Mack McLarty recounts the Cllnton years at St. John's, Lafayette Square

Mack McLarty, left, Bill Clinton's first chief of staff, with Clark Ervin at St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C. Jan. 18, 2015/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Mack McLarty, 68, President Bill Clinton's first chief of staff, was the guest speaker at Sunday's Adult Forum at St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, in Washington.

The man who served Clinton for about 18 months, one of four Clinton chiefs of staff, said all the right things and related popular Clinton history in the almost hour-long session moderated by St. John's member Clark Ervin and attended by about 125 persons.

Before September 11, the White House was judged "at the end of the day by peace and prosperity," the "real measures of success," and "under those criteria, the Clinton presidency was pretty successful," McLarty said.  

Mack McLarty, left, Bill Clinton's first chief of staff, with Clark Ervin at St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C. Jan. 18, 2015/Photo by Patricia Leslie

When Ervin asked McLarty if al-Qaeda had been on "the radar screen" then, McLarty said "we were very aware of potent and dramatic" events, and "what we now define as 'terrorism.'"

At a 1996 campaign town hall meeting with Republican candidate Bob Dole and Clinton, McLarty said only one question was asked about foreign policy during the 90-minute session.

Bill Clinton was president during the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and the "very dramatic" and "tragic" Waco siege the same year.  After the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, President Clinton went to Oklahoma where he was not a popular figure, McLarty said, but the president was welcomed "respectfully."

The fellow Arkansans and lifelong friends had some experience with neo-Nazis in their home state. (Both were born in Hope, Arkansas and attended school together.) 

"The security and protection of the American people is [the president's] most solemn and sacred responsibility," McLarty said.

Mack McLarty, Bill Clinton's first chief of staff, at St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C. Jan. 18, 2015/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The Clinton years saw 22 million new jobs created and working with Congress, "moved over five million people" from welfare to work and worked to achieve "not only a balanced budget but a surplus."   

Today the "country today seems pretty divided....I easily can get on a soapbox about this because....I have very strong feelings about it because it's [gridlock] not serving our country well...gridlock has moved to disfunctionality."  He blamed the 24/7 news cycle and campaign financing for the discord.

"We are paying our elected officials to get the job done."  

McLarty said 99 percent of Congressional members are "decent, hardworking, dedicated, smart people," and about 90 (with half from each party) have joined him in a group working to restore Capitol Hill productivity. "I think there's some hope," he said. 

About the 2016 presidential race, McLarty he has known said Hillary Clinton since before she got married, and she is "by far the favorite candidate on the Democratic side" who "would make an outstanding president."  

Meanwhile, the Republican race "looks to me like a donnybrook."

Mack McLarty, left, Bill Clinton's first chief of staff, with Clark Ervin at St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C. Jan. 18, 2015/Photo by Patricia Leslie

A governor has a head start in the race, McLarty believes, since he or she has worked with a legislature and is "a little bit closer to the people," economically speaking.  

He praised President George H.W. Bush several times during his talk, including Bush's attempts to help with the Mid-East peace talks which Bill Clinton worked very hard to accomplish.  To attempt "a major peace initiative" for any president or secretary of state is a risk since lack of success will be broadcast, and the president must account for it.

The period between church services left little time for questions from the audience, but St. John's rector, the Rev. Dr. Luis Leon, a native of Cuba, got in the first one, and asked why the Clinton administration didn't move to begin relations with Cuba which had been promised at a White House clergy breakfast.  

McLarty said "it was not a high priority" then, but small steps were taken to make some progress until a plane was shot down over Cuba which "sealed off" any dialogue with that country.  With 85 percent of members supporting legislation, Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act of 1996 which continued the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

He called President Barack Obama's action to open the gates between the U.S. and Cuba "a very bold step," and for the first time, Cuba will be invited to Panama this spring to participate in the 2015 Summit of the Americas which President Obama will attend, too, McLarty said.

He was asked how presidents maintain balance between all the "yes" people who surround the office and who refrain from telling the president what he or she does not want to hear. McLarty said Clinton "knew there was a presidential bubble," but is quite curious anyway, and often invited those with differing views to the White House since he wanted to hear what they had to say.

McLarty is president of McLarty Associates, a Washington-based consulting group, and the chief executive officer of McLarty Companies.

patricialesli@gmail.com

Andrew Card in bed with George and Barbara Bush

Andrew Card at St. John's Episcopal

Church, Lafayette Square/Photo by Patricia Leslie

That's what he said Sunday at the Adult Forum at St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C.

Andrew Card, 67, chief of staff for George W. Bush, was the guest speaker at St. John's, where he held the 150 or so audience members fascinated with his "behind-the-scenes" look at what it takes to be the president's COS.

Andrew Card at St. John's Episcopal

Church, Lafayette Square/Photo by Patricia Leslie

He also served in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and just today began a new job as president of Franklin Pierce University. He was the person in the "iconic" photograph of September 11, 2001 who told President Bush in a classroom of second graders in Sarasota, Florida, that the U.S. had been attacked.

In-between flights and trips advising George W. Bush on his 2000 presidential race, Card said Bush called and told him to go to Houston to visit Bush's parents who were longtime friends of Card.  ("I was much closer to his parents" than he was to George W. Bush, Card said.)

