The third installment of President Bill Clinton-era documents, released Friday by the National Archives and Records Administration, gives the public glimpses of how policy decisions were made in the Clinton White House, including how to handle possible questions about Monica Lewinsky in media events and when was too soon to make light of impeachment proceedings.
For the most part, the more than 3,300 pages of documentsreleased Friday show routine communication between Clinton staff members, including policy aides in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, speechwriters - who made notes in the margins of speeches - and foreign-affairs advisers. The documents rarely include notes, communication or direct emails from Clinton or then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, often referred to by staff members as “HRC.”
Under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, presidents can seal these records for 12 years after they leave office.For Bill Clinton, whose last day in office was Jan. 20, 2001, the clock ran out more than a year ago, in January 2013.
In February, Politico reported that 33,000 pages of the Clintons’ records had not been made public after the restriction on their release expired.
The release Friday followed two others - about 4,000 pages on Feb. 28 and another almost 4,000 pages on March 14. The documents have been made available online at http://clintonlibrary.gov/formerlywithhelddocuments.html.
The documents made public Friday were separated into eight categories, including three files that contained more than 1,500 pages of speech drafts, revisions and discussions about how to craft Clinton’s famous speaking engagements from staff speechwriter Michael Waldmen.
One folder contains a file of dispatches, wires and cables about the federally funded international broadcast institution Voice of America. The institution’s staff members raised some hackles withupper-level aides when they interviewed the leader of a suspected terrorist group in Kurdistan, according to a dispatch attributed to “Ambassador Parris.”
Mark Parris was the U.S. ambassador to Turkey at the time.
The dispatch dated December 1998 said, “If, as I hope and believe, this was a mistake, we should say so cleanly and without double-talk. I ask also that you halt VOA’s reported plans to rebroadcast the interview today, this time in Turkish.”
One of the more interesting dispatches in the folder includes advice about Hillary Clinton being asked to do an interview with the institution.
A Clinton staff member, Julie Mason, asks if the American journalists will have a chance to ask the first lady questions, writing: “Will HRC be more apt to get questions on Monica, etc?”
The 1998 email was written in the midst of revelations about Bill Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky, a former White House staff member, which in turn lead to congressional hearings and impeachment by the House.
Voice of America representative Meg Lynne replies in an email: “There may be questions from callers around the world on the Monica story. This would bring HRC right into the story in the U.S. Although the chances are good if she did anything newsworthy, it will be reported outside the U.S. and will boomerang back.”
Many of the documents surrounding speeches made mostly between 1995 and 1998 - including a famous speech given at the memorial for the Oklahoma City bombing victims - are draft edits. The speeches in 1998 and 1999 often include edits on when it is OK to make light of tensions with House Republicans, press coverage of the impeachment proceedings and missteps Clinton might have made in the Lewinsky investigation.
In a March 1999 speech at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner, the president makes jokes about his wife’s political future as a senator.
But the majority of edits in the half-dozen drafts that made their way between speechwriters center on whether it is too soon to make jokes about the impeachment proceedings and the scandals leading up to them.
A speechwriter at one point inserts a line asking for two more impeachment jokes, one that is self-deprecating and one that targets the Republicans. One joke that makes it into the speech mimicks a speech from former President Andrew Johnson after his own run-in with impeachment proceedings - the Senate was one vote shy of removing him from office. Both Johnson and Clinton joke they want a recount, suggesting it will help them avoid their speaking engagements.
The documents also include advice on how to handle personal attacks from 1996 presidential contender Bob Dole, a Republican senator, advising the president to respond with grace and stay away from negative attacks, noting that a focus group “recoiled” at Dole’s remarks about Clinton in his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination.
They also contain notes on Clinton’s last speech in office, communication about the conflict in Serbia and hundreds of pages of handwritten -mostly illegible - notes by senior health-care advisor Ira Magaziner.
The department has been releasing documents every two weeks, although a date for the next release was not scheduled as of Friday.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 03/29/2014