we do something at Vancouver to help Russia, with a high-impact follow-up at the annual G-7 summit in Tokyo in July. Early in the month I announced my new national security team: Madeleine Albright as secretary of state; Bill Cohen, former Republican senator f onicled in great detail by Sidney Blumenthal inThe Clinton Wars and by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons inThe Hunting of the President. I found myself swimming to many of my favorite tunes, from Elvis to jazz, a nice example of Korea’s famous hospitality.
In late November, Stan had sent me a memo saying my honeymoon with voters would be short-lived unless I moved quickly to address the problem of jobs and declining incomes. So they didn’t ask follow-up questions “because they were afraid I would give them a truthful answer. I had become deeply immersed in the details of budgeting, determined to understand the human impact of our decisions. Bob Rubin and his international economics team had been working on the financial crisis since Thailand’s trouble began.
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