by Larry King
This changed for a few moments on July 21 when a judge ruled Paula Jones couldn’t sue President Clinton as long as he was a sitting president. Jones was the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission employee who claimed in 1991, while working at a conference in Little Rock’s Excelsior Hotel, then-Governor Clinton invited her up to a hotel room where he asked her to perform oral sex on him. She says she refused his offer and proceeded to file a $700,000 lawsuit seeking damages for “willful, outrageous, and malicious conduct,” albeit after he became president. We had been through Gennifer Flowers and there were a lot of reports about “other women” leading up to, during, and after his election. I knew the first reference to “Paula” came in The American Spectator more than half a year earlier. And I was dubious because the magazine is so right wing that this just seemed to be one more attempt to derail Clinton. It was the classic he said–she said and, as a result, it came down to which of the two that were directly involved do you believe? I kept an open mind during the resulting frenzy and took neither side. But one thing I knew for certain was if Bill Clinton had been reckless in Arkansas, he sure couldn’t be following the same path in Washington. Oh boy.
Of course this was another gift for the part-time Clinton opposition on the Hill and across America as well as the full-time opposition found in the listenership of Rush Limbaugh or Bob Grant or other radio talk show hosts who were collectively “outraged” or “shocked and appalled” by the governor’s apparent misguided moral compass. And they ran with it, as well they should have. It was grist for the mill. Did America, by electing a man with a trail of alleged liaisons, condone this kind of behavior? And by the actions of this judge, what kind of message are we sending to families in America? Each host had the same level of anger as they asked the question trying to rally the troops, who were great at picking up the phone and bitching. I had always wondered, setting aside First Amendment arguments, what would happen if you could only be a registered voter to call one of these shows and complain about the way things are? What if you had to actually participate in democracy rather than sit on your can all day? Would there be any change in the whining level whatsoever? Who knows, maybe there would. I know the late Walter Matthau would have taken the bet there would have been a different tone in the callers. Of course, knowing Walter as I did, he’d have taken the bet going the other way too if it was offered and he could have set the odds.
Most of America listens to the radio in the car. I was in that group. So as I drove, it became a routine to answer questions or make comments. Usually it was coming home from lunch, and on the day of the Paula Jones ruling, I was going down K Street trying to make the turn on 19th Street and saying to Rush for all to hear, “If he did it, he’ll face the music so calm down.” One day, as I was yelling at the radio, some guy with an Orioles cap standing at 19th and K yelled, “That’s right, Larry. Give ’em hell!” I thought he agreed with the cogent points I was making until the next day I made the same turn at the same time and hadn’t said a word to Rush and the guy is standing in the same place and starts waving and yelling, “That’s right, Larry. Give ’em hell.” And to think there could have been a groundswell building.
The issue was the topic at lunch, however. I was alone at Jack Kent Cooke’s table but that didn’t stop my mind from covering all the bases. I think I had Bill Clinton figured out. He is the uncle that is in every family. He is smart and loud and drives the neatest car and obviously is doing something right. But everybody talks about him when he isn’t in the room. “You know what I heard?” they would say and then, in hushed tones, say it. He is the one who will come up to you when you’re a kid and when nobody is around and ask, “How are the girls?” And then he would look around to make sure nobody is watching and hand you ten dollars saying “Don’t tell anyone” while pinching your cheek. And you know what? You don’t tell anyone because you like him. The ten spot has nothing to do with it. I had this figured out before the tuna salad arrived.
Two months earlier, Washington attorney Bob Bennett had been hired by the White House to handle the case of Paula Jones versus Bill Clinton. He was the brother of Bill Bennett, education secretary under Ronald Reagan, drug czar, and bestselling author (The Book of Virtues). I wondered that year what Christmas dinner would be like at the Bennett house with one brother representing the president of the United States against charges that he had tried, as governor, to get sexual favors from a state employee, and the other being the expert on virtuous behavior and goals. On the night of the ruling, Bennett sat with me in the Washington studio. I told him before we went on I was looking forward to a segment that had nothing to do with O.J. And of course you know what the first question was? It wasn’t planned but after a while we become conditioned, I guess. See, talk about something long enough and it becomes part of the DNA. Bennett played it as the good lawyer he is: no comment. But he did talk about the other topic, which hadn’t come up at lunch anywhere for a long time, a topic that was headed for hearings in the House and Senate: Whitewater.
BENNETT: I certainly think that this investigation is what’s being done now, it’s an appropriate thing to do. I candidly think that these congressional investigations are a waste of time and a waste of taxpayer money. Certainly, I don’t know how you really justify in a commonsense view the House doing it and then the Senate doing it, then Fiske doing it and, I think the whole Whitewater thing is much ado about nothing. And it’s just a reflection of our time, where we try to criminalize everything.
KING: This is one tough town, is it not?
BENNETT: New York is a tough town, Larry. This is a mean town.
