FORTY-EIGHT (Part 1)
莱温斯基
When 1998 began, I had no idea it would be the strangest year of my presidency, full of personal humiliation and disgrace, policy struggles at home and triumphs abroad, and, against all odds, a stunning demonstration of the common sense and fundamental decency of the American people. Because everything happened at once, I was compelled as never before to live parallel lives, except that this time the darkest part of my inner life was in full view.
1998年开始的时候，我并未料到这将是自己总统任期中最奇异的一年，充斥的是我个人的羞辱、国内的政治斗争和在境外外交方面取得的胜利，而且，尽管有这些出人意料的事，这一年仍惊人地展示出美国人民的判断力和根本的行为准则。因为所有的事情都是突然发生的，所以我被迫前所未有地过着两种平行的生活，只不过这一次，我的内心生活最黑暗的部分被看得清清楚楚。
January began on a positive note, with three major initiatives: (1) a 50 percent increase in the number of Peace Corps volunteers, primarily to support the new democracies that had emerged since the fall of communism; (2) a $22 billion child-care program to double the number of children in working families receiving child-care subsidies, provide tax credits to encourage employees to make child care available to their employees, and expand before- and after-school programs to serve 500,000 children; and (3) a proposal to allow people to buy into Medicare, which covered Americans sixty-five and older, at age sixty-two, or at age fifty-five if they had lost their jobs. The program was designed to be self-financing through modest premiums and other payments. It was needed because so many Americans were leaving the workforce early, through downsizing, layoffs, or choice, and couldn’t find affordable insurance elsewhere after they lost their employer-based coverage.
1月刚开始还是不错的，有三个主要提案启动：（1）和平队志愿者人数增加了50%，主要是支援共产党政权下台后的新兴民主政府；（2）一个投资220亿美元的儿童看护计划，使接受补助的工作家庭的子女人数翻番，提供课税免除来鼓励雇主向他们的雇员提供儿童看护服务，扩大上学前与上学后的活动项目，使50万儿童受益；（3）建议允许人们购买加入医疗保障方案，该计划覆盖美国65岁及以上人群，现计划把年纪限制降到62岁，或失业的55岁人群，该项目旨在靠不太多的保险费和其它支付款项做到经费自给自足。这是需要的，因为那么多美国人因为企业精简、裁员或自愿而过早地离开工作大军，但他们失去了主要靠雇主购买的保险后别无其它能负担得起的保险。
In the second week of the month, I went to South Texas, one of my favorite places in America, to urge the largely Hispanic student body at Mission High School to help close the gap between the college-going rates of Hispanic young people and the rest of the student population by taking full advantage of the tremendous increase in college aid the Congress had authorized in 1997. While there, I was informed of the collapse of Indonesias economy, and my economic team went to work on the next casualty of the Asian financial crisis; Deputy Treasury Secretary Larry Summers went to Indonesia to secure the governments agreement to implement the reforms necessary to receive assistance from the International Monetary Fund.
这个月的第二周，我前往德克萨斯州南部这个美国我最喜欢的地方之一，敦促米申高中以西班牙裔为主的学生，充分利用国会1997年批准的大幅增加对大学生援助的法案，帮助缩小西班牙裔青年与其他学生在大学入学率上的差距。可我在那里时，却得知到印度尼西亚经济崩溃，我的经济事务小组也奔赴下一个亚洲金融危机受害国；财政部副部长拉里·萨默斯前往印度尼西亚，确保其政府同意实施获得国际货币组织援助所必须的改革。
On the thirteenth, trouble broke out in Iraq again as Saddam’s government blocked an American-led UN inspection team from doing its job, the beginning of a protracted effort by Saddam to coerce the United Nations into lifting sanctions in return for continuing the weapons inspections. The same day, the Middle East moved toward crisis as Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government, which still had not completed the overdue opening of the Gaza airport or provided safe passage between Gaza and the West Bank, put the entire peace process in danger by voting to keep control of the West Bank indefinitely. The only bright spot on the world horizon in January was the White House signing of a NATO partnership with the Baltic nations, which was designed to formalize our security relationship and reassure them that the ultimate goal of all the NATO nations, including the United States, was the full integration of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia into NATO and other multilateral institutions.
