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Ross Perot
Perot at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, 2008
Born	Henry Ross Perot (1930-06-27) June 27, 1930 (age 81) Texarkana, Texas
Education	Texarkana Junior College United States Naval Academy
Occupation	Businessman
Net worth	US$3.5 billion (2011)[1]
Political party	Independent Reform
Spouse	Margot Birmingham
Children	H. Ross, Jr., Nancy, Suzanne, Carolyn, and Katherine

Henry Ross Perot (/pəˈroʊ/; born June 27, 1930) is a U.S. businessman best known for running for President of the United States in 1992 and 1996. Perot founded Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in 1962, sold the company to General Motors in 1984, and founded Perot Systems in 1988. Perot Systems was bought by Dell for $3.9 billion in 2009.^[2]

With an estimated net worth of about US$3.4 billion in 2011, he is ranked by Forbes as the 99th-richest person in the United States.^[1]

Early life[link]

Perot was born in Texarkana, Texas, to Lula May Perot (née Ray) and Gabriel Ross Perot.^[3] His father was a cotton broker.^[4] He attended a private school called Patty Hill. He graduated from Texas High School in Texarkana in 1947.^[5] One of Perot's boyhood friends was Hayes McClerkin, later Speaker of the Arkansas House of Representatives and a prominent Texarkana, Arkansas, lawyer.^[6]

Perot joined the Boy Scouts of America and made Eagle Scout in 1942, after only thirteen months in the program. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.^[7][8]

From 1947–1949, he attended Texarkana Junior College, then entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1949 and helped establish its honor system.^{[9] [7]} Perot said his appoinment notice to the academy—sent by telegram—was sent by W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel, Texas' 34th governor and former senator.^[10] By the time Perot graduated in 1953 he was president of his class and battalion commander.^{[citation needed]} By late 1954, Perot was made a lieutenant, junior grade. In 1955, however, Perot expressed some discontent with his life in the U.S. Navy in a letter to his father. He quietly served the remainder of his four-year commitment and resigned his commission.^{[citation needed]}. Perot married Margot Birmingham of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, in 1956.

Business[link]

After he left the Navy in 1957, Perot became a salesman for International Business Machines. He quickly became a top employee, filling his year's sales quota in two weeks,^[11] and tried to pitch his ideas to supervisors who largely ignored him.^{[citation needed]} He left IBM in 1962 to found Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in Dallas, Texas, and courted large corporations for his data processing services. Perot was refused seventy-seven times before he was given his first contract. EDS received lucrative contracts from the U.S. government in the 1960s, computerizing Medicare records. EDS went public in 1968 and the stock price rose from $16 a share to $160 within days. Fortune called Perot the "fastest, richest Texan" in a 1968 cover story. In 1984 General Motors bought controlling interest in EDS for $2.4 billion.

In 1974 Perot gained some press attention for being "the biggest individual loser ever on the New York Stock Exchange" when his EDS shares dropped $450 million in value in a single day in April 1970.^[12]

Just prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the government of Iran imprisoned two EDS employees in a contract dispute. Perot organized and sponsored their rescue. The rescue team was led by retired U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel Arthur D. "Bull" Simons. When the team was unable to find a way to extract their two prisoners, they decided to wait for a mob of pro-Ayatollah revolutionaries to storm the jail and free all 10,000 inmates, many of whom were political prisoners. The two prisoners then connected with the rescue team, and the team spirited them out of Iran via a risky border crossing into Turkey. The exploit was recounted in a book, On Wings of Eagles by Ken Follett, which became a best-seller. In the 1986 miniseries, Perot was portrayed by Richard Crenna.

In 1984 Perot bought a very early copy of the Magna Carta, one of only a few to leave the United Kingdom. It was lent to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., where it was displayed alongside the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. In 2007, it was sold by the Perot Foundation, in order to provide "for medical research, for improving public education and for assisting wounded soldiers and their families."^[13] The document sold for US$21.3 million on December 18, 2007 to David Rubenstein, managing director of the Carlyle Group and kept on display at the National Archives.^[14]

As Steve Jobs lost the original power struggle at Apple to found NeXT, his angel investor was Perot who invested over 20 million dollars because he believed in Jobs and did not want to miss out as he had when had the chance to invest in Bill Gates' fledging Microsoft.^[15]

In 1988 he founded Perot Systems Corporation, Inc. in Plano, Texas. His son, Ross Perot, Jr., eventually succeeded him as CEO. In September 2009, Perot Systems was acquired by Dell for $3.9 billion.^[16]

Early political activities[link]

In the same year that Perot organized the rescue mission in Iran, Texas governor Bill Clements requested his assistance developing policy to reduce illegal drug use.^{[citation needed]} Perot led the Texas War on Drugs Committee that proposed five laws, all of which were passed by the legislature.^{[citation needed]}

