Could be. Wed sit around in the Roosevelt Room, and you know how it works. But I really could never figure that out. The IRS employs 120,000 people or so. You didnt have to spend much time around them to see this. But he was at least alive. Anyway, a couple of days later I flew to Austin, Texas and met him and Mrs. [Beryl Ann] Bentsen in a hotel room in Austin. 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. Well, when we actually re-did Putting People First, we went to Little Rock and worked on it for a few days. I was in Tokyo, asleep, so I was a bit taken aback. So actually I didnt have any concerns. I recall reading in one account that Clinton had worked on a kind of unusual cluster of issues as a candidate for student body president at the time. Two questions, one of which was minor. Hes pointing to the right-hand column of theWall Street Journal. But in any event, Im sure it wasnt as good as it should have been. So again, it wasnt all about President Clinton. As has been, as I said, so widely chronicled, the focus was on the economy because the economy was sluggish, in a recessionary state. But Clinton really got into it. So I guess wed like to hear the story about your involvement in both cases, focusing on your relationships with members of Congress, how the division of labor was, your relationships with the. I mean, not to take any credit away from other players, you wouldnt want to do that Im sure, but there must have been some. Yes. Were there any big-picture elements that you wanted to put into the puzzle right now or should we just go ahead and break and we can pick up with some of the specifics on these things? The Japanese economy was relatively weak at that time although it was in perhaps the first third of its now 12-year, or 14-year slump after the Nikkei peaked at 39,000. But the key revelation was the most stimulative thing we could do for this economy is to induce a monetary response. I ended up doing that over the space of four, five, six weeks. Mexican trucking, citrus, tomatoes, Im not joking. We were both quite active in student government. I guess I probably began to help raise money, its a rough memory now, in the early fall, perhaps September of 91. We didnt have a crisis in the foreign exchange markets. But my role was shaped largely by two things: one, Bentsen and what Bentsen wanted; and two, the fact that I had a reasonably close relationship with the White House. Oh sure. So no, Bentsen did not go over to the White House, hang around, talk about legislative strategy. I started doing a lot of the same thing Id done on the economic plan: radio shows, television stuff, running around the country. and Lloyd would say, I wouldnt do it, Mr. President, or I would do it. I should have said I was either going to or not going to, but anywaySo that meeting came and went and at least nobody at the Treasury thought much about it. Roger C. Altman. Then in the latter part of 93 I think, Whitewater began to surface, I think it was late 93. Ironically, Clintons style for those meetings and the style of the present President are not very different. I ran for president of the student body in the spring of my junior year, and he did the same in the spring of his junior year, which was one year following mine. Roger Altman, chairman and founder at Evercore, discusses the state of the U.S. economy, the four things that need to be included in the next round of stimulus, and Nothing, zero, never did, never would have. How difficult was it to raise money in the environment, Cuomo aside, just for somebody who had been a Governor of Arkansas in a campaign season when theres. I mean just the vote itself and the fact that not a single Republican voted for this, which even by its critics is seen now as having been at least a contributor to the economic prosperity and fiscal balance that later resulted. For the first part of the Clinton years, Arthur Burns was famously mystical, quite like Greenspan. Everyone understood there was a lag factor. There was also a very memorable event that was held in the East Room of the White House, and recall that within a week or two of this event, Clintons own position on NAFTA was still up in the air. I should have said Larry Summers was an important part of that too. Was there anything that particularly distinguished this campaign from what youd seen in these other instances thats noteworthy? Not surprising, given his state of origin. Im not sure that was what they originally intended, I suppose it was, but I wasnt involved in the planning of the summit, I just went to it and had a role on one of the panels and sat around for a couple of days, really. I mean, it can be in private, it can be in print, it can be any other way. In fact, the exact oppositethe people who voted for it were punished in 94. The feelings of people along the wayside were just very endearing. Secretary Bentsen was too important and had other things to do than to go down to Waco, Texas, and try to figure out what was going on there. I think that had to do with the actual signing of the treaty. Id have to do a little homework. Thats a good point, but thats because there were some people whod been around the track. But its the economy, stupid doesnt communicate a set of priorities within the administration about what steps they will take. Oh sure, New York is, in terms of Democratic