She only realized Tripp’s ulterior motive after the scandal broke, when Newsweek reported that Tripp and Goldberg had “jokingly” planned to steal the semen-stained dress from her apartment, to use it as evidence of the affair. Monica, unsurprisingly, doesn’t find the “joke” funny: “The episode with the dress is one of the most humiliating aspects of the whole scandal. It is just so embarrassing.”
While Tripp’s treachery is now obvious, one question remains unresolved and largely unexplored; namely, how far were Tripp’s actions motivated by her relationship with the right-wing Goldberg and with Newsweek reporter Isikoff, as well as by their links to the Paula Jones people, funded by wealthy anti-Clinton organizations? Ostensibly she was taping Monica in case she herself were accused of lying by Bob Bennett if—and only if—she were called as a witness in the Jones case.
Yet she did more than illicitly tape her friend. Was the fuss over Monica’s meeting with Ambassador Richardson, the courier receipts, and the attempts to purloin her stained dress part of a larger picture? Was it merely coincidental that this process independently tried to demonstrate the contention of Paula Jones’s lawyers that Clinton was offering jobs for sex—and that it suited the “public importance” element required by Isikoff?
By chance, Tripp was staying overnight at Monica’s apartment on November 12 when the President called. After the scandal broke she yet again gave a less than honest version of events. She implied that she had been sitting with Monica that night when the call came through, and so had heard her friend’s side of the conversation. In fact, according to Monica, she was asleep in the next room and did not hear a word.
Earlier that week Monica, anxious about the outcome of her interview with Vernon Jordan and worried that this project, like her job at the White House, might take forever, had left the President a message and asked him to call. Her anxiety was heightened by the fact that, all the while, Linda Tripp was feeding her sense of anger and injustice, encouraging her to push for more and more. At this time, she veered wildly between her desire to leave Washington, and an aching sense of loss at the thought of not seeing the President again, compounded by her disappointment at being barred from working at the White House.
Two days before the President called, Monica had sent him a note in which she asked to see him on Veterans Day, November II, and aired these wider concerns. She added a plea for his attention: “I asked you three weeks ago to please be sensitive to what I am going through right now and keep in contact with me, and yet I’m still left writing notes in vain. I am not a moron. I know that what is going on in the world takes precedence but I don’t think what I have asked you for is unreasonable . . This is so hard for me, I am trying to deal with so much emotionally, and I have nobody to talk to about it. I need you right now not as President, but as a man, PLEASE be my friend.”
The President was, indeed, friendly during that late-night chat. He told her that Nancy Hernreich, Director of Oval Office Operations, was due to testify about campaign finances on Capitol Hill the following day. With her out of the way, Monica could visit him. He also asked if she could get him some herbal medicine, which Betty Currie had forgotten to buy.
The day of the hoped-for meeting was a classic example of a communications mix-up. As expected, Hernreich was away from the White House, leaving the way clear for Monica to visit without any eyebrows being raised. So she called Betty Currie, as requested, to arrange an appropriate time, since she also had to juggle her day at the Pentagon. Betty kept putting her off, saying that the President was playing golf and that she had not had time to talk to him.
Monica had got not only the medicine he had asked for, but some zinc lozenges. It was not the first time she had given him such sweets. On one occasion she had sent him some “memory pills” that were jelly beans. She wrote a prescription: “Take one pill to remember how happy you are when you see me. Take one pill to remember how adorable I am,” and so on. In the afternoon she dropped off the herbal remedies at the White House, leaving them with Betty. As the day wore on, however, she became increasingly upset and resentful at the apparent prevarication.
