The morning after Hillary Rodham Clinton disclosed that she made $100,000 in less than a year on a $1,000 commodities investment, her aides were worried about public outrage. But no one called the White House switchboard to complain. Instead, there was a surge of phone calls expressing concern about an entirely different matter: People noticed that Mrs. Clinton had failed to wear a safety helmet while bicycling during her family's California vacation last week. The first lady got the word and began wearing a multicolored hard hat while pedaling around San Diego. But aides saw a larger point: The public cares very little about Whitewater and other quasi scandals surrounding Bill and Hillary Clinton.
That conclusion may be overly optimistic because questions remain about Mrs. Clinton's 16-year-old commodities transactions. Among them:
Were the investments a form of cronyism not available to everyday folks? White House officials admit that Arkansas lawyer James Blair, who represented Tyson Foods, advised Mrs. Clinton in 1978 on the transactions. At the time, Bill Clinton was attorney general and the favorite in that fall's gubernatorial election, which he won. Tyson subsequently benefited from decisions by Clinton's state government, and Blair and the Clintons remain close friends. Still, the White House says it was not a sweetheart deal because Mrs. Clinton conducted her own trades and was exposed to considerable risk of losses if her investments bombed.
Was Mrs. Clinton aware that her main broker, Robert "Red" Bone of Refco Inc., had been penalized for his business practices? Bone and Tyson Foods (where Bone was vice president) had been accused in 1970 of trying to rig the price of eggs. Under a legal settlement reached in August 1977 -- a year before Mrs. Clinton's commodities venture began -- Bone was barred from futures trading for 30 days. Later, Bone was accused by regulators of mingling his accounts and allocating profits to favored clients and was subsequently fined for "serious and repeated violations of record-keeping functions, order entry procedures, margin requirements, and hedge procedures." But the White House says Mrs. Clinton knew nothing of the problems and informed industry sources say there is little chance there is a paper trail that could tie her to any questionable trading.
Were the Clintons political hypocrites? During the presidential campaign, they attacked the "greed" of the 1980s and portrayed themselves as public servants who were not interested in money. Yet Mrs. Clinton plunged into what might be seen as a get-rich-quick scheme.
Mrs. Clinton also brought substantial business to Arkansas's Rose Law Firm, where she was a partner while her husband was governor. For example, U.S. News has learned that the Rose firm was paid $101,630 by the Washington-based National Center on Education and the Economy in 1991 for an eight-month stint by Mrs. Clinton during which she helped direct an education-reform program. Mrs. Clinton was also a member of the center's board of trustees, which endorsed the contract. She resigned the day before Bill Clinton announced his presidential candidacy. A spokesman for the center had high praise for Mrs. Clinton's work. Acting White House legal counsel Lloyd Cutler told U.S. News it was a "quite conventional" arrangement for any law firm.
To counteract her image problems, Mrs. Clinton has been taking more interest in damage control on her behalf.
Administration sources say she was pleased when White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty put Whitewater strategy under the talented White House staff secretary, John Podesta. Mrs. Clinton also wanted Cutler, a widely respected figure in Washington, to take a high- visibility role in defending the Clintons, which he has done.
Perhaps the biggest lesson Mrs. Clinton has learned from Whitewater, aides say, is that she must be more open about the issue. President Clinton's recent press conference on Whitewater increased his job-approval rating by 10 percentage points. "What we've learned, and what Mrs. Clinton has learned, is that disclosure isn't the worst thing in the world," says a senior administration official.