13日，伊拉克又出麻烦，萨达姆政府阻止以美国为首的联合国核查队伍履行职责，萨达姆就此拉开强迫联合国取消制裁以换取继续进行武器核查这场持久战的序幕。同一天，中东面临危机，原因是内塔尼亚胡总理的政府到期尚未履行开放加沙机场或在加沙和西岸之间提供安全通道的承诺，又投票决定无限期控制西岸，结果导致整个和平进程危机重重。1月，世界事务的唯一亮点是白宫与波罗的海各国签署北约伙伴关系条约，旨在正式确立我们之间的安全关系，让他们放心，全体北约国家，包括美国在内，最终目的是让爱沙亚、立陶宛、拉脱维亚真正融入北约及其它多边组织。
On the fourteenth, I was in the East Room of the White House with Al Gore to announce our push for a Patients Bill of Rights, to provide Americans in managed care plans with some basic treatment guarantees that were being denied all too frequently, and Hillary was being questioned by Ken Starr for the fifth time. The topic on this occasion was how the FBI files on Republicans got to the White House, something she knew nothing about.
14日，我和戈尔在白宫东厅宣布推动《病人权利法案》，通过一些受管理的医疗保健计划，为美国人提供一些过去常常被拒绝的基本医疗保障，希拉里则将要面对肯·斯塔尔的第五次问讯。这次的问题是联邦调查局有关共和党人的文件是怎么落到白宫手里的，可这件事她是一无所知的。
My deposition in the Jones case came three days later. I had gone over a series of possible questions with my lawyers and thought I was reasonably well prepared, though I didn’t feel well that day and certainly wasn’t looking forward to my encounter with the Rutherford Institute lawyers. The presiding judge, Susan Webber Wright, had given Jones’s lawyers broad permission to delve into my private life, allegedly to see if there was a pattern of sexual harassment involving any women who had held or sought state employment when I was governor or federal employment when I was President, during a time period from five years before Jones’s alleged harassment to the present day. The judge had also given the Jones lawyers strict instructions not to leak the contents of any deposition or other aspects of their investigation.
我为琼斯案作证是三天后的事了。我和我的律师们已经演练了可能提出的问题，自认为准备相当充分，尽管我当天感觉不舒服，而且肯定也没有指望在与卢瑟福协会的律师过招中讨了好去。主审法官苏珊·韦伯·赖特已答应琼斯的律师，给他们很大的权限去打探我的私生活，据称是要调查我任州长或总统时是否对担任或寻求州里的职务或联邦政府的职务的任何女人进行过某种性骚扰，时间段是自琼斯所称的骚扰前五年到现在。法官还严格规定琼斯的律师不要把任何证词内容或调查过程中的其它情况透露出去。
The stated objective could have been achieved less intrusively by simply directing me to answer yes or no to questions about whether I had ever been alone with women working for the government; then the lawyers could have asked the women whether I had ever harassed them. However, that would have rendered the deposition useless. By this time, everyone involved in the case knew there was no evidence of sexual harassment. I was certain that the lawyers wanted to force me to acknowledge any kind of involvement with one or more women that they could then leak to the press, in violation of the judge’s confidentiality order. As it turned out, I didn’t know the half of it.
达到上述目的本不必通过那种深入打探的方式，只需让我直接回答是否曾经与为政府工作的女性单独相处之类的问题即可；接着律师们本可以询问那些女人我是否曾骚扰过她们。然而，那样做会使得这些证词“毫无用处”。这时候，参与本案的每个人都知道并没有我对任何女子进行性骚扰的证据。我肯定，律师们想逼迫我承认和一个或多个妇女有某种形式的关系，这样他们能透露给媒体，可这样做就违反了法官保守秘密的命令。后来的情况表明，我根本就没明白他们的用意。
After I was sworn in, the deposition began with a request from the Rutherford Institute lawyers that the judge accept a definition of sexual relations that they had purportedly found in a legal document. Basically, the definition covered most intimate contact beyond kissing by the person being asked the question, if it was done for gratification or arousal. It seemed to require both a specific act and a certain state of mind on my part, and did not include any act by another person. The lawyers said they were trying to spare me embarrassing questions.
我宣誓之后，作证开始，首先卢瑟福协会的律师提出请求，法官也表示同意，将“性关系”定义为他们据称在法律文本中找到的那种。这条定义基本上涵盖了当事人亲吻之外最亲密的接触，不管这样做是为了获得满足还是为了产生刺激。看起来这要求我既要讲出细节行动，还有我的心理状态，但不包括其他人的任何行动。律师们表示他们将尽量不向我提尴尬的问题。
I was there for several hours, only ten or fifteen minutes of which were devoted to Paula Jones. The rest of the time was spent on a variety of topics with no connection to Jones, including a great many questions about Monica Lewinsky, who had worked in the White House in the summer of 1995 as an intern and then in a staff job from December through early April, when she was transferred to the Pentagon. The lawyers asked, among other things, how well I knew her, whether we had ever exchanged gifts, whether we had ever talked on the phone, and if I had had sexual relations with her. I discussed our conversations, acknowledged that I had given her gifts, and answered no to the sexual relations question.
