American Evita: Hillary Clinton's Path to Power by Christopher P. Andersen Page B

where it was quickly determined that the baby would have to be delivered by cesarean section. Up until that point, no fathers were permitted to witness cesarean births. But Hillary and Bill were both adamant that he could handle it; Virginia was a trained nurse anesthetist, and had taken Bubba to witness a number of operations as a child.
    The doctors relented, and Governor Clinton was standing by in scrubs when Chelsea Victoria Clinton arrived on February 27, 1980. Hillary and Bill had arrived at the name back in 1978, while vacationing in England during the Christmas season. They were strolling through London’s Chelsea district when they heard Judy Collins’s version of Joni Mitchell’s “Chelsea Morning.” At that moment, they both agreed that if they ever had a daughter, that’s what they’d name her: Chelsea. The name they selected for a boy was less imaginative—and predictable: William.
    After taking a four-month maternity leave, Hillary turned the day-to-day care of Chelsea over to a live-in nurse and returned to her office. There would be no more children; doctors warned that another pregnancy might jeopardize the lives of both mother and child.
    Hillary threw herself back into her work, confident that her husband would handily defeat his Republican opponent, political newcomer Frank White—so confident, in fact, that she continued to rebuff her husband’s repeated pleas that she append his name to hers. Hillary also turned a deaf ear to friends who complained that they did not like receiving printed invitations from “Governor Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham.”
    As it happened, 1980 was turning out to be a challenging year for the nation as a whole. Interest rates were up, the economy was down, and the Iran Hostage Crisis became a focal point for wide-spread frustration over the Carter administration’s seemingly ineffectual foreign policy.
    Neither Hillary nor her husband was prepared for Jimmy Carter’s decision to relocate twenty thousand Cuban refugees—primarily mental patients and convicts who had been shipped by Castro to the U.S. as part of the notorious Mariel boat lift—to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, for resettlement. A political bombshell was in the making. Furious that they had been betrayed by their friend from Georgia, Hillary urged her husband to call the White House and demand that they rescind the order. When they refused, Bill flew into one of his legendary purple-veined tantrums.
    Publicly, the Clintons said nothing about their tiff with the Carter administration. Hillary believed it was important that, with their sights already on the White House, Bill not appear to break ranks with the national leadership.
    Just how high a price the Clintons would have to pay began to come into focus in June, when nearly a thousand young Cubans protesting their confinement broke out of the camp and swarmed toward the neighboring town of Fort Smith. Bill called out the National Guard to round up the Cubans and restore order.
    A few days later, Hillary insisted on accompanying Bill as he went to confront Fort Chaffee’s commander, General James “Bulldog” Drummond, and demand federal help in containing the prisoners.But, on orders from the White House, none would be forthcoming.
    When the dust had settled later that summer, Hillary was confident Arkansas voters would see her husband as the man who took action and contained the violence. But the Republicans took advantage of the fact that Bill had not openly criticized his friend the President. Frank White’s campaign ran a series of TV ads showing footage of rioting Cubans with the voice-over: Bill Clinton cares more about Jimmy Carter than he does about Arkansas .
    The Clintons did not buy airtime to refute White’s allegations. “The charges were so ridiculous,” Hillary said, “we didn’t think we had to answer them.”
    The Cuban problem was only one of several the thirty-four-year-old governor faced. Bill’s decision to raise car