One Death Altered Path of Presidency
Five Years Later, Clinton White House Still Facing Aftermath of Foster Suicide
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 20, 1998; Page A01
After a cheeseburger lunch at his desk, Vincent W.
Foster Jr. left his office around 1 p.m., saying he would be back. Five
hours later, his lifeless body was found next to a Civil War cannon in a
Virginia park. (Neither the Post nor anyone else in the press has ever
had the first question about the preposterous story about the finding of
the body) As his compatriots at the White House struggled to absorb the
shock, one senior official told a colleague, "I don't know that it'll
ever be the same after this."
Few statements have been so prescient. Five years ago
today, the man who grew up with President Clinton (No he didn't.
Clinton moved away from Hope after kindergarten) and practiced law with
Hillary Rodham Clinton drove across the Potomac River, shot himself at
Fort Marcy Park and ultimately altered the course of a presidency.
What was certainly a personal tragedy for his friends and family
became a defining event for a young administration, one that robbed any
remaining innocence (Now there's a good one. What about the Waco
massacre and the sordid Arkansas past?) from the fresh-faced crew that
had arrived in Washington brimming with optimism just six months
earlier, one that permanently colored how the nation's leader looks at
its capital and its culture, and one that spawned an enduring climate of
suspicion and a cottage industry of conspiracy theories. (It's always a
theory when it's the government. When you're the girl friend of a drug
dealer, it's twenty years to life.)
Even now, five years removed, the aftermath of Vince Foster's
suicide continues to ripple through the Clinton White House, whether it
be a new book examining the events surrounding his death (I would
heartily recommend "The Secret Life of Bill Clinton," by Ambrose
Evans-Pritchard) or a ruling by the Supreme Court just a few weeks ago
setting a national precedent on the bounds of attorney-client privilege.
"It was a deep cut," said Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty, the former
White House chief of staff who grew up in Hope, Ark., with Clinton (Tell
a lie often enough and maybe people will believe it) and Foster.
"It clearly had a tremendous impact."
Just how tremendous would be hard to overestimate. Foster
became a symbol of the travails of the Arkansas circle around the
Clintons. He became a cult figure among some of the same people obsessed
by the John F. Kennedy assassination and Roswell UFOs.
(Truth Suppression #5)
But there are those looking back now who believe that had Foster lived,
the story of the Clinton presidency would been different in tangible
ways -- albeit for vastly divergent reasons.
"I thought his death changed history in some respects," Bernard
Nussbaum, who was White House counsel and Foster's immediate boss at
the time, said in an interview last week. (Now there's a good,
discredited person to interview. Why not interview the witness, Patrick
Knowlton, who is sure Foster's car was not at the park, when his body
was?)
In the months after Foster died, as the controversy over Whitewater
bloomed into a full-fledged Washington scandal, Nussbaum was the lone
voice in the upper ranks of the White House resisting the call for the
appointment of a special prosecutor, arguing that it would lead to a
never-ending search for crimes where they did not exist.
Nussbaum lost the fight. Clinton reluctantly agreed to an
investigation into his real estate dealings back in Arkansas, leading to
the appointment of special counsel Robert B. Fiske Jr. and his
successor, Kenneth W. Starr, and the resulting years of subpoenas,
indictments and court battles that touched on everything from FBI files
to Foster's death to Clinton's alleged sexual adventures. ("Please don't
throw me in the briar patch," said Br'er Rabbit. The revelation by Dan
Moldea that Jerry Seper lied about his Park Police sources for the news
that Whitewater documents were removed from Foster's offices gives away
the game. This was a White House leak to cause a Special Prosecutor to
be appointed to perform the cover-up duties in the Foster case. The
Park Police report with all of its curious, indefensible redactions
would have never done the job.)
"If Vince had been around to support that position, if I
hadn't been the only one among his senior aides to take that position,
he would have had a big impact," Nussbaum said. "I really believe if
Vince had lived, the president would not have sought the appointment of
an independent counsel, and history would have been different."
A former investigator who looked into many of those issues
has reached the same conclusion from another vantage point.