The “meanness” in town, whether it really exists or is part of the White House spin that anyone who disagrees is a Hater, combined with a need to become politically effective again, pushed the White House to make a change in job assignments, moving Mack McLarty out of the chief of staff position and replacing him with Leon Panetta, a former director of the Office of Management and Budget, chairman of the House Budget Committee, and a California congressman whose district included Monterey. The Clinton White House was having a hell of a time getting legislation through Congress and the feeling was, maybe one of their own would open some doors that had been closed. As a matter of fact I had both McLarty and Panetta on the night the change was announced, but only for a half hour. The second half of the show was about, well, you know what it was about.
But I hadn’t forgotten Clinton’s promise to show up for an hour (or was it an hour and a half?) every six months. The staff called the White House months in advance to get the interview on the schedule and when nothing seemed to be working they asked me to just pick up the phone and call the president of the United States. I could imagine the scene:
Mr. President? You have the Prime Minister of Pakistan in the Roosevelt Room and he says he has the nuclear capability to bomb the hell out of India if they tick him off. You also have a conference call with the OAS chairman on aid to Haiti. Newt Gingrich is here for a meeting you wanted set up to talk about common ground. Oh, and Larry King is on the phone. Which would you like to do first?
The interview didn’t happen. And I had to wonder, if we could have O.J. in the studio to put his side of the story out there or Bill Clinton to talk about the bad time he’s been having and both were only available on the same day, who would be the guest that night? No question, I would ask the president if we could reschedule for another time.
The news of the summer was (1) the O.J. trial had a tentative mid-September start date that everyone knew wasn’t going to happen and (2) the idiots running baseball were going to let a strike take place. The baseball story was simpler. Money was driving both the players and the owners. This wasn’t a newsflash because both sides were saying to anyone who would listen, it was an issue about money. The owners wanted to cap the salaries and use the savings for franchises (like Pittsburgh and Milwaukee) in financial need. The players said if they are worth $1,875,358.75 a year, then they ought to be paid that a
mount. It reminded me of a conversation I’d had with Jackie Gleason back in the 1960s when he did his television show from Miami.
“Nobody is overpaid,” he said.
“Nobody?”
“Look, if there’s someone willing to pay whatever the amount is, then how can you say the person getting that salary is overpaid?” I couldn’t argue with the logic. Still can’t.
As was the case with any baseball fan, I missed the game. And I understood the positions taken by both sides. Labor Secretary Robert Reich told me it was going to be tough for either side to garner support from the fan level because the average player salary was a million dollars a year. But the issue was (that word again) moot. For instance, Barry Bonds makes $8 million a year with the San Francisco Giants while somewhere in America a cop makes $41,500. Everyone will agree a cop is more important to society than a baseball player. But is Bonds gonna say “sorry, can’t take the $8 million because a cop is worth more than I am”? Jackie Gleason died in 1987 but he sure knew a lot about 1994. By the way, the baseball strike forced the cancellation of the World Series because it lasted 234 days. It was a diversion, if only for a few seconds, from what was being called the Trial of the Century.
As this was going on, my senior executive producer, Wendy Walker Whitworth, had put together a wonderful trio of experts to explain what the hell had happened that day in the O.J. case, since we were all covering it and a lot of people, including Larry King, didn’t understand all the talk about the Griffin Rule or exculpatory evidence that was going on live across TV screens every day. We had a judge from L.A. Superior Court, Jack Tenner, who had retired and was known for his handling of Michael Jackson’s trial when the singer was sued for allegedly taking sexual advantage of a boy (Jackson later settled out of court). We had the former attorney general under Ronald Reagan, Dick Thornburgh, who had also been Pennsylvania’s governor and a prosecutor, and we had defense attorney Gerry Spence, who had yet to lose a jury trial. It was a great combination of résumés and attitudes. And throughout the 153 years the O.J. trial went on, we brought them back as often as possible to help explain the day. And on the second show we did, talk turned to betting.
Here was the situation: We covered how much of a blood sample was needed for DNA since prosecutor Marcia Clark had made it clear she would have blood taken from O.J.’s Bronco matched with blood at the crime scene. And I knew we were going to have to get into a commercial break within a minute, so I asked what I thought to be a simple sum-it-up question.
KING: Just from what you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, the prosecution is at about a what to you?
THORNBURGH: It’s about a 5 and rising, I’d say.
KING: 5? Not an 8 or a 9?
THORNBURGH: No, I think there are many uncertainties. Obviously, the results of the DNA tests are going to be crucial$#8230;until you have that, you can’t push them over the top with a 10.
KING: Let me get a break. We’ll be back with Spence, Tenner, and Thornburgh on Larry King Live.
TENNER: I would say at the moment the prosecution is about a 6½ favorite.
SPENCE: Well I agree with Mr. Thornburgh.