我在那作证好几个小时，可是只有10到15分钟是关于葆拉·琼斯的。其余时间都花在和琼斯无关的各种话题上，包括相当多有关莱温斯基·莱温斯基的问题，莱温斯基于1995年夏天在白宫做实习生，后在12月到次年4月初做正式职员，然后她被调到五角大楼。律师们询问的重点是，我对她有多了解，我们是否曾交换礼物，我们是否曾通电话，我是否曾与她发生性关系。我谈了谈我们的对话，承认自己曾送过她礼物，但对“性关系”的问题做了否定回答。
The Rutherford Institute lawyers kept asking the same questions with slight variations over and over again. When we took a break, my legal team was perplexed, because Lewinsky’s name had shown up on the plaintiffs list of potential witnesses only in early December, and she had been given a subpoena to appear as a witness two weeks later. I didn’t tell them about my relationship with her, but I did say I was unsure of exactly what the curious definition of sexual relations meant. So were they. At the beginning of the deposition, my attorney, Bob Bennett, had invited the Rutherford Institute lawyers to ask specific and unambiguous questions about my contact with women. At the end of the discussion of Lewinsky, I asked the lawyer who was questioning me if there wasn’t something more specific he wanted to ask me. Once again he declined to do so. Instead he said, Sir, I think this will come to light shortly, and you’ll understand.
卢瑟福协会的律师们总是对同一问题稍加变化反复询问。暂时休庭的时候，我的法律顾问小组感到很茫然，因为莱温斯基的名字仅仅在12月初才登上原告候选证人的名单，两周之后才向她发出作证传票。我没有告诉他们自己与她的关系，但我的确说自己不清楚这个有关性关系的奇怪定义具体指的是什么。他们也是。在我开始作证时，我的律师鲍勃·贝内特请卢瑟福协会的律师们就我与女人接触的情况问具体而不含糊的问题。就要结束有关莱温斯基的话题之前，我问向我提问的律师，是否还有更具体的问题要问我。他又一次拒绝了。相反，他说：“阁下，我想事情很快会明了的，您会理解的。”
I was relieved but somewhat concerned that the lawyer seemed not to want to ask specific questions, nor to want to get my answers to them. If he had asked such questions, I would have answered them truthfully, but I would have hated it. During the government shutdown in late 1995, when very few people were allowed to come to work in the White House and those who were there were working late, I’d had an inappropriate encounter with Monica Lewinsky and would do so again on other occasions between November and April, when she left the White House for the Pentagon. For the next ten months, I didn’t see her, although we talked on the phone from time to time.
我放心了，又有点担心那位律师似乎不愿意问具体问题，也不想听我对具体问题的回答。如果他当时问了这样的问题，我肯定会据实相告，不过我一定会讨厌那样做。1995年末政府歇业期间，只有极个别人获准在白宫工作，那些工作人员都忙到很晚，我曾与莱温斯基有过不恰当的“邂逅”，并在11月到来年4月她离开白宫到五角大楼工作期间的某些时候又有过那种“邂逅”。之后十个月我都没有见过她，不过我们有时会通电话。
In February 1997, Monica was among the guests at an evening taping of my weekly radio address, after which I met with her alone again for about fifteen minutes. I was disgusted with myself for doing it, and in the spring, when I saw her again, I told her that it was wrong for me, wrong for my family, and wrong for her, and I couldn’t do it anymore. I also told her that she was an intelligent, interesting person who could have a good life, and that if she wanted me to, I would try to be her friend and help her.
1997年2月，我为每周广播发言做晚上的录音，莱温斯基是嘉宾之一，之后我又跟她独处了15分钟。我觉得自己这样做很恶心，所以春天我再次见到她的时候，就对她说这样做于己、于家庭、于她都不对，我再也不这样了。我还告诉她，她有才智、有魅力，本该拥有美好的人生，如果她乐意，我会尽力做她的朋友并帮助她。
Monica continued to visit the White House, and I saw her on some of those occasions, but nothing improper occurred. In October, she asked me to help her get a job in New York, and I did. She had received two offers and accepted one, and late in December, she came to the White House to say good-bye. By then, she had received her subpoena in the Jones case. She said she didn’t want to be deposed, and I told her some women had avoided questioning by filing affidavits saying that I had not sexually harassed them.