The way the White House seemed to stand in the way of the
Justice Department and others investigating Foster's death and the
belated discovery that Whitewater files had been removed from his office
--described by a subsequent Senate report as a "pattern of stonewalling"
--generated a brush fire of speculation that there must be something the
Clintons were hiding. (Who could imagine such a thing of the Clintons or
the Post?)
"I don't think the suicide per se was the significant thing,"
said the investigator, who declined to be identified for fear it might
affect his current business. (Another way of saying, "We're making up a
source here to shovel out the propaganda line you are supposed to
swallow.") "I think the handling of the Department of Justice by the
White House counsel's office in the days after the suicide ignited
Whitewater. Had that not happened, the whole thing might never have
triggered all the interest in Congress and ultimately the independent
counsel."
Foster came to Washington after the 1992 election with no
experience in the hothouse world of national politics. A tall, slender
lawyer known for his handsome face and gracious though reserved manner,
(A Davidson gentleman, as we liked to say back then) Foster was a
lifelong friend of the president (We previously pointed out that, for
what it is worth, this statement is not true.), but really was closer to
Hillary Clinton (No kidding), who playfully called him "Vincenzo" and
palled around with him and their fellow partner at Little Rock's Rose
Law Firm, Webster L. Hubbell (to the point of being joint beneficiaries
to an annuity), who would join them in Washington as associate attorney
general.
Foster's six months as deputy White House counsel were
marked by unaccustomed controversy -- failed nominations for attorney
general, challenges to the secrecy of the first lady's health care task
force and, finally, the travel office affair in which longtime employees
were fired while business was steered to the president's allies. (Oh
yes, there was the matter of the immolation of all those offbeat
Christians at Waco. It's easy for a Christian-bashing paper like the
Post to forget such things, I guess.)
He took the criticism far more seriously than many and in
words that effectively became his epitaph, he wrote in a note found
ripped up after his death that while neither he nor anyone in the White
House violated any law, "the public will never believe the innocence of
the Clintons and their loyal staff. . . . I was not meant for the job or
the spotlight of public life in Washington. Here ruining people is
considered sport." (But the note was obviously forged and planted)
His reaction to that had no parallel in modern U.S.
history. Foster was the first person at the top echelon of government to
kill himself since James V. Forrestal committed suicide in 1949 shortly
after being replaced as defense secretary. And the bitter sentiment of
Foster's note struck a nerve in a highly political, fiercely partisan
city.
"His death, I think, really made people think," said William
Kennedy, another Rose partner who served as associate White House
counsel (who hastened over to the morgue along with Craig Livingstone to
identify Vince's already well-identified body. After the visit, the
keys which not been found in a previous search of Foster's pants pockets
were "found" by Park Police.) but returned to Little Rock after an
unhappy time in the capital. "And I think it was one of those events
that for once made people in Washington stop and seriously examine what
they were doing -- how they approach things, what their values were,
what they should be doing. And from that perspective, it was a sea
change. It did force that reexamination."
Kennedy (another fine, objective authority to interview)
paused as he thought about this. "But," he added, "and I say this
with a great deal of sadness, nothing seems to have changed."
The president appears to share that judgment. It was after
Foster's suicide that he began talking about the culture of poison in
Washington, (gag me with a spoon) a recurring theme for the last five
years and the main thing he said at his second inauguration in 1997 that
he wanted to cure.
As recently as Saturday night, while not mentioning Foster,
Clinton on a weekend trip home to Little Rock referred to Washington as
"a completely different culture."
"There are times when I wake up in our nation's capital, and I
deal with people day in and day out, and they say one thing one day, and
then the next day they're trying to basically say that I'm the worst
thing since Joe Stalin," Clinton said.
But even in the midst of his latest controversy, the
investigation into his ties with Monica S. Lewinsky, Clinton assured his
fellow Arkansans that he will survive. "I mean, I don't know what you
all expected," he said Saturday night at a fund-raiser. "Did you think
they'd wheel me in here in a gurney tonight? Listen, you prepared me
well. This is no big deal."
Some aides said the Foster suicide did have some salutary
effects within the White House. It served, they said, as a wake-up call
highlighting the importance of balancing a workaholic schedule with
personal life.
