Bill Clinton - 1992                                  Home


While watching Bill Clinton on TV during the 1992 primaries I heard him give a good guffaw. As soon as I heard that laugh, it reminded me of the young man whom I had met at the 1967 anti-Vietnam war protest at the Pentagon. It was the same southern accented “Ha Ha” that I had heard after he checked my expired draft card before I burned it on national TV.

The more I learned about Bill Clinton the more intrigued I became. I remembered seeing him inaugurated with his longish hair as the youngest governor of a state ever and hearing of his wife trying to enlist in the marines. Then I learned of his writing a letter in 69 to Colonel Holmes, who had helped him get his draft deferment, outlining his opposition to the Viet Nam war and rejecting his deferment. Then I find out he was McGovern's Texas campaign manager in 72 when I had the encounter with McGovern. Now I'm wondering if Bill Clinton was not only the young man who was responsible for me being on national TV in 67, but also the young man accompanying George McGovern at the U. of Illinois in 72.

I found out he was working for William Fulbright in the summer of 68 when I wrote my letter to the draft board renouncing my deferment. Fulbright had been the first Senator to openly oppose the war. I have to wonder now if Bill wasn't feeding information back to the CIA concerning Fulbright's activities. In 69 Bill applied for a deferment for entering a ROTC program at the U. of Arkansas - a deferment he later rejected after his draft number was so high he knew he wasn't going to get called. In the fall of 69 he helped organize two demonstrations at Oxford and I've read that he then relayed the activities of the leaders back to his CIA contact in England – Cord Meyer.

I have to wonder if Bill wasn't aware of my letter to the draft board in 68. Since he had checked my expired draft card at the demonstration in 67 (and I believe given my name to his contact at the CIA) he definitely knew my name. So he would have known it was me that had written the letter to the draft board in 68 and the letter to McGovern in 72.

I have to wonder if Bill wasn't influenced by my letter to the draft board to send one of his own which he did in 69. As a state campaign manager for McGovern Bill would have been aware of my letter and contribution to McGovern and remembered my name and knew that I was the draft card burner which he would have relayed to George. McGovern later talks about me on national TV as being a member of the “God is Dead” generation who was dropping back in as an example of the healing of the nation that he was helping regardless of whether he won the election or not.

Knowing that Bill had been reporting back to the CIA on anti-war protesters probably soured me on Bill and I became one of his harshest critics. Since I had been a phony draft card burner it was easy for me to spot a phony. I called into a radio talk show and pointed out that he was a phony in three areas I could think of – pot smoking, draft resisting, and husbandry. He sat at these pot parties pretending to inhale. He wrote his letter to his draft board supposedly refusing to serve when he had already received a lottery number so high that he would not be drafted anyway. That especially irked me because although I had burned an expired draft card at the Pentagon I had given up my career (not to mention possible future parties with Arnold's groupies) to protest the war. And, of course, we all know he was pretty good at pretending to be faithful to his wife.

Bill's overriding concern was becoming President of the U.S. He tried to become a war protester but he knew he couldn't take that too far without jeopardizing his future so he did what a politician does best. He tried to placate both sides. He wanted to appear as a draft protester to his friends while not paying the price that a real protester would have to face.


See Bill Clinton-4.