Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton (56 page)

While the IHRC had approved construction of nine large housing projects, those units would not be nearly sufficient, as Clinton was painfully aware. “In every natural disaster in which I have been involved for over 30 years now, the one thing that is always too slow is moving people from temporary to permanent housing . . . [but] we are on track to move hundreds of thousands of people within the year into permanent housing.”

As the effective substitute for an actual government, the IHRC had been heavily preoccupied with meeting the immediate needs of millions of Haitians for food, water, clothing, medical care, and temporary shelter. With donations stalled, Clinton and Bellerive had been forced to transfer a billion dollars in funding from construction and cleanup to meet those needs.

The criticism of Clinton and the IHRC tended to be somewhat self-contradictory. Critics worried that the commission was infringing on Haitian sovereignty and weakening the government, despite Bellerive’s role; yet those same critics complained that the commission was not making decisions quickly enough, which would have required it to ignore the dithering government.

Beyond Préval’s personal inadequacy and rampant corruption in many ministries was the inherent ineffectiveness of the Haitian state, which lacked basic tools of twenty-first-century governance. Many of its offices had no cars and no computers. But according to the agreement that created the IHRC, those ministries had to give the final authorization on every project.

Behind the “Build Back Better” slogan that Clinton had popularized was a fifty-six-page document titled “Action Plan for National Recovery and Development,” written by his IHRC cochair Bellerive, with guidance from U.N. and World Bank experts. That paper’s vision for a new Haiti reflected the outlook of the Clinton Foundation as well—emphasizing value-added agricultural production and processing, clean energy, tourism, and industrial investment that would mobilize Haiti’s inexpensive labor force. To Clinton, “sustainable development” implied private sector financing and the creation of profitable businesses at every level, from tiny craft cooperatives to luxury hotels.

Engaged as Clinton himself was with Haitian affairs, he delegated the daily business of the IHRC, the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, the Haiti Action Network, and the coordination of those entities to Laura Graham—a former deputy on his White House scheduling team who had served as the foundation’s chief of staff since 2005. Graham had been deeply involved in the relief efforts for the Asian tsunami and had cochaired the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund, and had overseen Clinton’s work in Haiti since he signed on as the U.N. special envoy in 2009.

Smart and dedicated, Graham had risen from a struggling, working-class family on Staten Island, and she empathized deeply with the Haitian poor. She drew both praise and criticism as Clinton’s eyes and ears on the island, working twelve-hour days and traveling back and forth from New York at least three times a month. Despite her other responsibilities at the foundation, she estimated in a 2011 interview that she devoted almost 70 percent of her time to Haiti.

Nobody questioned Graham’s energy or good intentions, but she had little experience in government or development at the level where she found herself after the earthquake. She got along well with her Haitian counterpart on the IHRC, executive director Gabriel Verret, but there were officials in the U.N. bureaucracy who resented so much clout in the hands of a thirty-eight-year-old woman without an appropriate résumé. And among ordinary Haitians, her presence did not compensate for the absence of Clinton, whom they had expected, perhaps unrealistically, to see more frequently in their country.

As Haitians marked that first anniversary with tears and prayers in the ruins of the Port-au-Prince Cathedral, there was at least one notable sign of recovery: the city’s historic Marché en Fer, or Iron Market, a remarkable nineteenth-century structure that had partially burned down in 2009 and then almost completely toppled in the earthquake, was open again—rebuilt and fully restored by an Irish billionaire named Denis O’Brien. Derelict for years, in its glory days the market had sheltered nearly a thousand sellers of everything from live poultry, turtles, fresh produce, and flowers to perfumes, herbal potions, toys, crafts, and housewares.

It had been, and would be again, the commercial and cultural heart of the capital.

The founder of Digicel, Haiti’s largest cell phone company and one
of the biggest in the Caribbean, O’Brien had seized a leading role in the country’s recovery well before the earthquake struck. He and Clinton had become fast friends. When Clinton went down to Port-au-Prince with medical supplies a few days after the quake, O’Brien met him at the airport to assist with logistics. The largest foreign investor by far in the local economy, he had worked tirelessly in the relief effort, giving away tens of millions of dollars in direct aid and free phone credits as well as the use of his corporate aircraft.

