Not surprisingly to those who knew her best, and without calling any public attention to it, Hillary turned to prayer under duress.
On February 24, three weeks before her father suffered his stroke, Hillary and Tipper Gore had been invited to a luncheon of a Christian women’s prayer group at the Cedars, a grand estate on the Potomac maintained by the Fellowship, sponsor of the National Prayer Breakfast movement and hundreds of prayer groups under its auspices. They were a surprising group, among them Susan Baker, the wife of James Baker, the Bush family’s grand retainer and former secretary of state; Joanne Kemp, wife of former Republican congressman Jack Kemp, who would run for vice president in 1996; Grace Nelson, wife of Democratic senator Bill Nelson of Florida; and Holly Leachman, wife of Washington Red-skins chaplain Jerry Leachman and herself a lay minister at the McLean Bible Church in Virginia, where many prominent Republican senators and conservative luminaries worshipped, including Kenneth Starr. Each of Hillary’s “prayer partners,” with whom she tried to meet each week when she was in town, promised to pray for Hillary regularly and presented her with a handmade book of biblical passages, personal messages, and spiritual quotations to help sustain her during her time in Washington. Susan Baker later visited Hillary and showed her great compassion about the death of Hugh Rodham and Hillary’s personal political difficulties. Holly Leachman came to the White House to pray with Hillary or just to cheer her up throughout the Clinton presidency.
Hillary would later be accused of cynically becoming religious and adopting more traditional values for the purpose of political advancement after her election to the Senate. That’s hard to imagine given that knowledge of her affiliation with the prayer group during the White House years was kept to a few in her inner circle.
DESPITE DICK MORRIS’S advice to Hillary about “balancing” the opposing sides of her job, there was little evidence throughout 1993 of the first lady as hostess to the nation, the world, and Georgetown. Hillary’s initial approach to entertaining was highly politicized and personalized, reflecting her embattled posture, thus accelerating the Clintons’ estrangement from a permanent Washington establishment that was, in many quarters, prepared to welcome them warmly.
No new president and first lady could have done much worse with the locals, or more directly set a presidency on a collision course with the inbred values of the place. In retrospect, especially given the secrets Hillary was trying to keep—embarrassments, more than outright lies—the collision was probably inevitable.
Hillary was not wrong that there were certain institutions and people in the capital, important people, who were vehemently opposed to the Clintons and their ideas, who valued sensational stories or a particular political ideology more than honest, measurable results or sincere attempts at constructive governance. Given the chance, they would derail her. But the Clintons didn’t help themselves.
The first lady’s social secretary was flabbergasted by Hillary’s initial unwillingness to engage in the usual protocols of White House entertaining. The problem soon became so acute that members of the secretary’s staff had their own term for it, borrowed from the name of one of the capital’s social elite: it was called the Buffy Cafritz problem. (She had for years been a member of the Kennedy Center board and leader of many of the city’s charities.)
Part of the Clintons’ frustration with Washington was their comprehension of the hypocrisy of the place. The city’s dominant ethic seemed too often premised on vicious, interpersonal warfare and ideological combat by day, yet treating the most hateful of combatants as honored colleagues during off-hours, even smiling at and flattering one another across the dinner table.
Instead of the basic business and conversation of the town focusing on the substance of governance (as it once did), the emphasis—conversational and journalistic—now was increasingly on who was up and who was down, and the minutiae of political horse-trading. In a quarter-century of political life in the capital since the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, perhaps two or three historic pieces of legislation had become law. Since the bipartisan consensus on Watergate and impeachment, far more energy had been expended on political and cultural warfare than on constructive civic engagement.
In choosing a social secretary who understood the anthropology of the capital, Hillary had made what seemed an inspired choice: Ann Stock, vice president of public relations for Bloomingdale’s department store in New York. Stock had established a winning rapport with reporters in the Carter White House as Vice President Walter Mondale’s deputy press secretary, and had since divided her time between Washington and Manhattan.
She had considerable knowledge of the contrasting power structures and players in each town: New York, a worldly meritocracy; the smaller federal district, a baronial outcropping still clinging to a peculiarly American version of primogeniture—the seniority system prevailed in Congress and was felt in the lobbying precincts of K Street beyond. This imperative was abetted by a press corps that rarely questioned the effect of such feudal arrangements, in which former members of Congress, ex-cabinet secretaries, and retired presidential aides eventually made the easy (or sleazy) transition from Capitol Hill and the White House to the high-rises of K Street.
Stock was a professional, not a socialite, unlike many of her predecessors, which should have added to Hillary’s comfort with her. Her selection came as a shock to the doyennes of Washington society. (“Do I know her?” typically asked one, Polly Kraft Cutler, the widow of columnist Joseph Kraft and wife of one of the town’s most eminent lawyers, Lloyd Cutler, who would later become White House counsel for Hillary’s husband during the relentless advance of the special prosecutor.)
