As a Democratic President however, he could have vetoed the bill and it would have been sustained by Congress. I should be very careful here. Then once he started to make the rounds in New York, he generated very considerable positive reaction and became self-fulfilling, and raising money for him became quite a bit easier. Well, nobody took more pain up front than Ronald Reagan. No. Oh sure, sure, well have another major Presidential uproar. Now streaming on: Powered by He didnt, but he thought he could. But yes, we had meetings in his hotel room at three in the morning. We had a good discussion and I went back to the airport and flew home. At the time we were working on it there was a sense on the Japanese side that it was a zero-sum game. But absent such a crisis, history tends not to treat you as a great President. I mean I hired really good lawyers, and they told me pretty early in the process that on the substance there was no issue, that you have to worry about the fact that in this country prosecutions can become very political, but they just didnt think that it was much of an issue on the legal precedence and the substance. He just knew how it worked. Why a war room? If you read Putting People First, first of all it was domestic policy as a whole, it was not just economic policy. One of the reasons it was bloodless was because the Soviets knew what they had and didnt have and what we had and they didnt have. But it really was quite effective because one needed a military-like approach with only five or six weeks to go, and that bill was in trouble. He must have wondered what he was doing. Did you get the sense that this is true? That by choosing Panetta, and Bentsen, and Rubin, he chose economic conservatives. What specifically arose was that the statute of limitations on any prosecution involving the failure of an S and L was about to expire. There are too many people in his own administration, at least at the moment, who think that all he finally did was succumb to the Republican position, and anybody who wore a D on his shirt and supported the Republican position could have brought along enough Ds to make the bill happen. I dont know why we were the earliest on the list. Of course. Id become a pretty active Democrat in New York, particularly active by standards of Wall Street, which still had relatively few visible Democrats in its midst. Alan Greenspan was on it; Simon was chair of it. I wasnt telling him anything he didnt know, God knows, but that we were going to enter now a different phase in terms of the laser light of press scrutiny on policies and that we had to deepen the entire effort, and there was agreement on that. It was a very unusual evening, because there was a sense, as I say, we were interring the candidate. I know this sounds a bit odd, I hadnt thought about it a huge amount, partly because I had a full-tilt business career, and I was trying to separate the two. The first thing that we typically do is a quick voice identification so that the transcriptionist will know whos talking at any given time.Im Russell Riley, the project leader for the Clinton Presidential History Project. Obviously Sam Rayburn. But the presumption was that the head of the agency of course did know that. I remember Allen going through that. No. That ostracism certainly hasnt afflicted the Clinton alumni. President Clinton, in retrospect, his disavowals on some of his private life were almost certainly false and the way he handled the Lewinsky matter was about as bad as it could be because heessentially swore before the American people that he didnt do it, and of course then recanted. Whether his actual conversation with Dick Morris about the Lewinsky matter is true or not, would the American people accept an apology? I might have a point of view about what those ought to be based on certain inputs I was receiving directly from the Hill and we need to work more on this or that. But there was a divide, so to speak, in the administration between those who felt that we should try to remake the healthcare system in this country in one fell swoop and those who felt we should pursue an incremental approach. Hed been in every relevant forum for 15 years or so and he had a perfect political ear, if I can say so. We just kept the pressure on the best we could. But in any event, Im sure it wasnt as good as it should have been. [ALTMAN - comments on the message as to I called him and said Id be interested in helping him in some form if there was a way to do that, and then one thing let to another and I got involved, not long thereafter, in his campaign, both from a fundraising point of view and from the point of view of economic policy and issue development. We came up with a Btu [British thermal unit] tax. They were cutting deals like there was no tomorrow. This had been the thrust of the campaign, so expectations were very high that Clinton would come forward with a real economic program, a comprehensive program, and from the moment that all these folks were chosen the question was, what is that program going to be? I thought maybe we should step back and let you give us a more organized picture of what it is that you were doing with respect to U.S.-Japanese relations. So I said, Well then, thats the course Im going to take. Then, of course, he became chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which is the most powerful single position in the Congress other than Majority Leader, and some would say it is more powerful, and ran the committee with an iron hand. I moved over to the White House, was given a strange assignment, which was to go run this thing called the Summit of the Americas which occurred in December of 94, which was this meeting of literally 35 heads of state in Miami for three days to talk about why you would have a hemispheric free trade agreement. In 1991 it was not organized. I think that there wasagain, I dont follow this that closelybut there was a fast reaction in short-term rates when the Federal Reserve Board loosened, early on, in what appeared to be quid pro quoGreenspan offered some assurance to Congress that the Fed would be cognizant of the Federal. So in June 91 it wasnt completely unknown, it wasnt below the radar screen, but there was always a group of people who were