From Epstein to Lewinsky, Bill Clinton’s memoir is eloquent – if unremarkable

Citizen is a well-written account of the former president’s retirement. But for 400 pages, it has disappointingly few revelations

3/5

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John Quincy Adams once said “there is nothing more pathetic in life than a former president.” Most spend their second act playing golf, or, like George W Bush, painting. But Bill Clinton, the 42nd President, disagrees. In his 400-page account of his post-presidential years, and second memoir, Citizen – surprisingly short for the famously prolix man – he heralds his predecessors’ retirements as having “made a real difference”. His own account is separated into three worthy sections: “What Does a Former President Do?”, “Fighting Disease and Poverty Around The World and At Home”, and “Politics, Rewriting History, and a Still Uncertain Future.”
Citizen opens in the days after Clinton’s presidency ended. He laments that his new beginning was already marred by negative press, and denies that he stole bedside tables from the master bedroom of the White House, as was reported at the time. Instead, he claims – finally answering the burning question we’ve not slept over since – that White House staffers actually asked him to take the tables, because they did not want to store or keep them. (After the scandal, ABC reported that the Clintons sent $28,000 worth of household goods back to Washington.)
The book does eventually get juicier. But for a couple of lines on Monica Lewinsky and Jeffrey Epstein, you first have to get through 300 pages – admittedly well-crafted – of post-presidential foreign relations. In one chapter, Clinton recounts his visit to North Korea in 2009 at the request of Barack Obama, to help rescue the imprisoned American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee.
When leader Kim Jong-il made attempts to engage him in more political discussions – the conversation moved to“future relations” – Clinton says: “I knew that I had to be careful. This was the red line the White House didn’t want me to cross.” He’s honest about the discomfort of this post-power role: “I was a private citizen, not authorised to conduct diplomacy. Even before dinner, Chairman Kim had set an inviting table to do just that. Tempting though it was, I couldn’t take him up on it.”
If, like me, you’re a gossip hungry scoundrel, you should start Citizen halfway through. In the chapter “Family Life Goes On,” we get details about Chelsea Clinton’s much-reported three million-dollar wedding in 2010, where Clinton was so emotional he was afraid he’d “lose it before the handoff”.
Later, there are awaited, if brief, answers on his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein: “In 2002 and 2003, he invited me to fly on his airplane to support the work of the foundation and in return for flying me, my staff, and my Secret Service detail who always accompanied me, Epstein asked only that I take an hour or two on each trip to discuss politics and economics. That was the extent of our conversations.” He adds: “… travelling on Epstein’s plane was not worth the years of questioning afterward. I wish I had never met him.”
But if – also like me – you most vividly remember Clinton for that infamous line, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”, then skip to the end. Here, Clinton recalls an interview on NBC in which he was accused of not apologising to Lewinsky. “The interview was not my finest hour,” he writes. “I was prepared to be asked why I hadn’t apologised to Monica in person, but not to be accused of not apologising at all.” He adds of his apology, “I meant it then and I mean it today. I live with it all the time. Monica’s done a lot of good and important work over the last few years in her campaign against bullying, earning her well-deserved recognition in the United States and abroad. I wish her nothing but the best.”
Citizen is an eloquent if unremarkable page-turner, littered with visuals that help us from chapter to chapter. It seems – or at least, from Clinton’s eyes – that after his presidency, he’s loved wherever he goes. There’s a shirt, gifted to Clinton by a Ghanaian mother, as a thank you for providing her with a job. A rock from Neil Armstrong’s first moonwalk, kept on a table in the Oval Office. A red clay elephant, made by an Indian widow. What is remarkable here is Clinton’s memory and attention to detail. It’s almost as though throughout his presidency he was gearing up for this second act: Bill Clinton, memoirist.
Citizen is published by Hutchinson Heinemann at £30. To order your copy for £25, call 0330 173 0523 or visit Telegraph Books
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