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Overview
Go beyond the headlines of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and revisit the story of Monica Lewinsky in this authorized biography from Andrew Morton, the basis for the FX miniseries Impeachment.
Monica Lewinsky. You know her name, you know her face, and you think you know her story: the pretty young intern who began an illicit affair with the President of the United States-- a liaison that ignited an unprecedented political scandal and found Bill Clinton as the second U.S. president to ever be impeached. But there is much more to the Monica Lewinsky story than just that. Andrew Morton, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, Diana: Her True Story, takes you behind the headlines and the sound bites to discover the real Monica Lewinsky, a woman as interesting, intelligent, and misunderstood as they come.
Read Monica's Story and you'll discover:
* How a difficult childhood shaped Monica's tumultuous adult romances
* Her relationship with Bill Clinton: how she saw a side to him few know-- and why she sometimes still missed her "Handsome"
* The betrayal by Linda Tripp-- and how Monica's trusting nature snared her in Tripp's treacherous web
* The horror of Kenneth Starr's exhaustive and intrusive inquiry-- how it affected her and her family, and how it still haunts her
* What Monica's hopes were, in the wake of the scandal, from career plans, to marrying, and family life.
* And much, much more
With sixteen pages of photographs.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429978361 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 03/26/2024 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 317 |
| Sales rank: | 475,456 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Monica's Story
By Andrew Morton
St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 1999 Andrew Morton and Prufrock LLCAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-7836-1
CHAPTER 1
"My Little Farfel"
ON A HOT SUMMER'S DAY — July 23 — in 1973, after an interminable labor in the same San Francisco children's hospital where she herself had been born, Marcia Lewinsky gave birth to her first child, Monica Samille. As the proud father, Bernie, himself a doctor, looked on, the nurses who had helped Marcia through her longest day marveled at the beautiful long eyelashes of her seven-and-a-half-pound daughter. Bernie called her "My little Farfel," farfel meaning "noodle."
Bernie Lewinsky's parents had both fled Germany in the 1920s to escape the increased harassment of the Jews by the emerging Nazi Party. His father, George, sought a new life in El Salvador in Central America, where he worked as an accountant for a coffee import — export business. During a trip to London in 1939, on the eve of World War Two, he met Susi, a young German teacher who had left her home in Hamburg after the Gestapo took away her entire class of Jewish children during a raid on the school where she taught Hebrew. Two weeks later George and Susi married. They settled in El Salvador, where they enjoyed an affluent lifestyle, far removed from the horrors of the war that was to devastate Europe. Yet even though their homeland was thousands of miles away, they instilled in their son Bernie, who was born in 1943, the archetypal Teutonic virtues of hard work, self-discipline and respect for the rule of law. When Bernie was fourteen, the family immigrated to California, where, after high school, he went on to study medicine at the University of California in Berkeley and Irvine. It was while he was at medical school that he first met Marcia Vilensky, then aged twenty to his twenty-five.
Like George Lewinsky, Marcia's father, Samuel, had fled his native land — in his case, Lithuania, then suffering under Stalin's purges of the 1930s. Samuel Vilensky first settled in San Francisco, where Marcia was born in 1948. When she was four, the family moved to Tokyo, her father having decided that there were exciting business opportunities in postwar Japan. Samuel developed a successful import-export business in Tokyo, and the Vilenskys enjoyed a life as affluent as it was cosmopolitan, given their Russian roots, expatriate social circle and Japanese friends. Marcia and her sister Debra, who was born three years after the family had left America, wanted for nothing: the house was staffed by a bevy of servants, including a chauffeur. The two girls integrated well into the local community, both becoming fluent in Japanese. This idyll was, however, to be abruptly shattered.
In 1964, Samuel Vilensky died suddenly of a heart attack. With his death the family business fell in ruins, and Marcia, Debra and their mother, Bernice, had to return to California, where they stayed with Bernice's mother, Olga Polack, in Sonoma County, just outside San Francisco. To support the family, Bernice took a job as a legal secretary, although it barely paid enough to make ends meet. The days of a large house and lavish lifestyle were consigned to history. It was, Marcia recalls, a bitter wrench, "a huge change, to move out of the country you have grown up in."
With the family coffers suddenly empty, Marcia enrolled for study at a community college. After two years one of her uncles stepped in, undertaking to pay the fees for her to attend California State University, Northridge, where she majored in urban studies, aiming to become a town planner once she had graduated. These dreams were shelved for good when, at Easter 1968, she met Bernie Lewinsky, a quietly spoken, self-effacing medical student five years her senior. "The bond that drew us together was the fact that we had both lived abroad," says Marcia, although she concedes that after the trauma of her father's death she was looking for emotional security.
