Now here is how the oblivious Branch reports the incident. Clinton came over to him and "whispered, leaning over, 'Did you see that?'" Branch said no. Nonetheless, he dutifully records Clinton's version of our encounter: "Emmett Tyrrell, publisher of The American Spectator (actually, I am editor-in-chief), had slipped through the partition to ask whether Clinton had read his new article, 'The Arkansas Drug Shuttle.'" Branch describes the piece as one that "vouched for the most lurid anti-Clinton fantasies in circulation, about how the former governor had nurtured a drugs-and-murder CIA ring from the airport in Mena, Arkansas." Where poor Branch got that interpretation of the piece I do not know. Probably he took Clinton's word for it.
Had Branch read the piece, he never would have seen anything about a "drugs-and-murder CIA ring." All the piece reports is that Clinton encouraged one of his state troopers to do contract work for the CIA, during which the trooper discovered that another contract worker, the pilot flying arms from Mena into Central America, was bringing back cocaine. After he reported this to Gov. Clinton, the trooper claims Clinton quipped as though he had been aware of the trafficking. Possibly Clinton was just BSing, as he often does, and really knew nothing about the drug trafficking. If so, he opened himself up to a greater controversy than merely being aware of a CIA arms operation out of his state.
Clinton's lies often get him in trouble, as those familiar with the scandals of his presidency know. That night at The Jockey Club, Branch reports, Clinton went on "gasping" that "Tyrrell had brought two young teenage girls with him like shields, which made it hard to fend him off." Well, fending off intruders at a presidential meal is something the Secret Service does very well. Obviously, the Post's report is accurate. I was invited over by Clinton. He bounded across the room, and I immediately introduced him to my daughter and her friend, whereupon he talked about his daughter's trip to camp. "Shields," indeed; actually, Clinton had invited them over, too.
One would think that Branch, who by 1995 had been with the president frequently, would have understood one does not breach a Secret Service barrier. Why make me out to be a boor in an episode that is so patently absurd? Moreover, why mischaracterize a magazine piece that any curious reader can see has been mischaracterized? Is Taylor Branch (sounds like an upscale bourbon, no?) a willing accomplice with Clinton in defaming a Clinton critic, or is he another of Clinton's episodic apologists, whom the ex-president uses for his own purposes? I believe the latter, and I shall commiserate with him if ever he returns my telephone calls. But Branch's readers should beware. This book is very unreliable.