The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories [Hardcover]

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1997

Cited by White House press secretary Mike McCurry as the origin of every major Clinton scandal story, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has done more than any other journalist to expose the truth about the Clintons. Now Evans-Pritchard is breaking the biggest scoop of all: an assiduously documented expose of "the black-water scandals" - the scandals that have gone unreported in the American media, but that characterize the Clinton presidency as the most corrupt in history. Among the secrets Evans-Pritchard exposes: The Oklahoma City bombing as a government sting operation that flew out of control when the stingers were outstung. Evans-Pritchard tells the story that the FBI and the Justice Department don't want you to know. Eyewitnesses to corruption in Clinton's Arkansas - many have met with brutal harassment, physical intimidation, and, in some cases, even suspicious death. Those who survived tell Evans-Pritchard their story. Bill Clinton's involvement in the drug underworld of Arkansas. Evans-Pritchard talks to the smugglers, the Arkansas state troopers, the federal agents and prosecutors, and the young girls who were the victims of "the good times." The true story of Vince Foster's death - what the official report won't tell you, but what eyewitnesses saw, and why the government is being sued for falsifying sworn testimony. In the aftermath of Vince Foster, the shocking story of the murder of Jerry Parks, head of Clinton security in Little Rock. Why Parks predicted his own death. Why the Left was right about Mena Airport: Evans-Pritchard discovers the missing evidence.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

These days, it seems like everyone's a Friend of Bill--Clinton's buddies from Arkansas are turning up in powerful White House positions faster than you can say "Whitewater." But make no mistake, British journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is no F.O.B.: in the course of The Secret Life of Bill Clinton's 350-plus pages, he manages to connect the president to everything from 1997's Oklahoma City bombing to Arkansas's drug underworld to the mysterious death of White House aide and longtime Clinton friend Vince Foster, and, of course, to Paula Jones. According to Evans-Pritchard--who has reported for the London-based Spectator, Sunday Telegraph (where he served as Washington bureau chief), and Daily Telegraph newspapers--Clinton's "original sin" was the Waco incident, the FBI's much-criticized assault on the Branch Davidian community in Texas that led to the deaths of 76 people. From that point on, the author asserts, it was all downhill for the American people.

Evans-Pritchard's exposé of Arkansas's favorite son is indeed scathing: he documents the then-governor's drug use and consort with prostitutes (primarily in the company of ne'er-do-well brother Roger); innumerable lies to friends, staff members, and the people who empowered him; numerous infidelities; blackmail--the list goes on and on. Evans-Pritchard claims that, because he is not an American citizen, he is not "beholden to any political or financial interest in the United States," and he does not "hang on lips of official sources," nor does he "fear the loss of access in Washington, or the blackball of [his] profession"; in other words, he ain't afraid to call 'em like he sees 'em. And although many of his seemingly wild claims and accusations are substantiated by thorough notes and appendixes following the text (including copies of original FBI documents), you're never quite convinced of the author's theories. Whether or not you come to believe, as Evans-Pritchard does, that "Arkansas was a mini-Colombia within the United States, infested by narco-corruption"; that--because of William Jefferson Clinton--"you can sniff the pungent odors of decay in the American body politic"; that the president's "actions and character ... have engendered the most deadly terrorist movement in the industrialized world," you will most certainly be entertained and enlightened by the dirt this British muckraker has uncovered. You may not be an F.O.B., but after reading this book, you may not mind so much.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing; First Printing edition (October 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895264080
• ISBN-13: 978-0895264084
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.5 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #162,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #8 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( C ) > Clinton, Bill

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 50 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Chilling Expose on the GANGSTERS Running America December 26, 1999

By Willa

Format:Hardcover

This book was published several years ago. I finally picked it up and started reading it a few days ago. I already suspected this was the most corrupt administration in my lifetime, but seeing it all in print, fact after fact after fact, using the FBI's own documents, witness interviews in which the author showed each witness the FBI written reports on their comments and the witnesses were stunned that their comments were so baldly misrepresented, misspelled names, I'm left with the only conclusion possible: The people running this country are hopelessly compromised.

The book, even these many years are the initial publication, is "unputdownable." Even if you've been following the corruption in this administration since its inception, this book will still blow your mind. Highly recommended!

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars How to become a Banana Republic without even trying (or one Scandal at a Time) March 22, 2008

By Herbert L Calhoun

Format:Hardcover

This is a chronicle of how the Clintons and their twelve years in the governor's mansion of Arkansas and two terms in the office of the Presidency have left our democratic institutions in shambles. From a perch at the pinnacle of the Dixie Mafia, Hot Springs Arkansas, they have taken the nation on a descent down into "anti-democratic" hell, from which the Republic may never recover. This book is a virtual catalogue of how they did it: an unimaginable tale of corruption and abuses of power that, in comparison, will make the Monica Lewinsky scandal seem like a Sunday school picnic.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard a reporter for London's Sunday Telegraph uses his considerable investigative skills and his diplomatic immunity from the Clinton terror tactics to weave a series of tales that will literally make the reader's hair stand on end. Everything here has the ring of truth. But even if it did not, and a tenth of it is correct, then we are already living deep inside a "well-regulated" police state.

One word of caution to the reader: A great deal of this is circumstantial and hearsay evidence, however, as will become obvious to any astute reader: in a "soft police state," after witnesses have been intimidated, cajoled and murdered; documents have been tampered with, lost or shredded; drug money has been laundered and reinvested; subpoenas have been ignored or squashed; secrecy and plausible deniability have been invoked to shield everything from the public; we have a sycophantic incurious press, and public officials have been muted, silenced, bribed or coached into lying -- all up and down the line -- there isn't much else left but hearsay and circumstantial evidence. Plus, there is so much of this kind of evidence that its preponderance and very cross-confirmation alone takes on a life of its own, that is to say, it lends to these stories a kind of credibility and credence of its own.