With Bernie facing the stressful prospect of a medical internship, both families agreed that it would be better if the couple, young as they were, married before he began this time of long hours and little sleep, so that they could, at least for a while, enjoy a normal married life. In the commotion and excitement surrounding the wedding, the differences in their characters — she charming, biddable, shy, unconventional and creative, he undemonstrative, down to earth, practical and hard-working — were set aside, and they were married in a Jewish ceremony at San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel in February 1969.
Shortly after their wedding they moved to London, where Bernie worked for a year as a registrar (the British term for resident) at the Royal Marsden Hospital, concentrating on his specialist field, oncological cancer. Both look back on that period with fond memories; Marcia, an Anglophile to her fingertips, loved the country's history and tradition, while Bernie enjoyed the challenges he faced at one of the world's leading cancer hospitals. It was during this time that Monica was conceived. Marcia, who returned to San Francisco near the end of Bernie's time at the Royal Marsden in London, excitedly sent a telegram to her husband at the hospital: "Dear Bernard, We're having a baby. Love, Marcia."
For Marcia, the arrival of Monica signaled a fulfillment of a kind. As she says, "Like many women of my generation, I never really assigned myself a career. Being a mother was my goal. My kids are precious to me — you could say too important."
It was clear from early on that Monica was a bright child; she could talk before she could walk, and was speaking fluently before her second birthday. Marcia doted on her baby daughter, but she soon discovered who was the boss: "Monica," she says, with a smile of weary acceptance. "She was a strong-willed child who always knew her own mind. Yet her strong will and determination have never been to control others. It is all about Monica knowing what is right for Monica."
Both her mother and her Aunt Debra remember numerous examples of Monica's utter certainty about her own decisions, even as a small child. When she was two years old, Debra took her to the park near her home in San Francisco to play on the swings. When it was time to leave, Monica refused to get off her swing and, although she adored her aunt — who throughout Monica's life has been a close confidante and staunch friend — ignored all attempts to persuade her to go home. Eventually, Debra tried to trick her by calling out, "Bye," and walking away, thinking the little girl would run and catch up to her. She was wrong. Although it was getting dark, Monica remained glued to her swing. It was only when she had at last had enough that she agreed to leave. "To me," says Debra, "that isn't necessarily bad — she knew her own mind even at two years old. I think she is an exceptional person, quite fascinating. She was then like she is now, charming, sweet, extremely bright and difficult, very strong-willed."
Her strength of will, which some might call obstinacy in one so young, surfaced again when Debra was due to marry her fiance, Bill Finerman, a cardiologist, at his grandmother's home in Beverly Hills in 1976. Monica, then three, was to be the flowergirl. Just twenty minutes before the service, she decided that her light-blue dress, which had long sleeves, would look better if it was sleeveless — she already had an eye for fashion. With the bride putting the finishing touches to her own dress, there was no time for argument or persuasion. Marcia decided that the only solution was to do as her daughter wanted, and she reached for her scissors. The offending sleeves removed, Monica happily put on her dress and, her aunt says, "stole the show."
Marcia also admits that the combination of her daughter's tenacious yet emotionally needy nature and her own readiness to avoid a fuss, at almost any cost, probably influenced Monica's behavior in adulthood. "I'm by nature non-confrontational; Bernie was very autocratic, very stern, because of his upbringing so you can see the dynamics of the family."
In 1976, after Bernie had finished a two-year stint at the Letterman Hospital in San Francisco, the family left their three-bedroom home there for Los Angeles, where he had secured a well-paid position in private practice. A year later, Marcia gave birth again, this time to a boy, whom they named Michael. Monica was thrilled. The four-year age gap was deliberate, designed to prevent sibling rivalry, but Monica adored her baby brother from the first, and immediately nicknamed him "Jo Jo." When mother and son returned to the family's Spanish-style house in Beverly Hills they found, stretched across the front door, ribbons and a huge banner saying: "Welcome Home Jo Jo." She was so taken with her brother that she would often hide in a closet until his nanny, who liked a regimented routine, put him to bed for the night. Then she would squeeze from her hiding place and play with him until they were discovered. "She mothered him to death," recalls Marcia, who, significantly, also observes that, unlike his elder sister, Michael has a relaxed, shrug-of-the-shoulders approach to life's decisions and difficulties.
