August 1 1999
UNITED STATES
Hillary Clinton: why I
stay married to Bill
Christopher Goodwin, Los Angeles
AMERICA'S first lady, Hillary Clinton, who is also
the country's most publicly betrayed wife, has
revealed for the first time why she has stood by the
president. She said his infidelities were a
"weakness" caused by the psychological trauma of
childhood abuse.
In an interview that gives an unprecedented insight
into their marriage, Hillary reveals that she believes
Bill Clinton's childhood experiences set a pattern for
his philandering.
She also discloses that, until the scandal broke over
his affair with Monica Lewinsky, she thought he had
"conquered" his unfaithfulness.
"Yes, he has weaknesses. Yes, he needs to be more
disciplined, but it is remarkable given his
background that he turned out to be the kind of
person he is, capable of such leadership," she said.
"He was so young, barely four, when he was
scarred by abuse. There was terrible conflict
between his mother and grandmother. A
psychologist once told me that for a boy being in
the middle of a conflict between two women is the
worst possible situation. There is always a desire to
please each one."
Ever since arriving in the governor's mansion in
Arkansas in 1978, Clinton was known, in the
parlance of the state, as a "hard dog to keep on the
porch". When he became president in 1993 Betsey
Wright, his assistant, had to devote much of her
time to coping with "bimbo eruptions". But only
when the Lewinsky affair was exposed did Hillary
realise that her husband had not changed.
"You have to be alert to it, vigilant in helping. I
thought this was resolved 10 years ago. I thought
he had conquered it; I thought he understood it,
but he didn't go deep enough or work hard
enough," she said.
Referring to the period after Clinton's affair with
Gennifer Flowers, the Arkansas beauty queen who
claimed a 12-year relationship, Hillary said: "You
know we did have a very good stretch - years and
years of nothing."
The interview, to be published this week in Talk, a
new magazine edited by Tina Brown, former editor
of The New Yorker, is the first time Hillary has
talked about her marriage since her husband was
impeached for lying about his sexual relationship
with Lewinsky, the 21-year-old White House
trainee.
Asked by Lucinda Franks, the interviewer, whether
their marriage would survive the strain of her
standing for the Senate in New York, Hillary
replied: "He's responsible for his own behaviour
whether I'm there or 100 miles away. You have the
confrontation with the person and then it is their
responsibility, whether it's gambling, drinking or
whatever. Nobody can do it for you.
"He has been working on himself very hard in the
past year. He has become more aware of his past
and what was causing this behaviour."
Hillary emphasised that the affair with Lewinsky
occurred after the deaths of his mother, her father
and their old friend Vincent Foster, who shot
himself. "He couldn't protect me, so he lied," she
said simply.
"You know in Christian theology there are sins of
weakness and sins of malice, and this was a sin of
weakness."
When Hillary was challenged that many people
believed she had stuck by Clinton for her own
benefit, she revealed her deeper motivations for
loyalty. She said she had learnt the lessons of her
mother's bitter experience: Dorothy Rodham, the
product of a divorce, was put on a train at the age
of eight with her three-year-old sister to be brought
up by her grandparents.
"My mother never had any education. She had
terrible obstacles but she vowed that she would
break the pattern of abandonment in her family,
and she did," Hillary said.
"Everybody has some dysfunction in their families.
They have to deal with it. You don't walk away if
you love someone. You help the person."
When Hillary tried to draw a comparison from the
Bible to describe her allegiance, the interviewer
suggested a passage from Corinthians. "Love
endures all things? No, I love that, but I was
thinking of when Peter betrayed Jesus three times
and Jesus knew it but loved him anyway. Life is not
a linear progression. It has many paths and
challenges; and we need to help one another."
"And it is love, isn't it?" asked the interviewer.
"Yes, it is," Hillary replied. "We have love."
She survived the infidelities and the public outcry
through "soul-searching, friends, religious faith and
long hard discussions". She said: "I don't believe in
denying things. I believe in working through it. Is
he ashamed? Yes. Is he sorry? Yes. But does this
negate everything he has done as a husband, a
father, a president?
"There has been enormous pain, enormous anger,
but I have been with him half my life and he is a
very, very good man. We just have a deep
connection that transcends whatever happens."
Her chief of staff, Melanne Verveer, said that as the
president tried to make up for what he had done
she had seen "physical passion" come back into
their lives. But the rapprochement emerged slowly,
according to another aide, who said Hillary had
"barely spoken" to Clinton for eight months after
the semen stain on Lewinsky's dress was made
public.
During the past 18 months Hillary has lost weight,
changed her hairstyle and started wearing smart
clothes. Clinton, say aides, has noticed the
difference with some surprise. "Doesn't she look
beautiful?" he is said to have observed to friends.
Hillary says she and Clinton enjoy the intimacies of
any married couple. "We talk. We talk in the
solarium, in the bedroom, in the kitchen - it's just
constant conversation. We like to lie in bed and
watch old movies, you know, those little individual
video machines you can hold on your lap."
News of the interview began to circulate in
Washington a few days after a court fined the
president $90,686 (£56,700) for lying in the
harassment case brought by Paula Jones. It was
the first time a sitting president had been fined for
contempt. Jones had accused Clinton of making an
unwanted sexual advance to her in a hotel in
Arkansas before he became president.
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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"
