Anything Goes

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Anything Goes Page 7

by Larry King


  I didn’t have a chance to talk with Hillary for another six months, but she made good on a promise to come into the studio and take phone calls. And that’s where she talked to me about anger, which, she said, was part of the reason the first attempt at a health care program had fallen flat.

  CLINTON: I think some of it is because I’m a kind of transition person in the history of the country.

  KING: Meaning what?

  CLINTON: The life I’ve led, trying to balance family and work, is what we’re all trying to work out in our own lives. But we’ve never had somebody in my position before who had done that.

  Transition is always the toughest. And when you have partisan politics (which is nothing new) combined with the never-ending banter from multiple channels (which is new) and toss that into the pot called “these times” (also new), well, transition becomes all the tougher. The Clinton administration was having a tough time not only with health care, but also with the NAFTA trade pact. President Bush had worked to put the pieces together during his term when he signed the comprehensive treaty agreement with Canada. And he had signed the agreement with Mexico that October afternoon before I interviewed him in San Antonio. Now President Clinton had to carry it over the line. Actually two lines; first the House, and then the Senate. But there was another line too; it belonged to a collection of opponents never before in agreement on anything. Ross Perot hated the idea of NAFTA and started talking about the “giant sucking sound” as businesses and jobs left America if trade barriers were lowered. It was The Topic and the White House was thirty votes short in the House, where it was scheduled for a vote in November. One morning my phone rang.

  “Larry, it’s Al.” The voice was friendly.

  “Al who?” I didn’t know anyone named Al.

  “Al, Larry. Al Gore. Look, I’ll debate Perot. I’ll do it on your show.” He didn’t even have to tell me the topic. Like I said, it was The Topic.

  I had talked to Al Gore off and on for years when he was a senator from Tennessee. I can remember him calling me to suggest I interview particular authors on the radio show. I don’t think I ever followed through with his suggestions but this was one I thought would be a good show.

  “Larry, you there?”

  “Sure,” I said. I just couldn’t say “Mr. Vice President.”

  “Can you set it up?”

  “I’ll go to work on it today,” I said.

  “You think he’ll do it? He can name the time and place.”

  “I’ll make some calls and let you know.”

  We hung up and within ten seconds I was talking to my new senior executive producer Wendy Walker Whitworth at Larry King Live. I called Ross, who immediately said the words “fine with me.” Wendy worked out November 9 as the date in the CNN Washington studio.

  It had been less than a week since the call from Gore. That night Ross Perot showed up with more people than I’d ever seen him with since he started appearing on the show: one other guy. Gore was there with George Stephanopoulos, David Gergen, and James Carville (yeah, Carville wore jeans). Bill Clinton stayed at the White House to watch it there.

  The only ground rules were that no advisors could come into the studio during commercial breaks. Once we started, each was on his own. In fact, other than the three of us, only the makeup person could go onto the set. We were two minutes away from the start when Gore walked away and rested his arm on top of one of the cameras. He was quiet for a moment but I do remember watching him take a deep breath. He was facing away from us and by now both Ross and I were watching. We looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. Gore came back and sat down and shook hands with Ross. We posed for a few quick pictures. At 9:00 P.M. straight up, history began on Larry King Live. You never think about history before it happens. I didn’t say to anyone during lunch at Duke’s that day, “Hey, watch tonight because we’re gonna make history.” It just shows up and, as always, without fanfare.

  Both Gore and Perot had pictures with them. Perot had a photo of a Mexican living in a cardboard box that once contained U.S. products shipped to Mexico. The standard of living for Mexican workers continues to go down, he said, and Gore started asking how Perot would change the situation. Perot said he would go back and study the issue.

  GORE: How would you change it? What specific changes would you make?

  PEROT: I can’t unless you let me finish, I can’t answer your question. Now you asked me and I’m trying to tell you.

  GORE: Well you brought your charts tonight so I want to know what specific changes you would make in the treaty.

  KING: That’s a fair question. Let him respond, okay?

  PEROT: How can I respond if you keep interrupting me?

  This happened ten times during the hour and a half. And I think it hurt Ross. Perot had the photograph of the poor Mexican. Gore had a photograph of two members of Congress named Smoot and Hawley who sponsored, get ready, the Smoot-Hawley Protection Bill in 1930, which raised tariffs on U.S. products to protect workers. Gore said Smoot-Hawley could be linked to the Great Depression. Gore then handed the framed photograph to Perot and suggested Ross’s position was similar to theirs. During breaks I spent most of my time trying to cool them down. Toward the end of the show, however, I sensed I was coming close to losing control.

  CALLER: The subject has come up about the Japanese taking over if NAFTA doesn’t go through. I’m American. I’ve been living in Mexico City for many years. There are thousands of Japanese here. They are waiting. They are lurking. What are you people doing? (Caller was disconnected.)

  GORE: Let me answer that.

  PEROT: Does he get to answer first every time?

  KING: I think the question was for him.

  GORE: You go ahead and answer it.

