Friday, August 10, 2007

Hillary Clinton's Historical Holt and `Time' Magazine Connections

One reason the husband of 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was able to beat the draft was apparently because aides to U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Fulbright apparently used their special influence on behalf of Bill Clinton in 1969. While attending Georgetown University in the 1960s, Hillary’s husband had begun working on a part-time basis at $3,500/year with Fulbright’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee and he is quoted in Clinton: Young Man In A Hurry by Jim Moore as saying that “They gave me the job when I was nobody from nowhere. My family had no money, no political influence, nothing.” The same book also notes, however, that:

“Actually Arkansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Jack Holt had recommended Clinton to Lee Williams, who was Senator Fulbright’s administrative aide. Clinton had campaigned for the chief justice’s uncle during a gubernatorial campaign.”

(Coincidentally, former Arkansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Jack Holt’s son—former U.S. Air Force Colonel Jack Holt Jr.—was the Chief Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court in 1992—just like his Dad used to be.)

At the same time Hillary’s husband was apparently allowed by the U.S. government to ignore two separate orders to report for military induction in 1969 and to continue studying at Oxford University in England, “Clinton’s best friend was Time magazine senior correspondent Strobe Talbott [who later worked as a U.S. State Department official during the Clintons’ first two terms in the White House].” Coincidentally, Time magazine—whose editor-at-large during the 1992 presidential election campaign was Strobe Talbott—was not eager then to let its readers know exactly why the induction orders of Hillary’s husband were apparently handled differently by the U.S. government than the induction orders issued to other young men of the Clintons’ baby-boom generation.

Asked by Downtown in a 1992 telephone interview if Time magazine’s campaign coverage had been influenced by editor-at-large Strobe Talbott’s past friendship with Hillary’s husband at Oxford, Time’s then-managing editor, Henry Mueller, replied: “No. Of course not.”
(Downtown 10/7/92)

Next: Ms. Magazine’s “Restricted” Archives—Part 1