Were you privy to the conversations that he had? You indicated that the President did it right with Treasury. Is that a fair assessment? Yes, but the independent counsel is not a Clinton-era novelty. Then thered been prior independent counsels. If you think about his history, Bentsen had been a highly decorated war hero. WebRoger Altman is Founder and Senior Chairman of Evercore, the most active independent investment bank in the world today. Actually, as often happens in Washington, accounts of that testimony appeared in a lot of newspapers and mostly on page D20. Can you tell us about that? 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? We then embarked on a search for a candidate and give or take three or four months later found one who, ironically, was a Republican. But in any event, Im sure it wasnt as good as it should have been. It wasnt going to be a war between the United States and the Soviet Union. But I was briefed on the procedures the RTC had to follow here. We didnt have a crisis in the foreign exchange markets. Thats why I wonder whether there was some kind of perception, outside. Howard Paster at the White House, Mike Levy at the Treasury. When you say the coordinator, you mean of the Presidents message? I think hes deeply appreciated. Well, Im not actually trying to establish whether these were particularly important in the campaign. 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. They just didnt do it. I dont think thats a very good answer to your question, but I dont think I have a better one. Then, while the agreement called for there to be no further duties or tariffs or anything on everything, a whole variety of items were carved out in order to get certain votes. His view was, I want to pick good people and let them do their jobs. But that was about as specific as you can get. I do recall some rushed discussions at the very end about what we do now and how we flesh out his policies, and I can recall talking to George Stephanopoulos the morning the convention ended about certain steps we were going to take now in terms of getting better organized on policy development and issues. I hope he does. But anyway, in retrospect it was a very bad idea. Education might be something in terms of opening. 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]. Bentsen could tell you, within 4 percent accuracy, what was going to happen to every one of these bills. We met for six or seven hours in the Governors mansion there. Were there Republican members that he particularly relied on. So he performed a similar role. Ive never either been attracted to that approach nor felt that it was an effective one. But I would also say he contributed to his own under-appreciation. This giant controversy erupted over that. I dont know whether his Presidency will be seen as one of the most important or transformative in American history. That was in recognition of that. You know, Clintons Presidency coincided with a lot of big changes in the body politic at large. Well, health insurance reform was going to be very complicated, no matter how you cut it, because 85 percent of the people are already insured and only 15 percent are not, but welfare reform is something where huge numbers of people have opinions, even though they dont collect welfare. Hes not focusing on it, he doesnt particularly care about it. What was different about it was that it worked, because most of them had been somewhat dysfunctional. I would say it was something like this. By continuing to browse, you agree to the use of Evercore's cookies. But the next day, Monday, I was on a plane to Waco, Texas. Then about three weeks later I was testifying as a regular matter on the RTC, I guess it was semiannual oversight hearings on the RTC, and Senator Gramm or Senator [Chris] Bond, Senator Gramm I think, asked me if Id had any contact with the White House about this whole matter. We talked a lot about the organization of economic policy-making and the role of the Treasury because I had a certain history. On changes in the bill, unless they were truly minor, those were deliberated at the highest level. and the period of time during whichtheres a window during which it had to be submitted for a vote. But the main argument was economic. Well, I got briefed on it and basically, two points here: one is the chairman of the RTC whether it is me or Mr. Casey or the people before him, never were briefed on, exposed to, involved in, or otherwise saw anything at all about the investigations the RTC was pursuing. They have made changes in policy, its not as though theyve stood still. I long ago decided that trying to figure out how these election contests are going to ultimately resolve themselves is impossible; so I just recalled fondly the time wed known each other back more then 20 years earlier, I liked him, and in my case it was as simple as that. Yes, that was bad advice. Then President Clinton went out on the balconythe front porch of the White House, on the Pennsylvania Avenue side, and had a press conference. The media to some degree has shifted for, in my view, simple generational reasons, to the right, and the right-of-center media is much more monolithic than the rest of the media, and so its ability to concentrate its opposition and its influence emerged as much greater during the Clinton years. To make a long story short, of course we all hired lawyers and so forth and we were brought before a grand jury. There just wasnt a candidate who had the capability to do that. Id met Bentsen a few times. What Im interested in is when the man who was elected to the Presidency decided on his course of action in some of these policy areas. So by the time 93 was over, he was not doing well. But Lloyd Bentsen was in that league, top five or six or seven. Do you remember your impressions of Clinton as an undergraduate? Rather than ask about the mundane, I think it makes sense to go right to the next dramatic thing. No, two funny stories, Jim, dont let him off so easily. Was there awareness at that time, I mean, in the perspective of 2003, I recognize the world looks different. There was a lot of effort and a lot of meetings. They just didnt believe it would work. I mean, it was a larger package as it was originally conceived and then. Clinton moved quickly. Its worth asking. It was a priceless education in the way the Congress and all the surrounding politics really worked. Yes, and also there was considerable uncertainty as to whether Cuomo was indeed a candidate, which, as we all know, he proved not to be. Ive seen Washington battles and that wasnt one of them. The process was really quite intense and they were taking on a task that was utterly immense, a much bigger one really than the economic program, and came forth with a plan that was revolutionary, but whose revolutionariness doomed it. Some of them I think were insincere, but many of them were sincere. That was a period during which [Boris] Yeltsin was just coming onto the stage. He is also a trustee of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, serving on its finance committee. But it wasnt political on one hand, policy on the other, just different ideologies. Gene Sperling was in it. 