莱温斯基继续到白宫来作客，有几次我见了她，但没有发生任何不合礼仪的事情。10月，她让我帮她在纽约找份工作，我做了。她得到两份工作机会，并接受了其中一份。12月底，她到白宫来道别。那时候她已收到琼斯案召唤她的传票。她说自己不想去作证，我就告诉她有些女人填写了书面宣誓书，表示我没有性骚扰过她们，就避免了问讯。
What I had done with Monica Lewinsky was immoral and foolish. I was deeply ashamed of it and I didn’t want it to come out. In the deposition, I was trying to protect my family and myself from my selfish stupidity. I believed that the contorted definition of sexual relations enabled me to do so, though I was worried enough about it to invite the lawyer interrogating me to ask specific questions. I didn’t have to wait long to find out why he declined to do so.
我和莱温斯基曾做的事情是不道德的、愚蠢的。我为此深感羞耻，不想让这件事公开。作证的时候，我试图保护自己和家庭免受自己自私的愚蠢行为的伤害。我相信这个扭曲的“性关系”定义使得我可以这样做，尽管我也非常担心这样会让律师询问我具体的问题。我并不需要等多久就知道那个律师为什么不那样做了。
On January 21, the Washington Post led with a story that I had had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, and that Kenneth Starr was investigating charges that I had encouraged her to lie about it under oath. The story first emerged publicly early on the eighteenth, on an Internet site. The deposition had been a setup; nearly four years after he first offered to help Paula Jones, Starr had finally gotten into her case.
1月21日，《华盛顿邮报》头条报道，说我与莱温斯基曾有私情，肯尼斯·斯塔尔正在调查对我的指控，称我曾怂恿她，在宣誓的条件下，让她在法庭上就此事撒谎。这条消息最先是18日早上在一个网页上公布的。原来，作证是个圈套；斯塔尔最初曾表示要帮助葆拉·琼斯，近四年之后，他终于介入了她的案子。
In the summer of 1996, Monica Lewinsky had begun talking to a co-worker, Linda Tripp, about her relationship with me. A year later, Tripp had started taping their telephone conversations. In October 1997, Tripp offered to play the tapes for a Newsweek reporter and did play them for Lucianne Goldberg, a conservative Republican publicist. Tripp was subpoenaed in the Jones case, though she was never on any witness list provided to my attorneys.
早在1996年夏，莱温斯基开始跟同事琳达·特里普讲她跟我的关系。一年后，特里普开始给她们之间的电话录音。1997年10月，特里普提出给《新闻周刊》的一位记者播放录音带，而且为保守的共和党政治评论家卢西恩·戈德堡播放了录音带。特里普在琼斯案中被传唤，尽管她从未出现在任何一份提交给我的律师的证人名单中。
Late on Monday, January 12, 1998, Tripp phoned Starr’s office, described her secret taping of Lewinsky, and made arrangements to turn over those tapes. She was concerned about her own criminal liability, because the kind of taping she had done was a felony under Maryland law, but Starr’s people promised to protect her. The next day Starr had FBI agents wire Tripp so that she could secretly record a conversation with Lewinsky over lunch at the Pentagon City Ritz-Carlton. A couple of days later, Starr asked the Justice Department for permission to expand his authority to encompass the investigation of Lewinsky, apparently being less than truthful about the basis for his request.
1998年1月12日星期一晚间，特里普给斯塔尔的办公室打电话，讲述她偷偷录下了莱温斯基的对话并安排上交那些磁带。她担心的是自己的刑事责任，因为按马里兰州的法律，她这样录音可是项重罪，但斯塔尔的手下保证会保护她。第二天，斯塔尔让联邦调查局特工给特里普安装窃听设备，这样她可以在五角大楼城的丽嘉酒店和莱温斯基吃午饭时偷录下对话。两三天后，斯塔尔请求司法部增加他的权限以调查莱温斯基，显然，他并没有那么诚实地说出自己请求的本意。
On the sixteenth, the day before my deposition, Tripp arranged to meet Lewinsky again at the hotel. This time Monica was greeted by FBI agents and attorneys who took her to a hotel room, questioned her for several hours, and discouraged her from calling a lawyer. One of Starrs lawyers told her she should cooperate if she wanted to avoid going to jail and offered her an immunity deal that expired at midnight. Lewinsky was also pressured to wear a wire to secretly tape conversations with people involved in the alleged cover-up. Finally, Monica was able to call her mother, who contacted her father, from whom she had long been divorced. He got in touch with a lawyer, William Ginsburg, who advised her not to accept the immunity deal until he learned more about the case, and who blasted Starr for holding his client for eight or nine hours without an attorney and for pressuring her to wear a wire to entrap others.
