Domestic issues like these dominated my White House agenda during the spring of 1995. Then, the attention of the entire nation turned to an unfathomable tragedy.

  For me, April 19 began as an ordinary day of meetings and interviews. Around 11

  A.M., I was sitting in my favorite chair in the West Sitting Hall, going over scheduling requests with Maggie and Patti when Bill called urgently from the Oval Office with the news that there had been an explosion at the Alfred E Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City. The three of us immediately went into the kitchen and turned on the small television to see the screen filled with the first horrifying pictures broadcast from the scene.

  We learned over the next few hours that the damage had been caused by a truck bomb, but no one had solid information about who was responsible. Bill immediately dispatched teams from FEMA, the FBI and other government agencies to Oklahoma City to handle the emergency and to lead the investigation. Because the federal offices were destroyed by the bombing, many essential personnel were dead or injured. A Secret Service agent who had left the White House just seven months earlier for assignment to Oklahoma was one of five agents killed that day. Among the 168 innocent people who died in the bombing were nineteen children, most of whom attended the day care center on the second floor of the building.

  The images from Oklahoma City were disturbingly intimate: a little girl, limp as a rag doll, carried out of the smoking rubble by a heartbroken fireman; a terrified office worker being lifted onto the stretcher. The familiarity of the setting and the number of casualties brought the tragedy home to America in ways that other atrocities up until then could not.

  That was the point of the attack.

  We were also reminded that the “bureaucrats” who were always under attack by antigovernment zealots could be our neighbors, friends or relatives-that they have real lives and could lose them.

  The first thing people needed was information about the bombing and then the reassurance that everything possible was being done to protect them from further attacks. I was particularly concerned about children who were aware of the explosion at the child care center and might fear that their own schools weren’t safe. We talked with Chelsea and asked for her advice about how to reassure young children.

  On Saturday after the bombing, in a television and radio broadcast, Bill and I talked to a group of children whose parents were federal employees working for the same federal agencies as those attacked in Oklahoma. We thought it was important that as a mother and a father we both speak to the anxieties about such a terrible tragedy.

  “It’s okay to be frightened by something as bad as this,” Bill told the children sitting on the floor of the Oval Office as their parents stood nearby.

  “I want you to know that your parents … love you and are going to do everything they can to take care of you and to protect you,” I said. “There are many more good people in the world than bad and evil people.”

  Bill told the children that we would catch and punish whoever caused the bombing.

  And then he asked them to express their own thoughts about it.

  “It was mean,” said one child.

  “I feel sorry for the people that died,” said another.

  One question broke my heart, and I couldn’t answer it. “Who would want to do that to kids who had never done anything to them?”

  The rest of the country was seeing Bill as I knew him, a man with an unparalleled empathy and ability to bring people together in difficult times. Before we left the next day to visit families of the victims and to take part in a prayer service, we planted a dogwood tree on the South Lawn in memory of the victims. Bill and I met with a number of victims and their families in private before attending the large memorial service where Bill and the Rev. Billy Graham spoke, helping to heal a hurting nation. Whenever I watched Bill embrace sobbing family members, talk with heartbroken friends or comfort the terminally ill, I fell in love with him all over again. His sympathy draws from a deep well of caring and emotion that enables him to reach out to people in pain.

  By the time we got to Oklahoma City, a suspect had been arrested who had ties to militant antigovernment groups. It appeared that Timothy McVeigh had chosen April 19

  to attack the country he had come to despise because it was the anniversary of the terrible Waco fire, which killed over eighty members of the Branch Davidian cult, including children. McVeigh and his ilk represented the most alienated and violent elements of the extreme right wing, whose actions sickened every sensible American. Rightwing radio talk shows and websites intensified the atmosphere of hostility with their rhetoric of intolerance, anger and antigovernment paranoia, but the Oklahoma City bombing seemed to deflate the militia movement and marginalize the worst haters on the airwaves.

  Bill spoke forcefully against the hate-mongers and antigovernment zealots in a commencement speech at Michigan State University in early May. “There is nothing patriotic about hating your country, or pretending that you can love your country but despise your government.”

  While the country coped with the Oklahoma City tragedy, the Office of the Independent Counsel did not rest. On Saturday, April 22, after the children’s meeting in the Oval Office, Kenneth Starr and his deputies arrived at the White House to take sworn statements from me and the President. I had been interviewed by Robert Fiske the previous year, before he was replaced, but this would be my first encounter with Starr and his staff. Preparing for the interview was not something that David Kendall or I took lightly.

  Knowing that every word I uttered would be dissected by the OIC, David insisted that I cram in prep time no matter how busy I was. Often that meant meeting late at night or spending hours digesting information that he delivered to me in large black binders. I came to dread the sight of those binders because they were tangible reminders of the trivialities and minutiae I would be subjected to under oath, all of which could be used to trip me up legally.

