My life

I also owe thanks to the many people at Knopf who helped. I am grateful that the editorial/production team at Knopf is as obsessed with accuracy and detail as I am (even with a book on a slightly accelerated pace as mine was) and especially appreciate the tireless efforts and meticulous work of managing editor Katherine Hourigan; noble director of manufacturing Andy Hughes; indefatigable production editor Maria Massey; copy chief Lydia Buechler, copy editor Charlotte Gross, and proofreaders Steve Messina, Jenna Dolan, Ellen Feldman, Rita Madrigal, and Liz Polizzi; design director Peter Andersen; jacket art director Carol Carson; the ever-helpful Diana Tejerina and Eric Bliss; and Lee Pentea.

In addition, I want to thank the many other people at Knopf who have helped me: Tony Chirico, for his valued guidance; Jim Johnston, Justine LeCates, and Anne Diaz; Carol Janeway and Suzanne Smith; Jon Fine; and the promotion/marketing talents of Pat Johnson, Paul Bogaards, Nina Bourne, Nicholas Latimer, Joy Dallanegra-Sanger, Amanda Kauff, Anne-Lise Spitzer, and Sarah Robinson. And thanks to the staff at North Market Street Graphics, Coral Graphics, and R. R. Donnelley & Sons. Robert Barnett, a fine lawyer and longtime friend, negotiated the contract with Knopf; he and his partner Michael O’Connor worked throughout the project as foreign publishers joined in. I am very grateful to them. I appreciate the careful technical and legal review that David Kendall and Beth Nolan gave the manuscript.

When I was in the White House, beginning in late 1993, I met with my old friend Taylor Branch about once a month to do an oral history. Those contemporaneous conversations helped in recalling particular moments of the presidency. After I left the White House, Ted Widmer, a fine historian who worked in the White House as a speechwriter, did an oral history of my life before the presidency that helped me bring back and organize old memories. Janis Kearney, the White House diarist, left me with voluminous notes that enabled me to reconstruct day-to-day events.

The photographs were selected with the help of Vincent Virga, who found many that captured special moments discussed in the book, and Carolyn Huber, who was with our family throughout our years in the Governor’s Mansion and the White House. While I was President, Carolyn also organized all my private papers and letters from the time I was a little boy to 1974, an arduous task without which much of the first part of the book could not have been written.

I am deeply indebted to those who read all or part of the book and made helpful suggestions for additions, subtractions, reorganization, context, and interpretation, including Hillary, Chelsea, Dorothy Rodham, Doug Band, Sandy Berger, Tommy Caplan, Mary DeRosa, Nancy Hernreich, Dick Holbrooke, David Kendall, Jim Kennedy, Ian Klauss, Bruce Lindsey, Ira Magaziner, Cheryl Mills, Beth Nolan, John Podesta, Bruce Reed, Steve Ricchetti, Bob Rubin, Ruby Shamir, Brooke Shearer, Gene Sperling, Strobe Talbott, Mark Weiner, Maggie Williams, and my friends Brian and Myra Greenspun, who were with me when the first page was written.

Many of my friends and colleagues took time to do impromptu oral histories with me including Huma Abedin, Madeleine Albright, Dave Barram, Woody Bassett, Paul Begala, Paul Berry, Jim Blair, Sidney Blumenthal, Erskine Bowles, Ron Burkle, Tom Campbell, James Carville, Roger Clinton, Patty Criner, Denise Dangremond, Lynda Dixon, Rahm Emanuel, Al From, Mark Gearen, Ann Henry, Denise Hyland, Harold Ickes, Roger Johnson, Vernon Jordan, Mickey Kantor, Dick Kelley, Tony Lake, David Leopoulos, Capricia Marshall, Mack McLarty, Rudy Moore, Bob Nash, Kevin O’Keefe, Leon Panetta, Betsey Reader, Dick Riley, Bobby Roberts, Hugh Rodham, Tony Rodham, Dennis Ross, Martha Saxton, Eli Segal, Terry Schumaker, Marsha Scott, Michael Sheehan, Nancy Soderberg, Doug Sosnik, Rodney Slater, Craig Smith, Gayle Smith, Steve Smith, Carolyn Staley, Stephanie Street, Larry Summers, Martha Whetstone, Delta Willis, Carol Willis, and several of my readers. I’m sure there are others I’ve forgotten; if so, I’m sorry and I appreciate their help as well.

My research was also helped greatly by many books written by members of the administration and others, and of course by the memoirs of Hillary and my mother.

David Alsobrook and the staff of the Clinton Presidential Materials Project were patient and persistent in recovering materials. I want to thank them all: Deborah Bush, Susan Collins, Gary Foulk, John Keller, Jimmie Purvis, Emily Robison, Rob Seibert, Dana Simmons, Richard Stalcup, Rhonda Wilson. And Arkansas historian David Ware. The archivists and historians at Georgetown and Oxford were also helpful.