He was the 42nd president of the United States, and the first president born
after World War II. Clinton defeated incumbent president George Bush and
independent candidate H. Ross Perot in the November 1992 election. In 1996 he
was elected to a second term, defeating the Republican candidate Robert Dole. A
moderate Democrat and longtime governor of Arkansas, Clinton was the first
Democrat in 12 years to hold the presidency, and the first Democrat since
Franklin D. Roosevelt to be elected to a second term. He promised to change not
only the direction the country had taken under the two previous Republican
presidents, but also the policies of his own Democratic Party. Clinton's first
presidential election victory came in part because Americans were gravely
concerned about the nation's economy.
Clinton entered his first political race, campaigning for a seat in the United
States House of Representatives. The incumbent Republican congressman, John
Paul Hammerschmidt, was a popular candidate and considered unbeatable. Clinton
defeated three candidates for the Democratic Party nomination and ran an
energetic campaign against Hammerschmidt. Hammerschmidt won with 52 percent of
the votes, although it was the closest election of his 26 years in Congress.
Clinton's close race with Hammerschmidt earned him statewide attention and
helped him in his campaign for attorney general in 1976. He defeated two
Democrats for the nomination and had no Republican opposition. Clinton took
public office for the first time in January 1977. As attorney general, he
fought rate increases by public utilities and opposed the construction of a
large coal-burning power plant. He promoted tougher laws to protect the
environment and consumers. When Arkansas governor David Pryor ran for the U.S.
Senate in 1978, Clinton ran for governor. He promised to improve the state's
schools and highways and to improve economic conditions so that more jobs would
be created. At that time, the average income of people in Arkansas ranked 49th
among the 50 states. Clinton won easily, receiving 60 percent of the votes
against four opponents in the Democratic primary election and 63 percent
against the Republican candidate, Lynn Lowe, in the general election. When he
took office in January 1979 at age 32, he was one of the youngest governors in
the nation's history. Governor of Arkansas First Term Clinton's first term as
governor included efforts to improve Arkansas' economy. One of his biggest
successes as governor was his highway program, but it was politically costly.
Clinton thought good highways were a key to developing the state, and the state's
roads were among the worst in the country. To upgrade the highways, he asked
the legislature to pass a package of tax increases. The largest increases were on
licensing fees on automobiles and on large trucks that damaged the highways
with heavy loads. Clinton was forced to make compromises in his plan because
many businesses and the trucking industry opposed his program. The compromise
plan passed but was unpopular because it levied more taxes on individual car
owners. Clinton undertook other legislative initiatives that generated
opposition. His criticism of the practice of clear-cutting trees in national
forests alienated the lumber and papermaking companies, which were the largest
employers in the state. Physicians opposed his efforts to increase health care
in poor, rural areas. Bankers disliked Clinton's proposal to withhold state
funds from banks that did not lend enough money for businesses that created
jobs in their communities. Another factor affecting the governor was the
presence of Cuban refugees in Arkansas. In 1980 Cuba temporarily removed its
exit restrictions and permitted about 120,000 people to go to the United
States. In May 1980, President Jimmy Carter temporarily housed about 18,000
Cuban refugees at an old U.S. Army post near Fort Smith, Arkansas. By the end
of May, the confined refugees were disgruntled with delays in their
resettlement, and some 300 escaped from the fort. On June 1 approximately 1000
Cuban refugees broke through the gate of the post and were met in the nearby
town of Barling by approximately 500 armed townspeople. State officers subdued
the refugees, but the incident proved disastrous for Clinton, who had
previously campaigned on his friendship with Carter. Clinton ran for reelection
in 1980 against Frank D. White, a Little Rock businessman who had switched to
the Republican Party to run against Clinton. White received support from many
of those alienated by Clinton-including the trucking and wood products
companies, banks, utilities, and the poultry industry. In addition, White used
television advertisements that showed rioting Cubans and claimed that the
Cubans would be released into Arkansas communities and take jobs away from
Arkansas workers. Clinton's popularity plummeted further, and White won the
election with nearly 52 percent of the votes. Second Through Fifth Terms After
his defeat, Clinton joined a large corporate law firm in Little Rock. Against
the advice of most of his friends and advisers, who urged him to wait before
running for office again, Clinton quickly began planning his campaign for the
next gubernatorial election, in 1982. Clinton won the Democratic nomination,
although it required a runoff election because of the closeness of the race. In
the general election, Clinton faced White, who was running for reelection, and
the two candidates swapped bitter charges. White repeated his accusations from
the 1980 campaign, and Clinton accused White of unfairly letting utilities
raise the rates people paid for electricity and telephone service. Clinton
promised he would make it harder for utilities to obtain rate increases.
