Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [25]
Recalled Susan McDougal: “We drove up, and Jim, you know, bought all of the necessary clothing, the boots and the little vest with the pockets.” The group slogged ahead, with McDougal wielding a scythe to clear away brush made thick by heavy summer rain, using the other hand to slap away “dog-pecker gnats.” When the trio reached the precipice of the property, they took in a breathtaking view: steep limestone bluffs; a handsome hardwood forest framed against a blue sky; small green herons swooping down from their nests; the dramatic slope down to the river, where fishermen in canoes and johnboats were pulling up trophy-sized smallmouths and goggle-eyed perch—the sweetest-tasting fish one could fry up in peanut oil. A velvety mist drifted over the river as if signaling an extraspecial omen.
The three figures gazed down on the White River, which ran fast with water so clear they imagined they could drink it. The sparkling water was just “hitting the rocks and spraying up, and it was just beautiful,” recalled Susan. “And I said, ‘God, that, you know, looks like whitewater,’” meaning white-water rapids. Jim expressed confidence that he could get financing to purchase the property. On the spot, he commissioned Wade to resell off the land in parcels and deputized Susan to handle the work of producing brochures that marketed this new recreational mecca.
They decided to call it the White Water Estates.
“We must have been there at the height of the rain,” Susan would later observe. “Because I went later, and it looked like a dirty mud puddle.”
BILL and Hillary Clinton were perfect candidates to share in the opportunity created by this spectacular new investment. Bill was a popular state attorney general. It was public knowledge he had his eye on the governor’s mansion. Hillary was a lawyer at the prestigious Rose Law Firm. Already, they were one of the most powerful couples in the state. The Clintons knew Jim McDougal; they liked his quick wit and grandiloquent style. They had already entrusted him with a small five-acre real estate investment—at Saltillo Heights outside Little Rock—on the recommendation of their common mentor, former Senator Fulbright. It was a venture that had yielded a tidy profit of $1,150 for the Clintons. It was no secret that the couple needed to supplement Bill’s modest attorney general’s salary, if they were going to start a family and gear up for a run for the governor’s mansion. They welcomed such opportunities.
In confidential responses to interrogatories issued by the Resolution Trust Corporation in 1995, Bill and Hillary Clinton would explain the whys and hows of the transaction that had turned into an investor’s nightmare. President Clinton would tell the RTC investigators: “As a native Arkansan who had spent time all over the state, I had a general knowledge that there were many profitable land investments in the northern part of the state in the 1970’s and that there appeared to be a market for vacation and retirement real estate in northern Arkansas, an area of great natural beauty.” As an added bonus, he considered Jim McDougal “a political supporter,” having first met McDougal between 1966 and 1968, when they both worked for Senator Fulbright. Said Clinton: “I considered him a friend.”
It could not be disputed that the Whitewater investment was a tiny blip on the radar screen of Bill and Hillary Clinton when it occurred. They were so preoccupied, in the mid-1970s, with making a name for themselves in Arkansas politics that they barely gave it a thought. This particular deal was consummated in a twenty-minute exchange at the Black-eyed Pea restaurant, famous for its chicken fried steak and fried dill pickles.
It was a cozy eatery just down the hill from the fashionable Hillcrest neighborhood where Bill and Hillary had recently moved into a yellow, modified Victorian house, a step up from the little brick bungalow on L Street, where they had lived when Bill was first elected attorney general. Jim and Susan McDougal had slid into a wooden booth