Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton: on War & Peace

Bill Clinton: 1969: Navigated draft maze; never quite clear on deferment

In Oct. 1969, Bill was reclassified as draft-eligible. In December, after receiving the high lottery number of 311, he formally withdrew from the ROTC program he had never actually joined & applied to Yale Law School. Like some members of his generation, Bill managed to navigate the draft maze.

Bill’s draft status burst onto the campaign stage in Feb. 1992, when the Wall Street Journal reported on his dealings with the university’s ROTC program. Soon afterward, ABC discovered a 1969 letter from Bill to Col. Eugene Holmes, head of the University of Arkansas ROTC, describing Bill’s opposition to the war and his gratitude for “saving me from the draft” with a deferment.

More than a decade later, Bill conceded it was a “misstatement” for him to have claimed, “I had never had a deferment.”

Bill’s campaign possessed including an “Order to Report for Induction”; an induction postponement; and a notice of cancellation on July 23, 1969, a few days after Bill agreed to join the ROTC program.

Source: Her Way, by Jeff Gerth & Don Van Natta, p. 97-100 Jun 8, 2007

George W. Bush: 2002: Clear that war vote was to strike Iraq, not diplomacy

Several days before the Iraq Resolution vote in Congress, President Bush made a speech, leaving no doubt he was prepared to strike Iraq. The president, secondarily, spoke of one last try and diplomacy. Hillary gravitated toward this option and hoped that Bush was serious when he mentioned it.

A day after the speech, she had a rare opportunity to explore whether he was. Hillary and a few other senators met privately at the White House with the president and some of his advisors. The president had “no recollection of Sen. Clinton asking a question” at the meeting.

Given the subsequent revelations regarding the Bush administration’s inaccurate statements during the run-up to eh war, it is impossible to know if the president and Rice were telling the truth about the exchange with Hillary. But both seem to agree that Hillary’s opportunity to push the president regarding diplomacy--if for no other reason to get it on the record that she had done so--was squandered.

Source: Her Way, by Jeff Gerth & Don Van Natta, p.243 Jun 8, 2007

Hillary Clinton: 1960s conversion to liberalism based on opposing Vietnam

By 1968, there were far fewer bitter debates among students about the war’s merits, particularly following the Tet Offensive. The nightly news was filled with images of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese inflicting casualties against American troops in the heart of Saigon, and journalists were now explaining the war in increasingly worrisome ways. By then, Hillary was no longer trying to reconcile conflicted feelings about the war, or the leftward drift of her own politics. She was already beginning to call herself a “former Goldwater Girl,” demonstrating her newfound political beliefs most dramatically by supporting the anti-war campaign of Senator Eugene McCarthy in his bid to displace President Johnson as the Democratic nominee. Along with a few classmates, Hillary traveled to New Hampshire on weekends to stuff envelopes and campaign on Senator McCarthy’s behalf. Source: Her Way, by Jeff Gerth & Don Van Natta, p. 30 Jun 8, 2007

Hillary Clinton: After 9/11:Those helping terrorists would feel “wrath” of US

In early Oct. 2002, the Senate prepared to vote on a resolution that would give the president the authority to use military force in Iraq if diplomatic efforts failed. For Hillary, it amounted to the most important vote of her public life.

Coming to a decision involved a knotty set of calculations. Hillary had put down, as she put it, a “pretty pugnacious” marker the day after Sept. 11 by saying that those helping terrorists would face the “wrath” of the US. Retreating from that muscular stance would be tricky. On the other hand, if she voted yes, she would be giving Bush the authority to launch a pre-emptive war--a concept that reminded her of the failed war in Vietnam.

Voting against the resolution would also mean retreating from the policies of another president--her husband. Bill has signed a law in 1998 that contained non-binding provisions calling for regime change. Finally, there was Hillary’s concern that she could never win the presidency if she didn’t prove that she was tough enough.

Source: Her Way, by Jeff Gerth & Don Van Natta, p.240-241 Jun 8, 2007

Hillary Clinton: 2006 election: voters desperately want a new course

Hillary’s prospects for returning to the White House were about to improve. The midterm elections of 2006 signaled profound voter dissatisfaction with Iraq and the GOP. DeWine and many other Bush allies in Congress were swept out as Democrats took control of the House and the Senate. Hillary easily crushed Spencer, winning two-thirds of the vote. Her target, Donald Rumsfeld, resigned, and the GOP were in tatters.

Hillary said, “The message sent loudly and clearly by the American people was that we desperately need a new course.“ By this point, she had traveled all over the map regarding Iraq, carried along by the shifts in public opinion and her own ambition to appear both strong and decisive, traits she new she’d need as president.

As she finalized her plans for a presidential bid, Hillary asked allies from NH how her vote for the war would play out in the campaign. AS she saw it, she had two options: chart a new course or continue to tread water.

Source: Her Way, by Jeff Gerth & Don Van Natta, p.297-298 Jun 8, 2007

Hillary Clinton: Phased redeployment, not irresponsible immediate withdrawal

Hillary’s remarks in 2007 struck an array of themes: Bush had mishandled the war; military men & women were doing a fantastic job; troops should be gradually redeployed out of Iraq. She said nothing about her original vote. But she did say she favored capping the troops at their current levels, though she acknowledged it was impractical for Congress to stop the president’s surge. She called for a troop surge to Afghanistan. Hillary also proposed a series of political, military, and economic conditions to be met by the Iraqis and certified by the president. Absent that certification, she proposed cutting off further funding--not to American troops, but to Iraqi security forces and to the contractors guarding Iraqi officials.

She continued to support “phased redeployment,” as opposed to the immediate withdrawal of 50,000 troops proposed by John Edwards, or a dramatic funding cutoff mentioned by others. Her approach, she told a reporter, stemmed from being “cursed with the responsibility gene.

Source: Her Way, by Jeff Gerth & Don Van Natta, p.301-302 Jun 8, 2007

The above quotations are from Her Way The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton, by Jeff Gerth & Don Van Natta Jr. . Click here for definitions & background information on War & Peace. Click here for other issues (main summary page). Click here for more quotes by Hillary Clinton on War & Peace. Click here for more quotes by Bill Clinton on War & Peace.
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