Clinton campaigned for the votes of blacks, and he received more than 95
percent of their votes. Clinton defeated White with nearly 55 percent of the
votes. Clinton had found lessons in his 1980 defeat about how to govern. He
learned to choose his fights carefully, not to try to change everything at
once, and to prepare people before proposing major changes. These abilities
helped Clinton continue to be reelected in 1984, 1986, and after the
gubernatorial term changed from two years to four years, in 1990. At the start
of his second term, Clinton decided to spend all his energies trying to improve
education, which he thought was the state's biggest problem. Clinton believed
that the state's poor education system did not prepare children for good jobs
nor make Arkansas attractive to industries that offered skilled jobs. He
appointed his wife as the head of a committee to write higher standards for
Arkansas schools. She conducted hearings in each of the state's 75 counties,
and she and Clinton made numerous speeches across the state, saying more should
be demanded from schools and students. In the fall of 1983, Clinton called the
legislature into a special session to approve many changes in the school
system. Clinton won approval of most parts of his sweeping reform program:
taxes were increased to pay teachers more money, offer more courses in the high
schools, and provide college scholarships; state money for education was
distributed differently to help the poorest schools; eighth graders were
required to pass a test of basic knowledge before going to high school; and all
school teachers and administrators also had to take a basic knowledge test in
order to keep their jobs. The Clinton administration also adopted tough new
standards proposed by Hillary Clinton's committee that raised the requirements
for graduation from high school and forced high schools to offer more science,
mathematics, foreign language, art, and music classes, and to reduce the size
of kindergarten and elementary school classes. School districts that did not
meet these requirements within three years would be merged into districts that
did meet the standards. The requirement that all teachers pass a test angered
most school teachers and generated a national debate. But the program, and the
taxes, proved popular with Arkansas voters. During this time, the scores of
Arkansas students on college-entrance tests improved. In the early 1980s a high
percentage of Arkansas students dropped out of school before graduating, and
fewer high school graduates went to college than in any other state. But by
1990, the dropout rate had fallen well below the national average, and the
percentage of young people who went to college matched the national average.
Clinton also concentrated on economic development, promoting new businesses and
job creation. He introduced an economic package to change banking laws; provide
money to start new technology-oriented businesses; arrange loans for people to
start new businesses; and reduce the taxes of large Arkansas companies that
expanded their production and created new jobs. The legislature approved nearly
the entire package. Although the rate at which new jobs were created in
Arkansas in the late 1980s was among the highest in the nation, most of these
jobs did not pay high wages, and the average family income remained low.
Clinton had difficulty trying to persuade the legislature to raise more taxes
to carry out further reforms in education. The business groups he had once
angered-the state's largest electric utility, the wood-products industry,
trucking companies, the poultry industry and other farm groups-combined to
block Clinton's proposed higher taxes. They also defeated legislation that
would have imposed higher ethical standards on public officials and lobbyists.
After his election to a fifth term in 1990, Clinton was more successful in
getting his legislative program enacted. Based on his overall success at the
legislative session in 1991, Clinton announced that, despite a campaign promise
in 1990 to complete a four-year term, he was free to run for president because
he had accomplished his goals for the state more quickly than he had planned.
