Youre referring to the environmental and labor side issues. Were you making recommendations to him about how you might tighten things up in this area? I think each person makes his or her own decision. I view that as a very unfortunate decision the Democrats made, but that was a new low, or a new high, however you look at it, in partisanship. That happened, I want to say, late 93, that his nomination was effectively killed. So the Carter White House was a bit at seavisvis the Federal Reserve and its role, how to relate to it. I should have realized I was stepping into a potential mine field but I didnt, although I do have to say that I called my lawyer and asked him if there was any reason I shouldnt take this and he said, Yes, there are about 200 reasons. He is the only person who has declined because of heath reasons and we wont have the opportunity to talk with him. That was not a high point of the Clinton Presidency. You wouldnt choose to go before a grand jury instead of, say, going to Yankee Stadium to see the Yankees playAt that point I was already out of the administration and I had no real concerns. Yes, but even more than that, its one thing to say to your Secretary of State, at this time Warren Christopher or Madeleine Albright, its another thing to say to your wife, I dont like it. Then, in 1995, he formed Evercore. But its just one of those periods in Washington when partisanship is at a peak. Im Gary Burtless. Bob Rubin never uttered a single syllable except of friendship and support of President Clinton. So I watched the Senate vote, also on television, this time in the war room. As has been, as I said, so widely chronicled, the focus was on the economy because the economy was sluggish, in a recessionary state. 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? Remember, President Clintons first initiative, the stimulus plan, was defeated. Did that debate begin as early as August? I was just there to do the best job I could. Toward the middle and latter stages they met everyday. Once you get NAFTA behind you, my guess is that there were further discussions at that point about what ought to be next and this is when healthcare becomes a priority. Now streaming on: Powered by I didnt. As I recall, Al Gore wanted it, cared a great deal about it, to some considerable degree got his way on it. I knew Bentsen enough by reputation to know it was not by any means all set up, so to speak, by the time I went in there. You look at the relationships he ended up having with a lot of people that he was initially close to and were central to his administration, whether its George Stephanopoulos or whoever else it may be. It was not an accident that he did that. Somebody was wrong. But Clinton went for it, Clinton listened, Clinton deserves tremendous credit. Im sure there are lots of aspects of the preparation plan. Clinton had in fact been working on Capitol Hill during this time and I guess I was just trying to get a sense about whether that was unusual. 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 wanted to focus on a few important things at any particular time. Clinton gave his State of the Union address, the 28th of January, eight days after being inaugurated. Altman gave So it could be revived again tomorrow. I dont include that on the list because the federal role in education is always exaggerated. No. Just be sure it doesnt collapse during the interim. Secretary [William] Simon spent hours with me, which is quite odd in retrospect since I was 32. Ive never either been attracted to that approach nor felt that it was an effective one. Well, it was also a surprise to many in the administration because the truth is, the fight over the economic plan took every ounce of energy that everyone had and attention didnt really turn to NAFTA until that was over, and that was over in August. Do you remember at what point this revised estimate comes in? I thought Perot was a flake, I think Perot is a flake, so I didnt take him terribly seriously. What did you find on the ground when you got there, if I could? Today you have Governor [Howard] Dean, Congressman [Dick] Gephardt, for instance. I remember sitting there, thinking to myself, This guy just did something that I could no more imagine myself capable of doing than I could jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. Was it Mickey Kantor? I attended Georgetown University and I was a year ahead of him. 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. I mean, Republicans are opposing it because its tax and spend, the President is upset about it because its Wall Street economics. But from the outside, one of the notable departures of that administration, and I think it began very early, was the cordial deference paid toward the Federal Reserve Board. Bentsen advised him to take it. I dont think thats a very good answer to your question, but I dont think I have a better one. In the first two years of the Clinton administration, they had about four Prime Ministers, pretty hard to get anywhere in that circumstance. Well, we were talking about lasting changes. I raise the issue because I think theres an extraordinary difference in contemporary politics without the existence of that, without the fact of an independent counsel lingering over an administrations head, and you obviously having had some experience with this would be able to testify to infractions. There was no committee per se but he had a few people who were involved at that point and doing something like looking at Putting People First and editing it, and then just these periodic conversations we would have on the fly. No, but it wasnt just entirely that. You were both involved then in student government. I spoke to the Oklahoma state legislature. Weve all seen this happen often in Washington. I didnt say anything to that. First of all, the actual role of the Deputy Secretary as defined in the Treasury mission statement is to do what the Secretary of the Treasury asks him to. 