Friends in High Places: Our Journey from Little Rock to Washington, D.C. [Hardcover]

Webster Hubbell (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It seems that being a Friend of Bill is all too often just the first step on that slippery slope to disgrace and the hoosegow. Take, for example, Jim McDougal, Susan McDougal, and Webster Hubbell--all former First Friends now facing stiff prison sentences. Susan McDougal has refused to talk about her case at all, while her ex-husband Jim is saving his material for a grand jury; Webb Hubbell, however, has decided to bare both his soul and his legal difficulties in Friends in High Places, an account of his rise in Little Rock and fall in Washington, DC. In a nutshell, Hubbell--a former law partner of Hillary Clinton's--confessed to stealing almost half a million dollars from the law firm and its clients. His book purports to reveal the full inside story. Readers looking for dirt on the Clintons will be disappointed--Hubbell takes full responsibility for his crimes, absolving the White House of any knowledge about his shady financial dealings.

Review

For five years now, a ceaseless series of scandals has dogged the highest officials of the Clinton administration. What, if anything, can be learned from the story of Webb Hubbell, the single high-ranking official who went directly from the Clinton administration to washing windows in a federal prison?

Hubbell's jaunt to and hard fall from the pinnacle of power, Vincent Foster's misery and tortured end, Hillary Clinton's metamorphosis under the spell of power--this is the stuff of melodrama. But for the last five years these people, and others like them, have been running the government of the United States. What convictions, if any, do they hold, and toward what ends have they sought power?

In the department of political ideas, Friends in High Places is wafer-thin. On several occasions Hubbell describes himself at the dawn of his career as "idealistic," but what he means by this is left unclear. The officeholders from Arkansas who flit in and out of these pages appear similarly insouciant, similarly ambitious, and similarly apolitical (if that is the right word). Even the Clintons, though clearly of a more activist hue, come across as 99 parts ambition and avarice, one part '60s radicalism.

Empty ambition is an old story in American politics. It hardly explains every alliance the Clinton administration has struck, or every policy it has advanced. But it does go some way toward explaining the malfeasance, the improprieties, and the constant stretching and bending of the rules that by now have become our national daily fare. -- Commentary, Gabriel Schoenfeld

In the genre of confessionals, Friends in High Places falls short because the issues that make Hubbell an important interesting figure in the career of the Clintons go largely unaddressed.... his book is also particularly disappointing because rather than provide the inside account it promises, it recounts incidents and conversations that are at best trivial and at worst misleading. -- The New York Times Book Review, Stephen Labaton

Product Details

• Hardcover: 342 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Co; 1st edition (November 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688157491
• ISBN-13: 978-0688157494
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,581,396 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Oh,The Webb We Weave, September 24, 2005

By 

Keen Onlooker (East Coast,United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Friends in High Places: Our Journey from Little Rock to Washington, D.C. (Hardcover)

What's most important here is what's not included in this work.

Questions regarding Lippo Group,Revlon,Vernon Jordan,his wife's

rocky tenure at Bill Clinton's Interior Department while Hubbell

was in prison,and many others,remain unanswered.

If she decides in a year or two to seek "higher office",one can only

wonder if the junior Senator from New York will regret having demanded

so much loyalty from Hubbell that he felt compelled to "roll over one more time" for her,as he stated while in prison.

This book will certainly come under intense scrutiny if that day arrives.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truth that is Better than Fiction, January 14, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Friends in High Places: Our Journey from Little Rock to Washington, D.C. (Hardcover)

This is an excellent look into the world that revolved around Webb Hubbell in Little Rock and Washington DC. Mr. Hubbell is an adept storyteller who cuts through all of the partisan politics and simply tells the truth about his relationship with The President and First Lady. Mr. Hubbell also does something few men are willing to do nowadays. He accepts responsibilty for his mistakes without casting blame and doesn't try to glorify his standing with the Clintons or blame Kenn Starr for his failures. A good read that provides one of the only truly first hand accounts of the Clinton's days in Little Rock.

5.0 out of 5 stars Webb Hubbell was very, very, very close to Hillary Clinton, January 30, 2012

By 

Robert P. Morrow "Researcher into the 1963 Co... (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Friends in High Places: Our Journey from Little Rock to Washington, D.C. (Hardcover)

Closer than Bill Clinton was, that is for sure.

I am one of the top Clinton researchers in the nation (sorry to "boast," at one time I probably had ever book ever written on the Clintons, practically) ...

and in my opinion, based on my years of research is:

Webb Hubbell is the biological father of Chelsea Clinton, NOT Bill Clinton. Period. End of story.

Larry Nichols, a long time Clinton insider for 10 years told this to Melrose Larry Green who told it to me. Google "Chelsea Clinton Webb Hubbell" and you will see they both have unusually BIG lips.

You have to understand how dysfunctional the Clintons were, with Bill having literally hundreds of affairs and Hillary living her separate life with Webb Hubbell and Vince Foster. Hillary, Hubbell and Foster were the Three Amigos. Hillary had girlfriends, too, as Bill told in graphic detail to Gennifer Flowers.

Vince Foster later became Hillary's emotional husband and boyfriend. I think Hillary's rejection of Vince when they got to Washington, DC played a big role in Foster's suicide on July 19, 1993.

Vince was very unhappy that he was not getting to spend "special time" with his girlfriend and emotional wife Hillary - who, angry at Vince over work issues - had cut Vince off the last three weeks of his severely depressed life. Vince, upset about Hillary, told Webb Hubbell "It's just not the same, Hub ... She's so busy, Hub, that we don't ever have time to talk." [p.234, Friends in High Places, Hubbell]

Hubbell writes about the time in June, 1993 that Hillary cancelling a planned dinner with the Hubbells and Vince and Lisa Foster (Vince was obsessed with Hillary)

"Vince hardly said a word the rest of the evening. Suzy, as much as she loved Vince, thought his behavior was extremely bizarre. "He was sulking," she said. "It was so uncharacteristic of him." He pulled his chair back and turned himself away from the rest of the table. He was just like a child who had been promised quality time with a parent, only to have the parent renege when business had called him away." [p.234, Friends in High Places, Hubbell]

As for Webb Hubbell being the biological father of Chelsea, read this little nugget:

"On summer evenings, I could sip a drink in my big living room and look out at children- including the Fosters' and the Clintons', when Chelsea got big enough- bouncing happily on a trampoline in the shade of my big oak trees. Such a scene made me feel successful." [Hubbell, Friends in High Places, p.84]

On the night Bill lost the 1980 Arkansas's governor's race, Webb says he and Vince were watching Hillary on TV and "I think both of us wanted to wrap her in our arms and comfort her." [Hubbell, p.86] (Hey, wasn't that Bill's job - in theory?)

Chelsea Clinton was born on 2/27/80 and Hillary did not do much campaigning for Bill that year ... and here is Hubbell wanting to hug her election night ...