Clinton had assumed national leadership roles during his years as governor. In
1985 and 1986, he served as chairman of the Southern Growth Policies Board, a
group that planned strategies for economic development in 12 Southern states
and Puerto Rico. He became vice chairman of the National Governors Association
in 1985 and was the organization's chairman in 1986 and 1987. In this role he
was spokesman for the nation's governors. In 1988 he led a movement to change
the nation's system of providing welfare to poor people. Clinton also headed
the Democratic Leadership Council, a group of moderate Democrats and
businesspeople who work to influence national policies, in 1990 and 1991. The
Presidential Campaigns Clinton had prepared to run for president in 1988, but
he backed out at the last minute, saying the campaign and the position would be
too hard on his family, especially his eight-year-old daughter. He was then
asked to give the nominating speech-a key role at the Democratic National
Convention-for Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. On October 3, 1991,
Clinton announced in Little Rock that he would run for president in the 1992
election. The presidential campaign consisted of party primary elections and
caucuses in most states, which would select most of the delegates for each
party's nominating convention (see Political Convention). As the party
primaries approached in early 1992, Clinton faced five Democratic candidates:
former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas; former California governor Edmund "Jerry"
Brown, Jr.; Governor L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia; Senator Robert Kerrey of
Nebraska; and Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa. Clinton became the early front-runner
among the Democratic candidates because he had raised more money than the other
candidates and had a national backing from his connections in education and the
National Governors Association. Clinton's campaign focused on domestic policy.
He promised to institute national health care, enact a tax cut for the middle
class, organize a new welfare system, institute a national service program for
college graduates, make major investments in the nation's infrastructure
(highways, bridges, airports, libraries, and hospitals), reduce the federal
budget deficit, and reform campaign-finance laws. Internationally, Clinton
promised to use American military power to stop the advance of Serbs against
Muslims in Bosnia. After a series of successful primaries, Clinton won the
presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention, held in New York
City in mid-July. Clinton picked Senator Al Gore of Tennessee as his
vice-presidential running mate. During the presidential campaign, Clinton ran
against George Bush and H. Ross Perot, who ran as an independent candidate. The
three candidates participated in three nationally televised debates. Clinton
blamed Bush for the downturn in the economy and accused him of not caring about
working people. In return, Bush said Clinton would raise taxes if he became
president and that Clinton lacked foreign policy experience. Perot focused on
the country's deficit spending and promised to balance the budget by raising
taxes and reducing government spending. Clinton won the election with 43
percent of the popular vote as compared to 38 percent for Bush and 19 percent
for Perot. Clinton received the votes of 33 states in the electoral college,
where each state has a number of electoral votes depending on its population
and usually gives all of them to the candidate who received the most votes in
that state. On January 20, 1993, Clinton was sworn in as president. In 1996
Clinton ran for reelection against Republican senator Robert Dole. During the
campaign, Clinton stressed his desire to control the federal budget deficit and
work for campaign finance reform. At the nominating convention, held in Chicago
in August, Clinton announced more plans including additional funding for
environmental programs; a proposal for a capital gains tax break for homeowners
selling their houses; and tax credits for college tuition and for businesses
that hire people who had been on welfare. In contrast, Dole focused on a 15
percent tax cut and attacked Clinton's character. He also pointed to his own
World War II military record and long career in government as examples of his
service to the country. However, Dole was unable to build sufficient support
for himself or his proposals. In November 1996 Clinton defeated Dole with 49.2
percent of the popular vote, compared with Dole's 40.8 percent. Ross Perot ran
as a candidate of the Reform Party but was not as successful as he had been in
1992; he won only 8.5 percent of the vote. Clinton soundly defeated Dole in the
electoral college votes, receiving 379 to Dole's 159. The Clinton
Administrations In his first term, Clinton appointed more women and minorities
as cabinet members-the heads of major departments of government-than had any
previous president. These included Attorney General Janet Reno, the first woman
to hold that office, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy, Secretary of Commerce
Ron Brown, Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, and Secretary
of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros. In addition, in his first two
years in office, Clinton appointed two new justices to the Supreme Court of the
United States. Stephen G. Breyer replaced Harry A. Blackmun and Ruth Bader
Ginsburg replaced Byron R. White, becoming the second woman on the Supreme