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. When concessions needed to be made, this was before you get up too high, Russell referred to the point that deals had already been made. But its just one of those periods in Washington when partisanship is at a peak. Secretary Bentsen had already left. I believe it was the same night that she gave her press conference. It begins I think with the economic and fiscal circumstances that the administration faced, and two in particular. Can you talk about Perots influence on the campaign? You had been asked to be a part of that enterprise. That was a wonderful comment. Every time they had a new Prime Minister, we had a new set of characters. Lets take five minutes and well come back for the rest of the morning session. So there was a lot of humor like that. If were talking about 1991, I think his ideas were in formation. No, he was working the Hill like everyone else, but he was important. I was the natural person to do that, having served in it before. I was not involved in the decision as to the sequencing of healthcare versus welfare reform. I didnt devise them on my own. All types of dire predictions were put forward. I dont think Id ever met her, but we were serving on the same board together and we became acquainted and occasionally talked about getting together some way or other. I think it just evolved rather randomly that not many of those former Carter people got involved with Clinton. Was the center of gravity in the White House, with you, or was it none? 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. Im a little too close to this, because Im not sure how history will view it. We were both quite active in student government. I think it did. Do you think that making this effort was driven by foreign policy considerations first and foremost, or was it genuinely an economic policy? Yes, there was a big debate about whether it should be healthcare or NAFTA. It was a good-sized ballroom here in New York. I want to come back to something that we had touched upon earlier, and that was this question about the administrations prioritizations, because you had suggested that there were some internal discussions, even at the time that NAFTA was taken on, as to what to do next. 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. I dont question the sincerity of every opponent. Oh, in the bill itself? Were there follow-up meetings with Japan that you were involved in after the summit? But everybody felt such a part of it because they were sitting right there. There was, I cant remember exactly, but we had some innumerable number of economists of all stripes and persuasions in favor of this. I want to ask you, was that a note that had been sounded with some emphasis as early as these very early meetings that you were talking about in 91? What did you mean when you said, I knew how not to do it? He told me what would happen to the Clinton stimulus bill the day it was put forward. Did you have close relations with people in Cuomos operation, because I think, at least in the early stages, there was still a consideration that he might come out? It should have, but it hasnt. But that battle was resolved in favor of the revolution, the most sweeping alternative, and I dont really have a lot to add beyond whats been written. How big a group was doing this recasting? But in 1987, I think it was, the Democrats in this case, I must say, rewrote the rules and decided that ideology should be the grounds on which this was decided, and Mr. Bork may have had great credentials, may have been a scholar of great distinction but his ideology was unacceptable. I traveled to Japan a lot on business. But for reasons I dont fully understand, it goes in cycles, and we came into office at a time when an up cycle so to speak on partisanship was asserting itself. I guess I probably began to help raise money, its a rough memory now, in the early fall, perhaps September of 91. I dont include that on the list because the federal role in education is always exaggerated. That was pretty damn effective. Thats how I feel about it. Right now, again, were very far away from even the primaries still, let alone the general election, but right now the most active topic of discussion by the candidates by far is healthcare. Yes, Putting People First was reissued, I believe it was June. I moved over to the White House, was given a strange assignment, which was to go run this thing called the Summit of the Americas which occurred in December of 94, which was this meeting of literally 35 heads of state in Miami for three days to talk about why you would have a hemispheric free trade agreement. You can do all kinds of approaches to anything. What external factors were at work here? So, third, economic policy was number one. Many people consider him, many of his opponents considered him to be setting new heights of insincerity and to have misrepresented a lot of his past. Mr. Altman began his investment banking career at Lehman Brothers, advancing to general partner in 1974. For example, Putting People First was reissued, I believe in June of 92. 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. That by choosing Panetta, and Bentsen, and Rubin, he chose economic conservatives. You said earlier you were involved raising some money, but also providing some advice and guidance on economic policy. 