Clinton, Bill

William Jefferson Blythe III was born on August 19, 1946 in the city of in Arkansas . His father, William Jefferson Blyth Jr. (1918-1946), was a salesman selling equipment. Mother, Virginia Dell Cassidy (1923–1994), after school, went to study as an anesthetist in Shreveport , Louisiana , where she met her future husband William. In 1943, they married, after which William, who by then had been drafted into the army, was sent to Egypt : the Second World War was on . He completed his service in Italy in December 1945. Returning to his homeland, William decided to move with his wife to Chicago . May 17, 1946, on the road from Chicago to Hope, William died in a car accident. Virginia was his fourth wife, and Bill his third child. The father still has two children from his first two marriages, who lived in the families of his mothers: a son, Henry Leon, born in 1938, and daughter Sharon Lee, born in 1941. Bill's mother returned to Shreveport after giving birth, to continue her education, and the first years of the upbringing of little Bill were his grandmother and grandfather - Eldridge and Edith Cassidy. They contained a grocery store. Despite the racial segregation that prevailed in the United States in those years, they served even the so-called “colored” population of the city, causing dissatisfaction with other citizens. So Clinton received the first “lessons” of tolerance as a child. When Bill was 4 years old, his mother remarried to car dealer Roger Clinton. In 1953, the family moved to the city of Hot Springs , located in the same state of Arkansas, and in 1956 Bill had a brother Roger. Bill received the surname of his stepfather at age 15. At school, Clinton was one of the best students and, in addition, led a jazz band in which he played the saxophone . In July 1963, Bill, as part of a national youth organization delegation, attended a meeting with John F. Kennedy . Young Bill Clinton personally greeted President John F. Kennedy on an excursion to the White House on July 24, 1963.

After graduation, he studied at Georgetown University in Washington (graduated from the bachelor in 1968), and after that he graduated from University College (Oxford) , as well as Yale University . Despite the fact that the Bill's family belonged to the middle class by American standards, his parents did not have money for teaching his son at a prestigious university. My stepfather suffered from alcoholism , and Bill was forced to take care of himself. He received an increased scholarship, earned a living by his own labor. At the Yale School of Law , which he graduated in 1973, he met Hillary Rodham , whom he married on October 11, 1975. After graduation, Bill briefly taught at the Law School of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville . Hillary Clinton soon, following the example of her husband, took up teaching at the same university.

In 1974, Bill, at the age of 28, ran for congressmen from his home state of Arkansas , but lost. In 1976, he was elected to the post of Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Arkansas, and in 1978 he won the gubernatorial elections and became the youngest state governor in the country's history (at 32). With an emphasis on promoting entrepreneurship and the advancement of education, Clinton, over 11 years of governorship, has dramatically increased the income of a state considered one of the most backward in the United States; and his wife Hillary already showed herself in public life - she was involved in protecting the rights of children and family in Arkansas. In 1980, they had a daughter, Chelsea . Governor Clinton considered access to a quality education for all residents of the state, regardless of income and color, to be one of his most important tasks, and Clinton successfully coped with this task. In 1986-1987, as chairman of the Association of Governors, he promoted his educational ideas already at the state level. Since Clinton’s governorship, Arkansas has been one of the leaders in allocating per capita funds to educational programs.

In the late 1980s, despite gaining a majority in Congress in 1986, the US Democratic Party lost an important part of its electorate - the middle class and white workers. Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton was one of the leaders of the “Southern Democrats” (democrats are not popular in the southern states), who prioritized not only liberalization , which was crucial in the rise of Arkansas, but also pragmatism characteristic of Republicans. One of the leading tasks of the "southern democrats" was the return of its original electorate. Nevertheless, Clinton can be called a conservative Democrat, primarily because of the historical conservatism of Arkansas, he always had to look for a common language with the Republicans.