At last, in the early evening a contrite Betty Currie called and, saying that the President was mad at her because she had failed to arrange Monica’s visit, told her to come over to the White House immediately. Given the increasingly clandestine nature of these meetings, Monica’s arrival at the White House was like a scene from a B movie. Betty had suggested that the girl should wait in her, Betty’s, car in the White House parking lot, but when Monica got there the car was locked. She therefore waited by the car in the rain, her hat pulled down over her face, until Betty eventually appeared and sneaked her into the White House. Anxious not to be seen by anyone hostile to Monica, they raced through the corridors so fast that they were breathless when they arrived at the President’s back study. Then, because Betty didn’t want anyone to ask who was in the back study, Monica had to wait there with the lights off. While she waited for the President she fumbled around in the gloom, idly trying to open desk drawers, which were locked. She did notice that a bag containing her gifts to him, which, on an earlier occasion, she had been distressed to see had just been casually left there, had now gone.
Since Betty had not informed the President that Monica was in the back study, he continued working in the Oval Office. As a result he saw her only for a brief chat before he had to leave to attend an official dinner for President Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico. She was able to give him the antique White House paperweight, and then joked about the beneficial effect of chewing Altoid mints before performing oral sex. They managed a brief kiss before he departed.
It was a disappointing end to a day that had combined delicious anticipation, furious disappointment, and a large measure of farce, and Monica was rather crestfallen. She felt that, now she had removed from the President the burden of finding her a job at the White House, he should spend a little more time with her as a friend and former lover. In one draft letter, typed on her computer at the Pentagon, she spoke of her depression. “I don’t want you to think that I am not grateful for what you are doing for me now—I’d probably be in a mental institute without it—but I am consumed with this disappointment, frustration and anger.” Then, reflecting on their all-too-brief meeting, she continued “All you . . ever have to do to pacify me is to see me and hold me. Maybe that’s asking too much.”
Her experience had taught her that physical proximity was the key to maintaining their relationship, and to this end she decided that, rather than send yet another letter, she would speak onto a tape and send him the cassette. She wanted not only to express how she felt, but also to propose a plan as to how he could see her without attracting suspicion. She even suggested a night at the movies in the White House theater so that they could just “hang out and have some fun.”
Monica recorded two versions, and on November 20 played both over the phone to Linda Tripp, who of course taped her lovestruck friend’s every word. As she listened to the tape, Tripp remarked that Monica had a voice like a “little Marilyn Monroe vixen,” so it was no wonder the President enjoyed phone sex with her. Like so many of Tripp’s comments, this remark was not part of the ebb and flow of the conversation, but seemed to be introduced to prove to a third party the true nature of Monica’s relationship with the President.
Early in the morning of the following day, Friday, November 21, Monica sent the package containing her taped message by courier to Betty Currie, eagerly anticipating the President’s response. Remembering the mix-up of the previous week, she urged Betty to give it to him promptly. Throughout the day Monica called, each time becoming more and more frustrated and tearful because the President had not yet received her private message. Finally, at seven in the evening, he got her package, but told Betty to tell Monica that he had too much work to do and couldn’t see her that evening.
In the meantime, however, Monica had found out from talking to the President’s steward, Bayani Nelvis, that he was
watching a movie with Erskine Bowles—exactly what she had suggested, albeit without the Chief of Staff present, in her taped message. Livid and almost hysterical with rage, Monica called Betty and told her not to let him open the package containing the tape. Between sobs, she told his secretary, “I can’t take this anymore”; then she slammed down the phone. Later that evening, a concerned Betty called back to make sure Monica was calmer. But her concern did little to placate the furious girl, who told her, “I’m telling my parents tomorrow. I want nothing to do with you guys. I cannot deal with this anymore. Thanks for the times when you have been nice to me and for the times you haven’t.”
Her remarks were as untrue as they were mean, for Monica did not for a moment intend to speak to her parents; in any case, Marcia already knew, and had kept silent. Monica simply felt that the President had taken such advantage of her that she wanted to hurt him in return, to make him understand how their affair was affecting her life. She had made much the same point in a short conversation with Andy Bleiler the previous month, during which she had reminded him that she was still around and that she still hurt.