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. Just promotes disunity and so forth. Exactly. I did the best I could. Oh, in the bill itself? Bob Dole. Thats how politics works. The process for conceiving it was a frail one, poor one. Thats the way to do it. Some time around 1989 or so, Hillary Clinton went on the board. Actually the bigger debate was over what came after NAFTA, welfare reform or healthcare. When we had the opportunity to sit down, our own leadershipyou mentioned Leon Panetta, for example, having been chosenand formulate a fresh set of estimates based on all the then latest data, and obviously reaching out to a whole host of experts, it became clear that the deficit outlook was considerably worse than we thought. 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. We had a good discussion and I went back to the airport and flew home. But I really could never figure that out. But then Senator [Daniel Patrick] Moynihan spoke to Kerrey late in the day and I thought that was, if not decisive, very influential. I certainly have every reason to want him to. So there was not any anxiety or uncertainty within the core group of people involved in economic policy making about how this might fit in or. It wasnt particularly formed before then. During the transition period, you are formally involved in the transition effort. He managed himself beautifully and with great self-control, and Clinton had very little self-control. He didnt want to be involved in the daily ins and outs of those jobs. That they felt that people who had served the President. You should have asked me about the vote, unless youve already talked to enough people about it. Had there always been a sense on your part that your likely posting in the administration would be in Treasury or. There were those obviously who felt the most important thing was to get the deficit down. The politics of personal destruction as Mrs. Clinton is saying now on her book tour, common in American history, nothing new about it at all. Did you think that they took those claims seriously, or was this pure politics? I can recall that we had a fundraiser. I never heard of them. Well, how do you know? You asked me when the most important policy development occurred and I would say there are several answers to that but number one would be post election, not pre-election. 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. Are you including in this the difference of approach between the campaign-oriented, the political people, and the policy people, as well as the differences among. 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. What was different about it was that it worked, because most of them had been somewhat dysfunctional. I mean, its amusing in a certain sense, but of the hundred members of the Senate he probably talked on any kind of regular basis to about ten. The meetings became sort of a phenomenon and some people thought they were great because they were so inclusive and here we were having opportunities to spend hours with the President. That was great. I came to respect Dole a lot through Bentsen. He does not see that as one of his own great accomplishments. I think that there wasagain, I dont follow this that closelybut there was a fast reaction in short-term rates when the Federal Reserve Board loosened, early on, in what appeared to be quid pro quoGreenspan offered some assurance to Congress that the Fed would be cognizant of the Federal. Whatever was going on on the deck of the Titanic was comparable, but it was absolutely frantic and incredibly dramatic and tense. But that was fairly brief, though. I suppose you could have strengthening of the yen, coordinated G7 action to do that. I mean, after all, Whitewater ultimately amounted to nothing. But apropos of my comments earlier that classic, unreconstructed liberalism had never been my cup of tea, I never identified with Mario Cuomo. I think the Japanese have ultimately realized its in their own interests to make a lot of these changes. Was there anything that particularly distinguished this campaign from what youd seen in these other instances thats noteworthy? Web446 Roger Altman Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images CREATIVE EDITORIAL VIDEO All Sports Entertainment News Archival Browse 446 roger altman McLarty called me in my hotel room in Tokyo and asked me if I would be willing to take in effect a leave of absence from the Treasury and go to manage a war room that they wanted to set up to try to get this bill passed, the Presidents economic program. It was just an evolution of the prior role. During the transition period the question was, Who are we going to nominate the head the RTC? So I spent a lot of time on healthcare. I was given an office over in the Treasury. Im not sure it makes entire sense, however, to judge or to assess a Presidents contribution by the standard of those who are given, in effect, a free gift of power to deal with a crisis. 