Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [21]
There was also, however, a dark side that McDougal worked hard to keep under wraps. He kept the alcohol demon in check by swearing off liquor, smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, drinking coffee constantly, and attending AA meetings. Susan saw few hints of the brooding, troubled side of Jim during their courtship. He seemed energized, outgoing. Jim took his new date boating on DeGray Lake, floating around with the Rileys for an afternoon on their pontoon boat. Claudia Riley instantly approved of Jim’s choice. She recalled Susan as a “shy” and “private” person who was also “a drop-dead gorgeous woman.” Claudia enjoyed Susan’s quick wit and her sweet innocence. As Susan sunned herself in her black bathing suit, Jim asked where she had gotten her “curves.” Susan replied, “They just showed up.” Claudia smiled and winked at Jim: This one was a keeper.
Because politics always seemed destined to be part of his life, Jim made sure that he included Susan in his periodic political forays. It was in this fashion that she came to meet candidate Bill Clinton, during her senior year of college.
Claudia and Bob Riley already knew young Bill Clinton. He would regularly “flop” at the Riley house in Arkadelphia, dropping in to engage in political banter and to learn at the feet of the lieutenant governor. “He seemed to admire my husband’s courage,” explained Claudia Riley. “And he did a lot of things [later] to try to bring recognition to my husband.”
There was an additional connection that brought Clinton and McDougal into the same orbit. Clinton, as a Georgetown student, had served as an intern for Senator Fulbright on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff. Then he was hired to drive a car for Fulbright during his 1968 Senate campaign. (McDougal eventually had to assign the student to another job, because Clinton distracted the senator with his incessant political chatter.) From the beginning, McDougal and Clinton had trod in the same political circles. So it was perfectly natural that when Clinton decided to make a run for attorney general in the fall of 1975, he would utilize his contacts at Ouachita Baptist University—including the Rileys and McDougal—to garner help.
Susan Henley, who was enrolled in a public speaking class at Henderson State University next door, received a last-minute call one day from Jim, saying, “Clinton is coming over—he wants to have some sort of gathering. The forward guy just called me, and they don’t have anybody. It looks like it’s going to be a total flop. Is there anything you can do?”
Susan arranged for her entire class to attend the speech. She would never forget that day, watching the candidate with thick, wavy brown hair work the crowd. She recalled that Clinton was “a big, raw-boned, hammy kind of guy.” He was “kind of pudgy” with “kind of a pudgy face.” He had “both qualities of openness and yet focused intensity, which is kind of a contrast.… He could give you the sense that you were the only person in the world.” Susan could tell that Clinton took a shine to McDougal. “He seemed to defer to Jim—in my eyes, Jim was very knowledgeable and much more sophisticated and Clinton was looking up to Jim and asking his advice and that sort of thing. It made an impression because at the time I was, you know, falling in love with Jim and we were talking about getting engaged. And Clinton seemed like a nice enough person, but in contrast to McDougal, he was very young and very inexperienced.”
The next thing she knew, Clinton hit them both up for contributions. “He asked Jim for money,