In 1983 he was called upon by Democratic Governor Mark White to help improve the quality of the state's public education, and ended up leading the effort ("Select Committee on Public Education") to reform the school system, which resulted in major legislative changes.^{[citation needed]} The best known of Perot's proposals that were passed into law was the "No Pass, No Play" rule, under which it was required that students have passing grades in order to participate in any school-sponsored extracurricular activities.^{[citation needed]} The intent was to prevent high school sports from being the focus of the school's funding, and to emphasize the importance of education for the students who participated in sports.^{[citation needed]} Another key reform measure was a call for teacher competency testing, which was strongly opposed by the teachers unions in Texas.^{[citation needed]}

Perot became heavily involved in the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue. He believed that hundreds of American servicemen were left behind in Southeast Asia at the end of the U.S. involvement in the war,^[17] and that government officials were covering up POW/MIA investigations in order to avoid revealing a drug smuggling operation used to finance a secret war in Laos.^[18] Perot engaged in unauthorized back-channel discussions with Vietnamese officials in the late 1980s, which led to fractured relations between Perot and the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.^[17][18] In 1990, Perot reached agreement with Vietnam's Foreign Ministry to become its business agent in the event that diplomatic relations were normalized.^[19] Perot also launched private investigations of, and attacks upon, U.S. Department of Defense official Richard Armitage.^[17][18]

Perot stands next to a portrait of George Washington at his office in 1986.

Beginning in the late 1980s and continuing in the early 1990s, Ross Perot began speaking out about what he described as the failings of the United States government.^{[citation needed]} Perot asserted that the United States "had grown arrogant and complacent after the War" [referring to World War II] and was no longer the world's greatest nation. Instead of looking into what was to come, he argued, America was "daydreaming of [its] past while the rest of the world was building its future."^{[citation needed]} He said:

Go to Rome, go to Paris, go to London. Those cities are centuries old. They're thriving. They're clean. They work. Our oldest cities are brand new compared to them and yet… go to New York, drive through downtown Washington, go to Detroit, go to Philadelphia. What's wrong with us?

^{[citation needed]}

In Florida in 1990, retired financial planner Jack Gargan funded a series of "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" (a reference to a famous quotation from the 1976 political and mass media satire movie, Network) newspaper advertisements denouncing the U.S. Congress for voting for legislative pay raises at a time when average wages nationwide were not increasing.^{[citation needed]} Gargan later founded "Throw the Hypocritical Rascals Out" (THRO), which Ross Perot supported.^{[citation needed]}

Maya Lin, architect of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial received harassment from Perot after her race was revealed: he was known to have called her an "egg roll" after it was revealed that she was Asian.^[20]

Perot did not support President George H. W. Bush and vigorously opposed the United States involvement in the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War.^{[citation needed]} He unsuccessfully urged Senators to vote against the war resolution, and began to consider his own presidential run.^{[citation needed]}

1992 presidential candidacy[link]

On February 20, 1992, he appeared on CNN's Larry King Live and announced his intention to run as an independent if his supporters could get his name on the ballot in all fifty states. With such declared policies as balancing the federal budget, a firm pro-choice stance on abortion, expansion of the war on drugs, ending outsourcing of jobs, support for gun control, belief in protectionism on trade, advocating the Environmental Protection Agency and enacting electronic direct democracy via "electronic town halls," he became a potential candidate and soon polled roughly even with the two major party candidates.^[21]

Perot's candidacy received increasing media attention when the competitive phase of the primary season ended for the two major parties. With the insurgent candidacies of Republican Pat Buchanan and Democrat Jerry Brown winding down, Perot was the natural beneficiary of populist resentment toward establishment politicians. On May 25, 1992 he was featured on the cover of Time Magazine with the title "Waiting for Perot," an allusion to Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot.^[22]

Several months before the Democratic and Republican conventions, Perot filled the vacuum of election news, as his supporters began petition drives to get him on the ballot in all fifty states. This sense of momentum was reinforced when Perot employed two savvy campaign managers in Democrat Hamilton Jordan and Republican Ed Rollins.^{[citation needed]} In July, while Perot was pondering whether to run for office, his supporters established a campaign organization United We Stand America. Perot was late in making formal policy proposals, but most of what he did call for were intended to reduce the deficit. He wanted a gasoline tax increase and some cutbacks of Social Security.^{[citation needed]}

By the summer Perot commanded a lead in the presidential race with thirty-nine percent of the vote.^[23] By mid-July, the Washington Post reported that Perot's campaign managers were becoming increasingly disillusioned by his unwillingness to follow their advice^[24] to be more specific on issues, and his need to be in full control of operations^[24] with such tactics as forcing volunteers to sign loyalty oaths.^[25] Perot's poll numbers began to slip to 25%, and his advisers warned that if he continued to ignore them, he would fall into single digits. Co-manager Hamilton Jordan threatened to quit, and on July 15, Ed Rollins resigned after Perot fired advertisement specialist Hal Riney, who worked with Rollins on the Reagan campaign. Rollins would later claim that a member of the campaign accused him of being a Bush plant with ties to the CIA.^[26] Amidst the chaos, Perot's support fell to 20%.^[27] The next day, Perot announced on Larry King Live that he would not seek the presidency. He explained that he did not want the House of Representatives to decide the election if the result caused the electoral college to be split. Perot eventually stated the reason was that he received threats that digitally altered photographs would be released by the Bush campaign to sabotage his daughter's wedding.^[28] Regardless of the reasons for withdrawing, his reputation was badly damaged. Many of his supporters felt betrayed and public opinion polls would subsequently show a large negative view of Perot that was absent prior to his decision to end the campaign.^[29]