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. They talked all the time. Could be. President Clinton gave you the opportunity to serve your country, its a privilege to serve your country. You ultimately get into a room like this and you say, youd better start to train me, tell me how this happened. Now we became aware pretty early that there were some real problems with this proposal. It was really only when Erskine Bowles became Deputy Chief of Staff that a structure began to be built around Clinton that enabled all those processes to become more organized. The questions from all these different parts of the countryOregon, Louisiana, Michiganwere all the same. Did you keep up with him when your paths parted? I think theres a wonderful tradition in American government where the outgoing administration typically does everything it can to assist the incoming one, and that was certainly true with the [Gerald] Ford administration. So theres no reporting responsibility, its treated as one office, a little bit like a corporate office of the chairman which includes the chairman, and the CEO, and the President and chief operating officer, and maybe even one or two others. The only other observation that just randomly runs through my mind is, I was always described in the press as an intimate of Clintons and that was just not the case. Then the President spoke to Kerrey. We believed that by maintaining the highest standards of excellence we could create a firm unlike any other in terms of capabilities to advise on highly complex strategic transactions, dedication to our client and our experience and professionalism. But I didnt have any knowledge of this stuff. Were you involved in discussions at this point about what would be next in the queue for the administration, because there were some other. My own view on that is that American history is filled with examples of severe and indeed brutal partisanship. Bentsen had a lucidits hard to describe how lucid Bentsens observations always were. Chicago, of course, always has been, and they attracted very different students. On changes in the bill, unless they were truly minor, those were deliberated at the highest level. I stayed overnight, went back the next day. He remained in those positions until Lehman was sold. Clinton loves meetings like that. 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. We just didnt know, and thats pretty amazing, the biggest piece of legislation, the voting has actually begun. You say you knew Rubin well, but did you have a sense that in the other places where economic policy-making is made there was ever any tension over this kind of an arrangement? I had known him just slightly. I remember that day. Sure. And Bentsen did make the call. Im not quite sure what their input was. I first met Bill Clinton in college. Well, nobody took more pain up front than Ronald Reagan. There are some people who wouldsome of the George H. W. Bush people date the partisanship from the budget deal. Is he somebody who, from your perception, makes close friends at all? It was an all right agreement. 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. You had been given a portfolio before that time? Before we close, Id like to make one pitch though. Andrew Garfield presented the Robert Altman Award at the 2022 Film Independent Spirit Awards to his old friend, Fran Kranz, for his film Mass. So if you want to call it the politics of the economy, The labor unions were overwhelmingly opposed. As I remember the NAFTA campaign was kicked off only a month or two later. When we then proceeded on NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement], which was the next very dramatic moment. There was a stimulus package that dwindled, right? He knew the rhythm, so to speak, of the Democratic Party, including in New York. My point is, I thought the whole discussion had a considerable impact on Clinton, as did scores of others along the way after that. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, Notice of Non-Discrimination and Equal Opportunity. Some of the things on the wish list made a lot of sense, but some of them didnt. Ive known many members. I want to ask you a general question since youve raised the Carter precedent again here.And that is, we get the perception in talking with some people that there was a conscious effort on the part of senior-most advisors to President Clinton not to reach out and rely on a lot of people that had Carter-era experience in the Presidency. Which did he bond most closely with and were there instances where there were tough nuts for him to crack? But was there any perspective then that in fact, the Japanese economy was weak relative to the other G7? No, it never got to a vote. Were now in the pre-election period. Perhaps history will give Clinton credit for having been the man who made welfare reform happen. In the Carter administration, there was no real sense of what the Federal Reserve really was, what it did, how to deal with it. Theres also an institutional dimension to the atmosphere in Washington thats very important and distinguishes the current situation from the situation in which you governed, and that is the existence of an independent counsel. He managed to remain viable through New Hampshire. But I didnt know where the President was on NAFTA. The answer to that is yes. 