Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [35]
Susan recalled, “I got him out of the hospital and got him into a place where he was safe. And I would go and take care of him every day and then go home my own self to an apartment. Then the bank of Flippin called, and Jim wasn’t even able to cope with it at all. He wasn’t talking.” Susan had begun seeing a psychiatrist as well. She was attending Al-Anon meetings for family members dragged down by alcoholics. Her marriage with Jim, for all purposes, had disintegrated.
“It was in this climate,” wrote Jim McDougal for his lawyer in the midst of his first criminal prosecution, “… that I finally had a complete collapse and was forced to leave the savings and loan and was unable to return.”
BILL and Hillary Clinton, going about their day-to-day lives of governing Arkansas and practicing law, respectively, were largely oblivious to McDougal’s tailspin. Susan kept the impending collapse of Jim’s house of cards hushed up: “I was so scared to tell the Clintons because, you know, I’d have felt disloyal to Jim.”
When the bank in Flippin agreed to collect the Whitewater notes and apply these payments against the mortgage, to break even, Susan was ecstatic. She called the First Lady of Arkansas and told her things were getting back on track. Susan recalled: “God, I was so grateful. So gleeful I called down to the [governor’s] mansion and I said, ‘Oh, I’ve got it all worked out, you know, at the bank. But they need your financials, you know, to put in their loan file.’” To Susan’s shock, Hillary began “cross-examining” her about Whitewater sales and income. The First Lady seemed unwilling to turn over the Clintons’ financials without “more information than that.” Why should she take Susan’s word that Whitewater was losing money? She wanted documentation before “turning over their own private financials.”
So Susan “packed up every single document having to do with Whitewater, every single piece of paper, because Jim wasn’t able to even look at it. He wasn’t talking, he wasn’t walking, he wasn’t bathing himself, he wasn’t eating.” She dumped the papers into a large box filled with everything she could find relating to Whitewater, and asked her brother to drop it off at the governor’s mansion. Hillary could have her wish—the Clintons could deal with this mess.
“And I left,” said Susan McDougal. “I went to California almost right after that.”
The Clintons might have been rid of this nightmare if they had left the McDougals’ papers in the cardboard box, allowing the corporation to die a natural death. Yet Hillary Clinton was determined to be a thorough lawyer and a responsible investor, protecting her own assets. She mailed Susan McDougal a power of attorney in California, and another one to Jim McDougal. The papers would “authorize me to act on your behalf with respect to matters concerning Whitewater Development Corporation.” In a cover letter, dated November 1988, Mrs. Clinton stated that she hoped to “get all that behind us by the end of the year.” Susan dutifully signed the papers and called Jim the next day, saying, “Well, I did the power of attorney.” She was proud of herself “for actually getting something done.”
Jim roared back into the phone, “I can’t believe you’re so stupid, you’ll sign anything. You didn’t even ask me!” He berated Susan, repeating, “How could you be so stupid? Do you think this woman is your friend? Do you think they’re trying to help you?” Susan answered, “Yes, I did, I thought so.”
Jim snapped back, “I’m broke, and I don’t have anything, and I would like to use that to buy a piece of land and to start over again. And she knows that very well. Now you have given her your power of attorney.”
So Susan hung up the phone and called Hillary Clinton back at the governor’s mansion. Her voice trembling, she told Hillary, “Listen … I truly believe that Jim should have that vehicle because he has nothing and you have everything.… I mean, the inequity of [how Jim is