In general, Michael remembers, Monica was "overly thoughtful" and "always concerned about me," though he adds that she was "a great sister." For his part, he agrees that he is much the more level-headed of the two: "Monica can run the spectrum of emotions in a very short amount of time," he says diplomatically. So while he remembers their three-bedroom house on North Hillcrest Drive with affection, recalling days splashing about in their own pool with their father, Monica remembers the fact that the suburb was plagued by raccoons coming into the houses.
Although, some people have portrayed Marcia as a flighty socialite, perhaps because under her pen name "Marcia Lewis" she wrote a monthly column for the Hollywood Reporter Magazine, in reality she was a homebody, happy to devote her time and energies to her children. Which was just as well because besides Michael's arrival, there was another significant change for Monica: at the age of six, she first went to school. The John Thomas Dye School in Bel Air is a well-established private school with a daunting academic and social reputation. With its immaculate buildings and grounds, high-caliber teaching staff and a roll-call of former students who have reached the political and economic summits of the country, it is a quintessential example of WASP culture. Its alumni include political friends of former President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, the son of Katharine Graham, owner of the Washington Post, and also a number of California congressmen and senators.
For a time, this bright, lively Jewish girl fit in well. She excelled at mathematics, her written work regularly earned top grades, and her love of poetry was recognized early on. The fact that both her parents read to her a lot as a child and encouraged her own reading was a significant factor in her early intellectual growth. In the hothouse atmosphere of John Thomas Dye it was perhaps no surprise that her stated ambition was to become President of the United States. She had other, less daunting, dreams, however. When she was seven she wrote that she wanted "to be a teacher and help other people to learn ... I would be nice but strict," she stated.
Nancy Krasne, a family friend who was in the same school car pool as the Lewinskys, and who has known them for twenty years, remembers Monica as a "very special girl" among a high-powered group. "I always thought that she was the one who was going to be successful," Nancy says. "Monica was very bright, bordering on the brilliant, and very expressive. She was hard-working, conscientious, very much the little adult in some ways, but in others, emotionally very immature. The problem was that she didn't fit the Beverly Hills mold, even though she was so eager to please, to join in with the others." As an example of this driving wish not to be set apart from her fellows or, worse, excluded by them, Monica once spent an entire weekend at home learning how to jump rope so that she could join in with the other girls on schooldays. For a girl who confesses that she is hopeless at sports, nothing could better demonstrate her overwhelming desire to be one of the crowd. She certainly made the grade academically, regularly winning commendations for her work, and invariably bringing home excellent report cards. She remembers it as "a really terrific school ... very challenging and mind-opening."
But there were drawbacks. The fact that she lived some way from the school in Bel Air meant that it was difficult for her schoolfriends to drop by to play — at that time Barbie dolls and Olivia Newton-John, star of the film musical Grease, were all the rage. When she was nine and entering third grade, there were incidents at school, if not of physical bullying, at least of the casual cattiness and cliquishness of children, particularly girls, which often remain as a canker in the psyche well into adult life. Nor was her cause helped by the fact that she was beginning to get a little overweight. She was dubbed "Big Mac" by one of her classmates, Matthew Spaulding, a gibe made all the more painful because at the time she was harboring a schoolgirl crush on him.
Monica also vividly remembers the time when Tori Spelling, the daughter of the Hollywood film mogul Aaron Spelling, held a birthday party at her parents' palatial home. Pop superstar Michael Jackson and the world's smallest pony were expected to be two of the competing attractions at this most glittering of occasions, and everyone in Tori's class was invited — except Monica. Not knowing if the omission was a casual oversight or a deliberate snub, Marcia rang the Spellings' social secretary to check. As a result, an invitation was duly sent out, even though Monica had not been on the original guest list.
Marcia, not surprisingly, concealed this fact from her daughter, and Monica only discovered that she had not been invited as a matter of course when two classmates taunted her about the late invitation. Monica had no idea why Tori should choose to exclude her, especially as they were in Brownies together. However, once she realized the truth of the situation she refused, as a matter of principle, to attend. It was a tough decision for a girl so eager to please and so desperate to belong, but it was also an early sign of one of Monica's most formidable characteristics, her unshakable resolve. She says of the incident, "My mom always taught me to do unto others as you would want done to you. So you should invite everyone to your birthday parties, you should give everyone in your class a Valentine's card. You shouldn't exclude people. Not only is it bad manners, it is very hurtful."
That emphasis on good manners and proper form, something which in part reflected the European influences of her parents, was noticed by those who visited her Beverly Hills home. A friend from her schooldays, Michelle Glazov, recalls that Monica was expected to behave with "almost Victorian decorum" at home, in marked contrast to most of their contemporaries. Moreover, while Bernie and Marcia were not overtly religious, they followed Jewish cultural traditions, sending Monica to Hebrew school at the strict Sinai Temple — a source of resentment in their daughter, who wanted to attend a less orthodox synagogue with her schoolfriends.