In September he qualified for all fifty state ballots. On October 1, he announced his intention to reenter the presidential race. He said that Republican operatives had wanted to reveal compromising photographs of his daughter, which would disrupt her wedding, and he wanted to spare her from embarrassment. Scott Barnes, a private investigator and security consultant who had testified to that effect, later recanted his story. He revealed in 1997 that he had deceived Perot about the existence of the photographs, and that he had created the hoax with others who were not involved with any political campaign. Barnes was a Bush supporter, and believed that if it were revealed that Republicans were involved in dirty tricks, it would harm Bush's candidacy.^[30]

He campaigned in 16 states and spent an estimated $12.3 million of his own money.^[31] Perot employed the innovative strategy of purchasing half-hour blocks of time on major networks for infomercial-type campaign advertisements; this advertising garnered more viewership than many sitcoms, with one Friday night program in October attracting 10.5 million viewers.^[32]

Perot's running mate was retired Vice Admiral James Stockdale, a highly-decorated former Vietnam prisoner of war (POW). In December 1969 he organized and flew to North Vietnam in an attempt to deliver thirty tons of supplies to beleaguered American POWs in North Vietnam. Although North Vietnam blocked the flights, the effort was instrumental in bringing the plight of those POWs to the world's attention and their captors soon began treating them better.^[7]

At one point in June, Perot led the polls with 39% (versus 31% for Bush and 25% for Clinton). Just prior to the debates, Perot received 7-9% support in nationwide polls.^[33] It is likely that the debates played a significant role in his ultimate receipt of 19% of the popular vote. Although his answers during the debates were often general, many Democrats and Republicans conceded that Perot won at least the first debate. In the debate he remarked: "Keep in mind our Constitution predates the Industrial Revolution. Our founders did not know about electricity, the train, telephones, radio, television, automobiles, airplanes, rockets, nuclear weapons, satellites, or space exploration. There's a lot they didn't know about. It would be interesting to see what kind of document they'd draft today. Just keeping it frozen in time won't hack it."^[34]

Perot denounced Congress for its inaction in his speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on March 18, 1992. Perot said:

This city has become a town filled with sound bites, shell games, handlers, media stuntmen who posture, create images, talk, shoot off Roman candles, but don't ever accomplish anything. We need deeds, not words, in this city.^[35]

In the 1992 election, he received 18.9% of the popular vote, approximately 19,741,065 votes (but no electoral college votes), making him the most successful third-party presidential candidate in terms of the popular vote since Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 election.^{[citation needed]} Unlike Perot, however, some other third party candidates since Roosevelt have won electoral college votes. (Strom Thurmond had 39 in 1948, George Wallace had 46 in 1968 and John Hospers won one in 1972). Compared with Thurmond and Wallace, who polled very strongly in a small number of states, Perot's vote was more evenly spread across the country. Perot managed to finish second in two states: In Maine, Perot received 30.44% of the vote to Bush's 30.39% (Clinton won Maine with 38.77%); in Utah, Perot received 27.34% of the vote to Clinton's 24.65% (Bush won Utah with 43.36%). Although Perot won no state, he received the most votes in some counties, including Trinity County, California.

A detailed analysis of voting demographics revealed that Perot's support drew heavily from across the political spectrum, with 20% of his votes coming from self-described liberals, 27% from self-described conservatives, and 53% coming from self-described moderates. Economically, however, the majority of Perot voters (57%) were middle class, earning between $15,000 and $49,000 annually, with the bulk of the remainder drawing from the upper middle class (29% earning more than $50,000 annually).^[36] Exit polls also showed that Ross Perot drew 38% of his vote from Bush, and 38% of his vote from Clinton, while the rest of his voters would have stayed home had he not been on the ballot.^[37]

Based on his performance in the popular vote in 1992, Perot was entitled to receive federal election funding for 1996. Perot remained in the public eye after the election and championed opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), urging voters to listen for the "giant sucking sound" of American jobs heading south to Mexico should NAFTA be ratified.

Reform Party and 1996 presidential run[link]

Perot tried to keep his movement alive through the mid-1990s, continuing to speak about the increasing national debt. He was a prominent campaigner against the North American Free Trade Agreement, and even debated with Al Gore on the issue on Larry King Live. Perot's behavior during the debate was a source of mirth thereafter, including his repeated pleas to "let me finish" in his southern drawl. The debate was seen by many as effectively ending Perot’s political career.^[38] Support for NAFTA went from 34% to 57%.