I had a producer screaming in my earpiece to get into the commercial and I put up my hand as a traffic cop would to get the trio to just shut up for a minute (actually two minutes). But it went on through the commercial as well. By the time we came back on, everyone had an opinion and was pumped to let it be known. I reintroduced the guests and then looked to Gerry Spence in his trademark suede jacket.
KING: The judge rates it 6½ point favorite. Dick Thornburgh says 5 and rising on a scale of 10. Your call now, and then we’ll go back to calls—
SPENCE: You are something else. Because what you’re doing is asking us to try this case based on what we’ve heard in the press.
KING: From what we know to this point.
SPENCE: Yeah, so what I—
KING: —That’s what everybody’s doing at the bars and restaurants.
SPENCE: Yeah, so, isn’t that something, that we’re trying the O.J. Simpson case based on the press? And we’re—
KING: —Such is life.
SPENCE: Yeah, so it is, life.
I understood Gerry’s concern. Certainly, you could play this on the high ground and not discuss the matter until there was a verdict, which is what is done in England. But you know what? It drew the audience in. The backyard fence now included the voices of Spence-Tenner-and-Thornburgh (one of the jokes during commercials was the fact this could become a do-it-yourself legal team for hire with a traveling defense attorney, prosecuting attorney, and judge). High road or not, this was healthy.
———
With five weeks before the November election, the producers at Larry King Live were able to get the two candidates for the Senate from California to be in the same room and speak out on issues national as well as local. It was the first time the two had debated each other. Dianne Feinstein was completing her first term in the Senate and faced a major challenge from Michael Huffington, a wealthy Republican oilman. In fact, the race was drawing national attention not only because Huffington had closed a thirty-point deficit to single digits, but because it was the most expensive Senate campaign to date. By the time they sat together in the Washington studio, each had spent close to $10 million for a job that paid a little over $100,000. And it was not only an expensive campaign but it was nasty.
These two people did not like each other. The Feinstein camp was telling everyone it would be the first opportunity to take the race beyond paid advertising, and the Huffington-backers were saying anytime the voters get to ask their incumbent senator a question, that’s a victory. The ground rules were that once we took the air, no aide or advisor would be allowed to talk to their boss until after the entire show was done. “What you see is what you get” is the way I explained our rules.
Feinstein didn’t talk to Huffington and he didn’t talk to her until the show began. Then I couldn’t keep them from taking shots at each other. By the time we got to a commercial I decided to try and settle them both down, so I talked about how well each was doing and how we’re all going to have some fun and learn about the issues, and isn’t it wonderful the public has the opportunity to participate? Huffington and Feinstein said nothing. They didn’t even look at each other. The room temperature was dropping. To this day when I’m asked what was the toughest show to do, the Huffington-Feinstein debate is right up there. But it was great television and it was the night I started thinking how this could be a way to teach students in high school debate class what to do and what not to do, it could be a way for a civics class to discuss how two people see the same world differently, and it could be a great political science or journalism class on what television is doing to, or for, the political scene.
Twenty-four hours later I was standing on the balcony of a home overlooking the San Fernando Valley, in the state that would soon have a senator named Huffington or Fein-stein. And I was thinking about the song “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes” by Diana Washington because standing next to me was Marlon Brando. A week earlier my office had called me in Los Angeles to say Brando had finally agreed to an interview but wanted to talk with me first. And within five minutes of getting that phone call, the phone rang again.
“Larry, this is Marlon.”
“Marlon who?” I asked.
There was a pause. “Marlon Brando.”
“Hey, it could have been Marlin Fitzwater,” I said and he started laughing.
“I want to talk before we do this so let’s have lunch here,” he said and I explained I didn’t have a car. Marlon told me he would send a driver to bring me over and gave me his address. So I went downstairs at the Beverly Wilshire and waited for my ride. After a few moments a white Chevy pulls up. I’m standing there waiting for a limo or a Lincoln when, for whatever reason, I look into the Chevy. Brando is behind the wheel. He motions for me to get in and the hotel door-man is standing there saying, “I’m seeing this and I don’
t believe this.” He wasn’t the only one feeling that way.
Somehow we both started trying to top each other with song lyrics. He started the words to a Sinatra song and I would finish and then I’d do the same and he would finish the words. We went through the Gershwin list. And then I started asking him about acting and he brushed all my questions aside. Brando pulled over, stopped the car, and said to me slowly, “All of us are actors.” He picked up an imaginary phone and says, “Larry, this is Marlon. Your father is dead.” I’m sitting there looking at him and I say something like gee that’s too bad and I can’t believe it and I start picking up the situation and we go back and forth in the imaginary conversation. I forgot, for a moment, that I’m sitting in a car at an expired parking meter with Marlon Brando making up a conversation with an imaginary phone in my hand. After we hung up our phones he looked at me and said I did well and made the point that what we had just done in a car on a Beverly Hills street was no different from what actors do every day. He started driving again and we did “I’ve Got a Date with an Angel” making the turn off Rodeo Drive.