William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton
42nd President of the United States
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946)[1] was the forty-second President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. He was the third-youngest president, older only than Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. He became president at the end of the Cold War, and is known as the first baby boomer president, as he was born in the period after World War II.[2] He is the husband of the junior United States Senator from the state of New York and a Democratic candidate in the 2008 US presidential election, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Clinton was described as a New Democrat and was largely known for the Third Way philosophy of governance that came to epitomize his two terms as president.[3] His policies, on issues such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, have been described as "centrist."[4][5] Clinton presided over the longest period of peace-time economic expansion in American history, which included a balanced budget and a reported federal surplus.[6][7] Clinton reported a surplus of $559 billion at the end of his presidency, based on Congressional accounting rules. His presidency was also quickly challenged. On the heels of a failed attempt at health care reform with a Democratic Congress, Republicans won control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.[8] In his second term he was impeached by the U.S. House for perjury and obstruction of justice,[9] but was subsequently acquitted by the United States Senate and completed his term.[10]
Clinton left office with a 65% approval rating, the highest end-of-presidency rating of any President who came into office after World War II. However, public reaction to the Lewinsky scandal left a mixed impression about his personal character. Since leaving office, Clinton has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. He created the William J. Clinton Foundation to promote and address international causes, such as treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS and global warming. In 2004, he released a personal autobiography, My Life.
Early life
William Jefferson Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III in Hope, Arkansas. His father was William Jefferson Blythe, Jr., a traveling salesman, who died in a car accident three months prior to the birth of his son.[1] Following Bill's birth, his mother, Virginia Dell Cassidy (1923-1994), traveled to New Orleans to study nursing, leaving Clinton in Hope with her parents, Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and operated a small grocery store.[11] At a time when the Southern United States was still segregated, Clinton's grandparents defied social convention and sold goods on credit to people of all races.[12] In 1950, Clinton's mother returned from nursing school and shortly thereafter married Roger Clinton, who together with his brother owned an automobile dealership in Hot Springs, Arkansas.[13] As such, Bill moved to Hot Springs in 1950 to live with his mother and stepfather.
It was not until Billy (as he was known then) turned fourteen that he formally adopted his stepfather's surname of Clinton, although he had assumed use of it before then. Clinton has said that he remembers his stepfather as a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused his mother and, at times, his half-brother, Roger, Jr.[13][14]
Education
In Hot Springs, Clinton attended St. John's Catholic Elementary School, Ramble Elementary School, and Hot Springs High School - where he was an active student leader, avid reader, and musician.[15] He was in the chorus and played the tenor saxophone, winning first chair in the state band's saxophone section. He briefly considered dedicating his life to music, but as he noted in his autobiography My Life:
| “ | (…) Sometime in my sixteenth year I decided I wanted to be in public life as an elected official. I loved music and thought I could be very good, but I knew I would never be John Coltrane or Stan Getz. I was interested in medicine and thought I could be a fine doctor, but I knew I would never be Michael DeBakey. But I knew I could be great in public service.[16] | ” |
In 1963, two influential moments in Clinton's life contributed to his decision to become a public figure. One was his visit to the White House to meet President John F. Kennedy, as a Boys Nation senator.[13][14] The other was listening to Martin Luther King's 1963 I Have a Dream speech (he memorized Dr. King's words).[17]
With the aid of scholarships, Clinton attended the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., receiving a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (B.S.F.S.) degree in 1968. He spent the summer of 1967, the summer before his senior year, working as an intern for Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright.[13] While in college he became a brother of Alpha Phi Omega and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.[18] Clinton was also a member of Youth Order of DeMolay, but he never actually became a Freemason.[19] He is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi's National Honorary Band Fraternity, Inc.
Upon graduation he won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford where he studied Government.[14] He developed an interest in rugby union, playing at Oxford and later for the Little Rock Rugby club in Arkansas. While at Oxford he also participated in Vietnam War protests, including organizing an October 1969 Moratorium event.[13] In later life he admitted to smoking cannabis at the university, but claimed that he "never inhaled".[14]
After Oxford, Clinton attended Yale Law School and obtained a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1973.[14] While at Yale, he began dating law student Hillary Rodham who was a year ahead of him. They married in 1975 and their only child, Chelsea, was born in 1980.
