My life

Brazil was a different story. There had long been tensions between our two countries; many Brazilians had long resented the United States. Brazil was the leader of the Mercosur trading bloc, which also included Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, and which had a larger volume of trade with Europe than with the United States. On the other hand, the Brazilian president, Henrique Cardoso, was a modern, effective leader who wanted a good relationship with the United States and who understood that a stronger partnership with us would help him to modernize his country’s economy, reduce its chronic poverty, and increase its influence in the world.

I had been fascinated by Brazil since the great jazz saxophonist Stan Getz popularized its music in America in the 1960s, and ever since then I had wanted to see its cities and beautiful landscapes. I also respected and liked Cardoso. He had already been to Washington on a state visit, and I thought he was one of the most impressive leaders I had met. I wanted to affirm our mutual dedication to a closer economic partnership and to support his policies, especially those to sustain Brazil’s vast rain forest, which had been severely reduced by overclearing, and to improve education. Cardoso had initiated an intriguing program called bolsa escola, which made monthly cash payments to poor Brazilians if their children attended school at least 85 percent of the time.

There was an interesting moment in our press conference, which, besides several questions on AmericanBrazilian relations and climate change, included four from the American press on the ongoing controversy back home over the financing of the ’96 campaign. A reporter asked if it embarrassed me or the country to have such questions asked on a foreign trip. I replied, “That’s a decision for you. You have to decide what questions you’re going to ask. I can’t be embarrassed about how you decide to do your job.”

After a visit to a school in a poor neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro with Brazil’s soccer legend Pelé, Hillary and I went to Brasília for a state dinner at the presidential residence, where Henrique and Ruth Cardoso gave us a taste of the Brazilian music I had loved for more than thirty years, a women’s percussion ensemble playing pulsating rhythms on different-sized metal plates tied to their bodies, and a fabulous singer from Bahia, Virginia Rodrigues.

Argentina’s President Carlos Menem had been a strong ally of the United States, supporting America in the Gulf War and in Haiti and adopting a strong free-market economic policy. He hosted a barbeque at the Rural Center in Buenos Aires that included tango lessons for Hillary and me and a demonstration of Argentine horsemanship: a man riding around the rodeo arena standing atop two broad-shouldered stallions.

President Menem also took us to Bariloche, a beautiful resort town in Patagonia, to discuss global warming and what I hoped would be our common response to the problem. The international conference on climate change was coming up in December in Kyoto, Japan. I strongly favored setting aggressive targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions for both developed and developing nations, but I wanted to achieve the targets not through regulations and taxes but through market incentives to promote energy conservation and the use of clean energy technology. Bariloche was a perfect site to highlight the importance of the environment. Just across the cold, clear lake from the Llao Llao Hotel where we stayed, Hillary and I walked through the magical Arrayanes forest, with its barkless myrtle trees. The trees were stained orange by tannic acid and were cool to the touch. Their survival resulted from perfect soil, clean water, clean air, and a moderate climate. The right action against climate change would preserve the fragile, unique trees and the stability of much of the rest of our planet. On October 26, back in Washington, Capricia Marshall, Kelly Craighead, and the rest of Hillary’s staff put together a big fiftieth birthday celebration for her under a tent on the South Lawn. Chelsea came home to surprise her. There were tables with food and music from every decade of her life, with people standing by them who had known her in each period: from Illinois in the fifties, Wellesley in the sixties, Yale in the seventies, and Arkansas in the eighties.