Clinton's America/ Total Unrecall
York, Byron
Total Unrecall by Byron York R emember when Ronald Reagan appeared in a California courtroom to give a videotaped deposition on Iran-contra? In the course of eight hours of testimony over two days,...
...By saying 'I don't recall' you avoid prosecution for little crimes like perjury," says a former Justice Department official who followed the hearings...
...Of course, the reason may have nothing 50 The American Spectator October 1995 to do with psychology...
...Nobody remembers...
...Did Williams, at the first lady's bidding, make off with important files on the night of Foster's death...
...Someone even gave me a little computer program that made Reagan's face pop up unexpectedly to say, "I do not recall...
...Susan Thomases, the first lady's New York confidante, cited no memory at least forty-one times...
...Gordon, "then you'll push your response away from that area...
...Your loyalty to the administration is admirable, but it's time to think about yourselves and your families...
...Find out the truth behind what happened in Waco from Daniel Wattenberg's report on David Koresh...
...According to Gordon, the memories are not always accurate...
...Barry Gordon, associate professor of neurology and cognitive science at Johns Hopkins University and author of the forthcoming book Memory: Remembering and Forgetting in Everyday Life, describes something called the Flashbulb Effect...
...The only way to win, he says, is to amass an unassailable collection of incriminating phone logs, messages, email, memoranda, and personal notes...
...In the course of eight hours of testimony over two days, the former president had trouble remembering lots of key details...
...Did Mrs...
...In fact, they provided much of the new information revealed at the Senate hearings...
...Picture him lining up the nervous, sweating apparatchiks of this affair—people like Clifford Sloan, Nussbaum's former assistant who denied finding scraps of paper in the bottom of Foster's briefcase even though a Foster family lawyer says he saw him do it...
...Through your talent and hard work, you've reached the highest level of government...
...The Clinton team certainly knows what is at stake in the investigations...
...Order your copies of The American Spectator's exclusive reports today...
...Unlike those who experience the Flashbulb Effect, however, details about July 1993 receded into the mists of her memory...
...Most of the administration witnesses said the Foster death struck them like a thunderbolt...
...These and our other best-selling articles make ideal gifts for friends, colleagues, teachers, local news editors—and your political representatives...
...Testifying before senators who wanted to know more about the period following the death of Vincent Foster, Margaret Williams, chief of staff to first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, said on at least thirty separate occasions that she did not remember events of those days...
...Bad memory raises the standard of proof...
...Clinton order the search of Vince Foster's office...
...The Man Who Didn't Know Too Much," read the headline in the Herblock cartoon the next day...
...Or it might be a personal event, like the suicide of a close friend...
...The more powerful the figure, the cloudier the memory—while insiders struggled to recall some of the most basic details, the secretaries, interns, and Secret Service officers who testified appeared to have no problem with their recollections...
...If 1 make it dangerous for you to say yes," says Dr...
...If the most powerful seemed somehow immune to the Flashbulb Effect, perhaps it is because of another clinical phenomenon, one Dr...
...The legacy of that Reagan-era scandal is the criminalization of congressional oversight hearings...
...A similar malady struck Thomases and Nussbaum...
...If there's no corroboration, it's a tough case to prove...
...They remember small details about big events...
...the witness forces investigators to come up with a powerful and contemporaneous piece of documentary evidence that proves the witness is lying...
...That in itself is a great honor...
...People do forget things...
...nonetheless claimed he could not remember at least seventy-one times...
...It could lead to jail, disbarment, disgrace—and crippling legal bills...
...Or Stephen Neuwirth, another Nussbaum assistant, who says he did find the scraps of paper several days later...
...B efore jumping to any conclusions, Whitewater investigators should ask whether there might be a medical explanation...
...Yes, but whether they will be prosecuted depends on the independent counsel...
...Of course, the former president was 79 years old at the time—and on the road to Alzheimer's disease...
...All are far younger than Ronald Reagan and, to my knowledge, none has Alzheimer's...
...But that didn't matter...
...Did a Nussbaum assistant really see scraps of paper at the bottom of the briefcase...
...The odd thing is that, when it comes to major events, most people—especially high-powered types like the Clinton team believe they have excellent memories...
