Love and Hate in Arkansas
Wattenberg, Daniel
Daniel Wattenberg Love and Hate in Arkansas L.D. Brown's story. I / n the summer of 1984 or 1985, Joyce Miller attended a dance at the Arkansas State Fairgrounds with her sister. Miller...
...like he was a dog...
...He told me that Gov...
...As case officer and agent conferred, Brown, much to the chagrin of both, wheeled up and shouted, "Hello, Betsey...
...Tommy Goodwin, Young neglected to mention that one of the repair estimates he had received was from his own company...
...Previously uninvolved in association affairs, laconic and somewhat halting in speech, he was reluctant to-assume the mantle of leadership...
...He explained that a knowing violation of this type constituted a felony punishable by one to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000...
...Patterson says that state trooper Mark Allen was Clinton's cut-out in the campaign to destroy Brown...
...In 1990, Buddy Young sent two state-owned vehicles, including one that he himself had damaged in an accident, to his own paint and body shop, ABC Auto, for repair...
...And she is a hell of a victim of that couple...
...At anassociation barbecue in Pine Bluff, "Mark Allen got up in his face and screamed at him," Patterson recalls...
...Moreover, says Brown, the current Democratic governor of Arkansas, Jim Guy Tucker, also learned contemporaneouslyof Clinton's extramarital exploits...
...If he needed it, he'd take it from us, five dollars here, five dollars there...
...Brown was the best investigator in the state police.'" Shortly after that, the state police investigation was initiated...
...At such times, Brown says, "Bill would hardly ever would fight back...
...I would talk to her about my marriage, and she would talk to me about hers," he says...
...One night we all came in," Brown says, "and he wanted to hit the road...
...Brown attempted to "hustle" me, to arrange a liaison with the governor...
...After learning in 1991 of this patent breach of conflict of interest standards, Goodwin wrote to the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration requesting an investigation...
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...But Clinton remained unreconciled...
...Bill Clinton was telling him every move to make...
...Wright told Ferguson, according to an eyewitness quoted by the Los Angeles Times, that his charge, if allowed to stand, "could get the man impeached...
...Brown is as clear today as it was then: Mr...
...He characterized Patterson and Perry's claims as "outrageous . . . just not so...
...I'll sit down and help you...
...according to Brown, Clinton said, 'I don't want to go in and eat with those ignorant sonofabitches, let's go to another room...
...Brown describes Lisa Foster as "kind of the cast aside, stay-athome wife, mother to Vince's kids, the official 'Vince wife,' the good, trusting, loving-couple wife...
...He would take a tongue-lashing for whatever reason...
...If a guy was put in a position of asking a girl among other girls to join Clinton or get a phone number or The American Spectator April/May 1994 35 whatever, usually you were like 'with him,' you would be with one of the other girls, or you would be kind of one of the party," he explains...
...He would follow with some kind of, 'Y'know, L.D,, we have to do things in life, and we need to be happy, satisfied...
...They pull off...
...Perry's resistance to running began to melt...
...All this is part of a pattern critics say has been replicated in Washington...
...Other troopers referred to Brown—not without jealousy—as the Clintons' "fair-haired boy...
...Robert Packwood, whose clumsy wine-in-a-box come-ons have turned him into a ghostly pariah, the more adroit Clinton often left the parlous business of gaining consent to armed intermediaries...
...This is the governor," she reportedly said, "and, Doug, you have got to go back down there, my God, you have got to humble yourself...
...information," he says...
...Brown recounts that Flowers was brutally mocking in disclosing intimate details of her affair with Clinton...
...It's obvious that I don't have any heartburn that L.D...
...It came to showdown time...
...He never carried a billfold...
...Clinton as the trooper engaged me in conversation...
...was not prosecuted," said a trooper assigned to the investigation...
...Betsey Wright swiftly attempted to obtain from Ferguson an affidavit retracting his charge...
...I thought, 'The sonofabitch is grading my future mother-in-law here?' " Brown acknowledges that Clinton "felt a little bad after it because of the relationship between Becky and me...
...During the years at the governor's mansion, which he remembers as a scale-model "Camelot," Brown says that he performed many of the functions detailed by state troopers Larry Patterson and Roger Perry in David Brock's "Living With the Clintons" (see TAS, January 1994...
...Nelson also said he was told at the time that Tucker had been briefed on the same subject...
...But it was not until Becky gave notice that she would be leaving her post as Chelsea's nanny that Clinton called the couple at their newly bought home, irate: "We are talking about my daughter here and her stability," he reportedly said...
...On state time and using state cars, he drove Clinton to extramarital trysts and guarded him during these encounters...
...He stayed on my butt, and there were conversations between Mark and myself in front of Clinton where he said things to Clinton like, 'Don't you think Roger would be a good president of the association?' "I told Bill Clinton that I was thinking of running for president of the association and he said, 'Good, somebody needs to beat the sorry sonofabitch.' He talked about L.D...
...Brown says that in January 1994 he heard from Los Angeles Times reporter William Rempel, who said he had received a call months earlier from Betsey Wright, former Clinton aide and chief "bimbo eruption"–queller, after she first learned that unidentified troopers were talking to the press...
...Both Brown and Perry say that competitive procedures governing promotions to this rank were bypassed in his case...
...He describes how their mutual disaffection unfolded in four acts: First, Clinton reneged on a promised job...
...Mostly, he touted his credentials as a political and public policy scholar and lamented my descent into "tabloid journalism," when such social problems as the homeless and health care begged for media attention...
...By the third "spontaneous" meeting, Brown had grown suspicious...
...Wright told the Times that she doubted that she had referred to impeachment...
...He introduced himself as he presented his card (attached copy) as "L.D...
...According to Perry, when he grew nervous about his first public speech, Clinton said, "Shoot, I've got some time...
...You're governor of Arkansas...
...Working side by side at the association, Brown and Patterson frequently swapped stories about their respective tours with the Clintons...
...Who is Clinton f---ing?' " Patterson confirmed in an interview that he and Brown gave Tucker a detailed briefing on Clinton's womanizing...
...He gets out of the car, gets back in the back seat [of the troopers' rental], and, 'Hit it...
...Box 657, Mt...
...He said that it enhanced his sexual pleasure," said Perdue, who was dumbfounded by Clinton's "never inhaled" campaign claim...
...Well, what is it that you want...