politics, not a terribly big town. Then ultimately, to give you a sense of how colorful this became, DAmato went to the Senate floor and he had a gigantic calendar the size of this wall and was marking off the days. I was just in awe of people like that. Well, if you think about spending initiatives that you could take today that are politically imaginable, they amount to a hill of beans in a $10.7 trillion economy. They werent really involved in the doing of the plan. I have to admit I didnt. So the swing votes were the object of our attention. We had a bad one against the yen when the dollar touched an all-time low of 80 yen. The great Presidents that you mentioned, the ones that loom large, as you said, are all crisis Presidents. But Clintons worked largely because of the people, and mostly Bob Rubin, but anyway, it worked well. No because Clinton had determined, as he well should havesee, Presidents often dont do this, or Presidents-elect, but they shouldBentsen had to be satisfied that this was something he wanted. 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. I doubt that youll see that. Weve talked about the general idea that the administration was going to accept pain by having deficit reduction in the early years, but theres still the question of how youre going to mete out the pain. It was a successful fundraiser. I didnt feel it because I had a long relationship with Bob Rubin, which had been ten or 12 or 14 years, and Bentsen and Rubin had had their own long relationship and I saw no real problem with everybody relating successfully to each other. Then, as the weeks and months went by, it came closer and closer and closer to whip counts. Robert Altman reflects on his college years with President William J. Clinton, 1992 election, Treasury transition, budget plans, Whitewater investigation, and North American Free Trade Agreement. Lets recast the question a bit. We had a couple hundred people there. Things like, I cant remember what example we used, but Senator X voted for us because he was afraid hed have to have lunch with the President again, things like that. And that was fairly late, right, when Bowles came in? For example, I said earlier, the National Economic Council is not a new idea at all, that the Ford administration had its version, Nixon had his version, and so forth. Yes, but the independent counsel is not a Clinton-era novelty. So they came in and interviewed him. There was concern that we had already spilled an enormous amount of blood on the economic plan. They all came to the same conclusions. I thought, perhaps not at that instant, but quickly thereafter, that what Clinton said to me about Wall Street economics was very funny. Roger Altman (left) launched Evercore in 1995 and shed the CEO title in May of last year when Ralph Schlosstein (right) took it and quintupled assets under management to $15 billion. I said I would and we went forward. And, of course, the ATF agents didnt know what they were going to experience and he found himself exposed to an open line of fire. While most of this was extreme and unjustified, President Clinton played a role in it himself. People trooped down and sat around and briefed Carter, but he was sitting there figuring out do I want to appoint this guy or that person, and so forth. There was some action forcing the schedule and the President would have had to ditch the treaty, just say, Ive decided Im not for it. He knew how every member would vote. Clinton had his own style of charm and Bush has a little bit different style, but not very different. The only thing that Id like to leave this on in respect to any follow-up is this: If at any point you dont think you have a clear picture of Lloyd Bentsens role, since he is not in a position to speak for himself, feel free to call me or talk to me further about that. So I felt very chastened by what Gene had said. We might have a thousand independent counsels operating under the freedom of the press, investigations. On the policy issues at this point are you beginning to see any kind of evolution or any kind of establishment of governing priorities, or again, is this a question thats held off on until after the election? Yes, hes just that way. Of course it was a very small kind of backwater type of situation, not a big one. We wont get into a philosophy, an argument, about causation, I think Reagans Presidency, a bit, goes against what youre saying, thats all. You know, she made comments like I could have stayed home and baked cookies but I decided to be a real person, which served to severely antagonize a lot of traditionalists. But as to whether it was an innovation, I doubt it. If Im not mistaken, we were looking at a $350 billion deficit, up from about $260 or something that we had been generally using during the campaign. What did you find on the ground when you got there, if I could? So were in a partisan phase. Clinton moved quickly. Now, of course, as far as working the Hill was concerned, I would take my cues from the constant and joint planning of the White House and Treasury legislative liaison staffs. I think it counts for four, five percent of the spending. Once he decided he was for it, he really got into it. I follow it pretty closely, and I have a hard time figuring it out. There was also a whole series of other investigations undertaken at the same time, one by the Office of Government Ethics, one by the Treasury Inspector General, one by the Office of White House Counsel. I stayed down there for a day and a half, maybe 24 hours. Bill Clinton, by that one- or two-line standing, may not make the cut for the top tier. 