In between her calls to Betty, she phoned Linda Tripp for comfort and consolation. Tripp, naturally, taped every sobbing, sorry word. Monica observed later, “The fact that this conversation of me whimpering down the phone was broadcast for the world to gloat over was one of the most violating and humiliating experiences of this whole nightmare.”
Later that night Monica phoned Tripp again to tell her that she was going to apologize to Betty for her earlier behavior. She was completely taken aback by the other woman’s extraordinary response. Tripp told her that the White House would think she was crazy if she called and that she, Tripp, was sick of dealing with the situation. She then delivered an ultimatum: if Monica apologized to Betty Currie, Tripp would never speak to her again. With that she slammed the phone down.
Monica was now faced with a cruel dilemma, for whatever course she chose she would lose a friend. In the end, she decided to do the proper thing and make it up with Currie. Betty accepted her apology and promised that she would try to get the President, who would then be visiting Vancouver, to call her over Thanksgiving (he did not).
Having placated Betty, that Friday Monica tried to soothe Tripp, and once again they got into a fight. Significantly, this stream of bitter exchanges over the phone was not recorded or, if it was, the tapes were destroyed. Finally Tripp, deciding that she did not wish to speak to Monica anymore, left the answering machine to record the girl’s frantic messages. Their fight continued the following Monday at work with a series of office e-mails, in which Monica told Tripp that if she wished to end their friendship that was up to her, but that she had no right to be angry because Monica chose not to do what Tripp wanted. They did not speak again until early December. Reflecting on her erstwhile friend’s behavior, Monica says, “Even though she was taping me, I think the reason why she put the phone down was because she is very short-tempered and just flipped out when I would not do what she wanted. She wanted to pull the strings and when the puppet wouldn’t dance she couldn’t handle it.”
When Monica left for the West Coast to celebrate Thanksgiving with her family, she had burned most of her bridges in Washington. Not only had she fallen out with Linda Tripp, but she had decided to turn down the job at the UN, and had handed in her notice at the Pentagon. She was scheduled to leave the city that had broken her heart on December 24. In New York her mother was already making plans to find her an apartment, even lining up a potential roommate, so Monica’s most pressing worry was not somewhere to live, but the fact that she still hadn’t found a job. During her visit to the West Coast, she managed to speak to Vernon Jordan, who was surprised that she was quitting her job. He suggested she call him the following week to arrange another meeting, and promised to put extra effort into finding her a position in New York.
Monica had heard that story too many times, though, and so, leaving nothing to chance, she wrote to the President saying that she wanted to discuss her job prospects as a matter of urgency. The note, which was written in late November just before she flew to Britain and Belgium on her final Pentagon assignment, also emphasized that she hoped to see the President on the first weekend in December. On her return from Europe, she discovered to her dismay that Betty Currie had not been able to give him the letter, and when eventually he did receive it—after much pestering by Monica—he sent back a message saying that he couldn’t see her as he had meetings with his lawyers scheduled.
By coincidence, during the flight home from London on December 5, she chatted to Bob Tyrer, the Chief of Staff for the Secretary of Defense. When he told her that he was going to a White House Christmas party that evening, she asked, “Can I be your date?” So a very surprised President Clinton spotted Monica in the receiving line at the party, even, as she recalls, smoothing back his hair as though he was on a date before he greeted her. He gave her a hug and, turning to Tyrer, asked, “Are you taking good care of Monica at the Pentagon?” Yet although he was charming and affable, Monica was still annoyed with him because he could not make time to see her that weekend.
She had spoken in the meantime to Betty Currie, who said she was coming into the White House the next day, Saturday, December 6, to take some visitors on a tour of the building. Betty added that she would try to see if the President could meet Monica first thing in the morning, before his lawyers came in.
It was a forlorn and melancholy Monica who returned home that evening. Her mind was filled with thoughts of what might have been, her sorrow at the end of the affair and her fears about her lack of a job in New York. In addition, the thought of never being alone with the President again, and of never again speaking to him as a man rather than as the President, weighed heavily.