...He's not the most intelligent person over there, but he's probably got more know-how and gets along better...
...Indeed, fears ran Brown became the object of reprisals familiar to those who know the Clinton arsenal: an attempted criminal prosecution that other state policemen considered trumped up, and a series of vague threats that included job-related sanctions and smear campaigns...
...Five troopers have now talked on or off the record about Clinton's politically toxic levels of philandering...
...He solicited new sexual partners for Clinton throughout the state...
...We could still see them...
...By providing timely updates on Hillary's whereabouts, he abetted Clinton's efforts to conceal the details of his philandering II / n Brown's telling, Clinton emerges as a kind of yuppie Willie Stark, simultaneously aspiring to the dizzying heights of political office and fatally compromised by his personal conduct...
...Among the troopers reported to have extensive knowledge of Clinton's womanizing who have kept quiet are Buddy Young, Lt...
...The exchange lasted even as other members of the party returned to the table...
...Clinton would attempt to make do by using an array of carrots and sticks...
...In 1984, Brown accompanied Clinton to a funeral for a state trooper who had been killed by a survivalist in rural De Queen...
...Loren Kirk, a onetime roommate of Gennifer Flowers who publicly corroborated parts of the Flowers story, told me that she was visited in 1992 by Jack Palladino, a San Francisco private investigator hired by the Clinton presidential campaign to help preempt further eruptions from the seraglio...
...Because of his relationships over the years with Clinton, Patterson, Perry, and Flowers, Brown is uniquely situated to corroborate, in varying degrees, not only the last three but also Perdue...
...Brown, on the other hand, got the stick...
...Anything that Larry and I went up to the capitol and asked for we got," says Perry...
...around...
...He never paid for anything," says Brown...
...She would compare Republicans to Nazis," Brown says...
...For as Miller's 32 The American Spectator April/May 1994 account illustrates, Clinton enjoyed a buffer...
...However troubling one finds the unfolding evidence of Clinton's galloping extramarital sexuality, more relevant politically are the measures to which he (and his associates) have allegedly resorted to cover it up...
...He's in the front seat...
...Brown's wife recalled a Reagan-era trip to Washington, when Chelsea wanted to go to the White House...
...Readers will' recall that Buddy Young, former state police captain and longtime chief of governor's security, issued veiled threats to Roger Perry and Larry Patterson in a futile effort to preempt their revelations...
...Patterson and Perry say that during a Saturday-night meeting at the mansion, Clinton expressed impatience that no criminal investigation had yet begun into Brown's management and wondered aloud why the authorities were "dragging their feet...
...Brown was closer than any other trooper to both sides of Clinton...
...Larry laid all his stuff out...
...During this conversation, Mr...
...There was always an emphasis on 'Has Hilluy called?' `Has the mansion called?' " An evening at an Oriental barbecue restaurant in Little Rock crystallizes Brown's mixed memories of that time and those people...
...He characterizes the public displays of affection between the two that he saw "with my own two eyes" in explicit terms as "grab-ass, locked-up kissing, [etc.]—the whole nine yards...
...Their open contempt contributed significantly to Brown's ultimate disaffection with them...
...He didn't carry money...
...You mess around with girls, I mess around with girls.' The old boy kind of thing...
...Rempel confirmed the call from Wright in substance...
...He suspected that Patterson was "playing both ends against the middle": feeding information to Brown and prospective Clinton opponents on Clinton's sexcapades, while simultaneously, Brown says, "making book on me: women, trips, things he had heard...
...She lives a block and a half from my home...
...He believes the Young case is the only time during his tenure at the state police that a state police officer has awarded himself an order to repair a state vehicle...
...I couldn't see me being responsible for something like that," he said...
...A block away, she pulled up alongside a parked car and got out...
...I just want to be left alone...
...Brown, Bill Clinton's worst nightmare...
...Women wore their hair pinned up in B-52s style and "the net ball gowns that we used to wear when we were kids," recalls Miller...
...And whatever was left over there, if you were so inclined, because you were with him, you had a real good shot at doing something yourself...
...The facts of the matter indicate Captain Young participated directly in contracting for the repair of two state vehicles through ABC Auto in Little Rock," DFA found...
...They were accompanied by Chris Burrow, later appointed by Clinton to be director of State Building Services...
...We had 'Bill Clinton, Governor' Visa cards, and we had a state police credit card...
...Membership in the small circle of troopers Clinton "did things in front of," says Brown, brought with it eligibility for "residuals...
...Brown recalls the meeting at the mansion: "Little pleasantries are exchanged, and all of a sudden Bill just says, 'I want to tell you something'—and he never looks at you—'I'm real goddamn tired of being called a liar, I'm sick of this...
...Tucker, he says, solicited this information for possible use in a 1990 primary challenge...
...Who in the hell knows who the governor of Arkansas is in Boca Raton?' I walk over there, and as it invariably happens, I go over, sit down, give her my card, like an idiot, and say, 'That guy over there—that's the governor of Arkansas, it's Bill Clinton...
...The American media have paid scant attention to multiplying reports of intimidation and graft to smother information about the Clinton harem...
...For an earlier curious meeting of Tucker and Clinton, see James Ring Adams's article in this issue...
...The affair was an open secret in the Clintons' circle, Brown says...
...Neither Batton nor Ferguson swore under penalty of perjury that Clinton had never made such an improper offer (and both lacked standing to claim that Clinton had never improperly offered a job to any trooper...
...an an interview with David Brock, Young had denied having been in contact with anyone in the White House about the subject...
...He met his current wife, Becky, while she worked and lived at the governor's mansion as Chelsea Clinton's nanny...
...Later, on both a state police form listing the three repair estimates he had obtained and a requisition order awarding the job to himself, Young continued to conceal the fact that ABC Auto was a sole proprietorship owned by him...
...It ended up we just had to get him out of there...
...L.D., you knew that, didn't you...
...Then, the two clashed angrily when Clinton welshed on a pay raise for state troopers represented by Brown...
...While Clinton enjoyed a multi-dimensional partnership with his wife, his extramarital sexual partners were "purely to be graded, purely to be chased, dominated, conquered," says Brown...
...At the pink tomato festival at Warren or the Baxter County Fair, for example, they would go meet the `common folk,' continue the ruse, and gladhand them...
...Larry Patterson says Buddy Young issued a veiled threat...