political junkies and so forth, and Im certainly in that group, who were following it, just like theres a large number of people that are following it today, 17 months beforehand. It was the best political speech, with a couple of exceptions, Id ever heard, which prompted a wonderful comment from former President Bush, who then came to the microphone and said, Now I know why Im on the outside looking in. I would say it had to do with an overall perception that he was the most substantive and the best politician. That was all part of the same ultimate mix. Our labor leadership did not want that, especially of course, the Teamsters. Did he interact comfortably with the other leaders at the summit? It wasnt so much between the political peopleReich wasnt a political person; he wasnt a campaign operator. But with regard to deficit reduction. Well, I got briefed on it and basically, two points here: one is the chairman of the RTC whether it is me or Mr. Casey or the people before him, never were briefed on, exposed to, involved in, or otherwise saw anything at all about the investigations the RTC was pursuing. No, I did not. He just determined each time that what he had to do was get through this chapter and somehow live to fight for the next one and didnt take the longer view. Fourth, I recall that the economic forecasts for 93 were not very heartening. I may have attended a few meetings, but I only began to be immersed in healthcare after the Presidents plan passed and I became the Treasury person on the Hillary Clinton healthcare task force. But it was not a novel idea at all. So a group of us at the deputy level, Joan Spero, Charlene Barshefsky, Bo Cutter, me, who were the four senior members of that group, started entering into discussions with our Japanese counterparts. I should double-check that. By that time we were all being treated very well by the campaign because we were seen as the guys who were there at the beginning. WebRobert Altman's House (former) Malibu, California (CA), US Like Tweet Share Pin The film director, known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized It wasnt a process where people were maneuvering furiously to see who could get the last word in to the President or something. It began to get organized at the end of 91. Might have been established by Washington. And the reason he wasntnothing to do with Senator Kennedy himself. Was it Mickey Kantor? I guess that again leads to the question about the uncertainty and anxiety of a transition period, trying to figure out which person. Can you tell us about how that unfolded, your perceptions of Mrs. Clintons role in all of this? I would actually like to hear you answer that question too. I mean, by that time, the group that was advising him on economic policy had become reasonably well set. People who liked Cuomo liked him a lot; people who didnt like him didnt like him at all, and it was about half-and-half. So I wasnt sure what was going to happen, but there was no one in the field that was suddenly squashing everyone else including Clinton. My memory is a bit fuzzy on that. I thought, perhaps not at that instant, but quickly thereafter, that what Clinton said to me about Wall Street economics was very funny. Thats true, yes. Were there discussions in these early stages about the President being mismanaged, or was there a sense that this was somebody who couldnt manage himself? No, not at all. Very, very intensive, one of the most intensive things Ive ever been involved in. And it was just fuel on the already roaring fire of Whitewater. More in terms of ostracism from your former colleagues. Then, as the weeks and months went by, it came closer and closer and closer to whip counts. Clinton gave his State of the Union address, the 28th of January, eight days after being inaugurated. Rubin was well known as an economic conservative, and Bentsen, of course, had a very long legislative record, which was in the same direction. Of course, I met with the senior ATF guys. Hes the first guy who stepped in defeated. Anyway, then Secretary Bentsen and I repaired to the little study off the White House, the two of us, just to watch the actual vote. But then Senator [Daniel Patrick] Moynihan spoke to Kerrey late in the day and I thought that was, if not decisive, very influential. I stay in touch with him. Now, theyre sometimes minor changes that dont require that, but any meaningful change in the later stages required the Presidents approval. Yes, and also there was considerable uncertainty as to whether Cuomo was indeed a candidate, which, as we all know, he proved not to be. Does that mean that the first initiative of the new President, should he, she, be a Democrat be healthcare? Does that resonate with you? I went and visited the injured agents in the hospital. So there was a lot of humor like that. That was just how all Presidents should act. I just know from prior experience that thats the way to do it. President Clinton gave you the opportunity to serve your country, its a privilege to serve your country. Id actually done that precise role before, in 1976, obviously at a much different age, but I was put in charge of the Treasury transition at that time. Roger C. Altman. Then I would have discussions with Clinton, usually on the fly, about certain economic issues I thought were important. It wasnt funny in the conventional sense, but it was just funny. WebKathryn Reed Altman and Roger Altman attend State of the Union Dinner at The Re-Opening of the Plaza Hotel Ballroom on January 28, 2008 in New York Roger Altman and Mayor Michael Bloomberg attend THIRTEEN and WLIW 21 Annual Gala Salute at Gotham Hall on April 30, 2007 in New York City. Everyone understood there was a lag factor. I think theres a wonderful tradition in American government where the outgoing administration typically does everything it can to assist the incoming one, and that was certainly true with the [Gerald] Ford administration. The President made a decision he was going toand he discussed this during the campaign at lengthbe more aggressive with Japan to have a fairer, more level playing field. It pains me to recognize that thats 35 years ago, but no, it wasnt the case. So it was a very interesting dynamic. 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