Once back in her apartment, she decided to tell him exactly how she felt, typing a letter on her computer. In a spirit of reflection as well as regret, she tried to express her feelings for him and to capture the essence of their love affair: “It was so sad seeing you tonight because I was so angry with you that you once again rejected me and yet, all I wanted was for everyone else in the room to disappear and for you to hold me.”
She went on to say that she loved him with all her heart and wanted nothing more than to be with him all the time, remembering that when he had given her Leaves of Grass, it had signified to her that he was in her soul, that she, for her part, felt his pain; now she had to set beside that moment the dismal realization that he no longer wanted her in his life. Self-pityingly, she went on to refer to their 2.30 A.M. fight over the phone, and lamented, “i’m sure you’re not the first person to have felt that way about me. i am sorry this has been such a bad experience.” She ended the letter with one last dramatic flourish: “i knew it would hurt to say goodbye to you; i just never thought it would have to be on paper. take care.”
Monica’s mood of quiet melancholy was soon punctured. The next day she phoned Betty Currie and left a message to say that she would meet her at the South West Gate so that she could hand over the letter, further Christmas gifts for the President, and gifts for Currie, and possibly see the President for a time. When Monica arrived at the White House she spotted Marsha Scott, so she quickly tried to call Betty again. The uniformed Secret Service officer on duty there told her that she was giving a tour, and after some time also let slip that the President and his glamorous friend Eleanor Wondale, a high-profile CBS TV reporter, were inside.
So much for meeting with his lawyers. With an immense effort of self-control, Monica said, “OK, I’ll just come back later.” Then she turned around and walked away, filled with uncontrollable anger: not only had she been deceived, but he was seeing another woman whom she considered to be an arch-rival. She found a pay phone in a nearby bar and called Betty Currie. When Currie answered, Monica launched into a vicious tirade, which she admits was very wrong of her: “I was out of line—what I said to Betty Currie was wholly inappropriate.”
When she
got back to her Watergate apartment, she received a plaintive pager message from the President’s secretary, and grudgingly responded. Virtually in tears, Betty pleaded with her to calm down, adding that she herself would be fired if the President heard about this. In answer, Monica insisted that she talk to the President but Betty refused, saying that he was talking to the Attorney General, and that in any case Monica could not be allowed to speak to him in the state she was in.
Still shaking with anger and frustration, Monica decided to catch a plane to New York and visit her mother. She quickly packed a bag and took a taxi to the airport, but as soon as she got there she realized she had left her wallet behind. She therefore returned to her apartment, by now in a calmer and more receptive frame of mind. Once there, she decided to call Betty Currie yet again and ask to speak to the President. “I have calmed down now so I would like to speak to him,” she said. Betty called her back and then put her through.
Now it was Monica’s turn to get a tongue-lashing. In the fifty-six-minute call the President was as furious as she had been. “In my life no one has ever treated me as poorly as I have been treated by you,” he said. “Outside of my family and my friends and my staff, I have spent more time with you than anyone else in the world. How dare you make such a scene? It’s none of your business who I see.”
Monica was having none of it, however. She accused him of having an affair with Eleanor Mondale, to which he retorted, “I am not having an affair with her—it’s ridiculous. She is a friend of mine; in fact I set her up with her current boyfriend.” Monica riposted by citing the time when, while he was on a trip to California, Mondale had been with him until three-thirty in the morning, and had then gone running with him the next day. “Do you think I would be stupid enough to go running with someone I was foolin’ with?” he asked, earning the instant reply, “Do you want me to answer that?”
The President changed tack. “You should not have said those things to Betty,” he told her. “You had no right to talk to anyone like that. You demand to see me and then you get angry when I am busy.” Monica launched a counter-attack. “Demand to see you?” she spat. “I say I am going to New York to get out of your hair. All I want to do is see you and you don’t give me an answer. I don’t understand—why is it so hard?”
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