...Gordon calls "response bias...
...It might be a nationalevent, like the JFK assassination...
...Everybody knew he was lying...
...If you're a prosecutor and you simply can't prove who's lying and who's telling the truth, you're not going to bring a case...
...Now about the note...
...Reagan's 18-Minute Gap," wrote Art Buchwald, suggesting that Reagan easily remembered the minutiae of his life in the movies while conveniently forgetting details of Iran-contra...
...The answer is surely no...
...One: $5 Twenty-five: $75 Five: $20 Fifty: $130 Ten: $35 One hundred: $250 (Quantity discounts apply only to orders for the same report...
...B ut if none of this rises to the standard of perjury, what about the old Iran-contra favorite, contempt of Congress...
...Now several major Clinton administration figures have suffered a comparable loss of memory during their testimony before the congressional committees investigating Whitewater...
...A full and truthful answer could mean a lot of trouble...
...Get the full scoop on the tax returns of the president who gave America its largest tax increase in history with Lisa Schiffren's "The Unauthorized Clinton Financial Audit...
...So are James Ring Adams's blistering reports on the Whitewater scandal, as well as Brock's "Living With the Clintons," the inside story of Troopergate that the mainstream media didn't want you to know, and Daniel Wattenberg's "Lady Macbeth of Little Rock," a no-holds-barred portrait of the first co-president of the United States...
...But if I ask by saying, 'On the basis of your answer, you are going to live or die,' you might hesitate...
...But what is striking is that most people strongly believe they have a good memory of whatever event affected them deeply...
...Simply having people whose stories contradict each other is not enough," says the former official...
...Box 549, Arlington, VA 22216-0549 Yes, please send me: copies of James Ring Adams's "Beyond Whitewater" copies of James Ring Adams's "The Whitewater Obstructionists" copies of John Corry's "The MIA Cover-Up" copies of Michael Fumento's "This Magic Moment" copies of Daniel Wattenberg's "Lady Macbeth of Little Rock" copies of Daniel Wattenberg's "Love and Hate in Arkansas" copies of Terry Eastland's "Rush Limbaugh: Talking Back" copies of "The Incredible Shrinking AIDS Epidemic" copies of Lisa Schiffren's "The Unauthorized Clinton Financial Audit" copies of David Brock's "Living With the Clintons" copies of David Brock's "The Real Anita Hill" copies of David Brock's "The Travelgate Cover-Up" copies of David Brock's "Strange Lies" copies of Daniel Wattenberg's "Gunning for Koresh" Sub-Total VA residents add 4.5% sales tax Total Enclosed $ Name: Address: City: State: Zip Code: RP9510 L 51...
...If Elliott Abrams committed a crime by not telling Congress everything he knew, didn't Williams, Thomases, and Nussbaum commit a more serious offense...
...El The American Spectator October 1995 American Spectator Investigative Reports Available David Brock's "Strange Lies" reveals the truth behind Jane & Jill's sham attack on Clarence Thomas—and it's now available to TAS readers as a special report...
...But you need to understand that contempt of Congress is a very serious offense...
...People joked about it...
...they know what the Republicans suspect and what they want to uncover...
...Unfortunately for investigators, the memory hole apparently swallowed not just tiny details but also a number of critical Whitewater events...
...If I ask you in casual conversation, 'Did you put your wallet in your pocket this morning?' you answer one way," says Gordon...
...And that leads to the question of whether Republicans should want Kenneth Starr to imitate the shabby inquisition of Lawrence Walsh...
...The Washington Post had a field day...
...Williams—a woman known for her steely demeanor who knew Foster for just seven months—cried openly at the hearings...
...And Bernard Nussbaum—the former White House counsel who told senators, "My memory is not vague, it's quite definite, and not at all uncertain"— Byron York is a writer and television producer in Washington...
...The American Spectator, P.O...
...But it is delicious to imagine Walsh conducting the Whitewater investigation...
...People tend to cite their memory in different ways depending on how much is at stake...
...People in extraordinary circumstances often feel they have an extra-brilliant memory," he says...
...The following speech, delivered in Walsh's gravest tones, might result: Gentlemen, you're young men with fine careers...
Vol. 28 • October 1995 • No. 10