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. Oh yes, sure. The chief, the captain of that ship with Mickey Kantor, USTR [United States Trade Representative], and to some considerable extent Ron Brown, Secretary of Commerce, and Lloyd Bentsen played a big role in it. That was a wonderful comment. Scientist, architect, botanist, Copyright 2023. It was a good-sized ballroom here in New York. First of all, Clintonand I consider this a very important historical achievement, well see how it lastsmay turn out to have transformed the Democratic party. Or Ill put it another waywe didnt know where the President was on NAFTA on that day. Its very puzzling to me how that could happen when the man had such an obvious gift for feeling peoples pain and a very strong public presence. May I ask you if a part of the political calculus at the time was, Weve just come through a bruising battle with no Republican votes, weve got to do something to reach out and to reestablish better relations with a party thats not going anywhere over the next year, probably for the rest of the Presidency? Do you think that making this effort was driven by foreign policy considerations first and foremost, or was it genuinely an economic policy? I, and quite a few other people, had dinner with him, quite a few meaning 15 or so. I think this had to be artfully crafted in order to get through. One of the reasons it was bloodless was because the Soviets knew what they had and didnt have and what we had and they didnt have. You dont want to start your Presidency off with a legislative defeat. He had just made it through this cliffhanging vote on which the administrations credibility for the next several years, I think, would largely depend, and it depends on the support of overwhelming shares of Democrats in the House and the Senate to get through. By that time we were all being treated very well by the campaign because we were seen as the guys who were there at the beginning. So what I actually spent my time on ranged all over the lot. A lot of people didnt realize and I didnt entirely realize the regulatory responsibilities of the RTC at the time. Then Clinton, as I mentioned, this one big event in January of 92Clinton was great on his feet. So Japan arguably has been in a 12- or 14-year slump, but at that time the weakness in the Japanese economy was seen as just cyclical, not structural. That was a period during which [Boris] Yeltsin was just coming onto the stage. It was the usual degree of difficulty that early, not really greater because he was from Arkansas. Clinton had one and in this instance, on the stimulus program, he should have listened to him. He didnt say so, but supposedly he never does. He told me what was going to happen to the Clinton healthcare bill the day it was announced, actually before it was announced. That process had been going on. Its not as easy. So essentially you would not have been involved in any of the crafting, I guess, you basically were given an agreement and it was a question of just lining up the votes at this point. He knew how every member would vote. I sat next to Mrs. Clinton at dinner. But I remember we went to Little Rock. So no, Bentsen did not go over to the White House, hang around, talk about legislative strategy. And the field against which Clinton ultimately competed was not a strong field. I was completelyclean bill of health from the independent counsel. Well, yes, Carter tried a version of that. Yes. I worked very closely with Bob Kerrey, with Senator [Max] Baucus, who had such a problem with the gas tax. I think thats a wonderful tradition. And I dont have any different set of reactions than anyone else watching the thing at the time. It was not as big a change as it was advertised to be, or has been seen historically. The key players turned out to be the so-called blue dog Democrats. But I dont really think that was the reason that he voted for it, but only an hour before the vote in the Senate did we know we had his vote. He has difficulty speaking. Well, I dont recommend you have that experience, but once youve done it, you know what it is. Of course he has those who get invited to his ranch and those who dont. What really happened was that the stimulus was entirely spending-side stimulus. But there was a divide, so to speak, in the administration between those who felt that we should try to remake the healthcare system in this country in one fell swoop and those who felt we should pursue an incremental approach. He never did anything spontaneously, at least professionally speaking. Is that a fair assessment? The first vote on one of Clintons issues was a defeat, which presaged a lot of the weakness that then afflicted him during 1993. Lets face it, NAFTA has worked. Are we missing anything in terms of your responsibilities? 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. Everyone understood there was a lag factor. Yes, but the independent counsel is not a Clinton-era novelty. 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. Bill Clinton, by that one- or two-line standing, may not make the cut for the top tier. That was the first thing I did. In that regard, I would guess that your background on Wall Street was a big help in terms of talking with these members and having a rapport with them that they would feel comfortable with? Not likely, and was not the case in 92. So there are the four main elements. But you ended up doing a lot of strange things. Now, it may last five or six more years, it may last 25 more years, I dont know. 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