He followed George W.'s directive and went to Houston, arriving at the Bush home before George H.W. and Barbara got there (out campaigning). When they rolled in at 11:30 p.m. (Barbara) and midnight (George H.W.), peanut butter and honey sandwiches were on the late-night menu.

Andrew Card at St. John's Episcopal

Church, Lafayette Square/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The next morning, Card got up and got dressed and soon heard a knock on the bedroom door.  There stood the former first lady who expressed surprise that Card was already up and dressed.

"'Come and have coffee,'" she said, and invited Card into the first couple's bedroom. "'Join us,'" she said, and Card did. The Bushes invited Card to "'lay down with us'" in the bed which Card did. (!)

Card said the television was on, and the couple was "chattering away."

In a few minutes, the former president got up, and Card got up, too, but the former president told Card:"'No, stay there with Barb.'"  And Card did as he was instructed:  "I got in bed with the first lady." (What do you say when a former president gives orders?)

The Bushes told Card to "'take good care of our son.'" Card was still unaware "the son" was tapping Card to become his chief of staff.

For the 2000 presidential debates, Card was sought as a negotiator for the particulars of the debates which took him from his job at General Motors far longer than the expected several afternoons. Arrangements took two and a half weeks.

Describing the debates, he said Al Gore violated terms of the third debate in St. Louis when he left his podium and walked into George W. Bush's "space," and Bush just looked at him and won it.

When Card eventually got home after seven weeks on the campaign trail, his wife, Kathy, a United Methodist minister whom he met in fifth grade, asked if he was married to her or to George W. Bush.

At that moment at the Card household, the telephone rang, and it was the candidate calling again. (The Cards are still married.)

Andrew Card at St. John's Episcopal

Church, Lafayette Square/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Card compared being the chief of staff for the president to a marriage, but working for the president is a lot more demanding since the COS is on call 24 hours a day/seven days a week.

It's a job "designed by the needs of the president," and "you also serve the first lady" and her staff.

Schedules, motorcades, gardening, laundry, the "care and feeding of the president" all fall under the jurisdiction of the COS.

"Can the president find time to eat, sleep, and be married?" 

"It's a great privilege and honor" to be the chief of staff, Card said.  "It's an ultimate experience" which can't be called a job since it's not 9 to 5. 
 
Card said he did not agree with every decision George W. Bush made. "The president should never make an easy decision," and "if so, the chief of staff is not doing his or her job." (Throughout his talk Card was always quick to use masculine and feminine pronouns and correct himself when he forgot.)

Every decision should be "brutally" tough to make, and the president needs to obtain lots of opinions. Being COS is "a management challenge."

The time passed quickly at St. John's where Card never once took position behind the podium which was brought out for him, and no one (save the moderator) seemed to notice the hour was ending, leaving time for only one question:  How do you maintain your enthusiasm?

Earlier in his talk, Card talked about his ceaseless optimism.  "I start every day with faith," welcoming the new dawn at 4:08 a.m. and  Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.

He also quoted a passage from Ecclesiastes about God's time which may have been 3:11:
      Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time.

To be a chief of staff, "you have to be an optimist....I wanted the president to realize the privilege that was given to him....Optimism is critically important."  If a leader is not optimistic, he or she is hard pressed to get "followers" to go along with the program. 

"Every day was a good day.  You can't have a bad day when you're the president." 

Card said St. John's is "a very special place," a place where he has worshipped many times.  He grew up Roman Catholic, he said.

Wikipedia says "the average term of service for a White House Chief of Staff is a little under 2.5 years," and the person who has served that position the longest is John R. Steelman who held the position for the entire administration of Harry S Truman (six years, one month). Andrew Card is the third-longest serving COS (five years, three months) after Steelman and Sherman Adams, who was Dwight Eisenhower's COS (five years, nine months).

Card was born in Holbrook or Brockton (two reports), Massachusetts and graduated with an engineering degree from the University of South Carolina.   He attended the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and was first elected to public office in 1975 when voters sent him to the Massachusetts legislature.

I wanted to ask him if he is writing a book.

Next up at St. John's Adult Forum:  Mack McLarty, President Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff, January 18, 10 a.m.

patricialesli@gmail.com

Rumsfeld to talk at Archives Apr. 3

Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld with President Gerald Ford/Wikipedia

 

Donald Rumsfeld, former defense secretary under Presidents George W. Bush and Gerald Ford, and Ford's chief of staff from 1974-75, will talk about his role as chief of staff with four other former chiefs at National Archives on Wednesday at 7 p.m.

The public is invited, and there is no charge to attend.

Other White House chiefs scheduled for "Inside View" are John Podesta (chief of staff for Bill Clinton, 1998-2001), Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty (another Clinton chief of staff who served 1993-94), Kenneth M. Duberstein (for Reagan, 1988-89), and Joshua Bolten (for George W. Bush, 2006-09).

David Gergen, former presidential advisor for four presidents and director of the Center for Public Leadership, will moderate.  The Aspen Institute is a co-sponsor.

Seating at the William G. McGowan Theater will be on a first-come, first-served basis.  Formation of a line outside the entrance at the corner of Seventh Street N.W. and Constitution is expected to form around 5 p.m.   Doors will open at 6:30 p.m., however, free tickets are often distributed to those standing in line before then.

patricialesli@gmail.com