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. Can you tell us about his decision-making process on this? Were seeing it today. So that was the revelation, so to speak, that occurred that day. 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? Even at the end of 91 it was small and relatively unformed. He said, I know this will be hard, but I think I can get those folks. That happened, I want to say, late 93, that his nomination was effectively killed. You indicated that the President did it right with Treasury. Richard Nixon resigned from office. So its funny how reality quickly returns. We just discussed one of them, which is the up cycle in partisanship, as I call it. Our labor leadership did not want that, especially of course, the Teamsters. I think this had to be artfully crafted in order to get through. 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. The Putting People First document, is it fair to characterize that as the menu choices that the administration was going to be making when it took office, but that there was not a great deal of attention at this point on priorities from among the elements in the menu? I recall a large event, right after New Years, the fourth of January I believe, in 92, that I organized at their request, which was just simply to have a large number of people listen to Clinton give a speech. One was in connection with Putting People First, when we had the wonderful experience of taking a cab from the Little Rock airport and having the cab driver slow down and practically come to a stop for a second, and excitedly point out to us Gennifer Flowers apartment building. Were now in the pre-election period. Thats something we dont have a lot of information about. I remember Allen going through that. Its rare that an issue divides the Democrats. I knew a lot about Perot, having been heavily involved in Wall Street for many years. I might have a point of view about what those ought to be based on certain inputs I was receiving directly from the Hill and we need to work more on this or that. For one reason or other, Clinton developed some very powerful antagonists in the press, most notably Howell Raines of the New York Times editorial page, and the New York Times treatment of Clinton became a virtual industry unto itself. I mean, it was a larger package as it was originally conceived and then. But a very useful one. Hundreds of meetings over many months, also similar to those original meetings, too many people, too long, too many people talking and so forth. The arrangements, as far as the White House, how it passes operation, and the Treasury operationshould that be seen as well coordinated, or is it difficult to coordinate? You sit down with the leaders of your own party in the Congress, ultimately with the entire leadership, and then you learn a little bit about the realities that you face from the legislative point of view. I would say it was something like this. Now, it may last five or six more years, it may last 25 more years, I dont know. Its worth asking. Theres one thing about Clinton that I think is beyond debate, that hes a fabulous politician. I then had the brilliant ideaIm saying this, obviously sarcastically, that I should inform the White House what those procedural alternatives were. He would explain to me the problems with the particular pieces, but, I dont know if you had to be Bentsen, did you? But in any event, Madison Guaranty had failed. That was the all-time low for the dollar. Just be sure it doesnt collapse during the interim. I was completelyclean bill of health from the independent counsel. We can all speculate. And Bentsen did make the call. and I had no previous knowledge of it at all. Talking out of turn you mean? They talked all the time. I remember that day. Well, I dont recommend you have that experience, but once youve done it, you know what it is. Lets take five minutes and well come back for the rest of the morning session. The Clinton stimulus plan just was not well conceived. And also, the opportunity to finally address what the real economic situation and fiscal situation was. So there were four, Fiske and the other three, and they all came to the same conclusion, and the latter three also addressed the question of whether any of the government ethical guidelines had been violated and they all concluded no, they hadnt been. Every time they had a new Prime Minister, we had a new set of characters. Was Bernard Nussbaum involved in the financing in this early period? If he predicted over the two years I worked for him, the fate of 25 pieces of legislation, he was right on all 25. Ford actually attended regularly, I dont mean every day, but regularly, and it was just a version of what Clinton did. There were so many different Japanese Prime Ministers in that period I cant remember which one we had at that moment. So we were not classmates, and we were not buddies in that sense, but we knew each other pretty well by standards of students who were not in the same year. He knew that if we lost this vote it was a severe blow. I doubt it. Is this before the beginning of the year