Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [370]
Kendall, before escorting his client to this unprecedented grand jury appearance, strode down to the Red Room, where Ken Starr and his team were waiting. Short, compact, and exuding energy that nearly crackled with intensity, the president’s lawyer walked up to Starr and looked him in the eye. Kendall asked if the independent counsel would take a stroll with him—it was time to discuss a few matters. Together, the two men walked down the hall into the library, where they sat in chairs that seemed uncomfortably close.
Kendall had planned this “walk in the woods” for days. He leaned close to Starr and said in a serious tone, “You know all those nice things I was quoted saying about you in the Washington Post yesterday?” referring to a piece suggesting that the two opposing lawyers had much in common. “I didn’t say them,” Kendall stated. “I didn’t think you did,” Starr replied with an awkward laugh.
According to Starr’s recollection of this encounter, Kendall continued: “I want to tell you what we’re going to do. I don’t want there to be surprises. The president is going to acknowledge an improper relationship with Ms. Lewinsky. He will give you what you need. But I am very concerned about the dignity of the president and the presidency and the privacy of these matters to the family. He [the president] will have an opening statement, comment to make. He has it prepared, and he will read it.”
Kendall obviously had planned this last-minute talk so that the special prosecutor would have virtually no time to react. Starr blinked his eyes and said, “After he reads it, I think we should take a break.” Kendall replied, “Fine.” He, too, was operating on little sleep and large amounts of caffeine. The president’s lawyer continued, “We are going to give you what you need. We’re not going to play around with words. But if you try to humiliate or embarrass him—I will fight you to the knife.”
Starr was puzzled by Kendall’s phrase—“fight to the knife.” What did the lawyer mean by this threat? What rough-and-tumble brawl was awaiting OIC now?
In fact, Kendall would later confess that he was borrowing a line from an action movie that had been one of his favorites as a boy—The Iron Mistress, a 1951 film starring tough-guy Alan Ladd in which Ladd played Jim Bowie, the famed inventor of the Bowie knife. The motto of this rugged frontiersman, an idol to Midwest boys like Kendall, was, “When you lose your spare sword, you still have your knife. You fight to the last weapon.” The message Kendall was trying to deliver to Starr was, “The president is making a big admission here. You are filming this session, and you had better not try to bully him like you’ve bullied other witnesses. If your people start getting out of hand, we will fight back to the bitter end.” No judge, Kendall was prepared to wager, would force the president to answer explicit and lewd questions about sex acts after Clinton had made a confession, however generic and murky. The president’s lawyers were prepared to fight to the death on this point, if necessary.
Upon returning to the Red Room, the independent counsel grimly reported the news to his prosecutorial team. The hard-liners were outraged—they wanted to “walk out” the moment the president gave his canned speech if he refused to answer their detailed questions. Bob Bittman, however, cautioned that they should not be alarmists. His vote was, “Let’s see what he has to say. We have a subpoena. If he in fact refuses to testify, we can serve it and ask him more questions later.” Bittman’s point was, “Let’s see what questions he does answer.”
Starr stood up, smoothing the wrinkles out of his suit. Bittman’s approach, he said, was most consistent with obtaining the maximum