At the same time, the high sense of entitlement that comes with living in Beverly Hills led to frequent family clashes, particularly between Monica and her father. For example, when her best friend got her own phone line and Snoopy telephone, Monica asked if she could have the same, and there were tears and tantrums when her father said no. There were similar quarrels when he wouldn't buy her a Minnie Mouse dress during a visit to Disneyland. "I guess growing up it seemed that Mom was the yes one and Dad was the no one," says Monica, "which is not uncommon in a lot of families." Bernie agrees: "Oh yes, I was called 'Dr. No' by my kids, all that kind of stuff."
The focus on materialism, on owning the latest designer clothes and gadgets, was an inevitable corollary of growing up in Beverly Hills, a place where surface and show form the fabric of social life, where to be willowy, blonde and driving the latest BMW is for many people the standard. This obsession with status and money became too much for Monica's beloved Aunt Debra, who decided to move east with her husband and son Alex for a less status-conscious life. "It's a great place for people in their twenties but not good to raise children," she says. "Monica never really fit in. If she had been very thin and in with the fast crowd she would have been OK. But it really wasn't her."
With hindsight, Marcia too regrets the years spent in Beverly Hills, recognizing that her children, particularly Monica, were not suited to the lifestyle. "I myself was never happy in LA. I felt that it wasn't the right place, and I'm sure that was communicated — perhaps unwittingly — to my children."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Monica's Story by Andrew Morton. Copyright © 1999 Andrew Morton and Prufrock LLC. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Epigraph,Title Page,
Foreword,
PREFACE - Betrayal at Pentagon City,
CHAPTER ONE - "My Little Farfel",
CHAPTER TWO - Tremors at Home,
CHAPTER THREE - Grunge, Granola and Andy,
CHAPTER FOUR - Monica Goes to Washington,
CHAPTER FIVE - "He Was Like Rays of Sunshine",
CHAPTER SIX - The Waiting Game,
CHAPTER SEVEN - Not Right in the Eyes of God,
CHAPTER EIGHT - "To Have Him in My Life",
CHAPTER NINE - "Everyone Gets a Job with a Little Help",
CHAPTER TEN - Enter Kenneth Starr,
CHAPTER ELEVEN - Terror in Room 1012,
CHAPTER TWELVE - "I Didn't Matter Anymore",
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - The Starr Chamber,
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - The Avuncular Mr. Ginsburg,
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - "An Utterly Preposterous Document",
CONCLUSION - Girl on a Swing,
Photograph Acknowledgments,
Author's Acknowledgments,
POSTSCRIPT - "Sometimes I Miss Him So Much",
Index,
Copyright Page,
What People are Saying About This
From the Author
This book exists because the Monica I came to know has no relation to the image projected by the Starr Report and the mass media. The Monica I discovered is a bright, lively, and witty young woman who bears the scars of her continuing public shaming, but remains undefeated. This moving human story compelled me to look again at the woman whose name is known around the world but whose life is still a mystery.
From Monica Lewinsky's interview with Barbara Walters, March 3, 1999
It was the way he looked at me and the way he held me and the way he touched me. I think you feel that warmth with someone....He was very tender with me, very affectionate....It was an intense relationship — at least, that was how I saw it....I would imagine that it would be very difficult to be the President of the United States....that sometimes you just need a piece of normalcy.....I wanted to [walk away] a lot of times....I don't have the feelings of self-worth that a woman should have, and that's hard for me and I think that's been a center of a lot of my mistakes and a lot of my pain.
Interviews
On Thursday, March 11th, barnesandnoble.com welcomed Andrew Morton to discuss MONICA'S STORY.
Moderator: Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon, Andrew Morton. How are you today?
Andrew Morton: I'm great, and thank you for inviting me for the second time. The first time, you may recall, was when I was talking to the audience about Diana. This time it's about MONICA'S STORY.
E. Garland from New York City: When you were writing this book, did you worry that people might lose interest in the story after the Barbara Walters interview? Is there material in this book that Monica didn't talk about with Barbara?
Andrew Morton: I thought that the story was so compelling and so interesting that no TV interview, however long, could do it justice. I was proved right. The Walters interview touched on a number of topics but tiptoed around the most dramatic moments of the book, which is when Monica was terrorized in Room 1012 of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, on the day that she was betrayed by Linda Tripp. She was threatened with 27 years in jail unless she cooperated. Now that aspect of the book has caused legal ripples and caused the Justice Department to investigate further the behavior of Ken Starr's office. So the book had a demonstrably profound impact.