In 1995, he founded the Reform Party and won their nomination for the 1996 election. His running mate was Pat Choate. Because of the ballot access laws, he had to run as an Independent on many state ballots. Perot received eight percent of the popular vote in 1996, much less than in the 1992 race but still an unusually successful third-party showing by U.S. standards. He spent much less of his own money in this race than he had four years before, and also allowed other people to contribute to his campaign, unlike his prior race. One common explanation for the decline was Perot's exclusion from the presidential debates, based on the preferences of the Democratic and Republican party candidates (as described by George Farah in Open Debates).

Later activities[link]

Perot attending the 2009 EagleBank Bowl in Washington, D.C.

Later in the 1990s, Perot's detractors accused him of not allowing the Reform Party to develop into a genuine national political party, but rather using it as a vehicle to promote himself. They cited as evidence the control of party offices by operatives from his presidential campaigns. Perot did not give an endorsement during Jesse Ventura's run for governor of Minnesota in the 1998 election, and this became suspicious to detractors when he made fun of Ventura at a conference after Ventura had a falling out with the press. The party leadership grew in tighter opposition to groups supporting Ventura and Jack Gargan. Evidence of this was demonstrated when Gargan was officially removed as Reform Party Chairman by the Reform Party National Committee.

In the 2000 presidential election, Perot refused to become openly involved with the internal Reform Party dispute between supporters of Pat Buchanan and of John Hagelin. Perot was reportedly unhappy with what he saw as the disintegration of the party, as well as his own portrayal in the press; thus he chose to remain quiet. He appeared on Larry King Live four days before the election and endorsed George W. Bush for president. Despite his earlier opposition to NAFTA, Perot remained largely silent about expanded use of guest worker visas in the United States, with Buchanan supporters attributing this silence to his corporate reliance on foreign workers.^[39] Some state parties have affiliated with the new (Buchananite) America First Party; others gave Ralph Nader their ballot lines in the 2004 presidential election.

Since then, Perot has been largely silent on political issues, refusing to answer most questions from the press. When interviewed, he usually remains on the subject of his business career and refuses to answer specific questions on politics, candidates, or his past activities.

The one exception to this came in 2005, when he was asked to testify before the Texas Legislature in support of proposals to extend technology to students, including making laptops available to them; additionally, changing the process of buying textbooks, by making electronic books (ebooks) available and by allowing schools to buy books at the local level instead of going through the state. In an April 2005 interview, Perot expressed concern about the state of progress on issues that he had raised in his presidential runs.^[40]

In January 2008, Perot publicly came out against Republican candidate John McCain and endorsed Mitt Romney for President. He also announced that he would soon be launching a new website with updated economic graphs and charts.^[41] In June 2008, the blog launched, focusing on entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security), the U.S. national debt and related issues.^{[42] [43]}

Family[link]

Perot is married to Margot Birmingham; they have five children (Ross Jr., Nancy, Suzanne, Carolyn, and Katherine). As of 2007, the Perots have 15 grandchildren.

Honors[link]

• On April 22, 2009, Ross Perot was made an Honorary Green Beret at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center in Fayetteville, North Carolina, that also honored the OSS, Alamo Scouts and the First Special Service Force, elite World War Two units that were inducted into the "1st Special Forces" Regiment.
• Mr. Perot was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1988.
• On September 18, 2009, the Texarkana Independent School District named him (1947 graduate of Texas High School) as a 2009 Distinguished Alumnus.^[44]
• In May 2009, he was appointed an honorary chairman of The OSS Society.
• On October 15, 2009, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point awarded him with the distinguished Sylvanus Thayer Award.^[45]
• In honor of his 80th birthday, the bridge connecting Walton and University drives in Texarkana, Texas, was named the H. Ross Perot Bridge.^[46]
• On Oct. 2, 2010, Perot was given the William J. Donovan Award from the OSS Society at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C. He is the 26th receipent of the award.^[47]
• On October 28th, 2011 the Museum of Nature & Science in Dallas announced it was naming a new species of the dinosaur genus Pachyrhinosaurus after the Perot family. The new species is named Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum ^[48]

Electoral history[link]

United States presidential election, 1992

• Bill Clinton/Al Gore (D) – 44,909,806 (43.0%) and 370 electoral votes (32 states and D.C. carried)
• George H. W. Bush/Dan Quayle (R) (Inc.) – 39,104,550 (37.4%) and 168 electoral votes (18 states carried)
• Ross Perot/James Stockdale (I) – 19,743,821 (18.9%) and 0 electoral votes
• Andre Marrou/Nancy Lord (L) – 290,087 (0.3%) and 0 electoral votes

United States presidential election, 1996

• Bill Clinton/Al Gore (D) (Inc.) – 47,400,125 (49.2%) and 379 electoral votes (31 states and D.C. carried)
• Bob Dole/Jack Kemp (R) – 39,198,755 (40.7%) and 159 electoral votes (19 states carried)
• Ross Perot/Pat Choate (Ref.) – 8,085,402 (8.4%) and 0 electoral votes

