Everything imaginable. You didnt need to be a management consultant to see they werent well organized. Well, yes, Carter tried a version of that. Yes, there was a big debate about whether it should be healthcare or NAFTA. We came into office, the trade imbalance of payments deficit with Japan had risen to very high levels. and Lloyd would say, I wouldnt do it, Mr. President, or I would do it. I was in Tokyo, asleep, so I was a bit taken aback. Yes, that was bad advice. and I had no previous knowledge of it at all. Exactly. I was the class of 1967 and he was the class of 1968. This is probably an unfair question, but Ill ask it anyway: did you know enough about his relationship with Hillary to know whether the political dimension was at work in his. I dont know this, but I suspect that was decided largely between the President and Mrs. Clinton. You might call it something different. He really enjoyed it, stayed up every night till four in the morning, and believe me, I know that because I was going to his room at three in the morning with these various wordings. As has been, as I said, so widely chronicled, the focus was on the economy because the economy was sluggish, in a recessionary state. Just be sure it doesnt collapse during the interim. Mrs. Bentsen responded. But it really was quite effective because one needed a military-like approach with only five or six weeks to go, and that bill was in trouble. But that moment was quite amazing. He talked about a middle-class tax cut and, of course getting the economy moving. The first summit was easy; there were no huge international tensions. We had a chat; we had a nice time. Ive read a lot of whats been written about the healthcare plan, its all there. Phil Gramm, Ill never forget, predicted that it would usher in a new depressionI mean depression, not recession. But I really could never figure that out. Had it always been assumed that Rubin would take that position? I suppose everyone has his own definition of intimate, but by any standard Im familiar with, I was not an intimate of Clintons. But, in any event, everything was going fine at the RTC until, unfortunately, the matter of Madison Guaranty came up. Right as it was up, the Wall Street Journal does a full-page profile on Bentsen, right here on the right. Everybody gets a nametag, and theres the Secretary of the Treasury, the Deputy Secretary of this and Director of OMB, and youre all sitting around, a very staged setting. I worked in the White House another three or four months, worked on, for example, the bailout of Washington, D.C., and then the passage of the new control board type legislation and then my kids got out of school in June. When concessions needed to be made, this was before you get up too high, Russell referred to the point that deals had already been made. Within a month, I remember vividly one day, I had seven radio shows. I sat there for two or three hours and he took the measure of me and at the end he said, Would you like to do this? Roger C. Altman. Some people thought they were misguided. Do you have any recollections or observations about the President in that environment? One, the recession of 91 and early or mid 92, the economy was performing poorly. I mean, after all, Whitewater ultimately amounted to nothing. Clinton chose in Bentsen, with the possible exception of [Robert] Dole, who obviously wasnt a candidate for this, the most experienced person in the entire United States Congress. I think Clinton was better served by virtue of Perots presence in the campaign than without it. So it was a combination of an organized role. Definitely working on personnel. That was before the convention. Its probably strange humor in this instance. It wasnt difficult at all because Cuomo was a polarizing figure. Lloyd Bentsens reputation preceded him and he was a master of the game as far as Washington and the legislative process and handling himself and so forth in a way that few ever have been. The period during which Bentsens views werent treated with quite enough respect was a very short one. We still joke about that today. I dont think I would have known otherwise. But then Senator [Daniel Patrick] Moynihan spoke to Kerrey late in the day and I thought that was, if not decisive, very influential. We havent exhausted the topic of budgets and we want to talk further about that, but since youve already opened the door on this question about historical opposition and so forth, I thought that you might want to discuss your perceptions about how the existence of that institution changes the dynamic in Washington. Not too much, though. It just depended on the size of the concession. The film director, known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized This is just a tradition, The answer is, in my viewthis is just my recollection now, other people would have a different onewas economics first, foreign policy second. And deficit reduction was his top priority, a focus at the top? If we have another Iran-Contra therell have to be an independent counsel, thered have to be. In the very beginning it wasnt as availed of, as it quickly became availed of later. If you think about his history, Bentsen had been a highly decorated war hero. Thats a very important difference, because it addressed healthcare, various items on childrens policy, crime initiatives, urban policythe full span of domestic policy issues, of which economic policy was just one element. So by the time I had to do it again I wasnt particularly concerned. He knew every comma and apostrophe in the bill. So, the decision-making process was more than a bit chaotic, and the decision on the energy taxes was reflective of that. Did he interact comfortably with the other leaders at the summit? It was not as big a change as it was advertised to be, or has been seen historically. We founded Evercore in 1995, on the premise