...But finding "no evidence" that Young knowingly violated the ethics code and noting that Young denied knowledge of the code's conflict of interest provisions, DFA determined that administrative, not criminal, penalties were in order...
...Sally Miller Perdue, a former Miss Arkansas who claims she had a three-month affair with Clinton in 1983, has reported that in 1992 a Democratic Party emissary attempted to force her to retreat from the spotlight...
...In this memorably weird interview he observed that both Perdue and Kirk were "self-discrediting" sources, while declining to rebut their specific allegations...
...But the press failed to devote a corresponding level of attention to the array of pressures restraining those with damaging information from coming forward...
...Unlike Oregon Sen...
...Perry was an unlikely choice to succeed Brown as president of the association...
...The group wound up at a strip joint near the stadium, on a grisly highway of sex clubs that runs all the way up into North Dallas...
...Brown angrily quit his post in governor's security...
...Gennifer Flowers received a state job...
...She leaned down, and of course she did the old 'lean down' effect...
...This was a person who was experienced at smoking...
...Clinton, Brown explains, would inquire knowingly about Brown's progress with another member of the party: "'Who is she...
...The troopers association was cooperating with potential primary and general election opponents of Clinton, in hopes of preventing his re-election to a sixth term...
...Official travel records corroborating all five trips were later obtained from state files...
...Brown considers the Clintons' contempt for cops an aspect of a broader class snobbery...
...Late in the evening, one of Mr...
...was president...
...or in an occupation which would be or would appear to be a conflict of interest...
...It is a pattern critics say has been replicated in Washington...
...Oh, you sonofabitch!' It was like, 'You're my buddy, I'm your buddy...
...And he recalls his turmoil following Flowers's public allegations about Clinton during the 1992 primaries...
...and I had some serious problems, but I never thought to have L.D...
...Brown corroborates David Brock's January report that, when being chauffeured to official functions, the two typically sat apart—Hillary in the back seat, Bill up front with L.D.—and seldom exchanged small talk...
...in a job related to the wrecker or ambulance business...
...Patterson maintains that, to the contrary, he fell out of favor with Clinton as the result of his relationship with Brown...
...There always was a politician there," he says...
...Call 1-800-524-3469 or send this handy coupon to: The American Spectator, Subscription Department, P.O...
...C Linton would often grow reflective after extra-marital encounters, says Brown...
...Clinton, several other troopers, and the female dance partner dancing with Gov...
...Legal bills incurred in defending himself and suing the magazine publisher mounted...
...He knew most of those in attendance, Miller was told...
...In an interview, Nelson confirmed the briefing, and gave several examples of stories Brown told him then, stories that appear in print for the first time here...
...Brown coined the term "residuals" for these incidental opportunities...
...Clinton...
...T he private, spontaneous Clinton described by Brown contrasts sharply with his public persona as a feminist champion...
...State police captain Jim Pinson, loyal to the governor, sent a letter critical of Brown to all the troop captains...
...He made a statement to the effect that 'It was [oral sex...
...On a New England trip, Bill, a legendarily shaky driver, insisted on taking the wheel on the turnpike between Boston and Maine...
...To me, that meant that L.D...
...Larry, being still on the inside over there, was telling me the stuff that Clinton was doing—all of the same stuff that came out in the Brock article, which to me as an investigator lends credibility that it all happened," he says...
...He still owes me money...
...The family scars have yet to heal, and McCoy has yet to meet two of her grandchildren...
...Brown attempted to find out some personal details, e.g., my plans for the evening, my hotel's name, my phone number, etc...
...I don't want a goddamn thing...
...And at what price...
...A Washington Post news article, for example, editorialized that Wright's damage control represented an "apparent coup" and "a critical boon to the White House in its efforts to defuse the controversy about the allegations first detailed in American Spectator magazine...
...His thoroughness and spontaneity inspire confidence, and the level of detail he provided regarding other witnesses to events he 34 The American Spectator April / May 1994 described made his claims eminently falsifiable...
...Says Perry, "While not stealing the money, [L.D.] was not using the funds wisely...
...Bill's modest salary as governor of Arkansas was a frequent source of Hillary's gibes...
...A high-level state police official said that the state police director has the authority to bypass competitive procedures, and that every promotion since November 1989 has been by appointment...
...The machine may have spared him prosecution on felony charges...
...Finally, Brown feared spontaneous ostracism in a small city where the Clintons clearly retain many friends and allies...
...Late last year, after four Arkansas state troopers disclosed their roles in procuring women and otherwise facilitating numerous extramarital sexual liaisons for the then-governor, Miller contacted The American Spectator...
...You could see what was going on...
...Brown remembered one that took place at 17th and Broadway in Little Rock, when Bill asked what the court of original jurisdiction was for a case between states...
...Goodwin does not remember a one-on-one Sunday meeting, but seems to remember telling Clinton that Brown is the best investigator he had on the force...
...I know that I knew it...
...It is quite a stretch to say that there was no evidence that Young knew he was violating state ethics guidelines...
...He said he cannot specifically recall whether the governor or his representatives exercised any undue influence over the investigation, but that it would have been "improbable" for there to have been any contact between the governor's office and the DFA regarding an investigation of this type...
...That break rippled through Brown's relationship with his own new in-laws...
...For years, until quite recently, Brown was convinced that his protégé at the association, Larry Patterson, acted as Clinton's mole within the association...
...See, [Clinton] had someone that was loyal to him, friendly to him...
...Brown says he told Wright, "If he'll leave me alone, this is it...
...You could say that if you took part, if you were courting the other girl, maybe it was just a convenience to make it all look like, 'Hey, Bill and I are buddies, and we're partying together and don't feel like I'm a security guy that's looking over your shoulder.' It's not like you stood back with Ray-Bans on and a machine gun under your overcoat...
...Clinton and Brown made a deal: In exchange for a Clinton promise to support the raise, Brown agreed to use the political muscle of the state police to lobby key representatives for a tax increase Clinton sought...
...Clinton pointed out a woman at a nearby table...
...Burrow, reached for comment, recalls attending the Arkansas-SMU football game with Clinton...
...Appointed by Clinton to a regional FEMA directorship in July 1993, Young reportedly threatened Roger Perry, on behalf of the President of the United States, with "dire consequences," and Patterson received a handwritten note from Young expressing concern about his health...