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. She may have had a lot of influence on it, but I didnt see her. But my first point is that that entire team was out there promoting the Presidents economic package, both crisscrossing the country for that purpose, speaking, visiting Congressional districts and so forth, testifying on it of course, visiting one-on-one with members of Congress. But Clinton did care quite a bit about it. It was an astounding speech. Thats not particularly my recollection, no. And Bentsen did make the call. Right as it was up, the Wall Street Journal does a full-page profile on Bentsen, right here on the right. Rubin was well known as an economic conservative, and Bentsen, of course, had a very long legislative record, which was in the same direction. I took an hour plus to do this. But lets talk for a moment about the end of 1991. I raise the question because one of the outside perceptions that you get later on is when, in the early post-election period of the administration, theres some considerable debate within the administration about which of the priorities ought to come first, and among some of the people that you mentioned in Little Rock at the time. Carter had his famous Pond House meetings, and I went to a couple of those. I dont think its wholly right becauseand this may sound strange coming from mePresident Reagan I think will be seen very favorably by historians, mostly because hell be seen as the man who ended the Cold War, and Reagan didnt have to take the position of aggressive anti-Soviet behavior, but he did. Or should be, not will be, but should be. My opponent is distracted by international and other matters. I mean, to give you an example, wed been in office I think several days, and the Sunday after the inauguration I was sitting at home in New York because my family hadnt moved yet. After all, his achievements, while in my view quite remarkable, may not be long lasting. But its there on the record; everybody can read those reports. I stay in touch with him. Youve already mentioned the people who were attending that particular meeting. So you wouldnt have had any involvement on Capitol Hill or anything like that at the time? In the last 48 or 72 hours, because that vote was also a cliffhanger, although not as close. I really believe it was that day that his view changed. We just didnt know, and thats pretty amazing, the biggest piece of legislation, the voting has actually begun. So I felt very chastened by what Gene had said. Then the reality is, it seems to me, that most Presidencies, Im sorry, great Presidencies, are forged in crisis. Clinton had talked of course during the campaign about cutting the deficit in half during his first four years. Here we are in June 2003 and the election as we all know is November 04, so its 16 months or so before the election, 17 months, and right now of course, the campaign among the Democratic aspirants for the nomination is hot, full-bore, and has been for several months. So I was going down to Waco, Texas. You raised this issue with respect to the designation of sub-Cabinet officers. A certain candidate or two will be perceived as the heavyweights in the field, and thats an amorphous thing, but you become anointed that way by the media, and if you have the right set of political skills you can capitalize on it. I remembered him of course, but I dont think he knew me. The President decided it, but Mack McLarty actually called me. The contrast between Chicago, which was in an uproar at the time, and Georgetown couldnt have been more vivid. Youd worked in a couple of campaigns before this one, or youd been involved in campaigns. We had lunch. I was often, or at least periodically, talking to members of the administration but not to the President. No, I dont remember that effort at all, so it must have been pretty quiet. Clinton had one and in this instance, on the stimulus program, he should have listened to him. But I think if you study American history and you look at any number of earlier periods, the attacks on Abraham Lincoln for example comes to mind, the Andrew Jackson period, such extreme partisanship is common in American history. Well, how do you know? Im not joking. He didnt, but he thought he could. Most of what people today look back on as the early economic policy of the Clinton administration, in my view, was formulated post-election. Was there anything that particularly distinguished this campaign from what youd seen in these other instances thats noteworthy? Mexican trucking, citrus, tomatoes, Im not joking. I can vote against it, tell my constituents Ill never support a tax increase. At my sons school, on the floor where the history department is, each President gets a little tiny picture and about two lines. My point is, I thought the whole discussion had a considerable impact on Clinton, as did scores of others along the way after that. He thought he could win over the majority of the Democrats, for example in the House, on NAFTA. Youre serving your country. 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 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. It was the usual degree of difficulty that early, not really greater because he was from Arkansas. 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. And the difficulty became quickly evident once the program was laid out. Reagan had a group called the legislative strategy group, the LSG, which was intended, whether this is reality or not, to look at the legislative strategy or legislative implications of the policy as a part of the process, developing very soon after his inauguration. Did he interact comfortably with the other leaders at the summit? In any event, we didnt have a currency crisis at the time of that summit, or really didnt have one until the very middle, latter stages of the Clinton years. from Georgetown University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Was Bernard Nussbaum involved in the financing in this early period? You get there and then you figure out what your actual sequence of initiatives is going to be. I said, Yes, I had this one meeting, and told him what it was. He must have had enough of a political antenna to realize this was going to be a tough call in a Democratic constituency in Pennsylvania or Michigan. When you were suggesting Edmund Morris I