In each of the scandals included -- from the Okalahoma City bombing cover up, to the reasons for Vince Foster's and Jerry Parks murders, to Dan Lasater, Don Tyson, and the Stephen's brothers cocaine empire -- run by the Clintons out of the Arkansas Development Finance Administration (ADFA) -- to complicity in a contract to murder Colonel Terry Reed -- this is in every respect a blue print for how to turn our democracy into the world's largest "soft police state."

In short, this book is nothing if not the anatomy of a "soft police state" in the making, with the State of Arkansas taking the lead in the descent into irretrievable corruption. How does it happen? The subtext of this book gives us a step-by-step manual for how its done: When unchecked power, secrecy, a complacent public, weak kneed and corrupt political authorities and ruling elites, a press that will not face the reality before it, and large illicit sums of drug money, collide; and then collude: morality and civility are the first to go out the window. And then our democracy is in grave if not mortal danger.

Like a snake lying coiled waiting ready to spring on its prey from the grass, unwary citizens were enticed, lured, seduced or co-opted inside the circle of the Clinton corruption. Once inside, the noose is tightened and the trap door slammed shut. There are no exits except to "go on the lam" as Colonel Terry Reed, L. D. Brown, Patty-Ann Smith and Dennis Patrick did; or to play ball and pretend to love it, as Patsy Thomasson and Bob Nash, and so many others did; or be committed to jail or suicide as was done to Sarah McClendon; or be banished to purgatory as Paula Jones and Monica Lewinski were, or indeed give up your life as Vince Foster, Barry Seal and Jerry Parks did.

The author's thoughts are best summarized on page 316 when he is discussing the issue of Mena, Arkansas:

"What makes [the Iran Contra affair] so fascinating today is evidence that the CIA's base of operation was actively involved. The idea that an outwardly liberal and progressive Democrat like Bill Clinton was secretly assisting Oliver North's crusade against the Revolucion Sandinista is so shocking that the American press has dismissed it out of hand. But it is precisely because Mena turns the world upside down that it matters so much. If true, it validates the inchoate suspicion felt by many Americans that things are not what they seem. It suggests that the political rhetoric of the two parties in Washington is mere window dressing, while the real decisions are made in secret collusion without democratic accountability. To examine Mena is to examine the institutional condition of the United States. As for the president, it exposes him as a remarkable counterfeit, willing to betray his liberal principles for self-advancement."

This is truly scary stuff. Five stars

25 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Extraordinarily Important Book - All Citizens Should Read January 24, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

This could be one of the most important books you ever read. The Secret Life of Bill Clinton is essential to understanding the serious corruption that has infested our government under Bill Clinton. Most significantly, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's exposure of the existence and workings of the murderous Arkansas mafia from which Bill Clinton hatched is something every American should understand - particularly that Clinton brought elements of it with him right into the White House. Drug-trafficker Dan Lasater's chief lieutenant Patsy Thomasson, for example, is Clinton's Director of the White House Office of Administration. In no other book are the ugly facts and sinister associations laid with such stark clarity.

Evans-Pritchard writes with a clear and graceful style, laced with doses of dry English wit. Reviewing the fishy crime scene evidence relating to the gun found in Vincent Foster's hand, for example, he observes: "The revolver...had not found its final resting place. The crime scene photos show it hopping about in a most animated way in Foster's hand."

As a result of Evans-Pritchard being one of the small handful of journalists who actually investigated the death of Vincent Foster and certain other Clinton-related matters, he developed contacts and relationships with key witnesses and others that provide his his book with devestating factual revelations that cannot be found elsewhere.

For example, the first person known to have seen Vincent Foster's body in Fort Marcy Park, officially known as the "Confidential Witness" is absolutely certain that at the time he saw the body there was no gun. He tells Evans-Pritchard: "The whole thing stinks, he clearly didn't shoot himself there. You can't shoot yourself without a gun. The man had no gun. End of story."

Another example: Jerry Parks was a Little Rock private investigator with long-standing ties to Vincent Foster, as well as having been head of security for the 1992 Clinton-Gore headquarters in Little Rock. He had a file on Clinton extra-marital affairs that Foster had hired him to compile several years earlier. He was murdered gangland-style two months after the Foster death and the files were stolen. Evans-Pritchard, over a several-year period, was able to get Parks' widow and son to open up to him and provide extraordinary revelations tying his murder to the White House.

Evans-Pritchard, an Englishman, has an obvious affection for this country and an admiration for the finer qualities of the American character. His protagonists are the ordinary people who fight the abuses of power and corruption from their little corner. "It makes me feel almost proud to witness such defiance," he says. I was moved by his seeing the virtue in our country and its people while in the midst of exposing the putrid evil and corruption that few seem to realize even exists.

I wonder what motivated the man, a Brit on temporary assignment in the U.S., to perform the tremendous service to this country that I believe he has. I don't know, but I suspect it is a highly developed sense of justice and a properly aroused moral indignation. He came to the U.S. at the end of 1992 as an admirer of Bill and Hillary Clinton, but over time came to realize they were very different from their packaging. He explains "Sending people to prison on false charges - or trying to do so - is his [Clinton's] specialty, which is the chief reason I have come to revile the man." Of course, if you only get your information from the mainstream media, you wouldn't have any idea of what he is talking about - which is all the more reason to read this book.

Evans-Pritchard wrote a farewell article when he left America to return to England, the subtitle of which was "Rouse and Guard Your Liberties." The warning is apt, but you will have to read the book to understand why.