  PEROT: No, you go ahead.

  GORE: I’d like to answer but you go ahead first.

  All the time I’m thinking, “This is crazy.” But we got through the ninety minutes and I knew it was good. The tension between them was good as much as it was bad. There was a drama to what could have been an academic argument. Let me put it this way: Not too many American families sit around their television at night to watch a program about trade agreements. That night, more than 11 million people tuned in. AT&T said more calls from out of the country had been dialed to CNN than at any other time in history. It was the highest-rated program in cable history at that time. Now of course that says something about the participants. But more important was the fact people watched it because they cared about the issue. We were into new territory now. Congressional offices were deluged with phone calls as a result of that show. And if television hadn’t played a role in politics before November 9, it certainly played a role in how votes were cast eight days later in the House as NAFTA passed 234–200. Three days after that, the Senate approved it on a 61–38 vote.

  It had been Ross Perot who told me that issues in the future would be debated in an electronic town hall. Indeed, voters could watch the points being argued, make their decision as to what side they prefer, and either vote on issues themselves (in the case of a presidential race) or let their congressman or senator know how a vote should be taken. And in a small way, that’s exactly what we did for ninety minutes. Ross was right on the money.

  As soon as the show was over both Gore and Perot shook hands. The vice president slapped me on the back and walked off the set. I didn’t have a chance to ask him about what he did next to that camera an hour and a half earlier until years had passed. “I said a prayer,” he told me. He knew this was a big moment and probably the biggest moment of his national and international career.

  I later learned the White House was against the idea. But Gore argued the point saying he had all the facts. Clinton listened to this and then offered to debate Perot himself. He was told a sitting president debating a private citizen wasn’t presidential. He had to be talked into letting Gore do it.

  Ross meanwhile thought he had won the debate. I think that’s why he’s such
a good salesman. After Gore had walked out of the studio Ross looked at me and asked if I had noticed that Gore’s earpiece, which is used to hear telephone calls, was different from the one he used. I told him Gore had a special one that is custom-made for his ear because he does so many interview programs. I have one too and I showed him mine while making the suggestion he get one too. Ross looked at it but wasn’t buying my explanation. “The thing in Gore’s ear looked different, Larry. I think he was plugged into the White House. I think they were feeding him answers.” I listened and thought Ross was putting me on. He wasn’t. “Larry, they had a direct funnel to Gore.”

  “That’s not it at all,” I said, having no clue what I was talking about because I’m not any kind of expert on earplugs or microphones or any of the other things that are always on the set. “Gore heard nothing different from what you or I heard.”

  He got up to leave. “Well, can you swear to me it isn’t?”

  “I swear to it.” We shook hands and he smiled and he was gone. I sat there on the set for a moment wondering if maybe Ross was joking with me.

  The next night I went to a party for Senator Lloyd Bentsen that was attended by Bill Clinton. I walked over and said hello and he shook my hand. “Larry, I owe you big time,” he said. “We changed the world last night.”

  On December 8, NAFTA was signed into law. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to it because I was trying to replace batteries in the most important invention of the twentieth century and not having a lot of luck doing it. Just as I had decided the hell with it and I’d just buy a new TV clicker, the “breaking news” graphic came on. I looked up to see President Clinton in the Mellon Auditorium and half listened as he started speaking about this being an historic day. Then he stopped reading from his prepared remarks.

  I also can’t help but note that in spite of all the rest of our efforts, there was a magic moment on Larry King which made a lot of difference. And I thank the vice president for that and for so much else.

  Suddenly, the remote control just didn’t seem important (I sure didn’t want to change the channel). I sat there on the sofa as the batteries fell between the cushions and wondered if Clinton was right; that we had changed the world that night. And I didn’t know if I liked the idea of a television show having that kind of ability. But then I took it one step further: What is anyone going to do about it? Are we gonna say don’t broadcast this or that because a change in society is a possibility? And is the burden on television or is it on the viewer? I had an answer. The question was moot. It had happened and will probably happen again.

  A few hours later I walked into Duke Zeibert’s and took a seat in Siberia because Jack Kent Cooke was holding court at his table. Duke walked over as I sipped coffee and shook his head.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Larry, you made the second paragraph today at the White House,” Duke told me.

  “Yeah, that was pretty good, huh?” I offered. Duke shook his head again.

  “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “See if you can get into the first paragraph the next time.” He smiled and started working the room as only Duke can do. I finished lunch all the time wondering if getting into the first paragraph might get me out of Siberia.

  ———

  That Christmas I was invited to the White House for a few hours of food and conversation along with about five hundred other members of the media. It is an opportunity to walk through a number of the rooms just off the East Room (that’s where prime-time news conferences were held back in the days when people watched prime-time news conferences) and see the incredible decorations that are a part of America’s House. That Christmas party brought back memories from Ocala and Louisville during the campaign. I watched both President and Mrs. Clinton greet each person with a smile, take their hands and have a conversation, and then pose for a picture. They had been doing this for an hour before I even got to the White House and they were still at it when I left to go to work on the radio show. I remember Clinton’s Santa Claus tie and my thought at the time was “I wonder if he was wearing that while dealing with Yeltsin?” To me, that would be the definition of an ability to compartmentalize, which is what people who knew Clinton were always saying about him.