On October 3, 1991, Bill Clinton put forward his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. During the election campaign, the emphasis was on the difficult economic condition in which the country was based on the results of 12 years of the Republican rule, and in particular George W. Bush . Huge public debt , budget deficits , rising unemployment and high inflation allowed Bill Clinton to run his campaign under the slogan “This is an economy, you fool”, which ultimately turned to incumbent President Bush. However, due to the victorious war in the Persian Gulf ( Operation Desert Storm ) and due to the fact that the state of affairs in the economy was not as hopeless as it was tried to prove during the election campaign, Bill Clinton and his associates, decisive superiority, according to numerous opinion polls, a candidate from the Democratic Party did not have. And here, the independent candidate Ross Perot came to the aid of the Democrats, by the way, also a Texan (it is in his intervention that political scientists see the main reason for Bush’s defeat). As a result, Bill Clinton confidently defeated, paired with Albert Gore, who was running for the post of vice president . Noteworthy is the fact that Clinton managed to emerge victorious even in those states that have always been a stronghold of the Republicans. This has not happened since John F. Kennedy .

January 20, 1993, the inauguration of William Jefferson Clinton. In the inaugural speech, Clinton managed to convey to the audience his main idea - the need for change and the historical significance of generational change among the country's leadership and the rise to power of young people who are aware of their “new responsibility”. And the electoral promises remained in the memory of voters: to help reduce unemployment, implement health care reforms for the poor, reduce taxes on the middle class while increasing the taxation of wealthy Americans and reduce military spending. Clinton’s lack of experience in big politics played a negative role at the initial stage of his first term: a long, chaotic team formation. The previous Democratic President, Jimmy Carter, handed over to Reagan in 1981, and the Democrats did not have an experienced executive team (for example, Clinton offers Prosecutor General Zoya Beard , who is under criminal prosecution for tax evasion), the inability to calculate the consequences of her initiatives at the political level, that is, interaction with Congress , the Republican Party . Clinton's lobbying for military service of open homosexuals turned out to be a failure. As a result, after opposition from the Department of Defense and widespread public discussion, the compromise option was very different from Clinton’s ideas.

A major failure in foreign policy was the failure of the US-initiated and UN-led peacekeeping operation in Somalia .

The apotheosis of the first failures was health care reform - this was one of the most important tasks that Clinton set for himself as the president of the United States. By appointing his wife, Hillary, who also has no federal experience, to be the head of the health care reform reform committee, and without considering the political implications (Clinton sought health insurance for all US citizens and offered to put part of the costs on the shoulders of employers and manufacturers in the medical field) Bill He faced opposition from medical manufacturers and a lack of support in Congress, which was ready for amendments, but not for widespread reform. And after the defeat of the Democrats in the Congressional elections in 1994, the implementation of the reform became impossible and was curtailed. Clinton’s government supported a worldwide birth control project that was blocked by the Vatican at the UN . But still, the US economy grew at an impressive pace, the high-tech sector increased very much, unemployment was minimal. Clinton improved relations with many formerly hostile countries, and there was a relative order in the world. In 1995, Bill Clinton gave a lecture in Moscow at Moscow State University. Lomonosov and became an honorary professor at this university. The 1996 elections were boring and mundane - no one doubted the winner ^[4] .

In 1996 , during the presidency and the second election campaign of B. Clinton, the USA hosted the 25th Summer Olympic Games, which were held in Atlanta . Moreover, he opened these games .

Clinton’s second term was successful in terms of economic development. In 1998, unemployment amounted to 4.5%, and in 2000 - 4.0% of the working population ^[5] . Inflation remained low - 1.6% (based on 1998 results) ^[5] . However, intimate relations with Monica Lewinsky in 1996 became the reason for accusing the president of perjury under oath and initiating the impeachment of Clinton ( Clinton-Lewinsky Sexual Scandal ). The scandal erupted in 1998 , when details of the Clinton-Lewinsky relationship leaked to the press. This story didn’t slightly lower the rating of the very popular Bill Clinton, but after the unfortunate defeat of Al Gore from Republican George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election, it turned out that the Clinton-Lewinsky sex scandal significantly tarnished the reputation of the US Democratic Party.

The USA sharply reduced external debt, unemployment became insignificant. His administration also lobbied for a ban on nuclear weapons testing worldwide. The disappearance of resistance from the Soviet Union eased the task of expanding influence among the U.S. leadership, led by Clinton, and made it possible to achieve unthinkable results so far: the fourth expansion of NATO and the separation of Kosovo and Metohija from Yugoslavia after the 1999 NATO War against Yugoslavia . During the Clinton presidency, the United States significantly reduced the amount of military intervention in other countries compared with the times of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush . Clinton's president, Democrats, Americans had hopes of being a reformer in the US conservative society, with some individuals hoping that Clinton would lessen the influence of religious denominations and resume genetics research frozen by Republicans.

