850 Chapter 32 Shocks and Responses: 1992–Present
A New Face: Bill Clinton
In 1946 William (Bill) Clinton was born William
Jefferson Blythe IV, but his father died in a car
accident before he was born. Though his stepfather
was an abusive alcoholic, at age fifteen Bill legally
took his stepfather’s name. He graduated from
Georgetown, won a Rhodes scholarship to study at
Oxford University, and graduated from Yale Law
School. He returned to Arkansas and was soon
elected state attorney general.
In 1977 Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham,
joined with James McDougal, a banker, to secure a
loan to build vacation homes in the Ozarks. But the
development, which they named Whitewater, eventu-
ally became insolvent. McDougal illegally covered the
debts with a loan from a savings and loan company he
had acquired. In 1989 the savings and loan failed,
costing the federal government $60 million to reim-
burse depositors. In 1992 federal investigators
claimed that the Clintons had been “potential benefi-
ciaries” of McDougal’s illegal activities.
By this time Clinton, now governor of Arkansas,
was campaigning in the New Hampshire primary for
the Democratic nomination for president. Few voters
could make much sense of the financial mess known as
the “Whitewater scandal,” nor did they have much
opportunity to do so: Another, far more explosive story
threatened to sink the Clinton campaign. It came out
that Clinton had for many years engaged in an extra-
marital affair with one Gennifer Flowers; Clinton’s
standing in the polls tumbled.
Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared with her hus-
band on CBS’s60 Minutesto address the allegations.
Bill Clinton indignantly denied Flowers’s statements
but then issued an earnest if ambiguous appeal for
forgiveness. “I have acknowledged causing pain in my
marriage,” he said. “I think most Americans will
know what we’re saying; they’ll get it.” Clinton was
right, early evidence of his ability to address the
American people directly, but on his own—carefully
worded—terms. He finished second in New
Hampshire, captured most of the remaining pri-
maries, and won the Democratic nomination withYoung Bill Clinton (left) shakes hands with President John F. Kennedy. “The torch has been passed to
a new generation of Americans,” Kennedy had declared in his inaugural. “Ask not what your country
can do for you—ask what you can do for your country,” JFK added. Thirty years later, Clinton’s
inaugural echoed Kennedy’s: “Today, a generation raised in the shadows of the Cold War assumes
new responsibilities,” Clinton declared. “I challenge a new generation of young Americans to a
season of service.”