Mark G. from New York City: It seems to me that many of Monica's quotes that the press is reporting seem to be much, much more articulate and intelligent than the type of comments we heard from Monica during the Barbara Walters interview. Were they really her quotes, or were they more your interpretation of her conversations that you wrote about that are erroneously being passed as exactly what she said? Thanks, I look forward to reading the book....
Andrew Morton: Well, the quotes that Monica gave to me were on tape, but unlike Linda Tripp, she knew what she was saying and that it would be for the record. And, yes, she is an articulate and very fluent speaker. I think the difference is that when you're relaxed and chatting to someone you know and trust, as opposed to talking on television, where you are very nervous, as she was, then it's a very different experience. That's why I've always felt that books give a genuine and more revealing insight into an individual than any television interview could ever do.
Meaghan Cliff from Lawrence, KS: I know that you are going over to tour in England after this -- how is Monica's story being received in the UK?
Andrew Morton: I'm astonished by the reaction to Monica in Britain. Only yesterday, 6,000 people queued at one bookstore just to see her. I was talking to a reporter who was with her today, who said that they've never seen anything like it. It's almost like a royal tour. And certainly Monica finds it rather overwhelming. But she's proving to be a real trouper.
Jono from Eugene, OR: I'm curious about how this book is doing internationally. Why do you think there's even any interest abroad on this subject when it seems to be old hat to Europeans to have a philandering leader?
Andrew Morton: I think that the combination of power, sex, love, obsession, betrayal, and the story of how a love story, basically an office romance, was turned into the impeachment of the president has shades of a political thriller as well. So, call me old fashioned, but as we would say in Britain, it's a right riveting read.
Bradley from London: What do you think of Monica getting rattled so easily over here in the UK; did you sort of expect it?
Andrew Morton: Well, on Saturday, just before she flew over to London, she rang me and said, "Andrew, what's a photo call?" And what I explained is that it's basically having a photograph taken, and you could hear her sort of gulp with nervousness. When she arrived in London, she was nursing a very heavy cold and facing the 200 photographers was rather overwhelming for the poor kid. But she seems to be coping a lot better now and is signing books with gusto.
Morgan from Denver: What do you think of the fact that infamous people like OJ Simpson and now Monica Lewinsky make their first real public appearances in the UK? What is up with that?
Andrew Morton: I would not want to link OJ Simpson with Monica Lewinsky. OJ Simpson faced a notorious murder trial. Monica was betrayed by a friend during a secret romance to a married man, albeit the President of the United States. Unless you've been on Mars you'll have seen she made her first public statement on the Barbara Walters show in the U.S.
Paul from Morris Plains, NJ: I find it not only interesting but just darn right cool that your book is resulting in the further investigation of Ken Starr. What are your thoughts on the concept of the independent counsel. Do you think they have way too much power?
Andrew Morton: I fully appreciate why there is the system of the independent counsel in America, following the Watergate scandal in the '70s. And it is important that the President does not abuse nor is beyond the scope of national laws. However, the issues raised by Ken Starr's behavior -- not just toward Monica Lewinsky, but also Susan McDougal -- are serious and must be addressed. The question that nags at me is whether Ken Starr and his team were commissioning a crime in order to investigate a crime by preventing Monica from speaking to a lawyer when she was in Room 1012 of the Ritz-Carlton. If she had been allowed to call her lawyer, would history have been rather different? Secondly, there is the issue of how independent the independent counsel has been. That is to say, how far was he linked to the Paula Jones case, a sexual harassment case that was funded by right-wing anti-Clinton factions? And thirdly, how far was Ken Starr's office responsible for orchestrating leaks from the grand jury and elsewhere to the media, which ran counter to his remit? I would finally point out that Sam Dash, his ethics adviser, did resign because of his behavior. It would be a tragedy if the special prosecutor's office was so diminished that when a president was genuinely doing wrong, the special prosecutor did not have the authority to properly investigate it. And this may be Ken Starr's legacy to the American Constitution.
Pac87@aol.com from xxx: In a barnesandnoble.com chat two days ago, Maria Shriver was asked what she thought about the Barbara Walters interview of Monica, and she said, "For me watching it, I felt an overall sadness." Do you find this to be a very common sentiment?
Andrew Morton: I think that some people found Monica too frivolous, and I think she was very nervous, which explains that, but I think Maria Shriver's comments are very perceptive, because behind the surface smiles, and the cheerful disposition, is a rather sad and confused young lady.