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Thomas M. Defrank et al. Quest for the Presidency, 1992 Texas A&M University Press. 1994.
• Mason, Todd (1990). Perot. Business One Irwin. ISBN 1-55623-236-5 An unauthorized biography by a longtime Perot watcher.
• Doron P. Levin, Irreconcilable Differences: Ross Perot Versus General Motors (New York: Plume, 1990)
• Thomas Moore, The GM System is Like a Blanket of Fog, Fortune, February 15, 1988
• Posner, Gerald Citizen Perot: His Life and Times Random House. New York 1996
• Clinton, Bill (2005). My Life. Vintage. ISBN 1-4000-3003-X.
• Forbes 400
• Rapoport, Ronald and Walter Stone. Three's a Crowd: The Dynamic of Third Parties, Ross Perot, and Republican Resurgence Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ross Perot

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ross Perot

• Perot Charts; a blog launched June 2008 by Perot to examine different national issues with charts and graphs. Link is dead 11 Aug 2011.
• United We Stand, H. Ross Perot; text of the book published by Perot in 1992 to mark the launch of his Presidential campaign, complete with charts. The text is hosted by the site of the organization he created that year United We Stand America, as saved by The Internet Archive.
• Booknotes interview with Carolyn Barta on Perot and His People: Disrupting the Balance of Political Power, January 16, 1994.
• "Ross Perot, Presidential Contender" from C-SPAN's The Contenders

Bill Clinton
42nd President of the United States
In office January 20, 1993 – January 20, 2001
Vice President	Al Gore
Preceded by	George H. W. Bush
Succeeded by	George W. Bush
40th and 42nd Governor of Arkansas
In office January 11, 1983 – December 12, 1992
Lieutenant	Winston Bryant Jim Tucker
Preceded by	Frank White
Succeeded by	Jim Tucker
In office January 9, 1979 – January 19, 1981
Lieutenant	Joe Purcell
Preceded by	Joe Purcell as Acting Governor
Succeeded by	Frank White
50th Attorney General of Arkansas
In office January 3, 1977 – January 9, 1979
Governor	David Pryor Joe Purcell (Acting)
Preceded by	Jim Tucker
Succeeded by	Steve Clark
Personal details
Born	William Jefferson Blythe III (1946-08-19) August 19, 1946 (age 65) Hope, Arkansas, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Hillary Rodham (m. 1975-present)
Children	Chelsea (b. 1980)
Alma mater	Georgetown University University College, Oxford Yale Law School
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Baptist
Signature
Website	Clinton Presidential Library

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation. Clinton has been described as a New Democrat. Many of his policies have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance.

Born and raised in Arkansas, Clinton became both a student leader and a skilled musician. He is an alumnus of Georgetown University where he was Phi Beta Kappa and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford. He is married to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has served as the United States Secretary of State since 2009 and was a Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009. Both Clintons received law degrees from Yale Law School, where they met and began dating. As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton overhauled the state's education system, and served as Chair of the National Governors Association.

Clinton was elected president in 1992, defeating incumbent president George H.W. Bush. As president, Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. He signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement. He implemented Don't ask, don't tell, a controversial intermediate step to full gay military integration. After a failed health care reform attempt, Republicans won control of Congress in 1994, for the first time in forty years. Two years later, the re-elected Clinton became the first member of the Democratic Party since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second full term as president. He successfully passed welfare reform and the State Children's Health Insurance Program, providing health coverage for millions of children. Later, he was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice in a scandal involving a White House intern, but was acquitted by the U.S. Senate and served his complete term of office. The Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus between the years 1998 and 2000, the last three years of Clinton's presidency.

Clinton left office with the highest end-of-office approval rating of any U.S. president since World War II. Since then, he has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. Based on his philanthropic worldview, Clinton created the William J. Clinton Foundation to promote and address international causes such as prevention of AIDS and global warming. In 2004, he released his autobiography My Life, and was involved in his wife's and then Barack Obama's campaigns for president in 2008. In 2009, he was named United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti, and after the 2010 earthquake he teamed with George W. Bush to form the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. Since leaving office, Clinton has been rated highly in public opinion polls of U.S. presidents.

Early life and career[link]

William Jefferson Blythe III, in 1950 at age four

Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe, III, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas.^[1][2] His father, William Jefferson Blythe, Jr., was a traveling salesman who died in an automobile accident three months before Bill was born.^[3] His mother Virginia Dell Cassidy (1923–1994) traveled to New Orleans to study nursing soon after he was born. She left Bill in Hope with grandparents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and ran a small grocery store.^[2] At a time when the Southern United States was segregated racially, Bill's grandparents sold goods on credit to people of all races.^[2] In 1950, Bill's mother returned from nursing school and married Roger Clinton, Sr., who owned an automobile dealership in Hot Springs, Arkansas with his brother.^[2] The family moved to Hot Springs in 1950.

