{"id":51215,"date":"2016-10-05T11:12:10","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T15:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=51215"},"modified":"2016-10-05T11:13:01","modified_gmt":"2016-10-05T15:13:01","slug":"how-hillary-clinton-grappled-with-bill-clintons-infidelity-and-his-accusers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=51215","title":{"rendered":"How Hillary Clinton Grappled With Bill Clinton\u2019s Infidelity, and His Accusers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Bill<\/a>

Bill and Hillary Clinton in Manchester, N.H., in January 1992. An accusation of infidelity emerged the same month. Credit Paul Hosefros\/The New York Times<\/p><\/div>\n

By MEGAN TWOHEY<\/span><\/span>

Hillary Clinton<\/a> was campaigning for her husband in January 1992 when she learned of the race\u2019s newest flare-up: Gennifer Flowers had just releasedtapes of phone calls<\/a> with Bill Clinton<\/a> to back up her claim they had had an affair.<\/p>\n

Other candidates had been driven out of races by accusations of infidelity. But now, at a cold, dark airfield in South Dakota, Mrs. Clinton was questioning campaign aides by phone and vowing to fight back on behalf of her husband.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019s tracking down all the research on Gennifer?\u201d she asked, according to a journalist traveling with her at the time.<\/p>\n

The enduring image of Mrs. Clinton from that campaign was a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview<\/a> in which she told the country she was not blindly supporting her husband out of wifely duty. \u201cI\u2019m not sitting here, some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette<\/a>,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But stand by she did, holding any pain or doubts in check as the campaign battled to keep the Clintons\u2019 political aspirations alive.<\/p>\n

Last week, Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee,criticized Mrs. Clinton<\/a> over Mr. Clinton\u2019s affairs and her response to them, and said he might talk more about the issue in the final weeks before the election.<\/p>\n

That could be a treacherous strategy for Mr. Trump, given his own past infidelity and questionable<\/a> treatment of women<\/a>. Many voters, particularly women, might see Mrs. Clinton being blamed for her husband\u2019s conduct.<\/p>\n

It could also remind voters of a searing period in American history, and in Mrs. Clinton\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

Confronting a spouse\u2019s unfaithfulness is painful under any circumstance. For Mrs. Clinton, it happened repeatedly and in the most public of ways, unfolding at the dawn of the 24\/7 news cycle, and later in impeachment proceedings that convulsed the nation.<\/p>\n

Outwardly, she remained stoic and defiant, defending her husband while a progression of women and well-funded conservative operatives accused Mr. Clinton of behavior unbecoming the leader of the free world.<\/p>\n

But privately, she embraced the Clinton campaign\u2019s aggressive strategy of counterattack: Women who claimed to have had sexual encounters with Mr. Clinton would become targets of digging and discrediting \u2014 tactics that women\u2019s rights advocates frequently denounce.<\/p>\n

The campaign hired a private investigator with a bare-knuckles reputation who embarked on a mission, as he put it in a memo, to impugn Ms. Flowers\u2019s \u201ccharacter and veracity until she is destroyed beyond all recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a pattern that would later be repeated with other women, the investigator\u2019s staff scoured Arkansas and beyond, collecting disparaging accounts from ex-boyfriends, employers and others who claimed to know Ms. Flowers, accounts that the campaign then disseminated to the news media.<\/p>\n

By the time Mr. Clinton finally admitted to \u201csexual relations\u201d with Ms. Flowers, years later, Clinton aides had used stories collected by the private investigator to brand her as a \u201cbimbo\u201d and a \u201cpathological liar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Clinton\u2019s level of involvement in that effort, as described in interviews, internal campaign records and archives, is still the subject of debate. By some accounts, she gave the green light and was a motivating force; by others, her support was no more than tacit assent.<\/p>\n

What is clear is that Mrs. Clinton was in a difficult spot. She was aware that her husband had cheated earlier in their marriage, but by her telling, she also believed him when he denied the accusations levied by Ms. Flowers and others.<\/p>\n

Mickey Kantor, the chairman of Bill Clinton\u2019s 1992 campaign, said that Mrs. Clinton wanted to separate fact from fiction and to size up the women making the claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s say the woman has some not-helpful things that she has done in the past,\u201d Mr. Kantor said. \u201cWouldn\u2019t you want to know that, and evaluate it?\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, a growing cadre of conservative groups and media outlets had begun focusing on the issue. Mrs. Clinton, those close to her said, viewed the attacks as a political crusade that demanded a stiff political response.<\/p>\n

