vince Foster’s office the night he died. And I did not direct anyone to interfere with any investigation into his death. I don’t know how best to convey the level of grief and shock and distress that I and other people felt at the news. There was no discussion of documents, or Whitewater, or anything like that. That was not what any of us were thinking about.
But there wore documents hers in the residence for five days. Why were they here if not to review them?
Because when I was in Arkansas [at the time of Foster’s suicide] I was called [and told] that [White House counsel] Bernie Nussbaum was distributing the documents out at Vince’s office. There were personal documents of mine which I didn’t even know Vince had. I was asked what should be done with them and I said, “Well, send them to our lawyers.” And the decision was made that they couldn’t get sent over that day. I was asked if there were a place that they could be stored, and I said, “I don’t know, talk to some of the people in the residence.” And so they were locked up there. It’s difficult to keep track of all the spider webs that are spun and the theories and the immuendoes. Then they were picked up by our lawyer and examined and then an index was made of them. And the index was sent to me and that was the first time I knew it was there.
You never reviewed them at all?
No. Because it wasn’t important to us. Maybe if we had been here for a couple of years, maybe if we knew a little bit more about what the possible conspiracies that could be spun might look like, everybody would have tried to be more thoughtful or dispassionate in the heat of that moment.
Are you thinking personally of testifying at this point?
Well, I’m looking to continue to cooperate.
So you’re waiting for a subpoena?
I’m not going to predict what might or might not happen.
Your friends talk about your Methodism and Yale Law School as important influences on you. How would you explain what motivates you?
I was always grateful for what I had and always felt bad for kids I went to school with who seemed like really good kids who never had any luck, never had any breaks at all. [They] needed just a little bit of help from somebody– a teacher, a reach, a minister. When I got to college and law school, I began to study child development.
That was a rough year [in 1995]: health care went down, Foster died. Was this book a way to come out of that?
I didn’t think about it that way, but it gave me a lot of time alone. A lot of times I’d be staring at the blank page trying to figure out how I was going to put what I was feeling into readable English. Nineteen ninety-three was a personally very challenging and difficult year, with [the deaths of] my father and Vince and my mother-in-law. So I really did have to summon up a lot of my own resources, and work through many of the feelings that I had.
Do you see yourself as a pragmatist or an idealist?
I’ve always thought of myself as a pragmatist because a lot of what I believe we should do for one another is very practical. As many kids as possible [should] have as good a shot as possible, because I don’t want [Chelsea] to be afraid to go to a city park with her kids when she gets older.
There aren’t any simple answers. You can’t say, “Oh, it’s the government’s fault,” and you can’t say, “Oh, it’s just these irresponsible parents living in the inner city.” The responsibility is spread all the way across society. But the good news is there are things we can do right now that could make a difference if we would start having that kind of conversation.