Bill Clinton boyhood home in Hope, Arkansas

Although he assumed use of his stepfather's surname, it was not until Billy (as he was known then) turned fifteen^[4] that he formally adopted the surname Clinton as a gesture toward his stepfather.^[2] Clinton says he remembers his stepfather as a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused his mother and half-brother, Roger Clinton, Jr., to the point where he intervened multiple times with the threat of violence to protect them.^[2][5]

In Hot Springs, Clinton attended St. John's Catholic Elementary School, Ramble Elementary School, and Hot Springs High School – where he was an active student leader, avid reader, and musician.^[2] He was in the chorus and played the tenor saxophone, winning first chair in the state band's saxophone section. He briefly considered dedicating his life to music, but as he noted in his autobiography My Life:

"Sometime in my sixteenth year, I decided I wanted to be in public life as an elected official. I loved music and thought I could be very good, but I knew I would never be John Coltrane or Stan Getz. I was interested in medicine and thought I could be a fine doctor, but I knew I would never be Michael DeBakey. But I knew I could be great in public service."^[2]

Clinton has named two influential moments in his life that contributed to his decision to become a public figure, both occurring in 1963. One was his visit as a Boys Nation senator to the White House to meet President John F. Kennedy.^[2][5] The other was listening to Martin Luther King's 1963 I Have a Dream speech, which impressed him enough that he later memorized it.^[6]

College and law school years[link]

Clinton ran for President of the Student Council while attending the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

With the aid of scholarships, Clinton attended the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., receiving a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (B.S.) degree in 1968. He spent the summer of 1967, the summer before his senior year, interning for Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright.^[2] While in college, he became a brother of Alpha Phi Omega and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Clinton was also a member of the Order of DeMolay, a youth group affiliated with Freemasonry, but he never became a Freemason.^[7] He is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi honorary band fraternity.^[8]

Upon graduation, he won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics, though because he had switched programs and had left early for Yale University, he did not receive a degree there.^[5][9] He developed an interest in rugby union, playing at Oxford^[10] and later for the Little Rock Rugby club in Arkansas. While at Oxford he also participated in Vietnam War protests and organized an October 1969 Moratorium event.^[2]

Clinton's political opponents charge that to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War during his college years, he used the political influence of a U.S. Senator, who employed him as an aide.^[11] Col. Eugene Holmes, an Army officer who was involved in Clinton's case, issued a notarized statement during the 1992 presidential campaign: "I was informed by the draft board that it was of interest to Senator Fullbright's office that Bill Clinton, a Rhodes Scholar, should be admitted to the ROTC program... I believe that he purposely deceived me, using the possibility of joining the ROTC as a ploy to work with the draft board to delay his induction and get a new draft classification."^[12][13] Although legal, Clinton's actions were criticized by conservatives and some Vietnam veterans during his presidential campaign in 1992.^[14][15][16]

After Oxford, Clinton attended Yale Law School and earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1973.^[5] In a Yale library in 1971 he met fellow law student Hillary Rodham, who was a year ahead of him.^[17] They began dating and soon were inseparable. After only about a month, Clinton proposed to Rodham and postponed his plans to be a coordinator for the McGovern campaign for the 1972 United States presidential election in order to move in with her in California.^[18] They later married on October 11, 1975, and their only child, Chelsea, was born on February 27, 1980.^[17]

Clinton did eventually move to Texas with Rodham to take a job leading McGovern's effort there in 1972. He spent considerable time in Dallas, at the campaign's local headquarters on Lemmon Avenue, where he had an office. There, Clinton worked with future two-term mayor of Dallas, Ron Kirk, future governor of Texas, Ann Richards, and then unknown television director (and future filmmaker), Steven Spielberg.

Political career 1978–1992[link]

Governor of Arkansas[link]

After graduating from Yale Law School, Clinton returned to Arkansas and became a law professor at the University of Arkansas. A year later, he ran for the House of Representatives in 1974. The incumbent, Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt, defeated Clinton in the general election by a 52% to 48% margin. With only minor opposition in the primary and no opposition at all in the general election,^[19] Clinton was elected Arkansas Attorney General in 1976.^[5]

Clinton, as the newly elected Governor of Arkansas, meeting with President Jimmy Carter in 1978

Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas in 1978, having defeated the Republican candidate Lynn Lowe, a farmer from Texarkana. He became the youngest governor in the country at 32. Due to his youthful appearance, Clinton was often called the "Boy Governor", a referent that continues to be used to refer to him during his gubernatorial era on occasion.^[20][21][22] He worked on educational reform and Arkansas's roads, with wife Hillary leading a successful committee on urban health care reform. However, his term included an unpopular motor vehicle tax and citizens' anger over the escape of Cuban refugees (from the Mariel boatlift) detained in Fort Chaffee in 1980. Monroe Schwarzlose of Kingsland in Cleveland County, polled 31% of the vote against Clinton in the Democratic gubernatorial primary of 1980. Some suggested Schwarzlose's unexpected voter turnout foreshadowed Clinton's defeat in the general election that year by Republican challenger Frank D. White. As Clinton once joked, he was the youngest ex-governor in the nation's history.^[5]

