quently damaged the Democratic Party. The issues
surrounding the 1991 Tailhook scandal were never
settled, but the incident brought attention to
women’s role in the military and the Pentagon, and
the Navy’s prosecutorial methods came under scru-
tiny. The 1995 verdict in the Simpson murder trial
on live television illustrated the continued racial di-
vision in the United States when many African Amer-
icans loudly applauded, while whites overwhelm-
ingly believed in Simpson’s guilt.
Subsequent Events In an effort to eliminate a re-
peat of the early 1990’s banking scandal, Congress
passed a banking bill providing the Federal Reserve
with increased power to oversee foreign banks. As
time went on, Bill Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky hin-
dered Gore’s presidential campaign, but Hillary
Clinton won a seat in the Senate and was a strong
contender for the Democratic presidential nomina-
tion in 2008. The Tailhook scandal affected the ca-
reers of fourteen admirals and almost three hun-
dred naval aviators and resulted in a rule ensuring
that officers in line for promotion played no role in
the Tailhook event. Simpson continued to dodge
collection efforts by the victims’ families; in 2007, a
Florida court gave the rights to his bookIf I Did It:
Confessions of the Killerto the Goldman family and
Simpson was arrested for breaking into a Las Vegas
Palace Station hotel room as part of a dispute over
sports memorabilia.
Further Reading
Busby, Robert.Defending the American Presidency: Clin-
ton and the Lewinsky Scandal. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2001. Analyzes the strategies adopted
by Clinton to weather the Lewinsky scandal, and
explains how and why he survived.
Dershowitz, Alan.Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Jus-
tice System and the O.J. Simpson Case. New York:
Touchstone, 1997. Appellate attorney and Har-
vard Law School professor Dershowitz succinctly
addresses the facts in the Simpson scandal and ar-
gues for the validity of the verdict.
Hill, Anita.Speaking Truth to Power. New York: Anchor
Books, 1998. Details Hill’s professional relation-
ship with Clarence Thomas and her role in the
1991 Supreme Court nomination hearings.
Merriner, James.Mr. Chairman: Power in Dan Rosten-
kowski’s America. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1999. The story of Rostenkow-
ski’s rise and fall provides insights on how power
was sought, won, exercised, and distributed in
1990’s America.
Zimmerman, Jean.Tailspin: Women at War in the Wake
of Tailhook. New York: Doubleday, 1995. The au-
thor sheds light on Navy fighter pilot culture and
the role that it played in the events of the 1991
Tailhook scandal.
M. Casey DianaSee also Business and the economy in the United
States; Campaign finance scandal; Clinton, Bill;
Clinton, Hillary Rodham; Clinton’s impeachment;
Clinton’s scandals; Cochran, Johnnie; Elections in
the United States, midterm; Elections in the United
States, 1992; Elections in the United States, 1996;
Gingrich, Newt; Gore, Al; Hill, Anita; Lewinsky scan-
dal; Race relations; Simpson murder case; Tailhook
incident; Thomas, Clarence; Whitewater investiga-
tion; Women in the military. Schindler’s List
Identification American film
Director Steven Spielberg (1946- )
Date Released on December 15, 1993
This film is a docudrama about Oskar Schindler, a Catho-
lic, Sudeten German businessman who started up a factor y
in Kraków, Poland, and used Jewish slave labor to produce
enamelware for the German war effort. Based on the book
Schindler’s Ark(1982) by Thomas Keneally, it is a pow-
erful stor y of one man’s conversion from crass opportunism
to salvation.
Schindlerjuden(“Schindler’s Jews”) were those Jews
saved from the “final solution” (genocide) through
the actions of one man. Schindler, a Nazi war profi-
teer who took full advantage of Nazi anti-Semitic pol-
icies, inexplicably used his position and his acquired
wealth to save the lives of his workers. Not especially
an honorable (or even honest) man, when faced
with the moral dilemma of allowing his Jews to die or
of acting on their behalf at enormous personal dan-
ger, Schindler chose to act. Risking all, he ultimately
lost everything—except for the loyalty and devotion
of those whom he saved.
Now buried in the Latin cemetery in Jerusalem,
Schindler was accorded the title of “Righteous
Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem (the Israeli Ho-
locaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Au-The Nineties in America Schindler’s List 747