I returned to the rigors of Washington. In the third week of July, on the recommendation of Janet Reno, I dismissed the director of the FBI, William Sessions, after he refused to resign despite numerous problems within the agency. We had to find a replacement. Bernie Nussbaum urged me to choose Louis Freeh, a former FBI agent whom President Bush had appointed to the federal bench in New York after a stellar career as a federal prosecutor. When I met with Freeh, I asked him what he thought about the FBIs assertion at Waco that they had proceeded with the raid because it was wrong to keep so many of their resources tied down in one place for so long. Without knowing what I thought, he said forthrightly that he disagreed: They get paid to wait. That impressed me. I knew Freeh was a Republican, but Nussbaum assured me that he was a professional and a stand-up guy who would not use the FBI for political purposes. We scheduled the announcement for the twentieth. The day before, when word got out about the appointment, a retired FBI agent who was a friend of mine called Nancy Heinrich, who ran the Oval Office operations, to tell me not to do it. He said Freeh was too political and self-serving for the current climate. It gave me pause, but I sent word back that it was too late; the offer had been extended and accepted. I would just have to trust Bernie Nussbaums judgment.
When we announced Freehs appointment in a morning ceremony in the Rose Garden, I noticed Vince Foster standing at the back, near one of the grand old magnolia trees planted by Andrew Jackson. Vince had a smile on his face, and I remember thinking he must be relieved that he and the counsels office were working on things like Supreme Court and FBI appointments, instead of answering endless questions about the Travel Office. The whole ceremony seemed perfect, almost too good to be true. It was, in more ways than one.
That night I appeared on Larry Kings show from the library on the ground floor of the White House to talk about my battle for the budget and whatever else was on his and his callers minds. Like everyone else, I liked Larry King. He has a good sense of humor and a human touch, even when hes asking tough questions. About forty-five minutes into the program, things were going so well that Larry asked me if Id do an extra thirty minutes, so that we could take more questions from viewers. I agreed immediately and was looking forward to it, but at the next break Mack McLarty showed up and said we had to end the interview after an hour. At first I was irritated, thinking my staff was worried that I might make a mistake if I kept going, but the look in Macks eyes told me something else was going on.
After Larry and I wrapped up the interview and I shook hands with his crew, Mack walked me upstairs to the residence. Holding back tears, he told me Vince Foster was dead. Vince had left the Rose Garden after the ceremony for Louis Freeh, driven out to Fort Marcy Park, and shot himself with an old revolver that was a family heirloom. We had been friends virtually all our lives. Our backyards had touched when I lived with my grandparents in Hope. We had played together even before Mack and I started kindergarten. I knew Vince had been upset by the Travel Office controversy and held himself responsible for the criticism directed at the counsels office. He had also been wounded by questions raised about his competence and integrity in several Wall Street Journal editorials.
Just the night before, I had called Vince to invite him to watch a movie with me. I was hoping to give him some encouragement, but he had already gone home for the night and said he needed to spend some time with his wife, Lisa. I did my best in our phone conversation to persuade him to shrug off the Journal editorials. The Journal was a fine paper, but not that many people read its editorials; most of those who did were, like the editorial writers, conservatives who were lost to us anyway. Vince listened, but I could tell I hadnt convinced him. He had never been subject to public criticism before and, like so many people when theyre pounded in the press for the first time, he seemed to think that everyone had read the negative things said about him and believed them.
After Mack told me what had happened, Hillary called me from Little Rock. She already knew and was crying. Vince had been her closest friend at the Rose firm. She was frantically searching for an answer we would never completely findwhy this had happened. I did my best to convince her there was nothing she could have done, all the while wondering what I could have done. Then Mack and I went over to Vinces house to be with the family. Webb and Suzy Hubbell were there, as were several of Vinces friends from Arkansas and the White House. I tried to console everyone, but I was hurting too, and feeling, as I had when Frank Aller killed himself, angry at Vince for doing it and angry at myself for not seeing it coming and doing something, anything, to try to stop it. I was also sad for all my friends from Arkansas who had come to Washington wanting nothing more than to serve and do good, only to find their every move second-guessed. Now Vince, the tall, handsome, strong, and self-assured person they felt was the most stable of them all, was gone.
For whatever reason, Vince came to the end of his rope. In his briefcase, Bernie Nussbaum found a note that had been torn into little pieces. When put back together, it said, I was not meant for the job in the spotlight of public life in Washington. Here ruining people is considered sport. . . . The public will never believe the innocence of the Clintons and their loyal staff. Vince was overwhelmed, exhausted, and vulnerable to attacks by people who didnt play by the same rules he did. He was rooted in the values of honor and respect, and uprooted by those who valued power and personal assault more. And his untreated depression stripped him of the defenses that allowed the rest of us to survive.
