Book review value

A quick posting to say that the book review pages are often a good source of political info, even for cash and time poor students with no intention of making a purchase. Details of a new publication on Clinton were in the Sunday Times at the weekend and contained some fascinating nuggets.

I wasn’t aware of this but apparently former President Bill Clinton asked an old friend to attend regular clandestine meetings with him in order to record his thoughts on the presidency as the basis for future reference—these tapes were used by Clinton in writing his autobiography.

Taylor Branch reports Clinton:

Thought Helmut Kohl was unusual as a political leader in being smart;
Had a sneaking respect for Richard Nixon;
Felt problems in Ireland and Israel would force him to an early grave.

Branch also gives us an insight into the Clinton marriage, as well as their politics. Hillary Clinton described one of the most senior Democrats in Congress was a word I can’t post on this family site.

Robert Harris in his review goes on to write of Branch:

“His most eye-opening story is about Boris Yeltsin, who visits Washington for two days in 1994. On the first night, Clinton is woken before dawn to be told that “secret service agents had discovered Yeltsin alone on Pennsylvania Avenue, dead drunk, clad in his underwear, yelling for a taxi. Yeltsin slurred his words in a loud argument with the baffled agents… He wanted a taxi to go for a pizza. I asked what became of the standoff. ‘Well,’ the president said shrugging, ‘he got his pizza’”. The second night Yeltsin slips the leash again. “Eluding security, he made his way down the back stairs into the Blair House basement, where a building guard mistook him for a drunken intruder” and nearly shot him.”

These are the kind of personal stories about politicians that help make the subject come alive and this book looks like a corker.