Clinton joined friend Bruce Lindsey's Little Rock law firm of Wright, Lindsey and Jennings.^[23] In 1982, he was again elected governor and kept this job for ten years.^[19] He helped Arkansas transform its economy and significantly improve the state's educational system. He became a leading figure among the New Democrats.^[24][25] The New Democrats, organized as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), were a branch of the Democratic Party that called for welfare reform and smaller government, a policy supported by both Democrats and Republicans. He gave the Democratic response to President Reagan's 1985 State of the Union Address and served as Chair of the National Governors Association from 1986 to 1987, bringing him to an audience beyond Arkansas.^[5] Clinton made economic growth, job creation and educational improvement high priorities. For senior citizens, he removed the sales tax from medications and increased the home property-tax exemption.^[24]

In the early 1980s, Clinton made reform of the Arkansas education system a top priority. The Arkansas Education Standards Committee, chaired by Clinton's wife, attorney and Legal Services Corporation chair Hillary Rodham Clinton, succeeded in reforming the education system, transforming it from the worst in the nation into one of the best. Many have considered this the greatest achievement of the Clinton governorship. Clinton and the committee were responsible for state educational improvement programs, notably more spending for schools, rising opportunities for gifted children, an increase in vocational education, raising of teachers' salaries, inclusion of a wider variety of courses, and compulsory teacher testing for aspiring educators.^[5][24] He defeated four Republican candidates for governor: Lowe (1978), White (1982 and 1986), and businessmen Woody Freeman of Jonesboro, (1984) and Sheffield Nelson of Little Rock (1990).^[19]

The Clintons' personal and business affairs during the 1980s included transactions that became the basis of the Whitewater investigation that dogged his later presidential administration.^[26] After extensive investigation over several years, no indictments were made against the Clintons related to the years in Arkansas.^[5][27]

According to some sources, Clinton was in his early years a death penalty opponent who switched positions.^[28][29] During Clinton's term, Arkansas performed its first executions since 1964 (the death penalty had been re-enacted on March 23, 1973).^[30] As Governor, he oversaw four executions: one by electric chair and three by lethal injection. Later, as president, Clinton was the first President to pardon a death-row inmate since the federal death penalty was reintroduced in 1988.^[31]

Democratic presidential primaries of 1988[link]

Governor and Mrs. Clinton attend the Dinner Honoring the Nation's Governors in the White House with President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan, 1987.

In 1987, there was media speculation Clinton would enter the race after then-New York Governor Mario Cuomo declined to run and Democratic front-runner Gary Hart withdrew owing to revelations of marital infidelity. Clinton decided to remain as Arkansas governor (following consideration for the potential candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton for governor, initially favored – but ultimately vetoed – by the First Lady).^[32] For the nomination, Clinton endorsed Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. He gave the nationally televised opening night address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, which at 33 minutes was criticized for being too long.^[33] Presenting himself as a moderate and a member of the New Democrat wing of the Democratic Party, he headed the moderate Democratic Leadership Council in 1990 and 1991.^[24][34]

1992 presidential campaign[link]

In the first primary contest, the Iowa caucus, Clinton finished a distant third to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. During the campaign for the New Hampshire primary, reports of an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers surfaced. As Clinton fell far behind former Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas in the New Hampshire polls,^[5] following Super Bowl XXVI, Clinton and his wife Hillary went on 60 Minutes to rebuff the charges. Their television appearance was a calculated risk, but Clinton regained several delegates. He finished second to Tsongas in the New Hampshire primary, but after trailing badly in the polls and coming within single digits of winning, the media viewed it as a victory. News outlets labeled him "The Comeback Kid" for earning a firm second-place finish.^[35]

Winning the big prizes of Florida and Texas and many of the Southern primaries on Super Tuesday gave Clinton a sizable delegate lead. However, former California Governor Jerry Brown was scoring victories and Clinton had yet to win a significant contest outside his native South.^[5][34] With no major Southern state remaining, Clinton targeted New York, which had many delegates. He scored a resounding victory in New York City, shedding his image as a regional candidate.^[34] Having been transformed into the consensus candidate, he secured the Democratic Party nomination, finishing with a victory in Jerry Brown's home state of California.^[5]

Clinton family in White House

During the campaign, questions of conflict of interest regarding state business and the politically powerful Rose Law Firm, at which Hillary Rodham Clinton was a partner, arose. Clinton argued the questions were moot because all transactions with the state had been deducted before determining Hillary's firm pay.^[2][36] Further concern arose when Bill Clinton announced that, with Hillary, voters would be getting two presidents "for the price of one".^[37]