...From the car next to hers emerged none other than Betsey Wright...
...Clinton would talk about Gennifer in conversation," he says...
...Send your order to: The American Spectator, P.O...
...They pull up behind us...
...All the dramatis personae were present: Bill and Hillary, Vince and Lisa Foster, the judge and her husband, and L.D...
...Clinton's state troopers approached me as I sat alone at a table...
...While relatively insignificant in and of itself, Miller's story, backed up by a photocopy of L.D...
...I thought it was a little unusual," said Goodwin...
...I treated him like a brother," says Brown...
...He acknowledged, however, that Kirkland is the first to be promoted to a rank as high as lieutenant by this method...
...After all, the troopers claim to have witnessed, and been suborned to perform, actions by Clinton that are improper in many cases, perhaps illegal in some others, and political poison in the aggregate...
...Brown says that since word filtered back to the Clinton camp that he was speaking to The American Spectator, a high-level Clinton associate warned him to back off...
...Brown calls Hillary "as foulmouthed as any sailor you'd ever meet...
...We met with Jim Guy Tucker," he says...
...All of them exited the back door in a rush...
...But Brown also enjoyed, above and beyond his official and unofficial duties, a relationship with both Clintons that was unique among the troopers for its closeness...
...But when Clinton reneged on the promise of a raise, Brown was left holding the bag...
...In private, according to Brown, Hillary exhibited a political partisanship so extreme it verged on bigotry...
...While Brown nursed his wounds, his successor thrived on his relationship with the newly generous governor...
...Hillary saw it once," he recalls, "and she said that I ought to burn it...
...During their final meeting, the woman bluntly asked, "L.D., you're not going to say anything against Bill, are you...
...The troopers] would always pay" for drinks purchased in such places, says Brown...
...and Becky in rationalizing her own affair with her law partner Vince Foster, as well as her partial acquiescence in Bill's extramarital sexual exploits...
...So while the Clintons enjoyed what Brown described as an "open marriage," Bill was nevertheless constrained to practice the kind of deceit that an open marriage is supposed to obviate...
...There's a sentence in one to the effect that 'Adultery is not a crime' that is underlined twice in red...
...In 1985, Clinton notified Brown of an opening at the state crime lab...
...My impression of my encounter w/Mr...
...Known as "Doug" to his family, Brown is one of the few state troopers who regufrom his wife...
...But he reaffirmed his earlier claim that Clinton had indeed discussed federal jobs for both Roger Perry and himself...
...Finally, Clinton instigated a scarring criminal investigation of Brown's management of troopers association finances—an investigation Brown says was pure politics...
...Ironically, Brown did not specifically recall the episode she recounted...
...By this time it was probably midnight at least...
...A search of Clinton's official travel records turned up no checks reimbursing the state for more compromising personal expenses, such as those incurred at the Dallas strip joint and the Boca Raton disco...
...Young went through the exercise of soliciting estimates from two other local body shops and then underbid them to win the state contract...
...Clearly, Clinton could offer tempting carrots...
...Brown says it is common knowledge at department headquarters that trooper Mark Allen openly deliberated whether or not to accept a Clinton offer to become the officer, by tradition a member of the uniformed military services, charged with carrying the "football" containing the nuclear launch codes wherever the president goes...
...Is this the x factor that explains how Clinton managed for so long to outrace his past...
...William Manchester was a particular shared favorite: Clinton pushed his copy of One Brief Shining Moment on Brown after he'd finished this tribute to John F. Kennedy, and it was Manchester's Churchill biography The Last Lion that prompted Clinton to ask Brown, "Why should it be, L.D., that a war record is a prerequisite of high office...
...Brown readily admits that he often seized these opportunities...
...Although she failed to obtain a sworn retraction from Ferguson, she, with the help of Clinton crony Bruce Lindsey, succeeded in procuring an affidavit from Little Rock lawyer Robert Batton...
...People wanted to talk all about personal stuff that really didn't have much to do with the actual charges themselves, and it was not fair to subject him to that kind of ordeal...
...Perry claims Clinton told him, "I don't understand why he's not doing it...
...Brown says that Clinton and Flowers each directly confirmed to him that they had had an affair...
...Miller, now a college English teacher living in Plano, Texas, furnished this written account of the "prom": Daniel Wattenberg is an investigative writer for The American Spectator...
...I was sent home from governor's security by Bill Clinton on two separate occasions, because he got mad and threw fits and told me, 'You're not going with me, get your goddamn ass out of here...
...A beautiful, gleaming, kewpie doll with brains," says Brown...
...The American Spectator April/May 1994 33 high that he was among the group of state troopers who had talked to The American Spectator and the Los Angeles Times...
...See page 51 for a complete listing of reprints available...
...She knew where she was going...
...The lights come back on...
...The experienced Kirkland was the choice of the current governor and "was presented to the police commission in that light, and they approved his promotion," he says...
...Ferguson did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment...
...While many in the media have argued that charges of Clinton's rampant infidelity are irrelevant, Clinton has consistently fought such allegations on a different ground: he has denied them...
...That's Bill Clinton...
...We're walking back, and Vince has got his hand on Hillary's ass and is just squeezing it all to hell...
...Clinton implicitly encouraged the troopers' enjoyment of "residuals...
...Ultimately, the investigation of Brown foundered for lack of evidence of wrongdoing...
...Even so, L.D...
...We'd get back in the car, and he'd go, 'Get us out of this f---ing redneck place!'" V 1 t was a politically dangerous prejudice in one who spent much of his life accompanied by "redneck" cops...
...Hillary said...
...In Chelsea's presence, Hillary screamed: "You're gonna get us f---ing killed...
...began...
...But TAS has learned that that was not their last contact prior to the December publication of the Troopergate exposés...
...Brown again...
...A larger audience will recall Young as the dough-faced endomorph who took a phone call from Clinton consigliere 38 The American Spectator April/May 1994 Bruce Lindsey to coordinate on Troopergate cover-up measures and neglected to mention to him that he was on the speakerphone and that the incriminating conversation was being captured on tape by ABC News...
...Carl Kirkland, and Trooper Mark Allen...
...Sunday morning Goodwin appeared at the mansion for an hour-and-a-half meeting, Perry remembers...
...twenty-five for $75...
...Nobody ever lost any money who was ever in that situation...