Court. At the beginning of his second term, Clinton reaffirmed his commitment
to appointing women to cabinet positions by nominating Madeleine Albright as
the first woman secretary of state. In addition he worked to make his cabinet
bipartisan, appointing Republican senator William Cohen as secretary of
defense. Other second-term Clinton appointees included Secretary of Commerce
William Daley, Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman, Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development Andrew Cuomo, Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, and
ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson. Domestic Issues During his
first term, Clinton focused on the country's internal problems, especially the
economy and health care, rather than on foreign affairs, which had occupied
Bush. With the Democratic Party's sizable majority in both houses of Congress,
Clinton promised in his inaugural speech "an end to the era of deadlock and
drift." He immediately signed orders overturning restrictions on abortions that
had been put in place during the 12 years the Republicans occupied the White
House. In little more than two weeks, he signed his first major piece of
legislation, a family leave law that required companies with more than 50
workers to allow workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave a year to cope with
family issues such as childbirth and illness. During his first campaign for
president, Clinton promised to lift the ban against homosexuals serving in the
United States armed forces. He moved ahead on the plan as he took office for
his first term, but his proposal ignited protests from military leaders and
members of Congress. Clinton and supporters of the ban eventually settled on a
compromise: Homosexuals would be allowed to serve if they did not reveal their
sexual orientation and refrained from homosexual conduct. This compromise
became known as the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Clinton's budget for the
1993 and 1994 fiscal year passed by a narrow margin in both houses, 218-216 in
the House of Representatives and 51-50 in the Senate. The package called for
cutting $500 billion from the deficit over five years by reducing spending by
$255 billion and raising $241 billion in new taxes. The federal budget declined
sharply in the next two years. Clinton delayed acting upon his campaign promise
to give middle-class families a tax cut until 1995. One of Clinton's most
popular campaign promises during his first election was to guarantee health
insurance for every American for life. Clinton promised that the health-care
system would be reformed in his first year in office. He appointed his wife to
head a task force to write a bill that would guarantee health insurance and
hold down the rapidly rising cost of health care. The task force proposed a
plan under which people would join a health-care alliance that would contract
with insurance companies and others to offer health insurance to their members.
The plan soon encountered stiff opposition from health insurance companies and
Republicans in Congress. It was criticized as being too complicated and as
giving the federal government too large a role in medical care. The
Administration was unable to reach a compromise with Republicans in the Senate,
and health-care reform efforts never made it through Congress. Although
Congress did not enact Clinton's health-care reform proposal, it did pass a
number of his programs during his first term in office, including major trade
legislation; a national service program, which provided education money to
students who performed service for their communities; the so-called Brady bill,
which made it more difficult for criminals to buy handguns; and an anti-crime
law that imposed the death penalty for more crimes, banned the sale of assault
weapons, and gave the states money to hire 100,000 more police officers and
start crime prevention programs. During his first two years in office, Clinton
was the subject of controversy. In the fall of 1993, new questions were raised
about his early business dealings in Arkansas, particularly the investment he
and his wife had made in a 1978 real-estate venture called the Whitewater
Development Corporation, a home development in a remote part of Arkansas.
Although the Clintons lost money, their partners in the venture later bought a
tiny savings and loan association, Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan
Corporation, which went into bankruptcy in 1989 and was bailed out by the
Resolution Trust Corporation, a federal agency. Federal investigators and
Republican members of Congress questioned whether money from the savings and
loan might have helped the Clintons' land venture and whether Clinton had used
his influence as governor to help the savings and loan. In April 1996 Clinton
gave videotaped testimony in the bank fraud trial of his former Whitewater
business partners. Investigation of this controversy, dubbed the Whitewater
Affair, continued into Clinton's second term. In April 1997 the grand jury that
was hearing evidence in the Whitewater investigation was granted an extension
for six months, allowing it to continue until November 1997. Another
controversy facing Clinton during his terms as president involved a civil case
filed by Paula Jones, a former state employee. Jones filed suit against
President Clinton in 1994, alleging that he had violated her civil rights when
he made unwanted sexual advances towards her in 1991 while he was governor.