  Bill went in for his interview in the Treaty Room, the President’s study on the second floor of the residence. Representing the White House were Abner Mikva, a former Congressman and federal judge, now White House counsel, and Jane Sherburne, an experienced litigator who had left her private law firm to handle legal issues attached to the investigation.

  They were joined by our private attorneys, David Kendall and his partner Nicole Seligman, two of the smartest and most caring people I’ve ever known. Starr and three other lawyers sat on one side of the long conference table we had brought in for the interviews. We sat on the other.

  As he came out of his interview, Bill told me his encounter with Starr had been amiable, and, to my amazement, Bill had asked Jane Sherburne to give Starr and his assistants a tour of the Lincoln Bedroom next door. Somewhat characteristically, I was not prepared to be as charitable as my husband, and this was only the first illustration of the differences between Bill’s way of dealing with Starr and mine. We were both in the eye of the storm, but I seemed to be buffeted by every gust of wind, while Bill just sailed along. The idea of hardcore Republican partisans rummaging through our lives, looking at every check we had written in twenty years, and harassing our friends on the flimsiest of excuses infuriated me.

  The Republicans opened up a new front when Al D’Amato, the Republican Senator from New York and Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, convened hearings on Whitewater. I have since made my peace with Senator D’Amato, now one of my most prominent constituents, but the hearings he and his fellow Republican Senators and their staffs conducted inflicted great emotional and monetary damage on innocent people.

  Despite Fiske’s finding that Vince Foster’s death was a suicide unrelated to Whitewater, D’Amato seemed to be fixated on Vince’s death, and he paraded past and present White House aides in front of the cameras to grill them about the sad event. Maggie Williams, normally centered and strong, was brought to tears by relentless questioning about events surrounding Vince Foster’s death. It was unbearable to watch Maggie raked over the coals again and again and to know that her legal bills were mounting daily.

  D’Amato called my friend Susan Thomases a liar as she tried to answer his questions.

  Her decades-long struggle with multiple sclerosis had impaired her memory, and she tried as hard as she could to respond to the bullying interrogation. I couldn’t console her or anyone caught up in this nightmare, because any discussion I might have with someone about any matter the investigators chose to ask about could suggest collusion or coaching. I had to avoid any discussion that could cause someone to answer “Yes” if asked whether he or she had talked to me.

  Standing on the sidelines, unable to speak out to defend my friends and colleagues, or even to speak to them about the injustices they were enduring, was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. And it would get worse before it got better.

  WOMEN’S RIGHTS

  ARE HUMAN RIGHTS

  The arrest of a dissident is not unusual in China, and Harry Wu’s imprisonment might have received scant attention in the American media. But China had been chosen to host the upcoming United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, and I was scheduled to attend as honorary Chair of the U.S. delegation. Wu, a human rights activist who had spent nineteen years as a political prisoner in Chinese labor camps before emigrating to the United States, was arrested by Chinese authorities on June 19, 1995, as he entered Xinjiang Province from neighboring Kazakhstan.

  Although he had a valid visa to visit China, he was charged with espionage and thrown in jail to await trial. Overnight, Harry Wu became widely known, and U.S. participation in the women’s conference was cast into doubt as human rights groups, Chinese American activists and some members of Congress urged our nation to boycott. I sympathized with their cause, but it disappointed me that, once again, the crucial concerns of women might be sacrificed.

  Typically, governments (including that of the U.S.) limit their foreign policies to diplomatic, military and trade issues, the staple of most treaties, pacts and negotiations. Seldom are issues such as women’s health, the education of girls, the absence of women’s legal and political rights or their economic isolation injected into the foreign policy debate.

  Yet it was clear to me that in the new global economy, individual countries and regions would find it difficult to make economic or social progress if a disproportionate percentage of their female population remained poor, uneducated, unhealthy and disenfranchised.

  The U.N. women’s conference was expected to provide an important forum for nations to address issues such as maternal and child health care, microfinance, domestic violence, girls’ education, family planning, women’s suffrage, property and legal rights.

  It would also offer a rare opportunity for women from around the world to share stories, information and strategies for future action in their own countries. The conference is held roughly every five years, and I hoped my presence would signal the U.S. commitment to the needs and rights of women in international policy.

  I had been working on women’s and children’s issues in the United States for twentyfive years, and, although women in our own country had made gains economically and politically, the same could not be said for the vast majority of women in the world. Yet virtually no one who could attract media attention was speaking out on their behalf.

  At the time of Harry Wu’s arrest, my staff and I were deeply involved in planning for the conference. But there were already grumblings from the usual suspects in Congress who felt the United States should not participate. Among them were Senators Jesse Helms and Phil Gramm, who announced that the conference was “shaping up as an unsanctioned festival of anti-family, anti-American sentiment.” Some members of Congress were skeptical of any event sponsored by the United Nations and were equally dismissive of a gathering focused on women’s issues. The Vatican, vociferous on the subject of abortion, joined forces with some Islamic countries concerned that the conference would become an international platform to promote the women’s rights they opposed. And some on the American political left were unhappy about the prospect of U.S. participation because the Chinese government was indicating that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) advocating maternal health, property rights for women, microfinance and many other issues might be excluded from the official gathering. Chinese authorities made it difficult for Tibetan activists and others to get visas to enter China. Furthermore, there was widespread discomfort, which I shared, about the host nation’s dismal record on human rights and its barbaric policy of condoning forced abortions as a means of imposing its “one child policy.”

