But most of my time was spent on legislation. I had really not fully ever grasped from my Wall Street days, that there was a great big regulatory side to it including enforcement side, where the RTC was also charged with pursuing investigations against former thrift officials and ultimately prosecuting them if circumstances warranted. But I think the most that the Fed can be expected to do is move short rates. Clintons that way. Every imaginable issue arose and Clinton hit all those balls out of the park and it gave the American public a chance to see how astonishingly smart and deep this guy was. I mean, the worst recession since the Great Depression occurred in 1981 and 1982 and in the fall of 82, in early August, Reagan was being described as Herbert Hoover, politically dead, gone, might as well already make his reservations back to Santa Barbara and so forth. Nobody said to me, Hes there. Three-quarters of the people who go into the Cabinet never want to leave it, its great being a Cabinet officer. He predicted them. Yes, it was a help. Was it his personality? So Mack played relatively little role in this. Fortunately Secretary Bentsen said, No, not fine. Was it Mickey Kantor? Are we missing anything in terms of your responsibilities? Kerrey made a quite dramatic speech, rather excoriating Clinton, urged Clinton to get back on the high road and so forth and then cast the vote and Gore cast the tie-breaking vote and thats how it happened. Do you recall at what point you felt that there was some momentum being reestablished? Do you remember your impressions of Clinton as an undergraduate? I remember Allen going through that. By the time 94 was over, the Congress was in Republican hands. The idea of making changes or improvements in the IRS is a pretty tough idea, but you find yourself doing things like that. He didnt like Clintons stimulus program. Bob Rubin talked with great credibility about the bond market responding, and James Carville was so amusing for so long afterwards saying he wanted to come back in his next life and be the bond market because everybody paid such fealty to it. We had a macro economic task force. But it was really episodic, it wasnt regular. The chief, the captain of that ship with Mickey Kantor, USTR [United States Trade Representative], and to some considerable extent Ron Brown, Secretary of Commerce, and Lloyd Bentsen played a big role in it. I might have a point of view about what those ought to be based on certain inputs I was receiving directly from the Hill and we need to work more on this or that. Having watched very carefully what Bob Carswell, who served for three plus years of the four Carter years as Deputy Secretary, did in that role, and that was actually rather different than my role. They just didnt come to the Secretary, to the Chairman of the RTC, no more than investigations being pursued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, or the Secret Service or what have you come to the Secretary of the Treasury. She wasnt a participant in those. I think he saw the political opportunity presented by that in addition to the basic merits of NAFTA. You can have half of it, or something to that effect. So I had that meeting with Clinton. So I did a lot of work representing the Treasury on any number of issues in the White House councils of deliberation. I mean, I just thought he was such a hero. I knew Bob Kerrey quite well by that time and Bob was very unpredictable. Did you ever get the sense that there were some people who mystified him? I was completelyclean bill of health from the independent counsel. They began to mount quite a drumbeat of Republican outcry to the effect that it was the responsibility of the RTC to unilaterally extend that statute of limitations on the theory that it would be wrong to let the Clintons off the hook, and the RTC had the power to do that. Yes, but the independent counsel is not a Clinton-era novelty. We had some serious issues with the IRS. On changes in the bill, unless they were truly minor, those were deliberated at the highest level. You can see it in real life at 3901 S. Michigan Avenue, about 20 minutes from the I do believe it was able to make a difference. So the Carter White House was a bit at seavisvis the Federal Reserve and its role, how to relate to it. I guess we have to just win then. Those are my exact words. Had there always been a sense on your part that your likely posting in the administration would be in Treasury or. I think it just evolved rather randomly that not many of those former Carter people got involved with Clinton. Yes, I believe the charter of the RTC transcended whether it was a state chartered or federally chartered S and L. Well, the guarantees were not Federal if they were state chartered. Maybe there was, I wasnt privy to that or exposed to that. You didnt have to spend much time around them to see this. It was a very simple letter that was done up for me and I sent it to everybody saying, Just so you know, the RTC has only these procedural options in matters like this, and we will be reaching a decision on which of them to do before the statute of limitations expires. But from their vantage point, thats when they experienced intense partisanship. Is he going to become President? The politics of Oklahoma. I was given an office over in the Treasury. It pains me to recognize that thats 35 years ago, but no, it wasnt the case. No, it was not at all. So I felt very chastened by what Gene had said. I think history will probably record that as the most important achievement of President Clintons overall Presidency, not the vote itself of course, but the ultimate effects of it. Do you have anyyou were sort of one of the casualties of this campaign, but was the Whitewater thing separate from this hate stuff? No, Im sorry, it didnt have the power to do that, but there were ways of achieving that outcome. Were there Republican members that he particularly relied on. Youve already mentioned the people who were attending that particular meeting. Mr. Altman began his investment banking career at Lehman Brothers, advancing to general partner in 1974. Its actually enjoyable, its fun. During the day two or three people from the administration spoke to KerreyMack McLarty and Leo Panetta spoke to Kerrey. The period during which Bentsens views werent treated with quite enough respect was a very short one. Mike Levy, our person, whod been Senator Bentsens primary legislative staffer, was a true pro, and