Clinton's lawyers contended that the suit should be delayed until Clinton was
out of office. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in May 1997 ruled
9 to 0 that sitting presidents were not protected from civil lawsuits and that
the trial could proceed. Republican Congress The congressional elections of
1994 ended the Democratic Party's control of the Senate and House of
Representatives. The election gave the Republicans a 52-48 majority in the
Senate, and during the four months after the election, two Democratic senators
switched parties. In the House of Representatives the Republicans also gained a
majority with 230 Republican to 204 Democratic seats. Republican Newt Gingrich,
committed to a conservative agenda, became the new Speaker of the House. The
House of Representatives became the focus of national attention as the
Republicans worked on the agenda written by Gingrich in the "Contract with
America." The Republican Congress and Clinton often disagreed on legislation.
Two pieces of legislation that were passed with the support of both Congress
and the president were a bill to help combat terrorism by providing more funds
to fight terrorism and making it easier to deport foreigners suspected of
terrorist activities, and the presidential line-item veto, which allowed the
president to veto individual items on appropriations bills but was challenged
in court as being unconstitutional. But most initiatives of the Republican
Congress were stymied by the president's veto or threat of it. Clinton and the
Republicans in Congress were unable to agree on a federal budget for 1996. The
debates ranged from how much to cut spending to how to reform welfare. Clinton
particularly opposed the size of Republican cuts in Medicare, Medicaid,
educational and environmental programs, a stand that seemed to be popular with
the voters. As a result, the federal government had two partial shutdowns
because money was unavailable for government operations. In April 1996 Clinton
and Congress agreed on a federal budget that would provide money for government
agencies until the end of the fiscal year in October. The budget included
spending cuts, especially in art, labor, and housing programs, that the
Republicans wanted, but preserved many programs, particularly educational and
environmental ones, that Clinton wanted. In August 1996, a week before the
Democratic nominating convention, Clinton approved in quick succession three
bills passed by Congress earlier in the summer. The new laws included an
increase in the minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.15, signed on August 20; a measure
making it easier for workers to transfer their health insurance between
employers and not be denied coverage for preexisting conditions, signed on
August 21; and a controversial overhaul of the welfare program, signed on
August 22. Clinton signed the welfare bill, in part, to fulfill a 1992 campaign
promise to "end the welfare system as we know it." Clinton had vetoed two
previous welfare bills, saying that the cutbacks were too severe. The bill that
he signed included provisions such as limiting lifetime benefits to five years,
denying some welfare programs and food stamps to legal immigrants, and
requiring that adult recipients work after two years. In addition, the federal
government allowed states to set their own guidelines and gave them some money
to help pay for the programs. Early in his second term, Clinton reached an
agreement with Congress on how to balance the federal budget in five years.
However, disagreements between the president and members of Congress soon
surfaced, calling into question the viability of the original agreement.
Foreign Affairs Although the United States was no longer confronted by the Cold
War, during his first term Clinton faced difficult decisions regarding bloody
conflicts in Rwanda, Somalia, Bosnia, and Haiti, all places where the interests
of the United States were not clear. Conflicts in Africa Only weeks before
Clinton took office, President Bush had sent American soldiers to Somalia, on
the eastern coast of Africa, where people were dying from starvation and civil
war. The soldiers were to protect food and other relief supplies for starving
people from being stolen by warring clans. When the soldiers came under fire
from armed clans, the mission became unpopular with the American people.
Clinton doubled troops in the country to help the Americans defend themselves
and to prevent anarchy and starvation, but calls for withdrawal grew and United
States soldiers were withdrawn in March 1994. In May 1993 the United Nations
(UN) had taken command of the peacekeeping troops in Somalia, and UN troops
remained until March 1995. In April 1994 a civil war erupted in Rwanda. Within
a few weeks, 2 million people had fled the massacres and repression in the
country. With thousands dying of disease and starvation in refugee camps in neighboring
countries, the Clinton administration was under pressure to provide relief.