In recent years, Bill Clinton has been active in public work, is a member of various public political and charitable organizations, in particular the Trilateral Commission . After losing to the primaries of his wife, Hillary Clinton in 2008 actively advocated for Barack Obama . In the same year he was awarded the TED Prize for creating a network of clinics in Rwanda . After the devastating earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010, Clinton visited the Republic of Haiti on several occasions to assist the victims. On February 3, 2010, UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon asked Clinton to take on the coordination of international aid to the Haitians. ^[6]

Clinton actively participated in the election campaign of Barack Obama during the 2012 presidential election.

On February 11, 2010, Bill Clinton was urgently hospitalized in a hospital in New York with a complaint of pain in the heart ^[7] . A 63-year-old politician underwent stenting surgery ^[8] . After that, Clinton, for health reasons, became a vegan . In 2012, he stated that a vegan diet saved his life ^[9] . In December 2010, the People for Ethical Animal Treatment organization declared Clinton the “Person of the Year” ^[10] . He was awarded this honor for “using his influence, charm and eloquence to promote the vegan diet” ^{[10] [11]} .

Spouse Hillary Rodham Clinton - 67th US Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013. Chelsea Clinton's daughter (born February 27, 1980) married banker Mark Mezvinsky in July 2010. Brother Roger Clinton is a film actor and musician ^[12] .

Rewards

American

• Honorary Medal of Ellis Island (1999) ^{[13] [14]} .
• (2001) ^[15] .
• for 2004 - My Life (2005) ^[16] .
• Philadelphia Medal of Liberty with George G.W. Bush (2006) ^[17] .
• Presidential Medal of Freedom (2013) ^{[18] [19]} .

Foreign

• Order of Good Hope, I degree ( South Africa , 1998) ^{[20] [21] [22] [23]} .
• Order of the White Lion of the I degree on the chain ( Czech Republic , 1998) ^{[24] [25]} .
• Order of the Republic of Turkey ( Turkey , 1999) ^{[26] [27]} .
• ( Kosovo , 2004) ^[28] .
• Grand Companion's Logohoo Order ( Papua New Guinea , 2006) ^{[29] [30] [31] [32]} .
• Order of the Cross of the Land of Mary of the 1st degree ( Estonia , 2006) ^{[33] [34] [35] [36]} .
• The National Order of Honor and Merit of the degree of holder of the Grand Cross in gold ( Haiti , 2011) ^[37] .
• with Honors ( Israel , 2013) ^{[38] [39] [40]} .
• Order of Victory named after St. George ( Georgia , 2013) ^{[41] [42]} .

Monuments

В столице Косово Приштине , на центральном бульваре, носящем имя Билла Клинтона, ему установлен 3,5-метровый памятник. В торжественном открытии памятника 1 ноября 2009 года Клинтон участвовал лично ^[43] .

• Билл Клинтон, Джеймс Паттерсон . «Президент пропал». — М. : Эксмо , 2018. — 416 с. — ISBN 978-5-04-098450-3 .
• Билл Клинтон. «Билл Клинтон. Моя жизнь» = My Life ( ISBN 0-375-41457-6 ). — М. , 2005. — 1088 с. — ISBN 5-9614-0187-1 .
• Clinton, Bill (в соавторстве). Science in the National Interest . Washington, DC: The White House, August 1994.
• Clinton, Bill (в соавторстве). The Climate Change Action Plan . Washington, DC: The White House, October 1993.
• Clinton, Bill (в соавторстве). Technology for America's economic growth, a new direction to build economic strength . Washington, DC: The White House, February 22, 1993.

• Клинтон, Уильям (Билл) Джефферсон // Киреев — Конго. — М. : Большая российская энциклопедия, 2009. — С. 300. — ( Большая российская энциклопедия : [в 35 т.] / гл. ред. Ю. С. Осипов ; 2004—2017, т. 14). — ISBN 978-5-85270-345-3 .

• Клинтон, Билл — статья в Лентапедии . year 2012.
• Сайт президентской библиотеки Билла Клинтона