Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [537]
President Bill Clinton would see nothing heroic: Bill Clinton, interview by author.
For Susan McDougal, the whole experience: Susan McDougal, interview by author.
Vanity Fair ran a story: Judy Bachrach, “Joan of Arkansas,” Vanity Fair, January 1999; Ann W. O’Neill, “Steel Magnolia,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, 9 May 1999.
“profoundly wrong”: Ken Starr, interview by author.
There was a romantic affair: A number of journalists have at various times reported pieces of evidence, never corroborated, suggesting that Susan McDougal may have had an affair with Clinton at some point, and that this might explain her refusal to testify before the grand jury. See James B. Stewart, “Susan McDougal’s Silence: Why Won’t She Talk?” The New Yorker, 17 February 1997, 62, 63–64 (reporting Jim McDougal’s allegation that he had overheard Clinton and his wife talking on the phone in 1982, in an intimate fashion, and that Susan thereafter admitted to him that she was having an affair with Clinton); Michael Isikoff, Uncovering Clinton, 381–82 n. 1 (reporting that two White House lawyers, Jane Sherburne and Mark Fabiani, received a call from Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz in September of 1996, just days before Susan McDougal refused to testify in front of Starr’s grand jury. According to this account, Susan had called Dershowitz to seek advice concerning her pending grand jury appearance because she feared she would be forced to acknowledge a sexual relationship with Clinton. Dershowitz purportedly confirmed to Susan that there would be no way to avoid the subject if she testified under oath. Dershowtiz would not admit or deny the conversation to Isikoff, citing attorney-client privilege, even though he did not formally represent Susan). Susan McDougal later emphatically denied these reports and denied the existence of an affair with Clinton. Sources now confirm, however, that Dershowitz indeed placed the call to Mark Fabiani, conveying the information as a “heads up” that it might come out if Susan McDougal testified. However, it is also clear that this was not “the primary motivating factor causing Susan to question whether to testify.” Rather, it was as if she wished to deliver a message to the White House, through Dershowitz, that she was mulling over her options and “this was not something that she wanted to do,” but that President Clinton “needed to plan for it” because if she did testify she would have to “answer questions about [the affair].”
“I had no idea”: Susan McDougal, follow-up interview by author, 26 Aug. 2006.
In death, she said: It is likely that Jim McDougal was entitled to a government grave marker, in light of his satisfactory (albeit basic) participation in the Arkansas Air National Guard. Although he fell just short of the usual six-year stint in the National Guard, official records indicate that he did serve from February 26, 1964, through March 27, 1968 (Statement of Service for James B. McDougal, State of Arkansas, Office of the Adjutant General, 6 Apr. 2009 [obtained through Freedom of Information Act]). The Veterans Administration guidelines defining which veterans are entitled to government grave markers can be found at www.va.gov/vaforms/va/pdf/va40–1330.pdf
pardoning billionaire fugitive Marc Rich: Jessica Reaves, “The Marc Rich Case: A Primer,” Time, 13 Feb. 2001.
Clinton said: The case of Webb Hubbell had presented a tough situation for the outgoing president and his Justice Department. Hubbell, unlike Susan McDougal, had pleaded guilty to a crime, in the form of cheating the Rose Law Firm and its clients. There were also issues under Justice Department guidelines as to whether sufficient time had passed before granting a pardon, since Hubbell had been indicted three separate times by Starr’s office and five years had not passed—the usual rule of thumb before granting a pardon. On the other hand, Hubbell had clearly been targeted for prosecution “for the simple reason that [he] refused to lie about me [Bill Clinton] or Hillary”—that much seemed evident to Clinton as he wrangled with the decision. The