Hillary came to like and respect Stock, and to rely on her. Unfortunately, for almost a year, the first lady routinely resisted Stock’s advice to mollify so-called Permanent Washington, including those who identified themselves as Democrats and were anticipating with considerable ardor a restoration at court after twelve ignominious years of the Reagan-Bush era.
Just as Bob Rubin had undertaken the higher education of Hillary Clinton in Wall Street economics, Stock attempted to tutor her in the equally arcane pseudoscience of Washington protocol. Stock was fascinated and captivated by the woman who had hired her, especially intrigued by some of Hillary’s intertwined qualities that might have at first seemed incompatible. “Who would ever have expected her to go to Susan Baker’s prayer group, for one? I was surprised by this incredibly together, smart, talented, determined, human, funny woman. I was blown away by her. And that consistent, first view never changed.”
Stock understood how to navigate the tricky political and social shoals of Washington. She soon felt the Clintons were governing as if they didn’t really grasp that they had won the election. As a result, Stock’s office and the Executive Mansion itself became adjuncts of the permanent campaign, used to entertain and court constituencies and key members of Congress and pay off old debts and entertain old friends. But it was not being used as an institution of state. Instead of honoring the grandeur and cachet of the home of America’s presidents, the Clintons’ retinue “treated the White House as if it were a campaign venue,” said Stock. “They didn’t really understand the significance of the president’s house.” Many people in important administration positions were young and had had no previous experience in Washington.
After Hillary’s much heralded (and supposedly hands-on) dinner for the nation’s governors on the tenth day of the Clinton presidency, there were no more official state banquets for the next ten months. Instead, there were more than three hundred political teas and receptions at the White House, almost one every day. Most were ad hoc affairs in support of the Clintons’ various policy objectives or friendly political constituencies. Meanwhile the so-called Georgetown set, leading members of Congress from both parties, the city’s permanent political class—lobbyists, political consultants, influential representatives of the press—and high-level officials lured by the
Clintons to Washington for important policy jobs were ignored, often studiously. One undersecretary of a government department, personally recruited by the president and Hillary, was never invited to a White House function during his three years in office except for a Christmas party to which he finagled an invitation. “They don’t care about people,” said the official, who had taken a huge pay cut to become a government servant.
Regularly, the Clintons’ personal friends, many from Arkansas, showed up on short notice for supper at the White House. So did visiting royalty from Hollywood and the entertainment industry, who were invited to stay the night, usually in the Lincoln Bedroom. Bill, more than Hillary, enjoyed meeting celebrities, and Stock’s staff was enlisted to peruse the newspapers and hotel VIP lists to see who was in town. If the star was somebody the president or Hillary wanted to meet, they were invited over.
“I think where she missed the boat and he missed the boat was at the beginning when they underestimated what it was going to be like dealing with this town and the Congress,” Stock said. “And I really think they thought they were in Arkansas and didn’t realize that many things are just different here.”
Part of the slighting of the Washington crowd was consistent with the way the Clintons saw their jobs: “He understands why he got elected,” said one of Bill’s friends. “The country wanted action. He’s going to give it to them. Coming down the stairs to a state dinner isn’t about action.” Hillary made clear that her priorities were policy, not protocol, and she intended to keep it that way. “I’m more interested in being part of helping to change our country, which is what I care about.”
Terry McAuliffe, the Clintons’ good friend and fund-raising savant, had a way of trying to explain their attitude, which only highlighted the problem of perception: “You have to understand these people are busier than most presidents and first ladies,” he said. “I mean, they don’t just go out to someone’s house for dinner. I mean you’ve seen the guy’s schedule…. Listen, they’re into issues. They like to socialize, but they believe that’s secondary to the reason they’re here today.” In fact, they often went to dinner at a local restaurant or the home of friends.
Those invited to the White House were not the usual guest list. As Stock noted, “It was a very issue-oriented crowd, and events were issues-oriented, built around whatever issue of the day they were trying to push.” Guest lists came out of the Office of the Public Liaison, the political outreach operation, not the protocol or social office.
For almost a year, “they ran it from a campaign war room,” Stock said of the “social” side of the White House.
“The mentality of the first year was more [that] of a campaign staff than a White House staff…. The first six months we probably did 110 to 120 events, of which we sent out only four written invitations, because we never got everything together more than twenty-four to forty-eight hours ahead of time. So, I would have my people picking up the phone and saying, ‘Hi, we’re having an event day after tomorrow—the president would like you to be here.’ People would go, ‘Excuse me, I’ve got to call you back. I’m getting an invitation from the White House and it’s less than forty-eight hours ahead of time?…’
“In social Washington, even the out-of-office party still usually gets invited to the White House. But very few of the ‘Washington establishment,’ if you will, were invited to our White House. And, when they were, it was last-minute.”
