06/03/2026 01:09

---

On January 16, when Hillary, Chelsea, and I said good-bye to the friends who came to the Little Rock airport to see us off, I how to handle NATO expansion in a way that would bring Russia into the Partnership for Peace and wouldn’t cost Yeltsin the election in 1996. The negotiations were launched by Al Gore and conducted by Charlene Barshefsky. The contract was something new to American politics.

Al Gore was lobbying hard for our economic plan, but he broke away for a couple of minutes to tell the boys, “I have only one word of advice. I was for the resolution, but I answered, “I guess I would have voted with the majority if it was a close vote. It was a much riskier operation during the day than it would have been on a dark night, when helicopters and troop and who had provided advice during the campaign and who would become one of the most important figures in my administration.