And that determination to fight back inspired others in the campaign to do the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s the firefighter running to the fire,\u201d Mr. Kantor said, \u201cnot away from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Clinton and her husband declined to be interviewed, and her campaign did not answer questions about her support of efforts to undermine the women. \u201cThe country closed the book on these matters close to 20 years ago, and there is nothing whatsoever new here,\u201d her spokesman, Brian Fallon, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Her campaign also released statements from James Carville, Mr. Clinton\u2019s top campaign strategist, and two lawyers who worked for Mr. Clinton, saying that Mrs. Clinton had not overseen the counterattacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who took the lead in responding to those attacks at the time have plainly stated that Hillary Clinton did not direct their work,\u201d Mr. Fallon said.<\/p>\n

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The Clintons in March 1992 in Tampa, Fla. Mrs. Clinton\u2019s presidential campaign says she did not oversee counterattacks on her husband\u2019s accusers at the time.<\/span> Credit<\/span>Chris O’Meara\/Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Neutralizing the Whispers<\/h4>\n

Four years after Gary Hart<\/a> fled a presidential race amid speculation about an affair, every accusation of womanizing was viewed as a mortal threat to Mr. Clinton\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n

Stanley Greenberg, a pollster for the campaign who had strategized with the Clintons in the fall of 1991 about how to handle the rumors of infidelity, recalled Mrs. Clinton\u2019s acknowledgment that her husband had strayed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an uncomfortable meeting,\u201d Mr. Greenberg said in an interview for an oral history of Mr. Clinton\u2019s presidency conducted by the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. \u201cI remember Hillary saying that, \u2018obviously, if I could say no to this question, we would say no, and therefore, there is an issue.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Weeks later, their first taste of trouble came in a Penthouse magazine story by a rock groupie named Connie Hamzy, who claimed Mr. Clinton had once propositioned her at a hotel in Little Rock, Ark.<\/p>\n

Mr. Clinton brushed off the story, saying that Ms. Hamzy had made a sexual advance toward him, George Stephanopoulos, the communications director of the 1992 campaign, recalled in his book, \u201cAll Too Human.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Mrs. Clinton demanded action.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to destroy her story,\u201d she said, according to Mr. Stephanopoulos.<\/p>\n

In what became a common tactic, affidavits were collected, from an aide and two others who stated that they were with Mr. Clinton at the hotel and that Ms. Hamzy\u2019s story was false. (Contacted recently, Ms. Hamzy said she stood by her account.)<\/p>\n

When the work was done, both Clintons called Mr. Stephanopoulos, together, to offer their thanks.<\/p>\n

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Gennifer Flowers at a news conference in January 1992, just weeks before the New Hampshire primary.<\/span> Credit<\/span>Richard Drew\/Associated Press<\/span><\/p>\n

An Explosive Accusation<\/h4>\n

The Gennifer Flowers story landed like a bomb weeks before the New Hampshire primary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ms. Flowers, a lounge singer and Arkansas state employee at the time, sold Star magazine her story claiming an affair with Mr. Clinton that had lasted more than 10 years.<\/p>\n

In a meeting with aides, the Clintons scripted a unified defense that they delivered in the interview on \u201c60 Minutes.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

With Mrs. Clinton nodding agreement, Mr. Clinton admitted to the TV audience to \u201ccausing pain in my marriage,\u201d but denied an affair with Ms. Flowers. Mrs. Clinton professed sympathy for Ms. Flowers, saying she had been caught up in rumors through no fault of her own.<\/p>\n

But at a news conference the next day<\/a>, Ms. Flowers reasserted her claims, playing excerpts from her calls with Mr. Clinton. The two could be heard discussing the attention the rumors were getting, and she joked about his sexual talents.<\/p>\n

Glimpsing the news conference in South Dakota, Mrs. Clinton directed an aide to get Mr. Clinton on the phone, Gail Sheehy, a journalist traveling with her, recalled in a recent interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a reaction of no surprise, but immediate anger and action,\u201d said Ms. Sheehy, who also described her observations in a Vanity Fair article<\/a> that year. \u201cNot anger at Bill, but at Flowers, the press and Republicans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back on a plane that night, Mrs. Clinton told Ms. Sheehy that if she were to question Ms. Flowers in front of a jury, \u201cI would crucify her.\u201d<\/p>\n