16日，也就是我作证前一天，特里普安排与莱温斯基在丽嘉酒店再次会面。这一次，等着莱温斯基的是联邦调查局特工们和律师们，他们将她带到酒店的一个房同，审问了她好几个小时，还劝阻她打电话找律师咨询。斯塔尔手下的一名律师告诉她，如果不想进牢房就应该合作，还提出一份豁免她的交易，在午夜前有效。莱温斯基还被迫带上窃听设备录制了跟所谓的介入掩盖事实的人的谈话。最终，莱温斯基能够给她母亲打电话了，她母亲联系了她的父亲，而她父母离异已经很久了。他联系了一位律师威廉·金斯伯格，律师建议她，等他多了解些有关本案的情况后再接受那个豁免交易，并猛烈谴责斯塔尔把他的当事人在没有律师在场的情况下扣留了八九个小时，还胁迫她佩戴窃听装置诱陷他人。
After the story broke, I called David Kendall and assured him that I had not suborned perjury or obstructed justice. It was clear to both of us that Starr was trying to create a firestorm to force me from office. He was off to a flying start, but I thought that if I could survive the public pounding for two weeks, the smoke would begin to clear, the press and the public would focus on Starr’s tactics, and a more balanced view of the matter would emerge. I knew I had made a terrible mistake, and I was determined not to compound it by allowing Starr to drive me from office. For now, the hysteria was overwhelming.
这条消息捅出来后我给戴维·肯德尔打电话，向他保证，自己没有唆使作伪证，也没有阻碍司法公正。我们俩都觉得，显然，斯塔尔正试图点起一场大火把我逼下台。他是想速战速决，而我认为如果自己能熬过公众的攻击两个星期，就能慢慢挺过这一关，媒体和公众就会关注斯塔尔的策略，便会出现对这件事更公允的评价。我知道自己犯了个大错，我也决心不要错上加错，容许斯塔尔把我赶下台。眼下，恐慌的情绪开始蔓延。
I went on doing my job, and I stonewalled, denying what had happened to everyone: Hillary, Chelsea, my staff and cabinet, my friends in Congress, members of the press, and the American people. What I regret the most, other than my conduct, is having misled all of them. Since 1991 I had been called a liar about everything under the sun, when in fact I had been honest in my public life and financial affairs, as all the investigations would show. Now I was misleading everyone about my personal failings. I was embarrassed and wanted to keep it from my wife and daughter. I didn’t want to help Ken Starr criminalize my personal life, and I didn’t want the American people to know I’d let them down. It was like living in a nightmare. I was back to my parallel lives with a vengeance.
我继续把自己的工作做好，拒绝回答提问，向所有人——希拉里、切尔西、我的工作人员和内阁成员、我在国会的朋友、媒体人士、美国人民否认曾经发生的事情。除了自己的行径，最让我后悔的就是误导了他们所有人。自1991年起，人们就说我对天下所有事情都撒谎，而事实上我在公共生活和经济上一直都是诚实的，后来所有的调查都会证明这一点。这时候我正在我个人的弱点上误导人们。我很尴尬，不想让这件事影响到我的妻子和女儿。我不想帮助肯·斯塔尔宣判自己的私生活有罪，我不想让美国人民知道我辜负了他们对我的期望。那段日子就像生活在噩梦中一样。我猛地回到了我的两种平行生活的状态。
On the day the story broke, I did a previously scheduled interview with Jim Lehrer for the PBS NewsHour. I responded to his questions by saying that I had not asked anyone to lie, which was true, and that there is no improper relationship. Although the impropriety was over well before Lehrer asked the question, my answer was misleading, and I was ashamed of telling Lehrer that; from then on, whenever I could, I just said I never asked anybody not to tell the truth.
这件事被踢爆的那天，我按事先安排，接受了公共广播公司“新闻一小时”吉姆·莱勒的采访。我回答他的提问时说，我没有要求任何人撒谎，这是真的，我还说，根本不存在不恰当的关系。尽管在莱勒问这个问题前很久，这种不恰当的关系已经结束了，但我的回答是误导性的，我很惭愧对莱勒这么说；从那时候起，只要可能，我就说自己从来没有让任何人不要讲真话。
While all this was going on, I had to keep doing my job. On the twentieth, I met with Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House to discuss his plans for a phased withdrawal from the West Bank. Netanyahu had made a decision to move the peace process forward as long as he had peace with security. It was a bold move because his governing coalition was shaky, but he could see that if he didn’t act, the situation would quickly get out of hand.