...Batton swore only that his client, Ferguson, had told him that "President Clinton never offered or indicated a willingness to offer any trooper a job in exchange for silence or help in shaping their stories...
...Breaking his silence, he feared, would precipitate a renewed effort to discredit him by recycling these old charges of financial improprieties...
...Tucker would not return phone calls seeking comment...
...Hillary was apt to erupt, with little apparent immediate cause, in expletive-laden tirades that Bill would stoically endure...
...The men wore tuxes...
...I would be at Gennifer's condo at Quapaw, and [Clinton] would actually call and leave messages on the answering machine...
...Morris, IL 61054-0657...
...It was a diagonal swap...
...She started raising hell, running me down before he could even say a word or deny that it was even me," according to Brown...
...Brown of course is no paragon of male sensitivity, but Clinton once exceeded even his high level of tolerance—when Brown and his wife Becky arranged for Becky's mother Ann McCoy to take over as mansion administrator...
...Her greatest quote was `L.D., sometimes you have to make a leap of faith.' Hillary knew that I knew what was going on...
...His mother-in-law, Ann McCoy (then mansion administrator and currently White House deputy social secretary), took Clinton's side...
...Let's go...
...VII B rown, who saw his once-close relationship with Bill Clinton deteriorate after 1985, felt the wrath of the Clintonites' revenge even before he went public, and now bitterly resents what he sees as a vindictive Clinton political machine...
...Whatever its sources, tension permeated the Clintons' marriage...
...We go in and start drinking, and we're sipping [stuff] for probably two hours...
...Clinton mentioned to me that they had had an affair, a liaison," he scoffed, when told Clinton had denied having met Perdue...
...We passed that bill...
...Through Mark Allen and loyal appointees on the police commission, Clinton fanned anti-Brown sentiment within the association, and in an ironic twist, secretly lined up Roger Perry to succeed Brown and transform the association into a compliantly pro-Clinton company union...
...According to Perdue, he coupled a GS-12 federal job offer with a threat to her safety for refusing to cooperate...
...Another book from the Clinton library that Brown retains is a worn copy of The Handbook of the Conscientious Objector...
...Nail the asshole!' " H is spirit sapped by the escalating campaign against him, Brown opted against running for re-election and was succeeded by Perry...
...n 1989, Brown, as head of the 500-member Arkansas State Police Association, sought a pay raise for his members, many of whom worked two jobs to supplement their meager state salaries...
...The president and the state trooper met face-to-face in Seattle in November, where Clinton, flush with his recent NAFTA triumph, was hosting Asian heads of state at the November 18-20 APEC Conference...
...Palladino, whose past clients have included Black Panther Huey Newton and the Symbionese Liberation Army, declined in an interview to confirm or deny the words attributed to him...
...He served on the Clinton security detail from late 1982 until mid-1985...
...Brown kept—as a memento of his stint with Clinton's Republican predecessor Frank White—a photograph of himself with Governor White and Nancy Reagan...
...He accused him of being a liar, accused him of being a thief, of stealing money...
...According to Kirk, he asked at one point, "Do you think Gennifer is the sort of person who would commit suicide...
...Danny Ferguson said initially that Clinton discussed jobs for both Roger Perry and himself...
...Brown's "Governor's Security" business card, provided crucial initial leverage in approaching L.D...
...Brown recalls that Clinton and he frequently rated women according to a 10-point "grading" scale they shared...
...Brown offers unequivocating eyewitness corroboration of earlier reports that Hillary and Foster, whose death is now under investigation by Special Counsel Robert Fiske, were romantically attached...
...Clinton comes out and he says, 'You're not gonna believe what the sonofabitch told me.' That's his exact words...
...You knew what we gave up and the chances they took...
...How many have been successfully muzzled...
...got to the point where he thought he had total and complete control and that was L.D.'s problem...
...Later, according to the Los Angeles Times, Ferguson explained that the affidavit was meant to say only that Clinton "didn't say those words," that he had notexpressly offered federal jobs for silence...
...Brown reminded Clinton, "We are talking about our future, too...
...At that time, the two were close personally and professionally...
...I never saw Mr...
...Though he lacked proof, he believed the probe was a payback for harsh public criticism that he leveled at the governor when the two clashed over a trooper pay raise...
...He feared that his career in the state police, already stymied by Clintonites on the police commission, would be further harmed...
...She thought her story was relevant, on its own modest terms, to the cyclonic controversy precipitated by the troopers' accounts...
...That is just basically the way you lobby there, because we can't give them any money by law, we can't make a campaign contribution...
...I'd hate to even try to guess...
...This is when the demise of L.D...
...At no time did I solicit or encourage such a liaison with Mr...
...Brown says he told Clinton, "Ted Mullinex, Jerry King, Tommy Mitchum, among others, changed their vote during the last session...
...Brown says Clinton and the director tried to rationalize their pullback on the grounds of saving the state money for a make-work job...
...The size of Clinton's library at the time cannot be exaggerated, and he gave Brown dozens of books, many of which Brown still retains...
...Captain Young owns ABC Auto...
...The governor likes him...
...In completing and signing the required departmental permission form for outside work, he agreed that "I will not use, directly or indirectly, any equipment owned, leased or in the control of the Department while engaged in off-duty employment...
...Allen acknowledged in an interview that he discussed unspecified administration jobs with unspecified individuals, but denied he was offered the job as custodian of the nuclear launch codes...
...The ostensible purpose of his trip was "to provide security" for Governor Jim Guy Tucker, who attended for reasons that are not clear...
...ten for $35...
...We're staggered, you see: [The judge's husband] and Lisa Foster are up front, walking along...
...Approximately 45 minutes later, the governor and his troopers—but not the female he left with, returned via the back door—only to stay roughly ten more minutes...
...We'd be out at a function at [Little Rock's] Excelsior or one of the hotels there or just anywhere and it was like 'Let's go to [the judge's house].' A couple of times I would go in...
...God, that was great!' " When traveling, Clinton appears to have scrupulously reimbursed the state with personal checks for innocent personal expenses...
...State Trooper Mark Allen, who traveled with Ferguson on the trip, says Ferguson "wouldn't have had time" to meet with White House officials and that Clinton's contact with Ferguson was limited to a friendly greeting at a small gathering of Arkansans...
...the Clinton crony said...
...It was Mark Allen, Perry says, who initially prevailed upon a reluctant Perry to run...
