Living History Unknown (best books to read fiction .txt) 📖

AUGUST 1998

August 1998 was a bloody month, and its events seemed to signal a turning point at the end of a hopeful decade. In much of the world, the mid-1990s had been a time of reconciliation and growing stability. The Soviet empire had dissolved without causing another world war, and Russia was working with the United States and Europe to construct a safer future. South Africa had held free elections. Virtually all of Latin America had embraced democracy. Ethnic cleansing in Bosnia had ceased and rebuilding had begun. The peace talks and cease-fire in Northern Ireland were successful. Despite terrible setbacks, leaders in the Middle East seemed to be edging toward peace. As always, there were pockets of conflict and suffering in all parts of the globe, but many hostilities had eased.

This period of relative calm was shattered on August 7 when the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were simultaneously bombed by Islamic terrorists, injuring over 5,000 people and killing 264, among them 12 Americans. Most of the victims were African office workers and pedestrians. It was the most devastating of a series of attacks on American targets overseas and an omen of things to come. Bill was more focused than ever on finding the causes of the terror campaign and isolating its leaders. It was increasingly evident to the intelligence community that a diabolical Saudi exile named Osama bin Laden was organizing and bankrolling much of the terrorism in the Muslim world, and his attacks were getting bigger and bolder.

In Iraq, Saddam Hussein had again defied U.N. demands requiring that weapons inspectors be granted full access to his facilities without notice. Bill conferred at length with U.N. officials and U.S. allies to weigh the proper response to Hussein. It was remarkable to everyone except those who knew him that Bill was able to shut out the political distractions around him in Washington and concentrate on the international crises.

But Bill and his national security team were having a hard time directing congressional attention and government resources to the growing threats at home and abroad. Perhaps that was because so much energy in the news media, Congress and the FBI was directed to an investigation of the President’s private life.

In late July, I learned from David Kendall that Starr had negotiated an immunity deal with Monica Lewinsky. She testified before the Whitewater Grand Jury―which no longer had anything to do with Whitewater―on August 6. Starr was determined to subpoena the President to testify, and Bill had to decide whether or not to cooperate. Bill’s legal team opposed the idea, asserting that the target of an investigation should never testify before a grand jury. If it came to a trial, anything he said could be used against him.

But the political pressure to testify was intense. Another midterm election was coming up, and Bill did not want this issue to cloud it. I agreed that Bill had to testify, and I didn’t think there was any reason to worry if he did. It was just another hurdle. David Kendall was briefing Bill and me regularly on developments in the Starr investigation, and I knew the prosecution had requested a blood sample from the President without specifying its significance. David thought it was possible the OIC was bluffing, trying to spook Bill right before his testimony.

I knew from my own experience that a grand jury appearance is nerveracking. On Friday night, August 14, Bob Barnett met with me in the Yellow Oval Room to talk over some unrelated business and, as a friend, to see how I was holding up. After we’d finished, Bob asked me if I was worried. “No,” I said, “I’m just sorry all of us have to endure this.”

Then Bob said, “What if there’s more to this than you know?” “I don’t believe there is. I’ve asked Bill over and over again.” Bob persisted. “What if Starr springs something on him?”

“I wouldn’t believe anything Starr said or did based on my own experience.”

“But,” Bob continued, “you have to face the fact that something about this might be true.”

“Look, Bob,” I said. “My husband may have his faults, but he has never lied to me.”

Early the next morning, Saturday, August 15, Bill woke me up just as he had done months before. This time he didn’t sit by the bed, but paced back and forth. He told me for the first time that the situation was much more serious than he had previously acknowledged.

He now realized he would have to testify that there had been an inappropriate intimacy. He told me that what happened between them had been brief and sporadic.

He couldn’t tell me seven months ago, he said, because he was too ashamed to admit it and he knew how angry and hurt I would be.

I could hardly breathe. Gulping for air, I started crying and yelling at him, “What do you mean? What are you saying? Why did you lie to me?”

I was furious and getting more so by the second. He just stood there saying over and over again, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was trying to protect you and Chelsea.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Up until now I only thought that he’d been foolish for paying attention to the young woman and was convinced that he was being railroaded. I couldn’t believe he would do anything to endanger our marriage and our family. I was dumbfounded, heartbroken and outraged that I’d believed him at all.

Then I realized that Bill and I had to tell Chelsea. When I told him he had to do this, his eyes filled with tears. He had betrayed the trust in our marriage, and we both knew it might be an irreparable breach. And we had to tell Chelsea that he had lied to her too.

These were terrible moments for all of us. I didn’t know whether our marriage could―or should―survive such a stinging betrayal, but I knew