  And a month later he was sitting with me in the White House, ready to roll for ninety minutes as we had negotiated on air during the last interview. Clinton had gone through a number of rough days: his mother had died, he had a European trip scheduled, his choice for secretary of defense, Bobby Inman, had decided against taking the job, and on the same day he returned from Europe, an earthquake rocked Los Angeles. Clinton got back on Air Force One and went to the scene and then came back to Washington.

  He was whipped. I could tell by his first answer. I had asked him to look back and tell me what was the biggest surprise after one year in office.

  There was in this city, a culture that I knew existed that tended to sometimes major in the minors and minor in the majors, but I still found that if we stayed after it, we could change things. It just turned out to be harder than I thought it would be.

  As we did this interview, Whitewater was becoming more of an issue with every new day. Quite frankly, it was beyond me. The Clintons had invested in a 230-acre land deal along the White River in Arkansas and it was a colossal failure. They lost money. And now Congress was making noises about investigating, which meant more money would be spent looking into what happened than was lost in the first place. In fact, Whitewater had been a conversation for exactly sixty seconds at lunch one afternoon and all assembled agreed we just didn’t care about a money-losing venture fifteen years earlier, even if the Clintons had done something wrong. “You just can’t keep on about everything the guy did because you end up spending more time worrying about where he was than where he is,” I said to the table. Heads nodded in agreement, or maybe because nobody cared enough to disagree, but that was the extent of my discussions on Whitewater when I wasn’t working.

  However, on the evening I was sitting with the president, Attorney General Janet Reno had named former U.S. Attorney Robert Fiske to be the special prosecutor for White-water. Fiske announced he was also going to investigate whether or not there was a link between Vince Foster’s suicide and his knowledge of Whitewater. Looking back on this moment, I realize it was the first time we heard the president speak about wanting to go back to work for the American people, or a variation on that theme, when the heat was starting to increase.

  About a month later I was interviewing James McDougal, the financial partner with whom the Clintons were involved on the Whitewater project. As the interview began I explained to the audience that tonight’s program deals with Whitewater and if anyone knew about the topic then it would be my guest. As I’m speaking I noticed McDougal holding a plastic bag in his hand and my first impression was the guy had something illegal. The second impression was why would he bring something illegal here? See, it’s possible to look at a camera and sound convincing while your mind is elsewhere.

  McDOUGAL: There’s been a great deal of searching. I think we’ve had more than two hundred members of the press corps in Little Rock from various media groups looking for dirt from Whitewater. So, I have brought you the only genuine dirt I can guarantee, and that is ownership of one square foot of Whitewater.

  KING: I’m honored.

  McDOUGAL: Anyone else who desires to own it can have the same by sending $20 to our defense fund.

  Let me tell you something: I still have the dirt. And when I was leaving the studio that evening, one of the crew offered to take it off my hands. “Absolutely not,” I said. And it was the topic at lunch the next day.

  “So tell me, Larry,” asked my boyhood friend from Brooklyn Herb Cohen, “what did you do with the Whitewater land you now own?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’m taking care of it.”

  “Could probably bring some good bucks at an auction for your charity,” he said. I knew where he was going with th
is. Start the guilt trip. Here are two grown guys playing games over dirt.

  “Send McDougal $20 and get your own.”

  Herb looked at me. “You’re serious. You are going to keep that dirt?”

  “I have dirt from Ebbetts Field and right next to it is the dirt from Whitewater.” Herb wasn’t getting any of it, be it my point or my dirt. The conversation stopped for a while as we finished lunch. When I got up to leave the table, he looked me in the eye and said with a straight face, “Just make sure you don’t mix any of it up with the other because that will just kill the value.” When I got to my car my mind was made up. The two dirts would be kept in separate closets. They still are.

  Speaking of which, Congress wanted to investigate whether or not there was any dirt (the other kind of dirt, not what I had) in Whitewater. I knew it was a pursuit of the truth but I also knew the search included a member of Congress reading a statement while a witness patiently waited for a question to be asked. I knew it would become a show, despite how much we would hear about the exercise being an attempt to out what really happened. I also didn’t see any reason for Congress to investigate when there was already a special prosecutor assigned to the matter. This meant there would be hearings, which meant we’d have a debate about whether or not to televise the hearings, and I knew when the day was done that CNN would be covering the witnesses and cross-examination. It’s a dilemma and we’re never going to be able to hold any kind of televised Congressional hearing without the possibility of grandstanding, be it from Congress or a witness before Congress. And I knew one other thing: If Americans weren’t talking about Whitewater over lunch, they sure weren’t going to talk about it after eight hours or eight months on TV because nobody would be interested enough to watch.

 

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