"Even considering how pressurized and intense the work is
here," said presidential counselor Douglas B. Sosnik, "this is a very
family friendly workplace in which we're constantly reminded of what's
most important in your life, which is your family." (it's dry-heave
time)
Perhaps the chief irony of Foster's death is that a man who
so hated the spotlight will forever be remembered by some as the center
of a bizarre conspiracy in the mode of the JFK killing. (Could anything
be more bizarre than the suicide story they are peddling? Well, perhaps
the magic bullet is.) No matter that every investigation that has
looked at the case -- including the Park Police, two congressional
inquiries, Fiske and, finally last year, Starr -- came to the same,
unequivocal conclusion that Foster died at his own hand in Fort Marcy
Park. (This is why they had to get a special prosecutor appointed, to
personalize the cover-up.
Truth Suppression #7)
There will always be people convinced that Foster was murdered in a safe
house in Northern Virginia. (Now you know for sure that's not how it
happened. This is obvious misdirection.) That his body was rolled up
in a carpet and moved to the park. That he had been involved in a
CIA-sponsored drug-smuggling operation. (Now they're even making me
wonder if that's why he was killed.)
In retrospect, according to some people close to him and
the White House, the fuel for that fire resulted from the confluence of
three factors--speculation about Foster's relationship with Hillary
Clinton, the Whitewater connection and the seemingly hurried initial
investigation hindered by White House-erected obstacles.
The White House search of Foster's office the night of his
death continues to cause mystery. During the formal search two days
later, Nussbaum insisted on looking through all the papers himself,
contrary to an earlier agreement, while angry Justice Department and
police investigators looked on and were shown only what the White House
counsel deemed relevant.
The White House did not disclose the discovery of the torn-up
note until days later, after notifying Foster's family. (How do we know
this. Could be thay hadn't yet forged it when they said they had
discovered it.) Five months later, the White House acknowledged that
Foster had a file on Whitewater. Two years after his death, the White
House produced handwritten notes in which Foster wrote that Whitewater
was "a can of worms you shouldn't open." (Probably forged as well) In
January 1996, the White House discovered and turned over long-missing
Rose firm billing records last thought to be in Foster's possession.
Nussbaum remains convinced he made the right decision to
protect sensitive White House documents and personal papers unrelated to
Foster's death. "If I make a mistake, I have a history of admitting a
mistake," he said. "But what happened there was the right way . . . for
a lawyer to act in that circumstance. The only regret I have is not
talking more publicly, defending myself more publicly."
But critics said the incident provided the first major evidence
of what would become a pattern of the Clinton White House: exacerbating
political and legal trouble by not being as forthcoming as it should.
(Truth Suppression #9)
"Every single incident since Vince Foster, the same issues
keep coming up," said Robert J. Giuffra Jr., who was chief counsel to
the Senate Special Whitewater Committee. "History keeps repeating
itself. . . . Many of the same things they're being criticized for in
the Lewinsky matter are things they were criticized for in the handling
of Foster's office."
Only last month what may be the last of the legal issues
arising from Foster's death was resolved. Starr tried to subpoena three
pages of notes taken by a lawyer Foster consulted nine days before
killing himself. But the attorney, James Hamilton, persuaded the Supreme
Court that attorney-client privilege persists after a client's death,
setting a binding precedent that will have major impact on the legal
profession across the country. That was an unforeseen legacy that
Foster, the lawyer's lawyer, would have liked.
Others around Foster have moved on. His wife, Lisa, moved
back to Arkansas and married a federal judge, James Moody. His oldest
son has become an investment banker, his youngest just graduated from
college. (And the Post, along with the entire news media, swallowed the
story that the Park Police never interviewed the sons, not even about
the ownership of the gun, because the Foster family lawyer wouldn't let
them do it.)
Last month, his alma mater, the University of Arkansas law
school, created a professorship in his name.
The Clintons, too, have gone on. They do not talk about
Foster often, according to their friends, but they probably think about
him. (Now if those pesky Burketts, whose "suicided" son had the same
autopsy doctor as Foster, would just "go on.")
"This is just an ache in their heart that will just never go
away," said Diane Blair, a close confidant of Hillary Clinton from
Arkansas.
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