Clinton ordered airdrops of food and supplies for refugees, and in July he sent
200 troops to the Rwanda capital of Kigali to operate the airport and safeguard
relief supplies. These troops were withdrawn by October 1994. Bosnia and
Herzegovina More troubling for Clinton was the civil war in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, a nation formed after the breakup of Yugoslavia in southern
Europe. Bosnian Serb soldiers, supported by Serbia, were better armed than the
Muslims of Bosnia and controlled much of the countryside. They besieged cities,
including the capital of Sarajevo, and caused massive suffering. Clinton
suggested bombing Serb supply lines and lifting an embargo that blocked
military arms from reaching the outgunned Muslims, but could not get European
nations to join him on either strategy. He eventually found himself opposing
Republicans in Congress who wanted to lift the arms embargo without the
agreement of American allies in Western Europe. Throughout 1994 Clinton
pressured Western European countries to take strong measures against the Serbs,
but in November, after the Serbs seemed on the verge of overwhelming the
Bosnians in several strongholds, he changed course and pushed conciliation with
the Serbs to reach a settlement with the Bosnians. In November 1995 the Clinton
administration hosted peace talks between the warring parties in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. A peace agreement was reached that left the country as a single state
made up of two separate areas with a central government. As part of the
agreement, Clinton pledged to send American soldiers to Bosnia and Herzegovina
to help NATO troops in providing humanitarian aid and policing a zone between
the two factions. Haiti Clinton had more success in Haiti, an impoverished
island in the Caribbean Sea southeast of Cuba. Military leaders had ousted the
country's first elected president, Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in September
1991. Aristide escaped to the United States. As Clinton became president,
thousands of Haitians fled from the country's repressive military regime to the
United States. Although Clinton had criticized Bush for returning Haitian
refugees to their country, he continued Bush's policy on the grounds that accepting
refugees might encourage as many as 500,000 more to flee to the United States.
Clinton worked out an agreement with the Haitian dictators for Aristide to
return to Haiti on October 30, 1993. The United States and the United Nations
promised to send troops to retrain the Haitian military and police forces, but
the military rulers balked when the time arrived. When anti-Aristide
demonstrators prevented the American troops and Canadian engineers from
reaching the dock, the ship was turned back. In 1994 Clinton gave the Haitian
rulers repeated warnings that they must step down and restore democratic rule.
Members of both parties in Congress opposed American intervention, but Clinton
sent a large military force to the country in September 1994. At the last
minute, before the troops reached Haiti he sent a delegation led by former
President Jimmy Carter to urge the Haitian military leader, Raoul Cédras, to
step down and leave the country. Cédras agreed to leave and surrender the
government to Aristide. Cédras and his top lieutenants left the country on
October 13; on October 15 American forces escorted Aristide into the capital,
and the democratic government was restored. In early 1995 the UN assumed
responsibility of the remaining troops in Haiti. They were expected to remain
in Haiti until June 1997, although there was a possibility that their stay
would be extended. The Middle East Clinton also had success in the Middle East.