Phoebe from Des Moines: What similarities did you find between Monica and Diana?
Andrew Morton: Strong will, stubborn, low sense of self-esteem, both finding difficulty coming to terms with their parents' divorce. Both working this out in eating difficulties. Both with a similar sense of humor, very self-deprecating, and neither able to take themselves too seriously for too long.
Ringo from Ringo: Who do you think is really at fault in the spectacle this has become? Linda Tripp? The press? Kenneth Starr?
Andrew Morton: Well, we wouldn't be sitting here talking today if Linda Tripp had not decided to tape her friend and anonymously tip off Paula Jones's lawyers about her friend's affair with the President. I find it staggering that the American taxpayer is still paying for her to keep her job, after she's done her best to destabilize the country.
Gina from Boca Raton, FL: What course do you think Monica's life would have followed had she never met Bill Clinton? What were her aspirations then, and what are her aspirations and hopes now?
Andrew Morton: Good question. Well, she would have probably have gone to do her Ph.D. in psychology and jurisprudence at a college. She had enjoyed, ironically, working for the FBI as a college student when she was in Portland, OR. So, she may well have gone into the law or a legally related field. Now, it's much more difficult to imagine Monica addressing a jury, or something. But from my conversations with her, she does sincerely want to try to put something back into society. Maybe even using her name, at some point, to help a charity, probably one to do with children, and certainly children may well be her refuge, because unlike adults, they take people at face value and do not indulge in sanctimonious moralizing and critical judgments.
Norom from New York: Do you feel that people try to ignore the more important issues of our society with various superficial gossip stories (bordering on pulp fiction)?
Andrew Morton: In a word, yes. I find it amazing that it's taken a year for people to look seriously at the activities of the independent counsel and to start listening to what the First Lady was saying about a right-wing conspiracy. But also I think there was much to reflect upon: on how a young woman -- who could be, after all, for all her faults, anybody's sister or daughter -- could be humiliated in this way. It shows you how easy it is for the modern state, the mass media, to dissect and destroy an individual's life. To make the world think that they are not part of society, which gives them an excuse to treat them like a piece of meat, or a nonperson, and show them up as objects of ridicule and hatred. We do it in wartime, when we face an enemy, and we make them seem less than human in order to justify our attack. Monica certainly experienced that sensation in the last year. And I've always felt that this whole issue was more than just a love story, but was a parable of modern America and modern Western society. Many people don't know this, but I've spent a lot of the last few years in Africa, writing a book on the president of Kenya. And one of the things that bewildered the Kenyan, was how a man of the stature of President Clinton could be treated with such a lack of dignity. And looking at it from that perspective, you can see that there has been a loss of dignity and humanity in our dealings with the victims of this story, notably Monica Lewinsky.
Megan from New York City: In your book and on the Walters's interview, Monica dropped the bomb that she become pregnant during the time of her affair with Clinton (but by another man)and had had an abortion. Did Monica share this bit of info with you right off the bat? Did it help persuade you to write the book? And did Monica promise to keep this news secret -- just so the book would have some new revelations?
Andrew Morton: That's very cynical. The abortion story first emerged in January last year, when her first lover, Andy Bleiler, gave a news conference where he announced that Monica had had an abortion and implied that the baby was the president's. When Ken Starr sent his report to Congress, the abortion story was in there, even though Monica asked for it to be redacted.
Trina from Brooklyn NY: I was impressed by Monica's manner on the Barbara Walters special. I thought she was well spoken, carried herself well, and looked lovely. How does this Monica compare with the Monica you spent countless hours preparing this book with?
Andrew Morton: Well, the Monica I know was never that glamorous when I was interviewing her! The Monica I knew was a different kind of person from the one you saw on TV. Beneath the smiles and the giggles was quite a sad and pessimistic person. Always anxious to please and also nursing a lot of private pain and hurt that even now she finds difficult to come to terms with. She is a very poised and confident young woman, very strong-willed, fearless, loyal, and learned. She loves poetry, roses, romance. She's not this giddy kid, as some people have said.
Benny from Baltimore, MD: How did you and Monica come together to write this book? How were you chosen as "the one" to write it?