Stock, one of the few experienced Washington hands in the White House, had been assigned a principal aide who was an Arkansan, Ann McCoy, formerly the Clintons’ events coordinator in Little Rock. McCoy would tell Stock, “We’ve got to have these FOBs [Friends of Bill] over for supper,” which usually meant an informal get-together with a buffet table and then a movie in the White House theater, or popcorn and a basketball game on the big-screen television. When Stock would propose that maybe Bill and Buffy Cafritz and others on the more traditional Washington social circuit be included, McCoy would put her foot down.
“I mean, Bill and Buffy Cafritz only walked through the White House door the first couple of years for the Kennedy Center Honors reception,” said Stock. “By virtue of what she does, she is an important player. There are lots of people like that in Washington. But that’s the group that Hillary did not want to deal with right off the bat. And, you know, my point to her was neutralize them,” by inviting them to informal gatherings at the White House and lending the first lady’s name to a few selected local charity events of importance to both Washington’s ordinary citizens and wealthier organizers. Hillary would respond, “I don’t have time. I don’t want to do this. I don’t need them.” Stock tried to explain to both Hillary and Bill, “It’s really good for you to do some of these things. You need buzz to go around town about the good, wonderful things that you do.”
Such considerations and sensitivities might appear trivial or relatively insignificant compared with weightier affairs of state, but part of what tripped up the Clintons, especially Hillary, were matters that in saner times and less overheated and polarized circumstances would have been judged in a far less significant context. For better or worse, effecting change in the capital, and thus changing the country, was an intricate process that involved a certain amount of bowing and scraping, and the first lady was no exception from the requirement. It was something of a local tradition for the first lady to attach her name as sponsor for any number of local events: the National Symphony ball; a designated disease event; the Veterinary Society dinner dance. Hillary refused. No work would have been required for the first lady, just an endorsement. (“When the president and the first lady put their name on an invitation, they don’t do anything,” a member of Stock’s staff noted.)
Hillary told her aides (and, in less offensive terms, the press), “I’m not doing that. I’ve never put my name on anything where I’ve never worked in my life. I only lend my name to what I actually do.” The local ladies perked up their ears and noticed. “That’s part of how this town runs,” said a member of Stock’s staff. “Make them feel like they’re part of the presidency…. I don’t know that they care about issues. They care about charities.”
Stock felt that if the Clintons’ Arkansas friends and political supporters were coming to the White House for supper and a movie anyway, including half a dozen socially prominent Washingtonians would scarcely be a hardship. “They want to be able to say tomorrow, ‘I spent Saturday night in the White House movie theater watching a movie that’s not out.’ That’s what that game is…. Your whole informal buzz about what the president and first lady are doing comes through things like that. Nancy Reagan was the master of it. Barbara Bush was the master of it. The Clintons are now the master of it”—she noted in the final year of the Clinton presidency.
“It was somewhat a wasted [first] year in that it could have been easy for them to help lay the groundwork for health care and the rest of their legislative agenda,” said Stock, “had they skillfully entertained. Oh my God! The people you could have had over there for a movie. And you neutralize your yip-yappers. You take a Sally Quinn…”
EVEN BEFORE Bill Clinton had taken the presidential oath, a marker for Hillary’s conduct had been laid down by Sally Quinn, who, like Hillary, was a powerful woman in Washington who owed much of her position and influence to a husband who was one of his era’s most dazzling and accomplished citizens, Benjamin C. Bradlee, the former editor of the Washington Post.
There were intriguing similarities between Quinn and Hillary. Both had made life far better for men of brilliant accomplishment and ability. Both of these women were resented and feared by many of the people who nonetheless courted them and desired a seat at their table; most of the courtiers, both men and women, were far more drawn to their husbands than to them.
Quinn, the daughter of an Army general, had gone to Smith College, another of the Seven Sisters schools, down the road from Wellesley. Hillary, the daughter of a martinet with none of the general’s avuncular ski
lls with people, shared with Quinn a propensity for long-held grudges. Both had experienced professional shocks—Hillary with her failure to pass the bar exam, Quinn with a hugely public embarrassment as a failed television anchor, for CBS Morning News—and almost immediately after had decided to throw the dice with men famously unreliable with women. Both women could be acerbic, were admirably curious, and not as sure of themselves as they liked others to think. They were also capable of wonderful friendships. Each had one child and was an unusually devoted mother.
Each was determined to be known for her own work—in Quinn’s case as the author of long, penetrating profiles in the Style section of the Washington Post. As an employee of her husband (until his resignation as editor), she had a unique status in a uniquely powerful institution, a situation somewhat similar to Hillary’s. Neither would have been commended for an ability to see herself as others did, except that Quinn knew she was better at decorating houses than almost any professional in the game, and, with her husband, she kept buying them and decorating them. Both women had a playful side that few people outside their immediate circle knew. Hillary held strong opinions that were a logical consequence of her politics and her own struggles. Quinn took surveys.