that particular axis worked like a charm. So the fact that a variety of people serve a long time, theres nothing mysterious about that, that had nothing to do with Bill Clinton. Were still in the transition period, and now may be the appropriate time to talk about the process by which deficit reduction becomes a clear priority item over some of the other things that were talked about during the course of the campaign. But yes, we had meetings in his hotel room at three in the morning. To this day, I have a much closer relationship with her than I do with him. I should double-check that. I would say that had probably as much to do with the onset of a partisan period as did the Andrews Air Force Base summit, but Im just playing amateur historian here. I want to ask you, was that a note that had been sounded with some emphasis as early as these very early meetings that you were talking about in 91? I mean, not to take any credit away from other players, you wouldnt want to do that Im sure, but there must have been some. We then embarked on a search for a candidate and give or take three or four months later found one who, ironically, was a Republican. For example, I said earlier, the National Economic Council is not a new idea at all, that the Ford administration had its version, Nixon had his version, and so forth. Well, Im not actually trying to establish whether these were particularly important in the campaign. But Clinton really got into it. Altman Thats true, yes. The President relied on Bentsen and Altman to take on some of his Administrations toughest tasks. Bob Rubin. He was not confronted with a grave crisis, but I think history will treat him very well, because essentially. The House voted first, and on the day of the House vote we didnt think we had the votes, or at least we thought the odds were too high that we would lose. For a variety of reasons, I dont think he had the pure luxury of just saying, Lets do NAFTA a year from now. After all, thered been only two Democratic Presidents in the last 25 or 30 years and theyd both been southern Governors. There were not pitched battles. So I watched the Senate vote, also on television, this time in the war room. Did you think that they took those claims seriously, or was this pure politics? Yes, hes just that way. In the first two years of the Clinton administration, they had about four Prime Ministers, pretty hard to get anywhere in that circumstance. Was there a perceivable influence from your perspective on having Perot in the campaign, making the deficit an issue from his vantage point? We began to have fundraisers toward the end of 91. For the first part of the Clinton years, Arthur Burns was famously mystical, quite like Greenspan. You get there and then you figure out what your actual sequence of initiatives is going to be. Lets step back and just recall who the members of the senior economic team were because there was an entire team of people doing this. Okay, the election occurred and, for reasons Ive never fully understood, Alice Rivlin and I were the first two to go down to see Clinton, of those he was looking at for appointment purposes. I think Henry Kissinger would still be Secretary of State if people had allowed him to be, whatever he thought of who he was serving. Did you think it was a waste of time at that point? You think that a lot of Republicans who didnt support it would say, Well, theres a little justice in the world because Bush 41 paid the price for having a compromise in 1990 that, along the lines of the 1993 bill, did help restore some fiscal discipline to the U.S. You see people scrambling to monopolize the left. But, no, they couldnt have been more cooperative. Before you get into that, can I ask you another question about the arrangements on the 1993 budget? In fact, it was six months before. That was a factor. What really happened was that the stimulus was entirely spending-side stimulus. Clinton, as I mentioned before, held a series of marathon meetings, I recall that virtually all of them were on the Roosevelt Room, and they went on for four, five, six, seven hours, talking about possible elements of the economic program. [ALTMAN - comments on the message as to I think John Kennedys famous line about Jefferson applies because he had nine simultaneous careers, and the Presidency was only one. I suppose everyone has his own definition of intimate, but by any standard Im familiar with, I was not an intimate of Clintons. Could be. We sat there, the two of us, watching it on television, mostly in silence. I referred to the Bert Lance affair when I was serving the Clinton administration, and in that case the controller of the currency, who is an independent regulator, was charged with looking into it and delivered a report that ultimately proved to be Bert Lances downfall. Mr. Clinton became aware of that. Founder and Senior Chairman | I disagree that hes under-appreciated. They have made changes in policy, its not as though theyve stood still. I also think it is wrong politically. Was there a contrasting case in your experience in the Clinton administration where support was received both sides of the aisle and soughtwas it sought in the budget case? But I really could never figure that out. Obviously he balanced the budget, now its unbalanced. My point is, I thought the whole discussion had a considerable impact on Clinton, as did scores of others along the way after that. Im not sure he would have known me really at all. I remember the very stirring tableau as you may remember, the Clintons and the Gores came out onto this beautifully lit portico and there were, it seemed, thousands of people on the street in front of them. They talked all the time. Well, it was difficult in the beginning. So those ideas were developed during the campaign. Sometimes without him and sometimes with him, but if Mrs. Clinton was there, everybody else was. Once you get NAFTA behind you, my guess is that there were further discussions at that point about what ought to be next and this is when healthcare becomes a priority. This would have been before you were in the transition office? And the reason he wasntnothing to do with Senator Kennedy himself. There was a widespread sense that Japan was taking advantage of the relationshipin various ways. Im convinced to this day that sent a bolt of electricity through the Iranians and they figured they better not hold those hostages one hour into Ronald Reagans Presidency, and they didnt. First