Andrew Morton: It's a funny story. Monica had always thought that probably a woman and an American would write her story. She didn't really know much about Princess Diana, other than what she'd read in the newspapers, and had never read my book, which brought me down a peg or two. However, the story went like this: One Saturday in November, a journalist from a British tabloid came to my house in London and said I was writing a book on Monica. I wasn't, but the story was printed anyway on the Fleet Street basis -- never let the truth get in the way of a good story. However, the story flew across the pond, and Monica's lawyer got to hear about it at the same time my own publisher in Britain was asked if he was interested in publishing a book on Monica. So, within a matter of days, I was amused to find that I was being asked by Monica's lawyer if I would be interested in writing her book. I flew over to New York and thought if she is an empty-headed Valley Girl, I'm not interested. But it was immediately apparent that she was very different from the image, someone who had a vivid and extraordinary story to tell. Ironically, most American publishers had turned down the idea of a book on Monica, and it is to the great credit of St. Martin's Press that they realized that she had a great story to tell that was totally different from the Starr Report, and I hope that when people read MONICA'S STORY they will recognize that.
Bill from New Jersey: Monica seems like she has overspent her 15 minutes of fame. Do you think people will be reading and talking about Monica in a month? In a year?
Andrew Morton: Short answer, yes. They'll be talking about Monica until the President leaves office in two years' time. And I think this story will run and run for some months, because it is only now becoming clear what really went on, and people will be talking about it for some time to come. And I'm very proud to have been Monica's biographer.
Moderator: Thank you very much for spending an hour with barnesandnoble.com. Best of luck with MONICA'S STORY and your future projects. Do you have any closing comments for the online audience?
Andrew Morton: I'd like to thank barnesandnoble.com customers for inviting me, and all those people who have bought the book. I think that MONICA'S STORY is more than just a love story. It is a political thriller. It is a story of power, obsession, love, betrayal, and raises many questions about the mass media and the political and legal system. It is truly a parable of modern American life.
Preface
Conscious, as ever, of her weight, she wanted to get in shape for her new job, working in the Public Relations Division of Revlon, the cosmetics company, in New York. Yet while it was an exciting and enticing prospect, her anticipation of this new life was tinged with regret. She was leaving the person she loved, the one man who had occupied her every waking moment and invaded her restless nights for the last two years — the President of the United States.
There was another and more pressing worry. As she took part in the morning aerobics class, her mind was occupied with more than a sentimental reverie for the man she had loved and now seemed destined to lose. She had been ordered to make a sworn statement in a civil case brought by Paula Jones, a clerical worker from the President's home state of Arkansas, who claimed that, in May 1991, when he had been state Governor, he had sexually harassed and assaulted her. But while she had complied with the order, Monica had lied in her affidavit. As far as she was concerned, the fact that she had had an affair with a married man, even if he was the most powerful individual in the free world, was nobody's business but her own.
As the disco beat pounded through the mirror-walled exercise room, Monica knew she had a major problem, a predicament that had been gnawing at her soul for nearly a month. She had told a girlfriend, a middle-aged secretary at her office in the Pentagon, about her affair. Now that friend was threatening to go public. For the last month Monica had tried every thing to ensure her silence, even offering her a condominium in Australia.
What she did not know then, however, was that her friend, Linda Tripp, had in fact been bent on betraying her for almost a year. She had even taped Monica's phone calls to her, planning to use the girl's indis creet remarks in a "kiss-and-tell book" she proposed to write; worse still, she had plotted with a right-wing political spy, a magazine reporter and Paula Jones's lawyers to expose her. In the last couple of days Tripp had made a Faustian pact with the Special Prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, a former Bible salesman turned lawyer who had been zealously pursuing Monica's lover, the President, for the last four years. Starr would guarantee Tripp's immunity from prosecution for illegally taping her friend's calls if she told him everything, a deal that would leave Monica facing jail for having sworn a false statement.
Monica knew none of this, however, as she stopped off at the Starbucks coffee shop for her usual brew, a large latte, skimmed, with sweetener and a shake of chocolate and cinnamon. As she sipped her coffee and read the Washington Post for that Friday, January 16, she was paged on her beeper by "Mary," the code name Tripp was now using in their increasingly fraught communications.
She immediately called back, hoping that the older woman had at last seen sense and agreed to file an affidavit that would leave both of them in the clear. In her nasal New Jersey drawl, Tripp told her that she was plan ning to see her new lawyer later that day, and wanted to meet with Monica before that critical meeting to discuss what she should say in her affidavit. Monica readily agreed and arranged to see her at the shopping mall in Pentagon City at eleven o'clock. Relieved, she resumed her reading of the paper, only to be interrupted by another page from "Mary," who now pushed the meeting back to a quarter to one. Again she agreed.
