Where's Monica? Where's Monica? (January 07, 2005)

by Jeb Bing

I t's been called an Airstream travel trailer on stilts as well as the most architecturally striking building in all of Arkansas, and the William J. Clinton Presidential Center library is easily both. That's also my view of the library where I had a first-hand look at this $165 million structure, located just across the Arkansas River from downtown Little Rock, just after President Clinton dedicated this newest of presidential libraries. To me, this shiny aluminum, steel and glass structure is a misfit in a drab, old warehouse district. Perhaps, when the muddy, red clay acreage that surrounds it is renovated, as the city of Little Rock plans to do, there will be more design harmony between the space-age work of the architects and the early 20th Century brick buildings that now dot the landscape.

But if I was somewhat startled and disappointed by the disconnect of the library's exterior to its surroundings, I can't speak highly enough of the splendor once inside. Openness is central from the time you walk inside and take escalators to the second floor, which is also the main exhibit floor of the elevated building. The glass-walled library juts out toward the river, a design that is meant to echo Clinton's oft-used theme of "bridge to the 21st Century." It's a term we often heard from Clinton in his frequent campaign stops and fundraisers in California as part of his late 1990s call for more investment in technology and social programs.

As I checked in at the main reception desk and paid the $7 admission fee, I learned that at 20,000-square-feet, the Clinton Library holds the largest collection of presidential materials, including 2 million photos and 80 million pages of documents. One of the more interesting displays for me were the actual drafts and final version of Clinton's "State of the Union" address to Congress, given on Feb. 4, 1997. As a writer, I once wrote speeches for corporate executives, and, in late 1980, helped draft President Reagan's energy policy for his transition team after his election. The process took weeks, not days. Yet the Clinton team did its work in just eight days from Clinton's hand-written points on Jan. 25 to the final speech, rehearsed on Feb. 2.

Columns, resembling racks of books, section off the library's main floor. These separate a score of large rooms that highlight particular aspects or times of Clinton's presidency, including interactive displays, videos, photographs, gifts, dinnerware, even Hillary Clinton's inaugural ballgowns. Since Clinton was the country's most traveled president, there are also hundreds of photos from his visits to 74 countries, and photos of him with world leaders at the White House. Some haven't been invited back recently, including France's Jacques Chirac, Germany's Helmut Kohl and Nelson Mandela of South Africa, to name three.

Still, despite all that's there to see, guards told me that the most frequently asked question is "Where's Monica?" That now-famous photo of Clinton reaching across a line of visitors to shake hands with his White House intern isn't displayed, but their affair is not totally ignored, it's just hard to find. A glass display case contains a brief printed document criticizing independent counsel Kenneth Starr for "looking into the president's testimony about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky" after he could find no wrong-doing in his investigation of the Clintons' failed Arkansas real estate development at Whitewater. It's the only mention of Lewinsky and the long impeachment process, but it's also the display that was drawing the largest crowds.

As presidential libraries go, California has better. But if ever in Little Rock, it's worth the money and two hours of your time to see Clinton's.

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