...To an extent, he felt compromised as well...
...Brown claims the money had already been appropriated...
...Bill knew what was going on between Hillary and Vince...
...He said, `L.D., do you think these girls do anything...
...On one hand, he won the first couple's confidence—so much so that he can speak with authority on a number of Clinton's affairs, Hillary's affair with the late Vincent Foster, and heavy-handed attempts to politicize the Arkansas state police...
...The law books Clinton used to study for the Arkansas bar in 1973 contain a few sentences that make Brown smile in retrospect...
...Vince and Hillary are back here, and Bill is back here with [the judge...
...Earlier, after Clinton won the Democratic nomination in 1992, Brown was approached in Diego's, a local watering hole he favors, by a woman he had not seen in years who had returned to Little Rock to work on the Clinton campaign...
...While Brown had by this time long since broken with the Clintons, Patterson was still on Clinton's security detail...
...A legislator would be out with us, and he would want to take a woman with him, and we would pay for all of it...
...Wherever possible, I have contacted other witnesses or obtained documentation that might have contradicted his story...
...A state police memo distributed to all commissioned personnel (and expected to be signed by recipients) enunciating the department's policy (effective December 1980) on outside employment stated that "No member shall accept outside employment . . . in a job which calls for the use of state police equipment...
...As far as the pay raises, he could just as easily have done that while L.D...
...But Clinton, according to Patterson and Perry, was determined to polish off The American Spectator April/May 1994 41 his wounded enemy...
...During this walk—hell, it was a twenty-minute walk—they are drunk, running tongues down each others' throats, the whole nine yards...
...The director was leaving imminently, and Clinton planned to promote the then–assistant director tothe director's post, leaving the assistant director's post vacant...
...But after prevailing on Brown to get the director to stay on, Clinton withdrew the offer...
...We drive down the road, and they pull off...
...Young got a reprieve from a possible prison term, Kirkland got an unprecedented promotion many think undeserved, and Allen was reportedly offered a job that would have whisked him from Ozark obscurity into NATO's nuclear club...
...Clinton had me exactly where he wanted me...
...The day [Clinton] met Becky's mom and dad—immediately he said, 'Man, she's a doll, she's damn good-looking, and she sure doesn't go with that goofy sonofabitch.' " At that time, Brown still enjoyed a very warm relationship with his mother- and father-in-law, and was stupefied and wounded by the governor's tactlessness...
...He leans over and kisses her...
...The proposed tax hikes were hugely unpopular, and the vote came at big political cost...
...Brown, Hillary knew about Bill and the judge, says Brown, he doubts that Hillary ever had more than an inkling of the scale of Bill's infidelities—in fact, he is not certain Hillary could identify any of Bill's girlfriends other than the judge...
...He cites the personal exposure incurred in scooping them up as a factor in his keeping silent...
...In 1992, a Clinton spokesman told the Washington Post that Clinton had never even met Sally Perdue...
...My job in governor's security was put in jeopardy because I was giving L.D...
...Brown adds that the passages in general law texts that Clinton marked most assiduously were those on tax law...
...Goodwin was asked in an interview if he thought it plausible that a 22-year veteran of the state police who had reached the rank of captain and the coveted post of director of governor's security would not have known that it was an ethics violation to direct state business to his own company without disclosing his financial interest in the transaction...
...Let's hit it!' That was the big phrase...
...Clinton was just like a kid in a candy store," Brown remembers...
...In dozens of hours of interviews, he volunteered rounded, detailed vignettes interlaced with lengthy digressions...
...The sole contact between Clinton and Ferguson acknowledged in the Batton affidavit was an early September 1993 telephone conversation...
...Let's go...
...How can we get it...
...Most of the time I would sit out in the driveway, sometimes for hours, and just wait...
...Brown himself acknowledges excesses ("We spent some association money kind of rocking and rolling," he says), but defends the expenditures as standard in a region where lobbying was long defined by the "three Bs": beef, bourbon and blondes...
...We would take a state sky box," Brown recalls...
...They just waved a wand over him," according to Brown...
...Clinton has got me out of the political mainstream, number one," Brown explains, "and number two, if I ever came out on the record and said something, he would bring that up...
...In December, The American Spectator published State Trooper Danny Ferguson's disclosure that Clinton had offered him a job as a United States marshal or with the Federal Emergency Management Association in exchange for information on what he and fellow troopers had told reporters at The American Spectator and the Los Angeles Times...
...Even the prosecuting attorney.for Arkansas's 6th judicial district, Clinton loyalist Mark Stodola, found no basis for prosecution...
...I laid all my stuff out...
...Perry's decision to run was met with glee in the Clinton camp...
...His previous articles for TAS include "The Lady Macbeth of Little Rock" (August 1992) and "Gunning for Koresh" (August 1993...
...He wants to dance with you.' Most of the other girls said, 'Oh yeah, right, and I'm Queen Elizabeth,' and then someone at the table goes, 'Yeah, it is...
...What is so The American Spectator April/May 1994 39 devastating about that promotion," says Perry, "is that we have troopers out here with master's degrees, with doctorates in sociology, in criminology...
...I've gone out of my way to do everything I can for you all, and you've ruined it, and I hear the troopers don't like it either that you came out and called me a liar.' He is ranting, raving—screaming...
...In conversations with Brown's wife Becky, he says, Hillary would criticize Lisa in scathingly personal terms, wanting to know why Lisa was "so damn jealous," and saying, "I don't know why Vince stays with her...
...Young was issued a written reprimand and docked three days' pay, without suspension...
...ABC was in Young's office to interview him about, among other things, his reported attempts to quash the story...
...But, my God, it was so many times...
...After this feeler cum offer, she left the bar and Brown followed her in his police car...
...And it faintly illuminates why, despite the broad scope of Clinton's reported polygyny, so few women have joined Paula Jones in accusing him of sexual harassment or the more ambiguous offense of "unwanted sexual advances...
...Brown says he was offered a buy-off, threatened with reprisals, and subjected to a Clinton-inspired criminal probe...
...Patterson tipped Brown off on what was coining...
...Brown was simultaneously seething that Clinton continued to deny the affair and "scared to death Gennifer was going to say something at that time about me...
...suddenly the trooper excused himself to join Gov...
...Payment enclosed co Bill me later Name: Address: City: State: Zip code: B94DW 1 42 The American Spectator April/May 1994...
