In anticipation of our Live Online, Ronald Kessler sent me an e-mail about how his new book, "A Matter of Character: Inside the White House of George W. Bush" came about. Here's the full text:
Having written books about the FBI and CIA, I felt I had an inside understanding of how effective Bush is in pursuing the war on terrorism. I felt the public was being grossly misinformed about that subject. I love exposing myths and wanted to know if there were more myths about Bush. That disposition was not enough to get me access to the secretive Bush White House. But having written another book called Inside the White House, I had Secret Service sources. I also had the unlisted home numbers of White House maids, ushers, and butlers. I began calling them.
I’m sure that got back to the White House. Dan Bartlett checked me out quite carefully and finally called me in and said they would cooperate. He said I was probably the only journalist besides Bob Woodward who could do the book regardless. I found getting access to this White House was far harder than penetrating the FBI or CIA.
Even though Bush personally approved cooperation, some White House aides were skeptical and were not scheduling interviews. But after I interviewed him, Clay Johnson III became my rabbi. He is Bush’s friend from Andover and Yale and was his chief of staff when Bush was governor. He was executive director of the transition and chief of presidential personnel in the White House. He is now deputy OMB director. He is probably the only person to have spanked Barney, the president’s dog—in the Oval Office, no less.
Johnson got behind the project, smoothing the way. I wound up interviewing all the major players—Karl Rove, Condi Rice, Andy Card—as well as Bush’s friends and White House aides who never appear in the media but may be as influential in their own spheres as the more well-known figures.
As the book progressed, Clay Johnson and I would email each other as many as a dozen times a day. In answering my questions, he would provide more inside anecdotes or observations or steer me to the right aides or to Bush friends.
When people help me and I trust them, I like to give them drafts of the book for suggested corrections and possible additions. Bob Woodward does the same thing. I found Johnson was so objective that he actually said he thought two negative items in the book about Hillary Clinton and John Kerry were "cheap shots."
Without going into all the unflattering detail, one was an incident that occurred when Hillary was running for the Senate. It was related to me by a Secret Service agent. Hillary was swimming in a hotel pool, and a man yelled across the pool with an unkind comment about her anatomy. After that, she never went in a hotel pool again.
The second item had appeared in my previous book Inside Congress. It quoted a waiter in the Senate dining rooms as saying that despite his wife’s fortune and his professed compassion for those who are not well off, Kerry is "real cheap." The waiter said, "He tips, but it is ten percent and below."
I do think such a disparity is relevant to character, but as presented, it probably didn’t fit in with this book, and in any case I did not know what Kerry’s current tipping habits are.
Upon reflection, I dropped both items. I think Clay Johnson’s reactions, in contrast to the caricatures, tell you a lot about the values of Bush and his people.
