August 4, 1994 - Part 5
August 4, 1994 - Part 5
(13:25:44) Mr. McLARTY. As great a privilege as it is to serve, the quick answer is too many of all. But in the course of a day my office would receive between 50 and 100 calls, we would try to return, as you know, most of them. There would be meetings not only on my schedule, but, more importantly certainly, on the President's schedule, that I either needed to be aware of or attend. And the hours although hours in the private sector for the people of this country are long and demanding, they are very long and demanding in public service as well. Sixteen-, 18-hour clays were not uncommon and are not uncommon to Members of this Committee. Ms. WILLIAMS. Senator, I believe that Mack has spoken well for me in terms of the hours and the number of meetings that we are involved in during the course of the day, but let me also talk a little bit about some of the activities around which those meetings and those telephone calls, what they had to do with. Mrs. Kelly, the President's mother, died the beginning of January, right after that the President and Mrs. Clinton went on with the planned trip to Russia. This was also the same month that California experienced the earthquakes. Mrs. Clinton went out later during that month to talk with the people in California, especially the children who were there. And also during that month, January, was the President's State of the Union on Health Care. And so you can imagine the amount of time that both Mr. McLarty and members of the White House staff put in that direction. We also--our entertaining did not stop. We had the National Governors Association dinner which is a pretty big deal to us. In addition we had the spouses. 340 In February, I believe the President and Mrs. Clinton came to Capitol Hill, I believe in Statuary Hall, to talk about Health Care. I also know that Mrs. Clinton headed the delegation to the Olympics. So there were a number of things that were happening which we deemed very important, which we deemed high enough on our priority to do a lot of meetings, work 18 hours a day and take all of those phone calls. Senator MOSELEY-BRAUN. And to that I would say-boy, the light has gone on already. The CHAIRMAN. I know you needed another couple of minutes and Senator D'Amato has agreed to that. Senator MOSELEY-BRAUN. Oh, lovely. Thank you very much, Senator DAmato. And to that I would add and Mr. McLarty's statement, concluded the North American Free Trade Agreement, late lifted sanctions against South Africa, reinstituted the Super 301 Trade Powers, obtained GATT agreement, convened the APEC in Seattle, brought our G-7 allies to Detroit for a major conference on jobs. I remember that. Not to mention the economic legislation and the domestic agenda that he talked. So this was a very, busy, busy time, which gets to the question of structure and which I think really is credit here because we had a situation in which Mr. Altman was-had two jobs, for all intents and purposes, and it sounds like, based on the testimony, really more than two jobs because he had the RTC Interim Chairmanship/CEO and then the Deputy over at Treasury and then he was involved with Health Care, and so Mr. Altman was involved in all these activities. Ms. Hanson was for all intents and purposes wearing two hats as well, at Treasury and then also helping Mr. Altman with regard to RTC matters. My sum-up question, because I know I'm beyond time, given all of these circumstances and given the fact that you have to be able to structure interactions with this kind of context, would you agree-and I want to ask my question specifically to Mr. McLarty-I think what it suggests is that, would you agree that perhaps some additional steps ought to be taken to assure that the systems and processes and procedures are in place for employees at not just the White House because we've seen it-it was in place for the White House personnel, but for these related agencies as well and members of the Cabinet as well to make certain these interactions happen in a coherent, comprehensive way and we can avoid situations like the one we're in now. Mr. McLARTY. Senator, I would strongly agree with that. I think you make a very good point. I believe Secretary Bentsen responded to that briefly in response to questions here and I felt that was a very productive time of these hearings. Senator MOSELEY-BRAUN. Thank you very much, Ms. Williams and Mr. McLarty. Again, to Senator D'Amato, thank you very much for allowing me to go over my time. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator, Senator Domenici. 341