Secret negotiations between the nation of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization
led to a historic declaration of peace between the two groups in September
1993, which had been at war for 45 years. Clinton arranged for the peace accord
to be signed at the White House. In July 1994, he helped orchestrate an
historic agreement between long-time enemies Israel and Jordan to end their
state of war. The leaders of the countries signed their pact at the White
House. In April 1995 the Clinton Administration helped to negotiate an
agreement between Israel, Lebanon, and Syria. The agreement was intended to
protect civilians and stop fighting between the Israelis and Hezbollah, a
guerrilla organization in Lebanon that is supplied by Syria. Korea Tensions on
the Korean peninsula, where the United States had fought a war 40 years earlier,
increased when North Korea, one of the few remaining Communist dictatorships in
the world, violated the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty by refusing to allow
international inspectors to look at sites where nuclear waste from two electric
generating plants was dumped. The inspectors wanted to see if North Korea was
extracting plutonium, which could be used to manufacture nuclear weapons in
violation of the treaty. Despite international concerns and repeated warnings
by Clinton, North Korea refused to allow the inspections and raised the
prospect of war with South Korea, a United States ally. After some private
diplomacy by former president Jimmy Carter, the Clinton administration reached
an agreement with North Korea in October 1994. North Korea would shut down the
nuclear plants that produced the bomb material, and the United States would
help North Korea build plants that generated electricity with "light-water"
nuclear reactors that are more efficient and produce waste from which
extracting material for nuclear bombs is more difficult. The United States
promised to supply fuel oil to operate electric plants until the new plants
were built, and North Korea promised to allow inspection of the old waste sites
when construction started on the new plants. Mexico Another foreign crisis
occurred in early 1995, when the value of the peso, the currency of Mexico,
began to fall sharply, threatening the collapse of the Mexican economy. Clinton
said the collapse of the Mexican economy would have a harsh effect on the United
States and submitted a plan to Congress to help Mexico ease its financial
crisis. Fearing that voters would not favor giving money to Mexico, Congress
refused to approve the plan. Clinton then devised a $20 billion loan package
for Mexico to restore confidence of investors around the world in the Mexican
economy. In January 1997 Mexico announced that it had completed its loan
payments to the United States, three years ahead of schedule. In March 1996
Clinton declared Mexico a partner with the United States in the war against
drugs. However, many members of Congress felt that Mexico had not done enough
to discourage the production and transport of drugs. In February 1997 many U.S.
politicians again questioned Mexico's commitment to the war against drugs when
a top Mexican antidrug official was arrested on charges of protecting one of
the country's most prominent drug traffickers. However, Clinton still supported
Mexico's efforts to combat the illegal drug trade and again declared Mexico a
partner in the war against drugs. Clinton made his first visit to Mexico in May
1997. However, issues such as the drug controversy and the U.S. immigration
policies strained relations between the United States and Mexico. Cuba
Following talks with representatives of the Cuban government, in May 1995
Clinton announced a controversial decision to reverse a 30-year policy allowing
Cuban refugees into the United States. Some 20,000 refugees detained at
Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba were to be admitted to the United States
over a period of about three months; to prevent a mass exodus of refugees to
the United States, all future refugees would be returned to Cuba. According to
United States Attorney General Janet Reno, Cubans seeking refugees status could
apply for that status while still in Cuba. Although the Cuban American National
Foundation, an organization led by Jorge Mas Canosa, an exiled political leader
from Cuba, approved of admitting the detained refugees, Mas Canosa was critical
of the new policy to return future Cuban refugees. Cuban Americans feared that
refugees would not be safe if they were handed back to the Communist government
led by Fidel Castro. While some political figures praised the decision, such as
the governor of Florida (where refugees were considered likely to settle),
others in the Clinton Administration voiced their opposition. Relations between
the United States and Cuba worsened in February 1996 when Cuba shot down two
civilian planes. Cuba claimed that the planes had been in Cuban airspace. However,
Clinton condemned Cuba for shooting down unarmed civilian planes without
warning. In response, Clinton tightened sanctions against Cuba, including the
suspension of flights from the United States to Cuba. The president hoped this
suspension would hurt Cuba's tourist industry. Also in response to the
incident, the U.S. Congress passed in March 1996 the Helms-Burton Act, named
after its two sponsors, Senator Jesse Helms and Representative Dan Burton.