Sharing Clinton’s affection for Haiti, O’Brien had joined CGI and become chair of its Haiti Action Network, one of the organization’s most active groups, which meant that he oversaw more than a hundred commitment projects on the island valued at over $200 million. In fact the Iron Market restoration, funded through his Digicel Foundation, was itself a CGI commitment.

With his team of architects and builders, O’Brien had restored the old market—consisting of two huge covered sheds, connected by an archway under a gorgeous red clock tower with four ornate, turreted minarets—in a matter of months rather than years. Aside from his personal drive and willingness to spend roughly $12 million of his own money, rather than wait for international donors to write a check, O’Brien had enjoyed the assistance of one of the few competent political leaders in Haiti, the capital’s mayor, Jean-Yves Jason.

It was nevertheless an amazing feat, not least because the builders had so diligently taken care to salvage and reuse materials from the old building, and to accurately re-create its original louvers and tiles. Yet the new market was modern, too, with mobile money transactions available, and all of the vendors registered, each with his (or more often her) own stall number. It was built to withstand hurricanes and earthquakes, its lighting and electricity powered by the sun.

More than nine hundred jubilant merchants reclaimed their stalls amid a massive grand opening celebration on January 11 that featured speeches by O’Brien and Clinton.

Something in Haiti truly had been built back better.

The difficulty of rebuilding Haiti was proving as intractable as Clinton’s aides had predicted—and fairly or not, a degree of blame for the lack of
progress had stuck to the former president. But as with so many stories about the troubles of other countries, public attention to the Haitian tragedy had waned in the United States, even though millions of Americans had donated to relief funds. In his own country, Clinton’s reputation sustained little if any damage from the disorder and confusion in the island republic.

Instead, he seemed to be climbing new peaks of popular esteem.

Back when he was president, Clinton’s pettier critics had often accused him of cheating at golf, an accusation that became a staple of late-night comedy routines. By early 2011, however, the Professional Golfers Association had determined that Clinton would be the ideal partner to resuscitate the Bob Hope Classic, a long-standing PGA tour event on the edge of extinction after losing its namesake, the entertainment legend, who died in 2003, and its corporate sponsor, Chrysler Motors, which withdrew several years later.

As keen golfers and fans, Clinton and Band were eager to work with the golf tour if they could find a way to fit the Bob Hope event’s traditional charitable purpose with the work of the Clinton Foundation. In late January, the PGA issued a press release announcing that talks with Clinton had begun. Within a few months, they negotiated a three-way agreement that brought together Humana Health Care, the Clinton Foundation, and the PGA to rename the tournament after its corporate sponsor, with Clinton as its host and spokesman. “I think everyone knew there had to be some sort of reorganization in order to save [the tournament],” said Clinton. “We thought this would be an opportunity to focus on the health and wellness of children, and that’s a big part of what my foundation does now.”

Still more surprising, given the animosity he had routinely expressed on air toward both Bill and Hillary Clinton, was the sustained courtship by Chris Matthews, host of
Hardball
, MSNBC’s nightly political show. Except for the hardline conservatives on Fox News, few television personalities were more consistently hostile, during Clinton’s presidency and impeachment, and later during Hillary’s presidential run. But Matthews’s opinion of Bill Clinton had changed—or so he had sought to persuade Band, inviting the Clinton aide to a very public lunch at Michael’s
restaurant, preferred watering hole for the city’s literati and media elite, just blocks from NBC headquarters in Rockefeller Center.

What Matthews wanted was more ambitious than a
Hardball
appearance by Clinton. He proposed a one-hour documentary special—billed as
President of the World: The Bill Clinton Phenomenon
—on the post-presidential works and influence of the man who had once been merely president of the United States.

Eventually Clinton assented to this project, which featured interviews with him and friends such as Terry McAuliffe and Tony Blair, video of him on trips to Africa and domestic political campaigns, and “exclusive behind the scenes access” of Matthews following him around, even to a conference in Northern Ireland. At one point, the MSNBC host observes, “You’re like a one-man Peace Corps.”

