Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [47]
On May 8, Vince had been selected to deliver the commencement address at his law school alma mater in Fayetteville—a distinct honor. Yet those present would recall that Foster looked uncharacteristically “tired and humorless.” Foster’s sister, Sheila Anthony, would recall that her brother’s voice was “unnaturally strained and tense” during his commencement speech, which troubled her.
In addressing the graduates, Foster spoke somberly: “There is no victory, no advantage, no fee, no favor which is worth even a blemish on your reputation for intellect and integrity.” He urged the law graduates to spend as much time as possible with their children. “God only allows us so many opportunities with our children to read a story, go fishing, play catch, say our prayers together,” he said with flat affect into the microphone. “Try not to miss a one of them. The office can wait. It will still be there when your children are gone.”
One faculty member that day recalled leaning over and whispering to the professor next to him that it was “the most depressing graduation speech I had ever heard, both in content and manner.… I didn’t realize it until later, but it was, in retrospect, a farewell.”
In early June, five months after he had moved to Washington, Foster called Purvis at home in Little Rock. Purvis would recall with clarity: “It was very apparent in talking to him that he sounded depressed. He sounded tired and exhausted.” Purvis told Foster, invoking a Southern colloquialism, “Why don’t you just tell the president and Hillary that D.C. isn’t your lollipop?” Purvis prodded gently, “You’ll be welcomed back into the Rose Law Firm, back into the bar here in Little Rock, and nobody’d think any worse of you.”
But Foster responded in a subdued tone that he didn’t think this was an option. He told his friend that he would be written off as a “dismal failure” if he “couldn’t cut it in Washington.” He would also feel as if he were “letting down the two best friends he had in Bill and Hillary.” Right now, they needed him to assist in selecting a new Supreme Court justice. They counted on his advice on other high-level appointments. This work would literally help define the Clintons’ place in history. There was no way, Vince said, for him to walk away from this duty. Every night as he walked out of the White House at ten o’clock, “I get outside that gate and look back, and I see the White House lighted up,” he told Purvis in a halting voice. That image haunted Foster even as he went to bed: It reminded him that there was a limitless amount of crucial work waiting for him, the next day and the day after that.
Foster had called from inside his office in the West Wing of the White House, where he was putting in yet another weekend of work. Purvis recalled, “He felt like there was absolutely no way that he could leave that situation and come home. And I really do think he felt trapped.”
JULY 20, 1993, started out as “the best day we had [ever] had,” in the estimation of Bernie Nussbaum. It was six months to the day since Bill Clinton had been sworn in as president. At a morning ceremony in the Rose Garden, President Clinton had announced the appointment of former federal judge Louis Freeh to head the FBI, a nomination that produced enthusiastic bipartisan cheers. The Senate was holding hearings to consider the president’s nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the next associate justice on the Supreme Court—things seemed to be going marvelously.
Not everything, however, was as it appeared. Vince Foster had walked from the Rose Garden back to his office with a stiff stride. Just a day earlier, Foster’s assistant had noticed that he had posted three letters using his own stamps. He had left them for mail pickup, an unusual occurrence. One letter was addressed to Foster’s mother in Hope, Arkansas. Another was addressed to an insurance company.
White House Counsel Bernie Nussbaum posed for a few photos and returned to his own office, clicking on his minitelevision to watch C-SPAN’s broadcast of