or. Anyway. If I search my memory or some dusty file somewhere, I could probably come up with more names, but it was not a huge group. Is the existence of a war room something. I have to confess it was the spring of my senior year and I was paying a little more attention to girls and golf than I was to the normal ebb and flow of events on the campus. While at the University, In retrospect, I think those are the two main reasons he embraced it. He didnt want to be involved in the daily ins and outs of those jobs. You havent told us about your own appointment. Im just saying the Japanese side very much viewed it as a zero-sum game, therefore anything we got was, from their point of view, giving up something. Im Jim Young. There was not a war going on. There just wasnt a candidate who had the capability to do that. I dont mean that facetiously. He was fully free to say no to that. So he didnt have the luxury of saying, Lets do it a year from now, as you often do with other things. Its quite a difference and I ascribe it to the fact that she does not look at the world as, or at least in my experience, as solely and only politically. After all, John Kennedy is seen in the middle by historians. I believe, as I say, it was either the day of or the day after Gennifer Flowers had given her press conference. Youve had Chiefs of Staff, Don Regan comes to mind, who see themselves as all-powerful and go too far to one end of the spectrum, and youve had others like Mack, who are too deferential and too averse to confrontation and go too far in the other direction. The type of student attending each school at the time. Right around that time I was put in charge of the Treasury transition. Was it defined initially as a Democratic Party issue and Republicans were cut out, or how did that happen? Bentsen never lost an election, period, on which he was head of the ticket, ever. We can come back and pick up on each of these strains and try to get you to flesh out the skeleton if we can. Yes, and Im sure that any number of opponents to the Presidents plan were sincere in their expectation that it wouldnt work. That notion took hold at that meeting. One of the initial ideas was an energy tax. And I also think that theres a certain sense of loyalty among the people that are currently serving in this administration, which is more in keeping with tradition, than the Clinton folks, or many of them I should say, brought to it. If you think about it in the context of today, well see how the primary campaign plays out, but it will be unusual if differences on issues were the decisive factor. But I think in Washington, except in dire emergencies, politics rules, and most Republicans had the view that they would rather die than vote for a tax increase. Was it the selection of the people who were going to do the economic. So there were a couple of weeks of high anxiety, maybe more than that, maybe everybody was in a state of anxiety between the election and yes, it wasnt at all clear who the Secretary of Treasury would be. Its possible that President Clinton rues the fact that 9/11 didnt occur on his watch, because it was a transforming crisis and did transform, at least to date, the present President. Before we close, Id like to make one pitch though. So yes, the themes were in the State of the Union. In business. Yes, but Mack was entirely averse to confrontation and played a completely backstage role in these things, which is not really what a President needs. The President made a decision he was going toand he discussed this during the campaign at lengthbe more aggressive with Japan to have a fairer, more level playing field. It was sort of all-encompassing. Bob Rubin. I can recall David Halberstam on the way out saying to me that he never heard a politician as effective as Clinton since JFK [John Fitzgerald Kennedy]. Arthur Burns was the chairman of the Fed. So the fact that a variety of people serve a long time, theres nothing mysterious about that, that had nothing to do with Bill Clinton. I take these observations, very astute observations, from people who live in this discipline. That was absolutely true also of Secretary Brady and all of his people, couldnt have been more cooperative. The Times, which is typically, of course, a Democratic-leaning paper, was Clintons severest clinic throughout his whole Presidency, and on Whitewater went crazy. Please. There had been some minor event that day and he was asked what he thought of the latest developments in Iran and he said, I dont talk about barbarians. So, as always happens, the policy apparatus was being built and the policy process was being deepened and becoming more sophisticated as the entire campaign evolved. Roger C. Altman is Founder and Senior Chairman of Evercore, which has become the most active independent investment bank in the world. Now John Snow didnt learn that, hed never been there before and so forth and so on, whatever excuse fits him. Then there were other people who went down and the press was following all this. In the early period, there was a lot of discussion of broad strategy, how to create support for deficit reduction as a whole, how to talk about the program, what type of interest groups we needed to particularly work with and work on. There were some enormous differences. @ 34.032138, -118.722249. 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