What Was Bill Thinking?

The 42nd president of the United States was not infrequently accused of being needy, greedy, and tantrum-prone, as well as over-fond of fast or junk food. But try this, about his Muscovite counterpart, from an entry dated Oct. 18, 1994:

"Yeltsin did not always cope with the pressure. President Clinton said Yeltsin's chronic escapes into alcohol were far more serious than the cultivated pose of a jolly Russian. They were worrisome for political stability, as only luck had prevented scandal or worse on both nights of this visit. Clinton had received notice of a major predawn security alarm when Secret Service agents discovered Yeltsin alone on Pennsylvania Avenue, dead drunk, clad in his underwear, yelling for a taxi. Yeltsin slurred his words in a loud argument with the baffled agents. He did not want to go back into Blair House, where he was staying. He wanted a taxi to go out for pizza. I asked what became of the standoff. 'Well,' the president said, shrugging, 'he got his pizza.' "

One has to respect a reporter who can (a) bring off a deadpan description of such a hair-raising event, and (b) keep such a sensational scoop to himself for 15 years. Taylor Branch's latest book has made me whistle more than any comparable piece of work for a very long time, and not just because of its many remarkable disclosures. (On the ensuing night, you may care to know, a plastered Yeltsin managed to escape Blair House security again, and was—in Branch's understated account—"briefly endangered." So we almost but not quite had to read about the leader of post-communist Russia being shot down while the guest of an American president undergoing a midterm election.)

One of the classic cartoon representations of the human dilemma shows a man with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, each of them whispering into one ear. Those who followed the eight tempestuous years of the William Jefferson Clinton presidency often thought they had worked out who in this picture played the role of seductive demon. That would be Dick Morris, forever counseling a new poll and a new compromise and playing the tempter with visions of "triangulation": an infinity of possible horse trades (and fundraisers).

But now it turns out that on the other epaulet was perched the principled figure of Taylor Branch, not at all claiming to be a harp-strummer himself but insistently reminding his old friend that there were better angels in politics and humanity whose claims should not be scorned. Branch is now justly famous for raising a noble edifice of work about the United States in the era of Martin Luther King, but back in 1972 it was essentially he and "Bill" who had drawn the short straw of organizing the McGovern campaign in the snake-strewn landscape of the Texas Democratic Party. When Clinton broke his party's losing streak in 1992, he turned straight to Branch to ask him to be the confidential chronicler of his White House. Their talks were so secret that no one other than Nancy Hernreich, Clinton's official scheduler, even knew they took place. When he was in the mood or had time, Clinton would call Branch at his home in Baltimore, and Branch would drive down with two tape recorders, set them up on a table somewhere private in the White House, and start the conversation. Branch himself has never heard the tapes. After each session, he would turn them over to Clinton—who hid the cassettes in his sock drawer—while Branch would tape his own memories of their talks on the drive back home. The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History With the Presidentis the consequence.

It seems from Branch's narrative that he hardly knew about the influence of Dick Morris (you can tell this from the number of times that Clinton indignantly denies to him the rumors about any such thing), and I would also guess that Morris in turn had no idea that a diehard 1960s liberal had the president's ear on 79 occasions between 1993 and 2001. But for Branch another problem of principle started to obtrude itself at once. Clinton didn't just want to kibitz or to confide. He also wanted untainted advice. Was it fair to exploit the old friendship in this way? Branch fairly rapidly decided that it was.

To read this account is to be transported back to a time when a visitor could park a pickup truck fairly near the White House, when Al Qaeda was a nasty rumor, and when Saddam Hussein was supposedly "contained." On the other hand, it is also to be transported back to a time when national health care was the most contentious issue in politics and when many prominent Republicans thought that the federal government would be better off being shut down. Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center are still undamaged when the tapes start whirring. (Other things, by contrast, retain their old shape. Clinton tells Branch that the embargo on Cuba is a "foolish, pandering failure" but seems unable to do anything to lift it, while the ruling Assad dynasty in Damascus apparently has access to the State Department and the White House at all times. There is daily concern about the volatility of Israeli politics and the spread of irritating yet apparently somehow unstoppable Jewish "settlements.")