Hillary Rodham Clinton's memoirs admit some of her faults - and acknowledge those of her husband. Is it part of her plan to run for the presidency? Conor O'Clery reports from New York
Hillary Rodham Clinton, by her own account, went into deep denial when the allegation exploded in January 1998 that her husband had an affair with a White House intern. In the seven excruciating months that followed, stories proliferated about late-night phone calls and intimate gifts between President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and about the existence of a stained dress.
Through it all, however, the former first lady accepted his assurances that he did not have an affair with the intern with big hair. She saw a "vast right-wing conspiracy" trying to tear down the Clinton presidency. Her faith remained unshaken, even when it was reported that Lewinsky had testified to a grand jury that she had sexual relations with the president and even after the New York Times ran a story, on August 14th, under the headline: "President weighs admitting he had sexual contacts."
It wasn't until the following morning, a Saturday, she writes, that he made the bedroom confession described so graphically in leaked extracts from Living History, her memoir. She yelled at him: "What do you mean? What are you saying? Why did you lie to me?"
But how could she not have known? "Honest to God, she didn't know," said Lisa Caputo, her former press secretary, on the cable channel MSNBC. "The president unfortunately misled everybody, including his wife and daughter."
Rodham Clinton tells Barbara Walters in an interview to be broadcast on ABC tomorrow: "That was probably the worst moment that I can even imagine anyone going through, because what he told me that morning was that he had not levelled with me or anyone else. He had not told me the whole truth about what the relationship was. And I was furious. I was dumbfounded. I was, you know, just beside myself with anger and disappointment."
Not only that, she said, but the jury was out "about whether the marriage would survive, whether I wanted it to survive". The marriage did survive. It survived just as it had survived the very public admission of Clinton's "inappropriate behaviour" with Gennifer Flowers when he was governor of Arkansas and running for president in 1992. The Clintons dealt with that affair by holding hands on CBS's 60 Minutes while candidate Clinton confessed he had "caused pain" in their marriage. Rodham Clinton's loyalty as a wronged but forgiving wife who stood by her man salvaged his presidential hopes.
Six years later, just after she was "dumbfounded" by her husband's bedside confession, Rodham Clinton was again working coolly with him to limit the damage. She took part in a White House crisis meeting to work out what Clinton should say in his televised speech on August 17th, when he admitted to Americans his "inappropriate intimate contact" with the willing intern, and she approved the final version, in which he said: "I misled people, including even my wife." What must the atmosphere have been like on those days of trauma in the White House?
Clinton's aide and friend Sidney Blumenthal gives us a glimpse in The Clinton Wars, his just-published book. Late on August 17th Blumenthal took a call from the president, who wanted to know how the speech went, and Rodham Clinton came on the line as well. As the phone was passed to James Carville, the president's political consultant, "I could hear the president and Hillary bantering in the background."
In those days, the loyal aide felt, she had to practise enormous self-control. She also believed that to protect her family she had to protect the presidency. The Lewinsky scandal was an enormous blow to her pride, but she maintained her dignity even with close friends and "in the eyes of many became a more accessible and sympathetic figure", according to Blumenthal.
There was much speculation that the marriage would not outlive the presidency, but many believe that way back in Bill Clinton's philandering days in Arkansas, and despite what she now tells Barbara Walters on 60 Minutes, Rodham Clinton decided she would stay with him no matter what.
The synergy of their unique partnership fascinates and puzzles Americans to this day. Nobody doubts their enormous commitment to each other - and to each other's careers - and their devotion to their daughter, Chelsea. They are a rare match of equals in intellect, ability and political ambition.
Just as Rodham Clinton stood by her man when he was running for president, Clinton worked hard for his wife when she ran for the US Senate, in 2000. By winning the New York seat she was able to open up a new phase in her life in which he was vitally important. Clinton advised her on tactics and strategy on Capitol Hill.
"She's learned an awful lot from him in the last two years about how to be a politician," says a supporter in New York who knows both. "She was stand-offish, a colder person. Now she's the most famous person in the world, and I find her low-key, down to earth."
A friend of Rodham Clinton says that when Clinton phones they always exchange endearments and that the former president acts deferentially in her company. At a small fundraiser for the senator at the Fitzpatrick Manhattan Hotel some weeks ago, I noticed that she had her head almost resting on her husband's shoulders while they posed for photographs with guests.
After leaving the White House, the Clintons bought a home in the village of Chappaqua, in New York state. They spend most weekends there. While the Senate is in session, Rodham Clinton stays at a house on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington DC. Much of their lives are spent travelling in different spheres, and in Chappaqua Clinton often walks the dog or drops in to a local coffee shop alone. But they often arrive together for public events and depart together.
Rodham Clinton tied with Laura Bush and Oprah Winfrey for most popular woman in America last year, but she is still a polarising figure. Early on she intimidated Americans who could not accept a political wife who did not stay at home to bake cookies. She portrays a softer side in the book, taking some responsibility for "botching" the healthcare reform her husband entrusted to her in his first term and faulting herself for "coming on too strong", "galvanizing our opponents" and not being sensitive enough to what people expected of a first lady.
She tried to combine two roles as the president's wife. "I cared about the food I served our guests, and I also wanted to improve the delivery of healthcare for all Americans," she writes.
At a time when the role of women in politics was changing "I was America's exhibit A. The scrutiny was overwhelming." It took her a while "to figure out that what might not be important to me might seem very important to many men and women across America."
She is still sometimes referred to as power-hungry, a term rarely applied to male politicians. Her negatives are higher than her positives, and Republicans use her in ads to rally voters for their candidates. A poll on Thursday showed that if Rodham Clinton decided to run for a second US Senate term, in 2006, she would be trounced 56-39 per cent were her opponent to be former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani. There is a long road ahead.
In the Senate the former Hillary Rodham from Illinois has worked to change her image as a "feminazi" who refused to discard her name when she married, attending debates and committees assiduously, not coming on too strong and making alliances even with those who wrecked her health plan in 1993 and were involved in impeaching her husband.
Rather than the shrill advocate for liberal positions that some Republicans expected, she has moved to the centre: the route taken by Clinton to win the presidency in 1992. She joined a prayer group run by right-wing fundamentalists and last November voted to givePresident Bush war powers, infuriating many New York fans.
She writes now that she could have phrased the charge of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" more artfully. But, she says: "I do believe there was, and still is, an interlocking network of groups and individuals who want to turn the clock back on many of the advances our country has made."
For the first time Rodham Clinton is dealing openly with a hurtful private episode and in doing so may be able to excise it as a political impediment, consigning it to the past. She is opening another chapter in the public life of the most political of couples.
The enormous publicity generated by the book is increasing her celebrity at a time when the Democratic candidates for next year's congressional elections are still struggling for name recognition. Next year may also see a film about her political career, possibly starring Sharon Stone, based on Hillary's Choice, Gail Sheehy's bestseller. It is all leading up, goes the accepted wisdom, to a presidential bid in 2008.
Her husband, still only 57, is also taking a higher profile, orchestrating and advising the Democratic party like a retired Chinese communist leader who continues to influence events after leaving office. His future is less certain. Mayor of New York, perhaps? Or vice-president on his wife's ticket? Constitutionally permitted, perhaps, but only for Clinton devotees to dream about.