| In West Virginia, he was damaged by the failure of Weirton Steel, an employee-owned company; the employees and their families were convinced the collapse was caused by my failure to limit cheap imported steel from Russia and Asia during the Asian financial crisisThe evidence indicated that the company had failed for other reasons, but the Weirton workers thought otherwise and Al paid the price
New Hampshire went for Bush by a margin of just over 7,000 because Nader got 22,198 votesEven worse, Nader received more than 90,000 votes in Florida, where Bush was hanging on by a thread in an election contest that would drag on for more than a month
As the Florida vote battle began, it was clear that we had picked up four seats in the Senate and one in the HouseThree incumbent House Republicans were defeated, including Jay Dickey, who lost to Mike Ross in Arkansas, and the Democrats picked up four seats in California, prevailing in all but one of the contested racesAl was at a disadvantage going into the election recount in Florida because the chief election official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, was a conservative Republican who was close to Governor Jeb Bush, and the state legislature that would certify the electors was dominated by conservative louis vuitton denim pleaty bag RepublicansOn the other hand, the state supreme court, which presumably would have the final say on the counting of ballots, had more judges appointed by Democratic governors and was thought to be less partisan
Two days later, still not knowing who my successor would be, I saw Arafat in the Oval OfficeThe violence was subsiding and I thought he might be serious about peaceI told him that I had only ten weeks left to make an agreementIn a private moment I held his arm, stared straight at him, and told him I also had a chance to make an agreement with North Korea to end its long-range missile production, but I would have to go there to do itThe whole trip would take a week or longer by the time I made the obligatory stops in South Korea, Japan, and China
If we were going to make peace in the Middle East, I knew I would have to close the dealI told Arafat I had done everything I could to get the Palestinians a state on the West Bank and Gaza while protecting the security of IsraelAfter all my efforts, if Arafat wasnt going to make peace, he owed it to me to tell me, so that I could go to North Korea to end another serious security threatHe pleaded with me to stay, saying that we had to finish the peace and that if we didnt do it before I left office, it would be at gucci bags discount least five years before wed be this close to peace again
That night, we had a dinner to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the White HouseLady Bird Johnson, President and MrsFord, President and MrsCarter, and President and MrsBush were all there to mark the birthday of the peoples house, which every President since John Adams had inhabitedIt was a wonderful moment in American history, but a tense one for President and MrsBush, who had to be on edge with their sons election hanging fireI was glad they had come
A few days later Chelsea and I went to Brunei for the annual APEC summitSultan Hassanal Bolkiah hosted our meeting in a beautiful new hotel and convention centerWe made some headway on the reforms necessary to avoid another Asian financial crisis, and Singapore prime minister Goh Chok Tong and I agreed to start negotiations on a bilateral free-trade agreementI also enjoyed a round of golf with Prime Minister Goh on a night golf course designed to help golfers manage the intense heatI had instituted the APEC leaders meeting back in 1993, and I was pleased with the expansion of the group and the work done since thenAt my last APEC meeting I thought the effort had borne fruit, not simply in specific agreements, but also in building an institution balenciaga most popular bag that tied the United States to Asia in the new century
After Brunei, Chelsea and I went to Vietnam for a historic visit to Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City (the old Saigon), and a site where Vietnamese were working with Americans to unearth the remains of our men still listed as missing in actionHillary flew in to join us from Israel, where she had gone to attend the funeral of Leah Rabin
I met with the Communist Party leader, the president, the prime minister, and the mayor of Ho Chi Minh CityThe higher the position, the more likely the leader was to sound like an old-style CommunistThe party leader, Le Kha Phieu, tried to use my opposition to the Vietnam War to condemn what the United States had done as an imperialist actI was angry about it, especially since he said it in the presence of our ambassador, Pete Peterson, who had been a prisoner of warI told the leader in no uncertain terms that while I had disagreed with our Vietnam policy, those who had pursued it were not imperialists or colonialists, but good people who believed they were fighting communismI pointed at Pete and said he hadnt spent six and a half years in the prison known as the Hanoi Hilton because he wanted to colonize VietnamWe had turned a new page with normalized relations, the trade gucci fabric agreement, and two-way cooperation on MIA issues; now was not the time to reopen old woundsThe president, Tran Duc Luong, was only a little less dogmatic
Prime Minister Phan Van Khai and I had established a good relationship at the APEC meetings; a year earlier he had told me he appreciated my opposition to the warWhen I said that the Americans who disagreed with me and supported the war were good people who wanted freedom for the Vietnamese, he replied, I knowKhai was interested in the future and hoped the United States would give Vietnam assistance in caring for the victims of Agent Orange and developing its economyThe mayor of Ho Chi Minh City, Vo Viet Thanh, sounded like every good aggressive American mayor I knewHe bragged about balancing his budget, reducing his payroll, and working for more foreign investmentBesides the officials, I shook hands with a large crowd of friendly people who gathered spontaneously to greet us after an informal lunch at a local restaurantThey wanted to build a common future
The trip to the MIA site was an experience none of us would ever forgetI thought back over the years to my high school classmates who had died in Vietnam and to the man Id helped when I was in Moscow in 1970, who was searching for information about his cartier pasha missing |
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