Citizen Clinton Up Close

Living well is at least some revenge. Tuesday he had lunch alone with Willie Mays at the Harlem office. Wednesday it was Robin Williams and Billy Crystal at a midtown restaurant, interrupted by a polite greeting from another diner, George Stephanopoulos, the first time the two had seen each other since the former White House aide savaged his old boss in a book. By Easter he was off to Oscar de la Renta's spread in the Dominican Republic for vacation with Hillary, Chelsea and Ian Klaus, Chelsea's Rhodes-scholar boyfriend.

Then it's eight American cities in the next three weeks. Plus a hop over to Austria somewhere in between.

That's positively sedentary for private citizen Bill Clinton, who has yakked his way through nearly 200 speeches in 30 countries since leaving office 14 months ago, an average of almost one every other day, not counting all the times he holds court--sometimes endlessly--with practically anyone he meets. The talk and travel is its own kind of therapy. He's visited six of the world's seven continents at least twice, and would stump across Antarctica if the penguins anted up.

The man's still a radioactive isotope for millions, so here's a little speculative math to drive the Clinton haters nuts: overseas gigs pull in $200,000 to $300,000 a pop (far short of the $2 million Ronald Reagan received for a visit to Japan in 1989, but Reagan rarely traveled); American conferences and banquets yield at least $125,000, and bookings continue to be strong for the foreseeable future. Clinton's Harlem staff estimates that 40 percent of his speeches are for pay, which would put Clinton's annual speaking income at somewhere between $10 million and $15 million, all but erasing his roughly $5 million in legal bills. With his $12 million book deal, the largest in world history, the only impeached president of the 20th century will gross about $40 million in his first couple of years out of office.

This is rock-and-roll tour money. The organizers of one British event last year had to inquire of the tax office whether Clinton was properly classified as a "statesman" or "entertainer," the latter requiring a 22 percent tax on the speaking fee. After careful deliberation, the tax collectors declared him still a statesman, a decision that might prove more controversial with some of their American cousins.

But star power can't bring back real power. Another trip to Africa--the only continent where the former president doesn't charge for his services--was postponed in late March because the leaders Clinton was supposed to meet there to discuss AIDS and his foundation's development projects stood him up when they decided to attend a big poverty conference in Monterrey, Mexico, the same week. The Africans wanted a chance to meet President Bush instead.