  Sensitive to concerns across the political spectrum, I worked with Melanne Verveer and the President’s staff to assemble a delegation for Beijing. Bill named people from varied backgrounds to represent our nation, including Republican Tom Kean, the former Governor of New Jersey; Sister Dorothy Ann Kelly, President of the College of New Rochelle; and Dr. Laila Al-Marayati, Vice-Chair of the Muslim Women’s League. Madeleine Albright, then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, was the official head of the delegation.

  Months of meetings and strategy sessions with representatives from the United Nations and other countries were thrown into limbo after Wu’s imprisonment. Over the next six weeks, there was no short age of opinions about whether the United States should send a delegation to the conference and whether I should be part of it. I was particularly troubled by a personal letter from Mrs. Wu, who was understandably worried about her husband’s fate and felt that my participation in the conference “would be sending a confused signal to the leaders in Beijing about the resolve of the U.S. to press for Harry’s release.”

  It was a legitimate concern for me and for others in the White House and State Department.

  I knew the Chinese government wanted to use the conference as a public relations tool to improve its image around the world. If I went, I helped China look good. If I boycotted, I triggered bad publicity for the Chinese leadership. We were in a diplomatic bind in which Harry Wu’s imprisonment and my attendance at the conference were linked. Our government continued to state privately and publicly that I would not attend if Mr. Wu remained under arrest. When the disagreements became more vehement and resolution seemed unlikely, I considered going anyway, as a private citizen.

  Complicating the decision were equally serious concerns about the overall status of U.S.-China relations. Tensions were running high over disagreements about Taiwan, nuclear proliferation, China’s sale of M-11 missiles to Pakistan and ongoing human rights abuses. Relations deteriorated even further in mid-August when the Chinese engaged in the bravado of military exercises in the Taiwan Straits.

  Less than a month before the start of the conference, the Chinese government evidently decided that it couldn’t afford to generate more bad publicity. In a sham trial in Wuhan on August 24, a Chinese court convicted Harry Wu of spying and expelled him from the country. Some media commentators, and Wu himself, were convinced that the United States had made a political deal with the Chinese: Wu would be released, but only if I agreed to come to the conference and refrain from critical remarks about the host government. Clearly it was a delicate diplomatic moment, but there was never a quid pro quo between our government and China. Once the Wu case was resolved, the White House and State Department determined that I should make the trip. Back home in California, Mr. Wu criticized my decision, reiterating that my attendance might be construed as a tacit approval of China’s record on human rights. His Congresswoman, Nancy Pelosi, called to tell me that my presence would be a public relations coup for the Chinese.

  Bill and I were vacationing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and we discussed at length the pros and cons. He supported my view that once Wu had been released, the best way to confront the Chinese about human rights was directly, on their turf. At an event in Wyoming celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of America’s constitutional amendment extending to women the right to vote, Bill defused the issue and defended U.S. participation as important for women’s rights. His message was: “The conference presents a significant chance to chart further gains in the status of women.”

  By the end of August, our family vacation in the Tetons was winding down. We stayed at the comfortable Western-style home of Senator Jay Rockefeller and his wife, Sharon, where I spent much of my time working on my book, watching enviously as Bill and Chelsea went hiking and horseback riding in one of our nation’s most majestic settings.

  Chelsea, who had spent five weeks at a rigorous camp in southern Colorado, shooting rapids, climbing mountains, building shelters above the tree line and developing other outdoor skills, persuaded us to go camping. I hadn’t camped out since college, and Bill never had, unless you count the one night we spent sleeping in his car in Yosemite Park while driving across the country. We were game, but clueless. When we told the Secret Service we wanted to hike and camp in a secluded spot in the Grand Teton National Park, they went into overdrive. By the time we arrived at our campsite, they had staked out the perimeter and had agents patrolling with night-vision goggles. Chelsea laughed at our idea of “roughing it”―a tent with a wooden floor and air mattresses!

  We left Wyoming for Hawaii, where Bill spoke at the observance of the fiftieth anniversary of V-J Day at Pearl Harbor and at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific on September 2, 1995. The cemetery, better known as the Punchbowl for its location in the middle of a crater of an extinct volcano, is the site of more than 33,000 graves of those who lost their lives in the Pacific Theater during World War II, including those killed at Pearl Harbor and later in Korea and Vietnam. The sight of those graves and the thousands of World War II veterans and their families who attended the service was a solemn reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices made for our freedoms.