The special aired on February 21, Presidents Day, provoking the
Chicago Tribune
reviewer to ask why Matthews had produced “a fawning special on Bill Clinton, complete with worshipful comments from celebrities such as Ben Stiller, Kevin Spacey, and Mary Steenburgen.” The
Washington Post
reviewer wasn’t impressed either, disdaining the documentary as “a promotional film for someone who isn’t running for anything.”

But the
Post
review conceded that Clinton “has busied himself in a number of worthy ways, especially when he heads toward human and natural disasters (wars, tsunamis, earthquakes, hostage crises) to raise relief funds or broker a solution. He loves the world and, as we see on many a tarmac and in convention halls and hotel lobbies hither and yon, the world still loves him back.”

The world’s apparent appreciation of Clinton encouraged hopes that he could rescue other Americans in trouble abroad, as he had done for Euna Lee and Laura Ling. Ever since his return from North Korea, his office had received entreaties on behalf of Americans held captive by unfriendly regimes, such as the three young hikers taken prisoner by Iranian border guards in July 2009. His answer was that he would go anywhere to save an American if there was a reasonable expectation of success—and the U.S. government authorized the trip.

In March 2011, Band and Cooper secretly visited Cuba for a day, to
see whether Clinton might be able to bring back Alan Gross, a USAID contractor who had been arrested in Havana on December 3, 2009, convicted of “crimes against state security,” and sentenced to ten years in prison. After two years, his mental and physical health were deteriorating, and the Cubans had sent signals that they might release him in exchange for concessions by Washington—possibly including an exchange for the “Cuban Five,” a group of Cuban spies serving prison sentences for serious crimes committed in the United States.

Fidel Castro was known to like Clinton, dating back to an occasion at the U.N. in 2000 when the Cuban president had lingered to speak with the American president, who was about to leave office and bidding farewell to the heads of state gathered there.

“Of the six American presidents I’ve had to deal with, you’re my favorite,” said Castro in Spanish, as an interpreter translated. “I wish you and your family well.” Their handshake made national news and on two or three occasions since then, Castro had sent Clinton a signed box of cigars through a third party. Clinton and Band had also gotten to know Bruno Rodríguez, Castro’s foreign minister, when he had served for several years as U.N. ambassador. It was Rodríguez who suggested that Band visit Havana.

When Band asked whether the Obama administration wanted him to go, the answer was positive. White House officials arranged briefings at the State Department and the special Treasury Department license necessary to allow Band and Cooper to travel to Havana legally. They flew down and stayed at the legendary Hotel Nacional—only to learn that neither the Cubans nor the Americans were then prepared to reach a deal. But it was a gesture that showed, late in Obama’s first term, that his administration might explore a thaw in the Cold War freeze between the two nations. That controversial process wouldn’t begin in earnest until after his reelection.

After ten years in Harlem, where his post-presidency had commenced with about a dozen employees, Bill Clinton’s operations had outgrown their quarters on 125th Street. The foundation had more than one thousand employees worldwide and hundreds in New York who needed more space—and cheaper space. Ironically, Clinton’s presence
had helped to spur a rise in the value of uptown real estate that made renting downtown much cheaper per square foot—which had forced America’s “first black president” to leave the neighborhood, like too many other African American residents forced out by its growing gentrification.

So that summer the foundation would move to 77 Water Street, a financial district building where the rent would cost less for a considerably bigger headquarters. The configuration of the Water Street building made it possible to house the entire foundation on a single floor, rather than on several floors. Clinton would still continue to use a smaller portion of the Harlem space for his personal office.

But deeper, more consequential changes were occurring beneath the surface in Clinton’s world. In May, a former journalist named Declan Kelly resigned his position as the State Department’s special economic envoy for Northern Ireland, an unusual (and unpaid) position created by Hillary to employ his special connections and talents. After making a fortune as a business consultant in his native Ireland, Kelly had come to New York. He had gotten involved in Hillary’s 2000 Senate race and brought millions of dollars into her 2008 campaign, but she hadn’t hired Kelly for his prowess as a fundraiser. He was exceptionally well connected with business leaders around the world, including the leadership of Coca-Cola and Dow Chemical, and his tenure in the State Department had been widely praised for its success.