Russell L. Riley

An oral history of George W. Bush's presidency, the inner workings of his White House, and the critical policy decisions it made Shortly after George W. Bush's presidency ended, senior advisors began recording confidential oral history interviews with the nonpartisan scholars of the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs--with the promise that they would not be released for several years. The recordings--transcribed and published here for the first time--offer behind-the-scenes access to some of the administration's most powerful figures and key players, such as Karl Rove, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice. Their stories trace Bush's ascension from Texas governor to the presidency and show how his priorities were transformed by the September 11th attacks, providing granular details about the ensuing pressure to respond and make sure nothing like it happened again. Former secretary of state James A. Baker, III recalls his efforts to secure Florida's decisive electoral votes for Bush after the 2000 election. Domestic policy advisor Margaret Spellings describes her day with First Lady Laura Bush just after planes crashed into the World Trade Center. White House counselor Dan Bartlett reports on what happened aboard Air Force One in the confused aftermath. Ambassador Ryan Crocker details his arrival in a demolished Afghanistan after the American invasion and how the lessons learned there influenced his later work in Iraq. Treasury secretary Henry Paulson recounts the harrowing days of 2008 when it looked as though the global financial system would collapse. Throughout, the narratives wrestle with difficult questions that plagued the presidency: Could 9/11 have been prevented? Why were such draconian steps subsequently taken to protect Americans and to pursue the guilty? And why was Iraq considered a necessary war? These accounts reveal the motives and thoughts of those who worked most closely with Bush and provide essential information for passing historical judgment on his presidency.

President Bill Clinton led one of the most influential and consequential White House tenures in recent memory. However, because of the office's traditional climate of confidentiality, many details of his behind-the-scenes activities have remained absent from the written record. How did the administration manage the horrific conflicts in Haiti, Somalia, and the Balkans that came to a head shortly after the President took the oath? What motivated the President to place First Lady Hillary Clinton at the helm of the ill-fated Health Security Act of 1993? And how did the President's closest confidantes and aides respond to the outbreak of the devastating scandal that nearly ended his presidency? Inside the Clinton White House offers an intimate perspective on these questions and many more, granting readers unprecedented access to the sensitive Oval Office banter that changed the course of history. Bringing together material from 400 hours of candid conversations with over sixty individuals, respected oral historian Russell L. Riley weaves this illuminating testimony with important contextual information to form an irresistible narrative, taking the reader from Clinton's first potential White House bid in 1988 to the final days of his remarkable and controversial career. Extended sections of the book are devoted to important domestic and foreign policy campaigns, the complicated politics of the President's two terms and impeachment, and portraits of important personalities in the administration, including Vice President Al Gore and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. These forthright and often surprising accounts add a layer of nuance to an iconic figure in America's recent history, as told in the words of the people who knew him best.

The inner life of every White House is veiled in mystery. Only a select few partake in the sensitive discussions of the Oval Office or the casual banter about high policy and low politics conducted over the engine roar of Air Force One. The privilege of the president's confidence depends on the confidentiality of such exchanges while the president's term endures. Inside the Clinton White House, however, provides a front-row seat to that previously unknown history of the 42nd presidency. In the decade after Bill Clinton left the White House, scores of his political advisors, senior White House staff, and cabinet officials recorded oral history interviews with scholars working with the acclaimed Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. The contents of these interviews are published for the first time in this volume, selected and edited by Russell Riley, co-chair of the Oral History Program. The portraite of the Clinton presidency provided here is based on some 400 hours of conversations with more than sixty people. These interviews track Bill Clinton's emergence as a national political figure with the New Democrat movement, take the reader inside the hectic 1992 campaign, and then detail the ups and downs of life inside the Clinton White House as experienced by those who were there. Extended sections of the book are devoted to domestic policy (including reforms of the health care and welfare systems), foreign policy (including military interventions in Haiti and the Balkans), politics in the Clinton years (including impeachment), and the key personalities of the time (including chapters on Al Gore and Hillary Rodham Clinton). These candid spoken accounts--history "with the bark off" in Lyndon Johnson's phrase--add color and nuance to our understanding of Bill Clinton and his administration, sometimes confirming and sometimes upending the conventional wisdom.