ON THE ROAD TO SCANDAL

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It now seems ironic that it was the Clintons themselves who set this book in motion. On March 25, 1994, Susan Thomases, the Manhattan lawyer who is a close friend and adviser to the Clintons, came to my office about a matter she had said she couldn't discuss over the phone. After some pleasantries, Thomases described a White House besieged by allegations ranging from the murder of Vincent Foster to irregularities in Whitewater to obstruction of justice. The President and First Lady had concluded that the best way to clear their names was to open themselves to a reputable journalist. Thomases never said explicitly that I was being considered for this project, but when I asked if this were the case, she seemed delighted that I might consider undertaking it.

On April 13 I met with the First Lady in the White House. There were a few flashes of anger as she described her and her husband's treatment by the media. She seemed especially upset by coverage of Paula Jones' sexual-harassment suit, mentioning that people had no idea how painful it was for her to endure public reports of her husband's alleged infidelity. She railed against the tactics of the right-wing media and think tanks, wondering how they were being financed. A recurring theme was that she couldn't understand why reporters would publish allegations by people of questionable integrity in the face of denials by her and her husband.

The First Lady freely conceded that mistakes had been made and that she, in particular, had put too much emphasis on privacy, leading to perceptions that the White House had something to hide. This was not true, she insisted.

The conversation lasted about an hour and a half. In the ensuing weeks I had extensive discussions with the First Lady's chief of staff, Maggie Williams, and met her press secretary, Lisa Caputo, and White House adviser George Stephanopoulos. By late June, having received no definitive answer from the White House, I broached the possibility that I didn't feel comfortable with the notion that I needed the Clintons' permission to undertake this work, and might well begin it on my own. As I had told Mrs. Clinton, I was drawn to the story as much for what it would say about our culture, values and political processes as for what it would reveal about the President and his wife.

Maggie Williams called me on July 6. She said the First Lady had concluded that she would cooperate with me, as would people in her entourage and people she was in a position to influence. She could not speak for the President, but she said she thought he would cooperate once the project was under way. With that, I began work on Blood Sport.