was thinking. But, in any event, as soon as I flew back from Tokyo, I moved into this area in the old Executive Office Building they had cleared out and I was the person in charge of the war room, and it worked I think for five weeks give or take. Those carve-outs were all done on a tripartite basis. Then late one afternoon, early evening I guess, 7 oclock, in the transition office in Washington, Warren Christopher called me. Secretary Bentsen took a lot of heat not long after being sworn in saying hed like to see a stronger yen, and that touched off a lot of controversy. For example, during the Lewinsky matter, the airways were filled with former Clinton officials expounding their views of President Clintons foibles and why he might have done this and this and that. Then we ended up for some strange set of reasons having a giant turnout and he wowed them. I dont. My view, theres no single answer to that at all, but if I were to list the elements of my response, the first one would be post-election. 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. I was onboard before then, but at the end of 1991 it would have been Bob Rubin, Ken Brody, me, Stan Shuman. We came into office, the trade imbalance of payments deficit with Japan had risen to very high levels. I mean, he seemed to be quite consistent about that, even though the rest of the field was, as I recall, quite a bit more protectionist. He should have taken it. Each day hed give a speech and mark off a day, counting down the days to the expiration of the statute of limitations and saying these people at the RTC damn well better be sure that justice is served, the Clintons arent off the hook. Do you have anyyou were sort of one of the casualties of this campaign, but was the Whitewater thing separate from this hate stuff? I doubt that youll see that. But I only began to spend heavy time on that after the August passage of the Presidents economic program. Then, as the weeks and months went by, it came closer and closer and closer to whip counts. You may remember that a few weeks earlier, only two or three weeks earlier, the Clintons had finally caved and agreed to the appointment of a special prosecutor, having opposed that, and Mr. [Robert] Fiske was designated. Rob Rubin and I went together, Bob Reich was there, Gene Sperling was there, Bob Shapiro was there. Why? Yes, but typically you wouldnt resort to that with relative stability in the exchange markets, and we did have relative stability. Certainly on free trade you would say that there was a consistency in his rhetoric during the campaign and the behavior of the administration after he was elected. Then I would have discussions with Clinton, usually on the fly, about certain economic issues I thought were important. Were there any members in particular with whom you worked directly that you felt you were personally responsible for salvaging? 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. So the fact that if we were sitting here in 2053, that a President 54 years ago balanced the budget wouldnt mean a heck of a lot to us, right? Well, it can be revived at any time, the Congress can just vote to revive it. I made two trips to Little Rock. As I recall the campaign of 1992, there were lots of policy debates amongst the Democrats. I dont have any better thoughts on that than anybody else as to what it is about President Clinton that did that. Did you have a lot of organizational responsibilities, or it was a going concern when you. Yes. Can you tell us a little bit about the second role? I believe Stan Shuman was there. Could you tell us what your portfolio was within Treasury and what your primary responsibilities were? So I spent a lot of time on healthcare. It wasnt trade; trade was not a big issue in the campaign. We had had recent experience in which the President of the United States took very strong actions against the Japanese, with these agreed-upon quotas for U.S. exports, exports in autos to the U.S., I dont quite remember how longThat was negotiated certainly over the wishes of the Japanese but less than ten years. 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? He didnt think much of the Btu tax. The difficulties that you had were primarily generated by Congressional investigators then, rather than the independent counsel. 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. It was just not the way to run the railroad. Im not in the Senate. It became obvious to me that it was just untenable to keep trying to shout into this hurricane. Web446 Roger Altman Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images CREATIVE EDITORIAL VIDEO All Sports Entertainment News Archival Browse 446 roger altman I just know from prior experience that thats the way to do it. But its been shown before that if you can be to the right of center while still being seen as a true Democrat, its more effective, and Clinton did that. Maybe there was, I wasnt privy to that or exposed to that. Why a war room? He was clearly learning as he went. You were both involved then in student government. The politics of Oklahoma. 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. I went back to the airport in Austin, reported that to Warren Christopher, and I think we were all announced within a week. Bob Dole. So there wasnt all that much time, maybe ten days, twelve days, between opening the office, showing up down there and then having the Treasury Secretary and the rest of the members of the economic team chosen. I was just there to do the best job I could. The process for conceiving it was a frail one, poor one. In fact, I went out West for vacation and I was interrupted and came back and went to the first of what became endless healthcare meetings. The President said to me at one moment when we were alone, and with great heat, he said to me, Roger, you see, theres no constituency at all for Wall Street economics, which is how he viewed his plan, that hed sold himself to Wall Street and you see theres no constituency for that because were about to lose. So I think Clintons own behavior did play a role in it and that in retrospect there would have been better ways for Clinton to have dealt with some of these things. Obviously he balanced the budget, now its unbalanced. 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