While campaigning for U.S. President, the then Governor Clinton returned to Arkansas to see that Ricky Ray Rector would be executed. After killing a police officer and a civilian, Rector shot himself in the head, leading to what his lawyers said was a state where he could still talk but did not understand the idea of death. According to Arkansas state and Federal law, a seriously mentally impaired inmate cannot be executed. The courts disagreed with the allegation of grave mental impairment and allowed the execution. Clinton's return to Arkansas for the execution was framed in a The New York Times article as a possible political move to counter "soft on crime" accusations.^[28][38]

Because Bush's approval ratings were in the 80% range during the Gulf War, he was described as unbeatable. However, when Bush compromised with Democrats to try to lower Federal deficits, he reneged on his promise not to raise taxes, hurting his approval rating. Clinton repeatedly condemned Bush for making a promise he failed to keep.^[34] By election time, the economy was souring and Bush saw his approval rating plummet to just slightly over 40%.^[34][39] Finally, conservatives were previously united by anti-communism, but with the end of the Cold War, the party lacked a uniting issue. When Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson addressed Christian themes at the Republican National Convention – with Bush criticizing Democrats for omitting God from their platform – many moderates were alienated.^[40] Clinton then pointed to his moderate, "New Democrat" record as governor of Arkansas, though some on the more liberal side of the party remained suspicious.^[41] Many Democrats who had supported Ronald Reagan and Bush in previous elections switched their support to Clinton.^[42] Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore, toured the country during the final weeks of the campaign, shoring up support and pledging a "new beginning".^[42]

Clinton won the 1992 presidential election (43.0% of the vote) against Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush (37.4% of the vote) and billionaire populist Ross Perot, who ran as an independent (18.9% of the vote) on a platform focusing on domestic issues; a significant part of Clinton's success was Bush's steep decline in public approval.^[42] Clinton's election ended twelve years of Republican rule of the White House and twenty of the previous twenty-four years. The election gave Democrats full control of the United States Congress,^[3] the first time one party controlled both the executive and legislative branches since Democrats held the 95th United States Congress during the Jimmy Carter presidency in the late 1970s.^[43]

Presidency, 1993–2001[link]

Countries visited by President Clinton during his terms in office

During his presidency, Clinton advocated for a wide variety of legislation and programs, much of which was enacted into law or was implemented by the executive branch. Some of his policies, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and welfare reform, have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance, while on other issues his stance was left-of-center.^[44][45] Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history.^[46][47][48] The Congressional Budget Office reported budget surpluses of $69 billion in 1998, $126 billion in 1999, and $236 billion in 2000,^[49] during the last three years of Clinton's presidency.^[50] At the end of his presidency, Clinton moved to New York and helped his wife win election to the U.S. Senate there.

First term, 1993–1997[link]

Clinton takes the oath of office during his 1993 presidential inauguration on January 20, 1993.	First inauguration of Bill Clinton (January 20, 1993) Video of the First inauguration of Bill Clinton. First inauguration of Bill Clinton (January 20, 1993) audio only version
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Clinton was inaugurated as the 42nd President of the United States on January 20, 1993. Shortly after taking office, Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 on February 5, which required large employers to allow employees to take unpaid leave for pregnancy or a serious medical condition. This action had bipartisan support,^[51] and proved quite popular with the public.^[52]

Budget Deficit in Billions of Dollars (1971-2001). There were budget surpluses from 1998-2001.

On February 15, 1993, Clinton made his first address to the nation, announcing his plan to raise taxes to cap the budget deficit.^[53] Two days later, in a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress, Clinton unveiled his economic plan. The plan focused on reducing the deficit rather than on cutting taxes for the middle class, which had been high on his campaign agenda.^[54] Clinton's advisers pressured him to raise taxes on the theory that a smaller federal budget deficit would reduce bond interest rates.^[55]

On May 19, 1993, Clinton fired seven employees of the White House Travel Office, causing a controversy even though the Travel Office staff served at the pleasure of the President, who could dismiss them without cause. The White House responded to the controversy by claiming the firings were done because of financial improprieties that had been revealed by a brief FBI investigation.^[56] Critics contended the firings had been done to allow friends of the Clintons to take over the travel business and that the involvement of the FBI was unwarranted.^[57]

Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 in August of that year, which passed Congress without a Republican vote. It cut taxes for fifteen million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90% of small businesses,^[59] and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of taxpayers. Additionally, through the implementation of spending restraints, it mandated the budget be balanced over a number of years.^[60]

Clinton, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat during the Oslo Accords on 13 September 1993.

Clinton made a major speech to Congress regarding a health care reform plan on September 22, 1993, aimed at achieving universal coverage through a national health care plan. This was one of the most prominent items on Clinton's legislative agenda, and resulted from a task force headed by Hillary Clinton. Though at first well received in political circles, it was eventually doomed by well-organized opposition from conservatives, the American Medical Association, and the health insurance industry. However, John F. Harris, a biographer of Clinton's, states the program failed because of a lack of coordination within the White House.^[27] Despite the Democratic majority in Congress, the effort to create a national health care system ultimately died when compromise legislation by George J. Mitchell failed to gain a majority of support in August 1994. It was the first major legislative defeat of Clinton's administration.^[24][27]