that clients would be best served by an investment banking firm free of the conflicts of interest inherent to large, multi-product financial institutions. I didnt, no. I remember that day. From that time forward, about 79 times out of 80 Clinton did whatever Bentsen said. But I didnt have any knowledge of this stuff. But I think if you study American history and you look at any number of earlier periods, the attacks on Abraham Lincoln for example comes to mind, the Andrew Jackson period, such extreme partisanship is common in American history. But unfortunately the real show was about to begin, which I didnt realize, which was the Congressional hearings. So that went on with mounting intensity over a series of months after the President had actually laid it out. Ironically, Clintons style for those meetings and the style of the present President are not very different. I think it did. But with regard to deficit reduction. You may remember that Clinton put forward a white paper, if I can call it that, called Putting People First, which came out I believe at the end of 1991. He would explain to me the problems with the particular pieces, but, I dont know if you had to be Bentsen, did you? For example, keeping its currency weak, not taking some of the steps to improve domestic demand such that Japan could become a stronger force for imports into Japan, ironically some of the same issues that are just as present today. Those things were at a peak in 94, just at the time healthcare was on the table. So that resulted in my having, I suppose, a jack-of-all-trades job. That was all part of the same ultimate mix. It wasnt particularly formed before then. Youre in such a good position to give us a comparative portrait of transitions internally. I know Bentsen, especially in retrospect I know Bentsen. I was elected twice vice president of my class. I think as a general matter the perception, which has become the accepted wisdom, of those dueling camps, is much overstated. Im not sure anyone is ever going to pay a penalty in American society for that type of commentary. Were you making recommendations to him about how you might tighten things up in this area? They just didnt come to the Secretary, to the Chairman of the RTC, no more than investigations being pursued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, or the Secret Service or what have you come to the Secretary of the Treasury. I can even imagine an independent counsel of some kind being unlikely, but not impossible, designated in the whole weapons of mass destruction issue. Can you tell us a little bit about those conversations, if you remember? But that was really after the economic program passed. I might have if I had not known Bob Rubin, but I knew him better than anybody else in the administration knew him and I had great confidence in him and knew that he and I would relate well. But in 1987, I think it was, the Democrats in this case, I must say, rewrote the rules and decided that ideology should be the grounds on which this was decided, and Mr. Bork may have had great credentials, may have been a scholar of great distinction but his ideology was unacceptable. Then later in the process I was asked if I would go do a war room for healthcare of the type we did for the budget. Can you tell us a little bit about the process of making healthcare a priority? Web(Studio: Charles Gibson) Earlier interview held with Evercore Partners Roger Altman about the House vote and the market reaction. Against that test, a noncrisis Presidency, what can they achieve, under the extremely adverse politics of this time, thats been building up. I also think Clinton knew he was going to go up against some of his oldest allies, whether it was Marian Wright Edelman, whomever it was, in terms of welfare reform, and was prepared to do it, but wasnt really looking forward to it. No, not at all. There was a group of three or four of us who were doing Japan policy. The Treasury has a wonderful history of its own and a great deal of pride suffuses those halls. Id have to do a little homework. So its a free vote, ideologically and politically. Mr. Altman began his investment banking career at I was working on the economic program, I was working on trade and certain departmental matters like Ive just described. And author of the Statute of Religious Freedom for the State of Virginia. Most of the people I mentioned, and Im sure Im forgetting a group of them, in fact, I know I am, but, I can recall getting slightly involved in debate preparationslightly now, not deeplyattending the debates, seeing drafts of speeches before he gave them, again, not all speeches, but certain speeches, that type of role. They began to mount quite a drumbeat of Republican outcry to the effect that it was the responsibility of the RTC to unilaterally extend that statute of limitations on the theory that it would be wrong to let the Clintons off the hook, and the RTC had the power to do that. Did you stay in Little Rock for a while afterward? Lets face it, NAFTA has worked. That was not a high point of the Clinton Presidency. So I felt very chastened by what Gene had said. You know, Clintons Presidency coincided with a lot of big changes in the body politic at large. I mean, the worst recession since the Great Depression occurred in 1981 and 1982 and in the fall of 82, in early August, Reagan was being described as Herbert Hoover, politically dead, gone, might as well already make his reservations back to Santa Barbara and so forth. We went back to square one. Bentsen tended to say very little at those meetings except at the end, when Clinton would turn to Bentsen and say, What would you do, Lloyd? Casey resigned and it was vacant. Yes, he did. Can you tell us how you first got to know Bill Clinton? WebCornerstone Recovering Community (11001 South Wentworth Avenue) located at 11001 South Wentworth