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

attended the 7:30 A.M. senior staff meeting with the President’s top advisers. I also had a domestic policy staffer assigned to my office fulltime, as well as a presidential speechwriter designated to work on my speeches, especially those relating to health care reform. My staff of twenty included a Deputy Chief of Staff, press secretary, scheduler, travel director and compiler of my daily briefing book. Two of the original staff are still with me today: Pam Cicetti, an experienced executive assistant who became my all-purpose person, and Alice Pushkar, Director of the First Lady’s Correspondence, who assumed one of the most daunting of all jobs with poise and imagination.

These physical and staff changes were important if I was going to be involved in working on Bill’s agenda, particularly as it related to issues affecting women, children and families. The people I hired were committed to the issues and to the idea that government could―and should―be a partner in creating opportunities for people who were willing to work hard and take responsibility. Most of them came out of the public sector or from organizations committed to improving economic, political and social conditions for the underrepresented and the underprivileged.

Before long, my staff was recognized within the administration and by the press as active and influential, due in large part to the leadership of Maggie and Melanne Verveer, my Deputy Chief of Staff. Melanne and her husband, Phil, had been friends of Bill’s since their days at Georgetown University, and she was a longtime Democratic activist and experienced Washington hand. A true policy wonk who loves the complexities and nuances of issues, Melanne had worked for years on Capitol Hill and in the advocacy world. I used to joke that there wasn’t a single person in Washington she didn’t know.

Not only was Melanne a legend in the nation’s capital; so was her Rolodex. At last count, it contained six thousand names. There is no way to catalog the many projects that Melanne masterminded, first as Deputy and then, in the second term, as my Chief of Staff. She also became a key player on the President’s team, advocating for policies affecting women, human rights, legal services and the arts.

Soon my staff became known around the White House as “Hillaryland.” We were fully immersed in the daily operations of the West Wing, but we were also our own little subculture within the White House. My staff prided themselves on discretion, loyalty and camaraderie, and we had our own special ethos. While the West Wing had a tendency to leak, Hillaryland never did. While the President’s senior advisers jockeyed for big offices with proximity to the Oval Office, my senior staff happily shared offices with their young assistants. We had toys and crayons for children in our main conference room and every child who ever visited knew exactly where we stashed the cookies. One Christmas, Melanne ordered lapel buttons that read, in very small letters, HILLARYLAND, and she and I began handing out honorary memberships, usually to long-suffering spouses and children of my overworked staffers. Membership entitled them to visit anytime―and to come to all of our parties.

The West Wing operation was up and running, but my East Wing duties were still giving me the jitters. Just ten days after the inauguration, Bill and I would be hosting our first big event, the National Governors Association annual dinner. Bill had been Chairman of the NGA, and many of those attending were colleagues and friends we had known for years. We wanted the dinner to come off well, and I was eager to dispel the notion, percolating in the news media, that I had little interest in the customary functions of the First Lady’s office, which included overseeing White House social events. I had enjoyed those responsibilities, carried out on a far less grand scale, as First Lady of Arkansas and looked forward to them now. But my staff and I needed guidance. I had been to White House dinners since 1977, when President and Mrs. Carter invited then Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton and his spouse to a dinner honoring Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of Canada and his wife, Margaret. We had been back every year Bill was Governor for the very dinner I was now charged with planning. Attending the event as guests was a far cry from hosting it ourselves.

I had the help of our new social secretary Ann Stock, an energetic woman of impeccable taste and style who had worked in the Carter White House and then as a top executive at Bloomingdale’s. Ann and I tried different combinations of linens and place settings before settling on the gold-and-red-rimmed china acquired by Mrs. Reagan. We worked on the seating arrangements, eager to ensure that our guests would be comfortable with their tablemates. We knew almost everyone and decided to mix them up on the basis of interests and personalities. I consulted with the White House florist, Nancy Clarke, as she arranged the tulips I had selected for each table. From that day on, Nancy’s cheerful stamina never ceased to amaze me.

Every hour of life in the White House brought some new and unanticipated hurdle.

Yet there were few people I could talk to who genuinely understood my experience. My close friends were supportive and always available for conversations by phone, but none of them had lived in the White House. Fortunately, though, someone I knew had, and she understood what I was going through. She became a valued source of wisdom, advice and support.

On January 26, a bitterly cold morning just a few days after the inauguration, I flew to New York City on the regular shuttle. It was my only flight on a commercial airline during my eight years at the White House. Because of the security required and the inconvenience to other passengers, I agreed with the Secret Service to forgo that link to my previous life. Officially, I was going to New York to receive the Lewis Hine Award for