这一切发生的同时，我还必须得继续做好自己的工作。20日，我在白宫会见了内塔尼亚胡总理，商讨他从西岸阶段性撤出的计划。内塔尼亚胡已经决定，只要他拥有对和平的保证，他就会推进和平进程。这可是勇敢的一步，因为他的执政联盟不稳固，但是他可能认识到了，如果他再不行动，局势马上就可能会失控。
The next day Arafat came to the White House. I gave him an encouraging report of my meeting with Netanyahu, assured him that I was pushing the prime minister to fulfill Israel’s obligation under the peace process, reminded him of the Israeli leader’s political problems, and stated, as I always did, that he had to keep fighting terror if he wanted Israel to move forward. The next day Mir Aimal Kansi was sentenced to death for the murder of the two CIA agents in January 1993, the first terrorist act to occur during my presidency.
翌日，阿拉法特来到白宫。我把与内塔尼亚胡会面的利好消息告诉他，向他保证，我将争取内塔尼亚胡总理完成以色列在和平进程中的义务，提醒他，以色列领导人所面对的政治问题，并如以往那样声明，如果他希望以色列向前进的话，他就必须继续打击恐怖主义。第二天，米尔·艾马尔·坎西因1993年1月杀害两名中情局特工被判处死刑，坎西制造的也是我在总统任期内的第一桩恐怖事件。
By January 27, the day of the State of the Union address, the American people had been deluged with a week of coverage of Starr’s inquiry, and I had spent a week dealing with it. Starr had already issued subpoenas to a number of White House staff people and for our records. I had asked Harold Ickes and Mickey Kantor to help deal with the controversy. The day before the speech, at the urging of Harold and Harry Thomason, who felt I had been too tentative in my public comments, I reluctantly appeared once more before the press to say I did not have sexual relations with Lewinsky.
到了1月27日，也就是发表国情咨文的日子，美国人民已经整整一个星期都淹没在对斯塔尔调查的报道之中，我也是花了一个星期应对这件事。斯塔尔已经向很多白宫工作人员签发了传票，并要求调阅我们的记录。我请哈罗德·伊克斯和米基·坎特协助应付争论。演讲的前一天，哈罗德和哈里·托马森感到我在公开表态时总是太不明确了，在他们的敦促下，我很不情愿地再次对着媒体表示我“没有”和莱温斯基发生性关系。
On the morning of the speech, on NBC’s Today show, Hillary said that she didn’t believe the charges against me and that a vast right-wing conspiracy had been trying to destroy us since the 1992 campaign. Starr issued an indignant statement complaining that Hillary had questioned his motives. Though she was right about the nature of our opposition, seeing Hillary defend me made me even more ashamed about what I had done.
演讲当天早上，希拉里在国家广播公司的“今日”栏目中表示，她不相信对我的那些指控，自从1992年总统竞选起一直有“右翼大阴谋”试图想要毁掉我们。斯塔尔发表了一份慷慨激昂的声明，控诉希拉里质疑他的动机。关于我们这个对手的本质，尽管她的话是对的，但是看到希拉里这样为我辩护，更让我为自己过去的行为羞愧不已。
Hillary’s difficult interview and my mixed reaction to it clearly exemplified the bind I had put myself in: As a husband, I had done something wrong that I needed to apologize and atone for; as President, I was in a legal and political struggle with forces who had abused the criminal and civil laws and severely damaged innocent people in their attempt to destroy my presidency and cripple my ability to serve.
希拉里接受的艰难采访和我对此混杂的反应，显然证明了我作茧自缚：作为一个丈夫，我犯了错，我必须要道歉和赎罪；作为一个总统，我在与一些势力进行司法和政治的斗争，这些势力为了毁掉我的总统之位，为了让我无法为国效力，把刑法和民法混为一谈，严重伤害了无辜的人们。
Finally, after years of dry holes, I had given them something to work with. I had hurt the presidency and the people by my misconduct. That was no ones fault but my own. I didn’t want to compound the error by letting the reactionaries prevail.
终于，经历了数年打枯井的窘境，我给了他们做文章的材料。因为我的不当行为，我损害了总统这个职位的严肃意义和人民的感情。这是我一个人的错。我不想任由反动保守派得逞而错上加错。
By 9 p.m., when I walked into the packed House chamber, the tension was palpable both there and in living rooms across America, where more people were watching my State of the Union address than since I delivered my first one. The big question was whether I would mention the controversy. I began with what was not in dispute. The country was in good shape, with fourteen million new jobs, rising incomes, the highest rate of home ownership ever, the fewest people on the welfare rolls in twenty-seven years, and the smallest federal government in thirty-five years. The 1993 economic plan had cut the deficit, projected to be $357 billion in 1998, by 90 percent, and the previous year’s balanced budget plan would get rid of it entirely.
