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When he arrived in Switzerland, Rich had no idea he would be staying so long. For his 50th birthday, on a rainy day in 1984, he threw a bash for hundreds of guests in the ornate ballroom of Lucerne's National Hotel. Denise sang a couple of songs, and Rich staged a mock boxing match between a clown wearing Rich's corporate logo and another dressed as a New York City cop. Rich seemed to have found the good life, but he could never really enjoy it, as his onetime attorney Leonard Garment, a former adviser to Richard Nixon, learned when he visited Rich. "I would really like to be able just to walk down Fifth Avenue and wave to my friends," he told Garment. Now that Clinton has granted Rich his wish--and has to suffer the recriminations--the former President may find himself longing for much the same thing. --Reported by Elaine Shannon, Michael Weisskopf and Adam Zagorin/Washington and Eric Silver/Jerusalem

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