Avenue, Chicago, IL 60628, United States is a drug rehab facility That was a bad mistake. So yes, the themes were in the State of the Union. The two camps were right there sitting in front of the President for six hours at a time. I think that had to do with the actual signing of the treaty. But that was about as specific as you can get. I think the Japanese have ultimately realized its in their own interests to make a lot of these changes. That day I knew we were headed for defeat. Secretary Bentsen had already left. He had good relations with certain members of Congress, and we needed that. Clintons that way. I think though, if I can repeat myself once, I finished reading a few months ago a marvelous biography of TR [Theodore Roosevelt], the second volume of Edmund Morris work. I was given an office over in the Treasury. I may have attended a few meetings, but I only began to be immersed in healthcare after the Presidents plan passed and I became the Treasury person on the Hillary Clinton healthcare task force. I had the benefit of having the office next to Lloyd Bentsen, and maybe there are some people around, even in American history, that have had a better grasp of the American Congress than Lloyd Bentsen, but I never met one. If you read Putting People First, first of all it was domestic policy as a whole, it was not just economic policy. He doesnt even know about the advent of optical scanners in grocery stores, and that was the theme, that was THE central theme as codified, so to speak, in [James] Carvilles famous comment, its the economy, stupid. I can tell you without any fear of contradiction that anyone who makes either of those mistakes, and I can think of others, will ultimately rue the day that he made them. Then of course, the Senate voted the next day and we only had 49 votes that we knew about and Senator Bob Kerrey was the undecided vote, the only one left. It traces to Clintons legendary wonkishness. You could have something like the Paris agreement in 1985 when there was coordinated strengthening of the European and Japanese currencies and weakening of the dollar. Im very fond of her, extremely fond of her, and it was, Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. [Mary Todd] Lincoln? For example, a year later, the fall following my graduation, I attended the University of Chicago, which was perhaps more than any other university, except the University of Wisconsin, the center of SDS [Students for a Democratic Society] activity. We wont get into a philosophy, an argument, about causation, I think Reagans Presidency, a bit, goes against what youre saying, thats all. I thought Perot was a flake, I think Perot is a flake, so I didnt take him terribly seriously. The only reason I think it worked was Bob Rubin, who had the skill and the temperament to make it work. He said, I know this will be hard, but I think I can get those folks. A little bit. I think part of him saw an embrace of NAFTA as an opportunity to reestablish that he was a person of conviction, that he wasnt just in the pocket of the old traditional Democratic constituencies, wasnt just a tax-raiser and spender. Mike Levy, our person, whod been Senator Bentsens primary legislative staffer, was a true pro, and that particular axis worked like a charm. I remember the very stirring tableau as you may remember, the Clintons and the Gores came out onto this beautifully lit portico and there were, it seemed, thousands of people on the street in front of them. We had an autos task force with certain members of the Clinton administration and certain Japanese counterparts on that. Because I think if you serve an administration, and you then decide to comment in some form or other, including in private, about the President and hes got these problems, or hes screwed up in this way, youre just lowering yourself. And every day I would speak to Bentsen about it. The notion, by the way, in Bob Woodwards book, The Agenda, that Greenspan was hovering over the proceedings like an angel of death is completely fictitious. Id served four years in the Carter Treasury but I hadnt had that much exposure in those years to the President. I spent the last couple of hours of that period in the Oval Office with the President and that was quite unforgettable too because the President was hugely animated, to some extent discouraged, to some extent angry, and there were moments when I was the only one in there with him. He served as assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury from 1977 to 1981 before returning to Lehman, where he later became co-head of overall investment banking as well as a member of the management committee and board. Bentsen had run for Congress at a very young age, successfully, was re-elected two or three times, then quit and went into business and was very successful in business. But, first, right at the outset, it was a terribly flawed idea to have a full-time member of the administration serving also as the head of an independent regulatory agency and that should have dawned on me in the earliest going, just the inherent conflict there. I didnt say anything to that. He just determined each time that what he had to do was get through this chapter and somehow live to fight for the next one and didnt take the longer view. It is high, because the toll it takes on your life is high and you either run out of money or you just burn yourself out, or you get separated from your family, or whatever it is. Of course I would say were not proposing to take over the healthcare system. The entire economic team flew on a chartered plane down to Little Rock. Sure. No. He didnt like Clintons stimulus program. So Im sitting there in his hospital room and hes got every imaginable tube coming out. I knew Bob Kerrey quite well by that time and Bob was very unpredictable. 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