1993

Bill Clinton

Day 1 approval rating: 58 percent; Day 100: 55 percent

Mr. Clinton was managing crises of various degrees from the first days of his presidency. There was the divisive “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and a public outcry over his first attorney general pick, who had hired an undocumented immigrant as a nanny. Then the deadly siege in Waco caught the nation and its new president completely off guard.

Jan. 14, 1993

The Times reported that Zoë Baird had employed an undocumented immigrant as her nanny.

Mack McLarty Chief of staff



As President Clinton said, I think my honeymoon was about 30 minutes.

There’s so much to do and so little time. You’re invariably going to have U.F.O.s.

Dee Dee Myers Press secretary



The Zoë Baird thing hit, and that sent us into crisis mode.

I remember we were in George Stephanopoulos’s office, and President Clinton came in. And we were trying to figure out how to manage this. By today’s standards, of course, it seems like nothing. She had hired people who were in the country illegally as her housekeeper, and the woman’s husband was her driver.

We wondered: Were we O.K.? Can we put this back together, if she apologizes and pays back taxes on them?

Mark D. Gearan Deputy chief of staff



It felt like some of the political pressure and the voices on this were steadier and stronger from outside Washington because, of course, in an urban area it was much more normative. It felt somewhat disconnected from Washington. And there was some need on our part to kind of catch up with the reaction that people had.

Myers

He wanted an administration that looked like America, and he pledged that his cabinet would reflect that. And the expectation was that one of the big four would be a woman. The secretaries of state, defense, Treasury were all men. The pressure to appoint a woman was substantial. And that complicated the process.

Gearan

If anything, you go back to 1993 in the context of technology today, social media, broadly the media and how we got information, it seems like I worked for Millard Fillmore or something. It’s extraordinary.

Late January 1993

Mr. Clinton had promised during his campaign to look for a way to lift the ban on military service by openly gay men and lesbians. But resistance from leaders of both parties quickly made that impossible.

Myers

So that blew up. And what made that so challenging was it wasn’t a partisan issue. Sam Nunn [Democrat of Georgia] was chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he basically laid his body down and said, “This ain’t gonna happen.” And we were stuck.

Colin Powell was against it. We were checkmated early in that game, so the question was: How do you advance the goal of gay and lesbian Americans serving openly in the armed services, or serving at all, with the reality that the public didn’t support it, the Congress didn’t support it and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t support it?

Gearan

As part of the distraction, there was the confusion about the policy within the party and on the Hill — the question of “Why are we bringing this up? Why did we start with this issue?” There was a sense that this had intentionally been placed on the first-100-day agenda when in fact there were these things that came to him. It’s not like any working memo of the first 100 days recommended “Nannygate,” Waco and “Don’t ask” as the legislative agenda.

McLarty

I used to keep a Waterford dome on my desk that Steny Hoyer [a Democratic congressman from Maryland] gave me, because each one of those members thinks they’re going to be the most important person that you’re going to see that day. And some of them, particularly in the Senate, think they should be sitting there in the Oval Office instead of the current occupant.

The Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Tex., on April 19, 1993. Susan Weems/Associated Press

April 19, 1993

The F.B.I. raided the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, leading to the deaths of 76 people, including children.

Myers

That was horrible for so many reasons. It had been going on already for 50, 60 days. And that’s why the F.B.I. decided to actually raid the compound. All those children.

I remember very clearly walking around, everybody had their TVs turned on, and all you could see was flames. And we didn’t know what was in the flames.

McLarty

We all knew it was high risk and unpredictable. But certainly decisions had to be made to protect the children.

Gearan

Everything is a case of first impression. In our case, it had been how many years since Democrats were in the executive branch? Our people had been governors and on the Hill. But in terms of the executive branch, the experience was very limited. So everything was through that freshness of the moment.

And then there was the learning curve that many of Mr. Clinton’s relatively young staff members had to reckon with as they went to work each day in the White House.

Myers

Clinton, by nature, is informal. So the culture around him was informal — much less formal than the Bush culture had been. Neither Bush ever entered the Oval Office without wearing a tie. We didn’t know that. President Clinton would occasionally come to the Oval Office on weekends in a short-sleeve shirt. Some of us would come to work in jeans.

When you’re in the epicenter, the cathedral of American politics, everything you do communicates something.

Gearan

I can remember being in a meeting. It was in the residence, and there are these half-moon-shaped windows. And I recalled seeing these black-and-white photos of Lyndon Johnson sitting in that same place. It’s then you realize the enormity of the burdens on the president.