晚上9点，当我走进人头攒动的众议院会议厅时，这里，以及全美国人的客厅里，都能明显感觉到一股紧张气氛，与我第一次发表国情咨文相比，收看电视传播人数要多得多。悬在人们心头的最大问题就是我是否会提到那场争论。我开始并没有提争议的事情。国家状况良好，新增1400万就业岗位，收入增加，家庭住房拥有率达到历史最高，接受福利救济的人数降到27年来最低，联邦政府35年来缩减到最小。1993年的经济计划削减了国家财政赤字，预计1998年赤字为3570亿美元，削减了90％，前一年的制定平衡预算计划将完全消除赤字。
Then I outlined my plan for the future. First, I proposed that before spending the coming surpluses on new programs or tax cuts, we should save Social Security for the baby boomers retirement. In education, I recommended funding to hire 100,000 new teachers and to cut class size to eighteen in the first three grades; a plan to help communities modernize or build five thousand schools; and assistance to help schools end the practice of social promotion, by providing funds for extra learning in after-school or summer-school programs. I reiterated my support for a Patients Bill of Rights, opening Medicare to Americans between the ages of fifty-five and sixty-five, expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act, and called for a large enough expansion in federal child-care assistance to provide support for one million more children.
接着，我简要介绍了我对未来的规划。我首先建议，在把即将获得的盈余花在新的项目或是用于减税之前，我们应该为退休的婴儿潮这一代人储备社保基金。关于教育，我建议拨款新雇用10万教师，把最低三个年级的班级规模缩减到18人；计划帮助社区实现学校的现代化或是新建5000所学校；为放学后或暑期学校这样的额外学习项目提供款项，从而资助学校结束靠“社会推动”的局面。我重申我对《病人权利法案》的支持，给55岁到65岁之间的美国人提供保健医疗，扩充《家庭和医疗休假法》，并呼吁大幅度增加联邦儿童看护补助，在援助的对象中多增加100万儿童。
On the security front, I asked for congressional support in combating an unholy axis of new threats from terrorists, international criminals, and drug traffickers; Senate approval of the expansion of NATO; and continued funding for our mission in Bosnia and our efforts to confront the hazards of chemical and biological weapons and the outlaw states, terrorists, and organized criminals seeking to acquire them.
在国家安全方面，我呼吁国会支持打击来自恐怖分子、国际罪犯、毒品走私贩这个邪恶轴心的新威胁；请参议院批准扩大北约；继续为我们在波斯尼亚的军事行动提供资金支持，资助我们对抗生化武器的努力工作，以及应对想方设法获得这些武器的非法国家、恐怖分子、犯罪集团带来的威胁。
The last section of my speech dealt with appeals to bring America together and look to the future: tripling the number of empowerment zones in poor communities; launching a new clean water initiative for our rivers, lakes, and coastal waters; providing $6 billion in tax cuts and research funds for the development of fuel-efficient cars, clean-energy homes, and renewable energy; financing the next generation Internet to transmit information up to a thousand times faster; and funding the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which, because of congressional hostility, didn’t have the resources to handle sixty thousand backlogged cases alleging discrimination in the workplace. I also proposed the largest increase in history for the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute, and the National Science Foundation so that ours will be the generation that finally wins the war against cancer and begins a revolution in our fight against all deadly diseases.
在演讲的最后部分，我呼吁美国团结起来，展望未来：贫穷社区中开发区的数量增加到三倍；启动一项净水计划，治理我国的河流、湖泊、近海水域；提供60亿美元用于减税和研发节能型汽车、清洁能源型住房和可再生能源；资助下一阶段的因特网，使信息传输速度加快一千倍；资助平等就业机遇委员会，由于国会的反对态度，该机构没有资源来处理手头积压的6万宗涉及工作岗位的歧视案。我还建议给予国家医疗研究所、国家癌症研究所、国家科学基金会有史以来最大幅度的增资支持，以使我们这一代人最终能打赢对抗癌症的战争，着手开始打击一切致命性疾病的革命。
I closed the speech thanking Hillary for leading our millennium campaign to preserve America’s treasures, including the tattered old Star Spangled Banner, which inspired Francis Scott Key to write our national anthem during the War of 1812.