...0 0 1994 The American Spectator All Rights Reserved REPRINTS AVAILABLE Copies of Daniel Wattenberg's "Love and Hate in Arkansas" are available for $5 each...
...Larry Patterson says that Allen (whom he portrays as someone apt to break down in tears when under professional stress) told him soon after Clinton's inauguration that Clinton had personally offered him the sensitive post...
...W hen troopers Perry and Patterson came forward late last year, much was made of their hopes to land a book deal...
...It is a mating strategy available to very few people in American life, and in employing it, Clinton appears to have exploited his office, even if sexual harassment law is mute on the practice of unwantedadvances-by-proxy...
...Brown confirms Larry Patterson's claim to The American Spectator that Clinton enjoyed a long-term relationship with an Arkansas lawyer that he appointed to a judgeship...
...Young, Allen, and Kirkland are three of the dwindling few troopers with extensive knowledge about the subject who have not, and apparently it pays to play dumb...
...one-hundred for $250...
...Brown is a very intelligent person and could have done the best job of anyone I know in the state police of running the association, but L.D...
...We would talk business...
...A live band covered sixties favorites...
...W hen Brown served as president of the Arkansas troopers' association, Larry Patterson was his vice-president...
...I don't want to see you.'" While he clashed with Brown over the latter's increasingly personalistic leadership style, "I did not, I would not, and I have not" colluded with Clinton to ruin Brown, he says...
...larly traveled with the Clintons on out-of-state business...
...Ferguson's charge brings to four the number of people allegedly offered state and federal jobs as part of a wide-ranging effort to keep the lid on Clinton's womanizing...
...Citing the Arkansas Code on "employee conflict of interest," the letter continued, "there can be no question as to whether Captain Young's action was a breach of the ethical standards for state employees as set forth in the Arkansas Code...
...This scrutiny of their potential financial interest was legitimate...
...Incidentally, in an interview with TAS, Perdue disclosed that Clinton used to smoke pot during his visits to her Little Rock condo...
...The prospect that Brown would speak publicly has caused considerable heartburn in the Clinton camp...
...On the other hand, Brown, who insisted on being his own man and emerged as a Clinton opponent on a couple of political issues, became the object of reprisals familiar to those who know the Clinton arsenal: an attempted criminal prosecution that other state policemen considered trumped up and a series of vague threats that included job-related sanctions and smear campaigns...
...State Police Director Goodwin approved a criminal investigation into the state police association...
...It's the Supreme Court...
...IV B rown described trips he took with Bill and/or Hillary to Denver, Dallas, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Boca Raton...
...Are you gonna take her out...
...They just investigated the attorney general for the same damn thing...
...They would pro-rate this: What was for the governor, what was for you all...
...Hillary said `Something has to be done with L.D...
...According to Brown, he also started a smear campaign, alleging, among other things, shopping trips to Dallas...
...He didn't tell me the entire context of what they talked about, but it was a lot more than a friendly hello," says Perry...
...As Brown tells it, Clinton and he were confidantes...
...And she continued to Bill, "I can't believe you would ask a f---ing question like that with L.D...
...If they are right, then the affair establishes Clinton's willingness to subvert public law enforcement machinery to personal political ends, as he would later do, it has been alleged, in the White House travel office affair, the Foster death investigation, and the Webb Hubbell Justice Department's reluctance to pursue David Hale's allegations of criminal acts by Clinton...
...The two explained that Goodwin was protecting him...
...Miller's story reinforces the troopers' claims that they often solicited new sexual partners for Clinton...
...Roger Perry, however, says that during a golf game after his return from Seattle, Ferguson acknowledged that Clinton and he discussed the earlier job offer...
...Away from the public spotlight, both Bill and, to a greater extent, Hillary, were contemptuous of policemen, whom they commonly derided as "ignorant sonofabitches," says Brown...
...We followed them down the road...
...They were soliciting from us: 'What do you know...
...While Brown was going through a divorce from his first wife in 1985, Hillary and he would often discuss their respective marriages...
...He would come back: 'Hit it...
...Box 549, Arlington, Virginia 22216-0549...
...And during the 1992 campaign, Clinton equated the credibility of Gennifer Flowers's story with that of stories that Martians walked the earth...
...Eight years younger than Clinton, Brown pursued sexual opportunities with a similar relish, and this shared avocation was an important basis of the bond between the two...
...U nsubstantiated leaks alleging misuse of association funds appeared in Arkansas Business, a local weekly...
...Additionally, in 1977 Young took on outside work as a weekend rodeo clown...
...Hillary's response," Perry said, "was she held up her two fists and said, 'All right...
...I mean, good grief...
...The meeting ended with Clinton vaguely promising to do something in the next legislative session...
...While the investigation intensified, Brown's contract to edit the association's magazine was cancelled, adding to his woes...
...When such purchases were charged to the state police card, "we would always get our money back" from the governor's office, he explains...
...40 The American Spectator April/May 1994 Soon afterward, Larry Patterson overheard an ominous exchange between Bill and Hillary in the car...
...What does she do...
...Yes, please send me 12 monthly issues of The American Spectator for only $35.00...
...Special Counsel Robert Fiske has already subpoenaed Brown as part of his ongoing investigation into the Whitewater scandal...
...The entry archway to the fairground was decorated with flowers...
...That is verbatim...
...There probably were a lot of members of our department that would know that," he said...
...And I said, `What's that, Governor?' `He told me that L.D...
...What time is it?' All of a sudden, there's this urgency...
...Clinton was pissed off at Stodola for not doing it," remembers Perry...
...VIII p erry, Patterson, and Brown each maintain that Clinton instigated a trumped-up criminal probe of Brown to dispose of a politically dangerous foe...
...Brown was dating Becky, and the two had planned their whole future around the job, Brown says...
...But there was a tacit understanding, Brown believes, that such troopers were compromised by "residuals" in a way that provided Clinton an additional hedge against exposure...
...Some people are satisfied in different ways, and' we have to make compromises.' " Hillary Clinton would use similar jargon with both 36 The American Spectator April/May 1994 L.D...
...No fewer than four Arkansas state troopers, including two past presidents of the Arkansas State Troopers Association, have now provided detailed accounts of attempts to silence troopers knowledgeable about Clinton's state-subsidized harem-building with unmerited career promotions and job offers...