Parts of the bill strengthened the embargo against Cuba. However, another part,
Title III, allowed American citizens whose property was seized during and after
the 1959 Cuban revolution to file suit in U.S. courts against foreign companies
that later invested in those properties. The uproar from other countries such
as Mexico, Canada, and members of the European Union (EU) was immediate because
they believed that the United States could not penalize them for doing business
with Cuba. In July 1996 and again in January 1997 Clinton suspended Title III
of the legislation for six months. Trade Legislation Clinton successfully
lobbied for the passage of sweeping trade legislation that lowered the barriers
to trade with other nations. He broke with many of his supporters, including
labor unions, over free-trade legislation. Many feared that cutting tariffs
(taxes on exports or imports) and import rules would cost American jobs because
people would buy products made with cheaper labor from other countries. Clinton
said the country would be helped, not harmed. The first fight was over the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which would gradually reduce
tariffs and create a free-trading block of the North American countries-the
United States, Canada, and Mexico. Opponents, led by H. Ross Perot, said it
would drive American companies to Mexico, where they could produce goods with
cheap labor and ship them back to the United States. Clinton persuaded
Democrats to join most Republicans in voting for the measure. The treaty was
voted on in the House of Representatives in November 1993, and passed, 234 to
200. Clinton also met with leaders of the Pacific Rim nations to discuss
lowering trade barriers. In November 1993 he hosted a summit meeting in
Seattle, Washington, attended by the leaders of 12 Pacific Rim nations. Clinton's
negotiators also participated in the final round of negotiations to work out a
comprehensive world trade agreement, called the General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade (GATT). Similar negotiations had been going on for seven years under
three presidents. After the general election in 1994, Clinton summoned Congress
to a rare lame-duck session to ratify the treaty. Congress approved GATT by
votes of 76-24 in the Senate and 288-146 in the House of Representatives. Two
weeks before the GATT vote, he orchestrated an agreement with the Pacific Rim
nations meeting in Indonesia to gradually remove trade barriers and open their
markets. HILLARY CLINTON Hillarys full name is Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was
born in 1947. Hillary is a lawyer, but she is most famous as the wife of United
States president Bill Clinton. During the 1992 presidential campaign, she
became a powerful symbol of the changing role and status of women in American
society. Hilary was born in Chicago. She was the first student ever asked to
give the commencement address at Wellesley College, where she earned her
bachelor's degree in 1969. At Yale Law School, she met her future husband,
Bill Clinton, and her lifelong mentor, Marian Wright Edelman, who founded the
Children's Defense Fund, an organization that lobbies for children's welfare.
Rodham worked there as a staff attorney for a year after graduating from law
school in 1973, and later chaired the organization's board. In 1974, after
working for the special U.S. House panel investigating a possible impeachment
of President Richard Nixon, she moved to Arkansas, where she began teaching law
at the University of Arkansas. She and Bill Clinton were married a year later.
The Clintons have a daughter, Chelsea. In 1977 Clinton founded Arkansas
Advocates for Children and Families and joined the Rose Law Firm, where she
practiced until 1992, specializing in patent infringement and intellectual
property. She was twice named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in
America by the National Law Journal. As the first presidential spouse with her
own successful professional career, Clinton drew criticism from those who
favored a more traditional role for the first lady. After taking office,
President Clinton chose her to head a special commission on health care reform,
the most significant public policy initiative of his first year in office. The
special commission developed a comprehensive health care proposal, which was
presented to the Congress of the United States in September 1993. Although Clinton
was praised for her intricate knowledge of the issue, the plan was attacked
fiercely for being too expensive, requiring extensive government regulation,
and placing a burden on small employers by forcing them to pay for employee
coverage. Throughout 1994 various health care proposals were drafted by other
groups in Congress. In September 1994 Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell
announced that Congress could not reach agreement on the health care issue
before convening, so health care reform failed, resulting in a major defeat for
the Clintons. After the failure of health care reform, Clinton began to assume
a lower profile as first lady; she was no longer publicly prominent in her
husband's policy decisions. In 1993 both Clintons came under scrutiny during
an investigation dubbed the Whitewater affair, which questioned the Clintons'
investment in a failed home development company in 1978 and the connection to a
failed savings and loans association. In January 1996 Clinton was called to
testify before a grand jury investigating the Whitewater affair, the first time
a first lady was asked to appear before a grand jury. The same month Clinton's
book, It Takes a Village, was published, focusing on the responsibilities that
society has toward children.