That was not the only page she received that fateful morning. Next there was a call from "Kay"-the code name used by the President's Personal Secretary, Betty Currie. She told Monica that she had spoken to the President about inquiries from the media, and particularly from Michael Isikoff of Newsweek magazine, whose questions seemed to indicate a level of knowledge about the illicit affair. The President's message was to say nothing. Monica asked Betty to wish the President "Good luck," knowing that he was due to give his sworn statement in the Paula Jones case on the following day.
Finishing her coffee, she decided that, rather than return to her apartment, she would pick up a few more packing boxes for her move to New York. She hoped that, if Tripp held firm in her affidavit and the President did the same in his deposition on the following day, then at last she would be able to wake up from this silly nightmare and the ridiculous Paula Jones case would drift out of her life.
Having killed some time, Monica still arrived early at the Pentagon mall, and therefore stood by the sushi bar reading a women's magazine. By now, however, she had begun to feel sick-seriously nauseous, in fact, as an awful sense of dread dragged at the pit of her stomach. She had lost all faith in Tripp, whose behavior and disposition had altered dramatically over the last few months. Indeed, she now seemed a different person from the friend to whom Monica, one fateful day just over a year before, had reluctantly confided her love for the President.
In truth, she was tired of Linda Tripp, sick of her prevarication and her lies; she hated, too, the fact that she was now beholden to a woman she no longer liked, let alone trusted. A three-hour lunch a couple of days earlier had been a dragging ordeal, Monica forced to be pleasant as she listened to the other woman's evasions and her sly excuses. Now, to cap it all, Tripp was late.
It crossed Monica's mind that she should leave the mall and go home to finish her packing. She delayed, worried about the look on the face of her "Handsome"-her affectionate nickname for the President-if he were ever to discover that she had revealed their intimate secret. And he certainly would find that out if Linda Tripp were to swear an affidavit expressing what she knew of Monica's affair with him.
Then, as she continued to loaf by the sushi bar, she at last spotted the lumpy figure of Tripp, dressed in a dun-brown business suit, slowly descending the escalator. Lowering her magazine, Monica walked towards her, hiding her irritation behind a mask of friendship, preparing to greet her one-time friend while hoping that their meeting would be as short as it would be successful. "Hi," she said, reaching out to hug Tripp. The other was stiff and unresponsive, however; worse, she gestured with her eyes to two cold-faced men in dark suits and white shirts who had followed her down the escalator.
As they approached, an overwhelming sense of fear seized the base of Monica's throat, almost choking her. They introduced themselves as agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, extending their shiny steel badges rather than their hands to confirm their identities. Then, in clipped sentences that she could barely hear above the hubbub of the lunchtime throng, they told her that they were sanctioned by the United States Attorney General, Janet Reno, to investigate crimes committed in relation to the Paula Jones lawsuit.
"Ma'am, you are in serious trouble," they told her ominously, before adding, "But we would like to give you an opportunity to save yourself." Gasping for air, she looked plaintively at the two agents and then at Linda Tripp. How could she have done this to me? How could I ever have trusted her, and trusted her for so long? Hardly able to breathe, her heart pounding harder than she had ever thought possible, she managed to blurt out the one sentence she had heard in almost every crime movie she had ever seen: "I'm not talking to you without my attorney."
They barely missed a beat, replying with practiced certainty, "That's fine. But if you do that you may not be able to help yourself so much. We just want to talk to you. You are free to leave when you want." Monica's token defiance barely lasted the time it took for them to say the words; shocked and frightened, she burst into a flood of tears. Tripp now spoke for the first time. In her rasping voice she told her young friend, "Trust me, Monica, this is for your own good. Just listen to them. They did the same thing to me." Then she reached forward and, like a latter-day Judas, tried to embrace her. Monica pulled away in revulsion.
The FBI men made it clear that if she cooperated she might not be in so much trouble, and it took Monica a few seconds before she grasped the meaning of what they were saying. Her every instinct told her to walk away; equally, however, she calculated that if she did so she would not find out what was going on, and would not therefore be able to help either her case, or the President. She therefore agreed to accompany the FBI agents to their room in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, which is adjacent to the concourse. At this point she had one overwhelming thought in her mind- she must warn the President.
As this unlikely group now ascended the escalators Monica was screaming in her head to the passing parade, "Help! These monsters have me. Please, somebody save me. Dear God, please help me." But the shoppers passed by without a glance, without offering a helping hand, without even having a clue about the calamity that had just overtaken the silently pleading girl.
She was in shock and she was panicking, but most of all she was in deep, deep trouble. As the lift took Monica, her treacherous friend and the two cold-eyed FBI men to the Ritz-Carlton's Room 1012, she found herself thinking,
"How did I get here?"
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