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By Root 2085 0

young Ken Starr had grown up in modest surroundings and listened to his father (a preacher and a barber) preparing sermons in the backyard next to a cow pasture. Starr’s wife, Alice, overcame her wariness of writers in the wake of the bruising independent counsel period to share touching stories about her husband—adding a wife’s elegant touch to the story. Starr’s personal assistant, Neille Mallon Russell, was more enthused about helping to shine a light on her former boss’s multitudinous good qualities than any other person on earth. Starr’s top deputy in Arkansas, Hickman Ewing, Jr.—a prosecutor with boundless energy and a near photographic memory—took the author on a “scandal tour” of Little Rock to see where key events took place. Jackie Bennett, an imposing Indiana lawyer who eventually ran the Washington office for Starr, gave up many hours to speak candidly with me; for this openness in the face of known disagreements that could have led others to refuse to talk, I will always be appreciative. Finally, OIC prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig arranged for me to tour the Office of Independent Counsel in Washington before it shut down its operations, making it possible to describe crucial scenes with much more accuracy. Rosenzweig also read a draft of the manuscript and provided unvarnished comments—a hazardous task, especially because he knew that he disagreed with my perspective in many places. His suggestions made the finished manuscript much better than it would have been without his careful eye.

Lew Merletti, who served as director of the Secret Service during the Starr period, broke his silence to share his dramatic story about that agency’s struggle to prevent the special prosecutor from destroying the protective envelope around the president—and about his agents’ battle with the FBI that was often seeking to thwart them. Merletti agonized for months before agreeing to tell his story on the record. He and his fellow USSS agents, including Clint Hill, turned out to be living embodiments of the Secret Service’s motto: “Worthy of trust and confidence.”

A host of journalists shared their time and expertise to assist in this endeavor. Special thanks to Jeffrey Toobin in New York (who covered the Lewinsky affair for The New Yorker) and Gene Lyons in Arkansas (who wrote excellent accounts of Whitewater). They shared massive archives of raw material that they had gathered up as they covered the story on the ground. James Stewart, author of Blood Sport, was likewise generous in helping a fellow Harvard Law grad navigate the Arkansas environs. David Maraniss, author of First in His Class, still one of the best biographies of Bill Clinton, provided useful information relating to Clinton’s prepresidential years.

Numerous folks read draft chapters, to the great benefit of the book. My sincere thanks to Roger Newman, a superb writer and editor; Judge Thomas Hardiman; Judge D. Brooks Smith; and the Honorable Robert J. Cindrich, my best friend and co-conspirator when it comes to all overly ambitious projects that seek to prove that even people from Swissvale and Avella can think big.

On the literary side of the house, I am indebted to my fellow Pitt Newser Jess Brailler, one of the most creative thinkers in the book business, who guided me in holding out for the kind of first-rate book I wanted. My artistic guru, friend, and collaborator, Matt Kambic, helped to brainstorm by creating early drafts of jacket art, providing input to the creative team at Crown until they settled on the perfect cover (many thanks to Whitney Cookman who led that creative effort). My cohort since kindergarten, Patty Boyd, did a spectacular job as copy editor, topping her Herculean effort on the Archibald Cox book and slogging through an additional two thousand notes.

Over the course of nine years, I have had a dozen stellar research assistants from Duquesne Law School, who have camped out in a dark war room in the basement and pored over documents and dug through boxes of newspapers that housed cockroaches and waterbugs. Special thanks to Linda Hernandez,