BIOGRAPHY
William Jefferson Clinton was the young President from Hope,
Arkansas, who won where no other person of the Democrat Party had after Franklin
Roosevelt.
Bill Clinton was born on the 19th of August 1946. He was named after his father,
who had died before Clinton was born. Virginia Kelley, his mother, remarried
Roger Clinton, whose surname Clinton later adopted. As a child Bill Clinton was
always obsessed with politics.
He got his B.S. in International affairs in 1968 while he worked for Senator J.
William Fulbright. He taught for a very short period in the University of
Arkansas after he graduated from Yale Law School.
He was the youngest Governor in the nation as he was just 32 when elected in
1978. He was the head of Centrist Democratic Leadership Council for a year. In
1992, Clinton defeated Republican George H. W. Bush and won the Democratic
presidential nomination.
After being elected as President, Clinton focused on economic issues so that he
could uplift the growth of the sluggish American Economy. He wanted to make
changes in the Democratic Party by concentrating on issues that were for the
common middle class.
Clinton was firm on certain issues like gun control, gay rights, equal
employment, making abortion legal, giving opportunities for education, and
issues relating to national health insurance and environmental protection, He
also worked on tax reforms so that the burden of tax was more on the rich. He
also made major changes in the U.S. Health care system which would have been of
great benefit to the Americans. All his efforts failed as he was opposed
fiercely by the opposition.
As President, Clinton had some major achievements like the N.A.F.T.A which came
into effect from 1stJan 1994 and the G.A.T.T. which helped in the establishment
of World Trade Organization. In order to restore the presidency of Jean-Bertrand
Aristide’s, Clinton sent U.S. forces to Haiti in 1994. He also withdrew
U.S. forces from Somalia (1994). Peace agreements were negotiated in the Middle
East which bore fruit in the form of important peace agreements. He also
restored the diplomatic relations with Vietnam in 1995.
The two major setbacks that Clinton suffered during his term wa
s
firstly he was not able to get the health care reform and secondly his
impeachment on Dec 19th. It was initiated by the House of Representatives on
grounds that he had lied on oath, on the issue of his affair with Monica
Lewinsky who was an intern in the White House. His impeachment damaged his name
and place in history as he became the second president to be impeached, though
the Senate could not convict him on impeachment charges.
Apart from the impeachment controversy, Clinton had to deal with problems that
continued with Iraq. When Saddam blocked the inspection of the weapons by the
United Nations, they started air strikes which continued for 3 months everyday
and the Iraqis also responded by shooting down patrolling jets.
The President, during his final year in the office made several foreign trips to
South Asia, Africa and Europe. He lent his support to Al Gore who was hoping to
contest for the next presidential elections and to his wife Hillary Clinton who
was running for the Senate.
Before leaving his office on Jan 19th 2001 Clinton agreed to pay a fine of
$25,000 to the Arkansas Bar Association as well as accepted suspension for a
period of five years, in exchange of which Robert Ray agreed to end the threat
of criminal liability against him. In spite of these set backs Clinton was
highly popular among the Americans.
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