...One purpose was to put other female members of a target woman's party at ease...
...Obviously, the reason it is a conflict of interest for cops to be involved in the "wrecker" business is that cops tend to know where the wrecks are...
...Clinton and the woman get in her car...
...C arl Kirkland, who, according to several troopers, reads and writes at sub–high school level, was recently promoted to lieutenant...
...I don't remember Joyce Miller's name," he said...
...With Brown's help, Clinton prevailed, and the tax bill passed by one vote...
...Brown remembers inviting Clinton into a banquet room, where hundreds of mourning policemen from Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana were eating sandwiches...
...They would often read the same books, usually political biographies, and discuss them together...
...Brown says he learned contemporaneously—long before Patterson was entertaining book offers—much of what Patterson would disclose about Clinton more than two years later in interviews with The American Spectator and the Los Angeles Times...
...Asked about the evening at the strip bar, he replied, "Well . . . I can't remember anything...
...I'm not going to say a word," he answered...
...Clinton or Mr...
...Later, Clinton engineered his replacement as association president...
...Fear of reprisals by the Clinton network was part of the reason...
...Clinton] talked about the job...
...VI T he reported offer to Ferguson appears to be part of a pattern...
...In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the Arkansas state police released travel records detailing Ferguson's Seattle trip...
...He called Clinton a "liar" in the Arkansas Gazette, and used his platform as vice-chairman of the national troopers' group to mail correspondence to his members and all forty-five state police associations nationwide, branding Clinton a "phony, anti-cop," he says...
...Brown," recalls Patterson...
...Has Hillary called?' Same old thing...
...Where others dispute his version of things, readers will have to evaluate for themselves their credibility...
...How would you like your credit-card receipts splashed across the front pages of the newspaper...
...Let's hit it...
...I don't want anything from you...
...Oh, s--t," he said when first contacted...
...Mark Allen was not acting spontaneously...
...And after Brown broke with Clinton, he developed an intimate friendship with Flowers...
...Sally Perdue alleges a federal job offer and a veiled threat...
...DFA Director Jim Pledger, a Clinton appointee and ally, responded to Goodwin in a letter signed by his deputy...
...Vince and Hillary and Bill and the judge went at it...
...And it wasn't a mere literary friendship: Brown often attended, at the Clintons' invitation, small social gatherings with the Clintons and their intimate friends...
...Bill Clinton asked me everyday how it was going, and he said, 'If I can do anything to help you let me know.' I didn't want to run...
...He says, `Go ask that one if she wants to dance with the governor of Arkansas.' And I'm just like, `Aw sh--, right...
...After his departure, then-Clinton chief of staff Betsey Wright summoned him to a meeting in her Hill Road home to make sure he would not squeal about Clinton's state-subsidized harem-building...
...III B ecause he thought he was being watched by Clinton . loyalists in Little Rock, and feared reprisals, if word spread that he had talked to a reporter, Brown was flown to Washington at this magazine's expense...
...Miller remembers the period detail meant to re-create the atmosphere of an early sixties senior prom...
...Asked if Lisa Foster knew of the arrangement, Brown offers little, beyond saying that he holds her in high regard...
...Nevertheless, Batton's affidavit was widely interpreted in the press as a retraction by Ferguson...
...It is hardly likely that Clinton ever paid in cash...
...She walks by every day...
...Maybe he still thinks that he does...
...Hillary reThe American Spectator April /May 1994 37 portedly told Chelsea she would have to wait until "someone decent lives there...
...had to be either transferred or he had to be threatened and shut up...
...Clinton did not recognize me and would therefore like to meet me...
...These alleged attempts to silence whistleblowers, if true, represent only those attempts that failed...
...Then-Governor Bill Clinton was at the mock-hop that night...
...A former president of the Arkansas State Police Association (and a vice-chairman in the troopers' national association), Brown now works at state police headquarters in the Special Investigations unit probing white-collar crime and official corruption...
...He's a good P.R...
...We stay there a good while drinking and stuff, get the tab, and she leaves with us...
...We were no more than ninety feet away...
...He long suspected that a 1990 criminal investigation into his handling of State Police Association finances while he headed the group had been instigated by Clinton...
...Seven individuals have now claimed that they have been offered bribes or been threatened, or both, by Clinton or his associates to discourage them from speaking openly about what is arguably his outstanding political weakness...
...Probably thirty minutes pass...
...Says Brown, "That was a preoccupation of his...
...And, as he freely admits, Brown avidly seized the incidental sexual opportunities that soliciting for Clinton often presented...
...He estimates that only ten percent of the work he did for the Clintons was security-oriented...
...Can you pay 'em money, get 'em outta here?' He was sticking bucks down in their little things...
...In reporting on his accident to State Police Director Col...
...If you have been here for twenty years, there are some things you just know...
...Brown also briefed Republican Sheffield Nelson (Clinton's 1990 general election opponent) at length on Clinton's womanizing...
...Over a hundred, at least," he says...
...Right down to the last day before this story broke, everybody—Betsey Wright, all of them—were worried sick about L. D. Brown," says Roger Perry...
...The two, with the help of then–mansion administrator Robin Dickey, arranged for Becky's mother, Ann McCoy, to succeed Dickey in that post...
...Pledger said that he understood why one might question Young's protestations that he was ignorant of the law in this case...
...12 big monthly issues for only $35...
...Let's Clinton and Brown headed for a disco that Brown had t, - visited earlier...
...I've seen him on television.' "So the girl comes over...
...And maybe he does...
...Brown recalls a stay of several days at the luxurious Boca Raton Resort and Yacht Club, after which Hillary, Chelsea, and Bill drove up to Disney World...
...One 1984 trip was to Irving, Texas, to attend an Arkansas-SMU football game at Texas Stadium...
...I would hate to say anything bad about Lisa," he says...
...Despite ardent pursuit by the national media and myriad provocations by Clinton and his operatives in recent years, Brown has held his silence since breaking angrily with the Clintons in 1985...
...But he was considered a loyal Clintonite, conveniently available to the governor as a member of his security detail arid amenable to his direction...
...had been neutralized...
...Brown investigated in any way, shape, form, or fashion...
...Kirkland is loyal...
...But Young, it now appears, may be indebted to the Clinton machine for far more than his FEMA directorship...
Vol. 27 • April 1994 • No. 45