The next day I spoke to the staff, telling them that there are things in life we cant control and mysteries we cant understand; that I wanted them to take more care with themselves, their friends, and their families; and that we couldnt deaden our sensitivities by working too hard. That last bit of advice had always been easier for me to give than to take.
We all went to Little Rock for Vinces funeral at St. Andrews Catholic Cathedral, then drove home to Hope, to lay Vince to rest in the cemetery where my grandparents and father were buried. Many people with whom wed gone to kindergarten and grade school were there. By then, I had given up trying to understand Vinces depression and suicide in favor of accepting them and being grateful for his life. In my eulogy at the funeral, I tried to capture all of Vinces wonderful qualities, what he meant to all of us, how much good hed done at the White House, and how profoundly honorable he was. I quoted from Leon Russells moving A Song for You: I love you in a place where theres no space or time. I love you for in my life you are a friend of mine.
It was summertime, and the watermelon crop had begun to come in. Before I left town, I stopped at Carter Russells place and sampled both the red- and yellow-meated ones. Then I discussed the finer points of Hopes main product with the traveling press, who knew I needed a respite from the pain and were uncommonly kind to me that day. I flew back to Washington thinking Vince was home, where he belonged, and thanking God that so many people cared about him.
The next day, July 24, I welcomed the current class of American Legion Boys Nation senators to the White House, on the thirtieth anniversary of my coming to the Rose Garden to meet President Kennedy. A number of my fellow delegates were also there for the reunion. Al Gore was lobbying hard for our economic plan, but he broke away for a couple of minutes to tell the boys, I have only one word of advice. If you can manage somehow to get a picture of you shaking hands with President Clinton, it might come in handy later on. I shook hands and posed for pictures with all of them, as I would do in six of my eight years in the White House, for both Boys and Girls Nation. I hope some of those photos turn up in campaign ads one day.
I spent the rest of the month and the early days of August lobbying individual representatives and senators on the economic plan. Roger Altmans war room was working the public side, having me do telephone press conferences in states whose members of Congress could go either way. Al Gore and the cabinet were making literally hundreds of calls and visits. The outcome was uncertain, and tilting away from us, for two reasons. The first was Senator David Borens proposal to scrap any energy tax; keep most, but not all, of the taxes on the high-income Americans, and make up the difference by eliminating much of the Earned Income Tax Credit; reduce the cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security and military and civilian pensions; and cap expenditures for Medicare and Medicaid below the projected requirements for new recipients and cost increases. Boren couldnt pass his proposal out of committee, but he gave Democrats from conservative states a place to go. It was also endorsed by Democratic senator Bennett Johnston of Louisiana and Republican senators John Danforth of Missouri and Bill Cohen of Maine.
When the budget had first passed, 5049, with Al Gore breaking the tie, Bennett Johnston had voted against it, along with Sam Nunn, Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Richard Shelby of Alabama, Richard Bryan of Nevada, and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. Shelby was already drifting toward the Republican Party in an increasingly Republican state; Sam Nunn was a hard no; DeConcini, Bryan, and Lautenberg were worried about the anti-tax mood in their states. As Ive said, I had made it the first time without them because two senators, one Republican and one Democrat, didnt vote. The next time, they would all show up. With all the Republicans against us, if Boren voted no and none of the others changed, I would lose 5149. Besides those six, Senator Bob Kerrey was also saying he might vote against the program. Our relationship had been strained by the presidential campaign, and Nebraska was a heavily Republican state. Still, I was optimistic about Kerrey because he was genuinely committed to reducing the deficit, and he was very close to the Senate Finance Committee chairman, Pat Moynihan, who was strongly supporting my plan.
In the House of Representatives, I had a different problem. Every Democrat knew he or she had maximum leverage, and many were bargaining with me over details of the plan or for help on specific issues. Many of the Democrats who came from anti-tax districts were especially afraid of voting for another increase in the gas tax only three years after Congress had last raised it. Besides the Speaker and his leadership team, my strongest supporter was the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Illinois congressman Dan Rostenkowski. Rostenkowski was a superb legislator who combined a fine mind with Chicago street skills, but he was being investigated for converting public funds to political uses, and the assumption was that the investigation would reduce his influence over other members. Every time I met with members of Congress, the press would ask me about Rostenkowski. To his everlasting credit, Rosty bulled right ahead, rounding up votes and telling his colleagues they had to do the right thing. He was still effective, and he had to be. The slightest misstep could lose a vote or two, plunging us off the razors edge into defeat.
In early August, as the budget drama moved to its climax, Warren Chr............