In 1946 William (Bill) Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe IV, but his father died in a car accident before he was born. Though his stepfather was an abusive alcoholic, at age fifteen Bill legally took his stepfather’s name. He graduated from Georgetown, won a Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford University, and graduated from Yale Law School. He returned to Arkansas and was soon elected state attorney general.
In 1977 Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham, joined with James McDougal, a banker, to secure a loan to build vacation homes in the Ozarks. But the development, which they named Whitewater, eventually became insolvent. McDougal illegally covered the debts with a loan from a savings and loan company he had acquired. In 1989 the savings and loan failed, costing the federal government $60 million to reimburse depositors. In 1992 federal investigators claimed that the Clintons had been “potential beneficiaries” of McDougal’s illegal activities.
By this time Clinton, now governor of Arkansas, was campaigning in the New Hampshire primary for the Democratic nomination for president. Few voters could make much sense of the financial mess known as the “Whitewater scandal,” nor did they have much opportunity to do so: Another, far more explosive story threatened to sink the Clinton campaign. It came out that Clinton had for many years engaged in an extramarital affair with one Gennifer Flowers; Clinton’s standing in the polls tumbled.
Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared with her husband on CBS’s 60 Minutes to address the allegations. Bill Clinton indignantly denied Flowers’s statements but then issued an earnest if ambiguous appeal for forgiveness. “I have acknowledged causing pain in my marriage,” he said. “I think most Americans will know what we’re saying; they’ll get it.” Clinton was right, early evidence of his ability to address the American people directly, but on his own—carefully worded—terms. He finished second in New Hampshire, captured most of the remaining primaries, and won the Democratic nomination with
Young Bill Clinton (left) shakes hands with President John F. Kennedy. "The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans,” Kennedy had declared in his inaugural. "Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country,” JFK added. Thirty years later, Clinton's inaugural echoed Kennedy's: "Today, a generation raised in the shadows of the Cold War assumes new responsibilities,” Clinton declared. "I challenge a new generation of young Americans to a season of service.”
Ease. His choice of running mate—Senator Al Gore of Tennessee, a Vietnam veteran, family man, and environmentalist—helped the ticket considerably.
World History
