My life

On November eighth, I brought my national security team to Camp David to discuss Iraq. A week earlier Saddam Hussein had kicked the UN inspectors out again, and it seemed almost certain that we’d have to take military action. The UN Security Council had voted unanimously to condemn Iraq’s “flagrant violations” of UN resolutions, Bill Cohen had gone to the Middle East to line up support for air strikes, and Tony Blair was ready to participate.

A few days later the international community took the next big step in our bid to stabilize the global financial situation with a $42 billion aid package to Brazil, $5 billion of it in U.S. taxpayers’ money. Unlike the aid packages to Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, and Russia, this one was coming before the country was on the brink of default, consistent with our new policy of trying to prevent failure and its spread to other nations. We were doing our best to convince international investors that Brazil was committed to reform and had the cash to fight off speculators. And this time, the IMF loan conditions would be less stringent, preserving programs to help the poor and encouraging Brazilian banks to keep making loans. I didn’t know whether it would work, but I had a lot of confidence in President Henrique Cardoso, and as Brazil’s major trading partner, the United States had a big stake in his success. It was another of those risks worth taking.

On the fourteenth, I asked Al Gore to represent the United States at the annual APEC meeting in Malaysia, the first leg of a long-scheduled trip to Asia. I couldn’t go, because Saddam was still trying to impose unacceptable conditions on the return of the UN inspectors; in response, we were preparing to launch air strikes at sites our intelligence indicated were connected to his weapons program, as well as other military targets. Just before the attacks were launched, with the planes already on their way, we received the first of three letters from Iraq addressing our objections. Within hours, Saddam had backed down completely, and had committed to resolving all outstanding issues raised by the inspectors, to giving them unfettered access to all sites without any interference, to turning over all relevant documents, and to accepting all UN resolutions on weapons of mass destruction. I was skeptical, but I decided to give him one more chance.

On the eighteenth, I left for Tokyo and Seoul. I wanted to go to Japan to establish a working relationship with Keizo Obuchi, the new prime minister, and to try to influence Japanese public opinion to support the tough reforms necessary to end more than five years of economic stagnation. I liked Obuchi and thought he had a chance to tame the turbulent Japanese political scene and serve for several years. He was interested in American-style hands-on politics. As a young man in the 1960s, he had come to the United States and talked his way into meeting with then attorney general Robert Kennedy, who became his political hero. After our meeting Obuchi took me to the streets of Tokyo, where we shook hands with schoolchildren who were holding Japanese and American flags. I also did a televised town hall meeting in which the famously reticent Japanese surprised me with their open, blunt questions, not only about Japan’s current challenges but also about whether I had ever visited victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; how Japan could get fathers to spend more time with their children, as I had with Chelsea; how many times a month I ate dinner with my family; how I was coping with all the pressures of the presidency; and how I had apologized to Hillary and Chelsea.

In Seoul, I supported both Kim Dae Jung’s continuing efforts to move beyond the economic crisis and his outreach to North Korea, so long as it was clear that neither of us would allow the proliferation of missiles, nuclear weapons, or other weapons of mass destruction. We were both concerned about the recent North Korean test launch of a long-range missile. I had asked Bill Perry to head a small group to review our Korea policy, and to recommend a road map to the future that would maximize the chances of North Korea abandoning its weapons and missile programs and reconciling with South Korea, while minimizing the risks of its failure to do so.