of all, the actual role of the Deputy Secretary as defined in the Treasury mission statement is to do what the Secretary of the Treasury asks him to. Do you think that making this effort was driven by foreign policy considerations first and foremost, or was it genuinely an economic policy? How did the second transition compare with that first one in terms of cooperativeness, in terms of being organized and. Sure, Greenspan was in favor of deficit reduction, so when the administration came forward with an actual deficit reduction plan, which, as we all know, was a bit unexpected, Greenspan supported it, testified for it and so forth. Bentsen and Dole were very close friends, which is a measure of the stature that Bentsen had. Mr. Altman began his investment banking career at She inspired, continues to inspire, fierce loyalty and he doesnt. In the very beginning it wasnt as availed of, as it quickly became availed of later. I really think its just that basic. I guess I figured, were I to be appointed something, it would likely be in the Treasury, and perhaps, by process of elimination, nothing else seemed logical to me. The economic plan was, to some degree, controversial from the beginning because of the tax increases and some feeling that the deficit reduction was unnecessary or could be counterproductive. Thats one where the Federal role is much bigger and one of the things we didnt discuss is why the administration did not latch onto that early on, even though the President was on the populist side of reform. Those things were at a peak in 94, just at the time healthcare was on the table. Decided to do this. I went to Wall Street after the University of Chicago, and then after seven years on Wall Street, I went into the [Jimmy] Carter administration as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. A lot of people didnt realize and I didnt entirely realize the regulatory responsibilities of the RTC at the time. Theyd review it and youd go to a meeting where you received a 900-page memo, three quarters of which you didnt understand. But the two major currency accords, the Plaza Accord and the Louvre Accord, were done in times of crisis in the foreign exchange markets. That was not well known to me at the time. Do you have any recollections of seeing anything different in him as a candidate at that point for that position? But really, not until the spring of 1991 when I began to hear rumblings that he was thinking of running. The White House decidedwell, there were certain people who were obviously going to be in it. Weve all seen this happen often in Washington. So actually I didnt have any concerns. So most of what you were doing was drawing from the people who would not have been supportive of Cuomo in any event. Panetta had made a very distinguished career as House Budget Chairman out of pushing for lower deficits and a more transparent budget process. You say you knew Rubin well, but did you have a sense that in the other places where economic policy-making is made there was ever any tension over this kind of an arrangement? Was there anything particular in his record in Arkansas that became sticking points with people in the community that you were attempting to raise money from? So I served in that job for give or take a year, and I never had a single meeting on an investigation nor did any of my predecessors, just wasnt done, wasnt necessary, and so forth. If Im not mistaken, we were looking at a $350 billion deficit, up from about $260 or something that we had been generally using during the campaign. I think our administration tried, as hard as it was possible to try, to change the dynamic of the U.S.-Japanese trade relationship. The assessment was correct because, I cant recall the size of the economy then, but today it is about $10.7 trillion. One of the reasons it was bloodless was because the Soviets knew what they had and didnt have and what we had and they didnt have. I should be very careful here. Lets recast the question a bit. I think though, if I can repeat myself once, I finished reading a few months ago a marvelous biography of TR [Theodore Roosevelt], the second volume of Edmund Morris work. The time for horse-trading was over. We had a couple hundred people there. I can even imagine an independent counsel of some kind being unlikely, but not impossible, designated in the whole weapons of mass destruction issue. In a curious way hed compromised his own position. Anyway. The only reason I think it worked was Bob Rubin, who had the skill and the temperament to make it work. So by the time I had to do it again I wasnt particularly concerned. Ill never forget, I went in to see one of them whod been shot eight times. So I knew nothing about the substance of the Clinton case. People forget that, even today. That was the first thing I did. How do you think Clinton ultimately is going to be read by historians, this Presidency? No voters will cast their votes, even two years from now, even in 94, one year from now, on the basis of my having voted against it. Do you have any recollections or observations about the President in that environment? So the swing votes were the object of our attention. No, two funny stories, Jim, dont let him off so easily. Clinton is nothing if not rigid. I went down there one day, came back the next day. Somehow it came off successfully in Miami with all these heads of state and everybody was very happy with it. Now streaming on: Powered by I took it anyway. Was Bernard Nussbaum involved in the financing in this early period? Well, if you were to ask me for a moment when looking back on it, one could perhaps see that we were moving into a new period of partisanship, I would have chosen instead the [Robert] Bork battle, which I think changed quite dramatically the whole process on Supreme Court nominations and the grounds on which they were debated. Can you tell us about his decision-making process on this? It occurred around 96, 97, but in the early stages of the Clinton years we didnt have a currency crisis. I mean, I saw a lot of the two of them and I became quite friendly with Hillary, and by the time I left the administration was actually much more friendly with Hillary than I was with the President, even though ironically Id obviously known him first. He was not, no. Help us understand why he would elect to move NAFTA at this point? I think this had to be artfully crafted in order to get through. 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