结尾的时候，我感谢希拉里领导保护美国珍宝的新千年运动，这些珍宝中包括年代久远的美国星条旗，这面旗帜激发了弗朗西斯·斯科特·凯在1812年战争中创作了美国国歌。
There wasn’t a word in the address about the scandal, and the biggest new idea had been to save Social Security first. I was afraid Congress would get into a bidding war for the coming surpluses and squander them on tax cuts and spending before we had dealt with the baby boomers retirement. Most Democrats agreed with me, and most Republicans didn’t, though over the coming years we would hold a series of bipartisan forums around the country in which, despite everything else that was going on, we searched for common ground, arguing about how to provide for retirement security rather than whether to do so.
我在发言中只字未提那件性丑闻，最主要的新观点是，先储备社保基金。我担心国会在没有解决婴儿潮这一代人退休问题之前就会为即将出现的财政盈余展开争夺战，把钱浪费在减税和其它开销上。大多数民主党人同意我的观点，而大多数共和党人不同意，不过在随后的几年里，我们在全国组织了一系列两党共同主持的讨论会，不管发生了其它什么别的事，我们还是寻求共同点，争论该如何提供退休保障，而不是要不要提供。
Two days after the speech, Judge Wright ordered that all evidence related to Monica Lewinsky be excluded from the Jones case because it was not essential to the core issues, making Starr’s inquiry into my deposition even more questionable, since perjury requires a false statement about a material matter. On the last day of the month, ten days after the firestorm began, the Chicago Tribune published a poll showing that my job approval rating had risen to 72 percent. I was determined to show the American people that I was on the job and getting results for them.
这次演讲两天后，法官赖特命令，所有涉及莱温斯基的证据都排除在琼斯案之外，因为该证据对于核心问题不是至关重要的，这样，斯塔尔质询我的证词就更值得怀疑了，因为作伪证指的是错误表述一个实质性问题。这个月的最后一天，也就是那件事爆发十天之后，《芝加哥论坛报》公布了一项民意调查，显示对我工作的支持率上升至72％。我决心向美国人民显示，我在恪尽职守，为民谋利。
On February 5 and 6, Tony and Cherie Blair came to the United States for a two-day state visit. They were a sight for sore eyes for both Hillary and me. They made us laugh, and Tony gave me strong support in public, emphasizing our common approach to economic and social problems and to foreign policy. We took them to Camp David for a dinner with Al and Tipper Gore, and held a state dinner at the White House with entertainment by Elton John and Stevie Wonder. After the event Hillary told me that Newt Gingrich, who had been seated at her table with Tony Blair, had said the charges against me were ludicrous, and meaningless even if true, and weren’t going anywhere.
2月5日和6日，托尼和切丽·布莱尔夫妇对美国进行了为期两天的国事访问。他们对我和希拉里来说，都是极待见的好客人。他们令我们开怀大笑，托尼在公开场合给予了我坚强的支持，着重强调我们在解决社会经济问题以及外交政策上的共同手段。我们带他们到戴维营与艾尔和蒂珀·戈尔夫妇共进午餐，并在白宫举行国宴，席间欣赏埃尔顿·约翰和史蒂夫·旺德的表演。宴会之后，希拉里告诉我，纽特·金里奇就餐时坐在她和托尼·布莱尔那一桌，他曾说，对我的指控是滑稽可笑的，即便是真的也毫无意义，不会带来什么后果。
At our press conference, after Tony said that I was not just his colleague but his friend, Mike Frisby, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, finally asked the question I had been waiting for. He wanted to know whether, given the pain and all the issues about my personal life, at what point do you consider that it’s just not worth it, and do you consider resigning the office? Never, I answered. I said I had tried to take the personal venom out of politics, but the harder I tried, the harder others have pulled in the other direction. Still, I would never walk away from the people of this country and the trust theyve placed in me, so I’m just going to keep showing up for work.
在我和布莱尔共同的新闻发布会上，托尼说我不仅是他的同僚，而且是他的朋友，接着，《华尔街日报》记者麦克·弗里斯比终于问到我一直等着的那个问题。他想知道，考虑到造成的痛苦和私生活中的所有争议性问题，“什么情况下你认为不值得了，你会考虑辞职吗？”“决不。”我回答道。我说自己一直努力将个人恩怨与政治分离开来，但是我越是努力，其他人越是使劲把我拉向别的方向。尽管如此，我决不会不管不顾这个国家的人民和他们给予我的信任，因此，我只会为了工作来持续露面。
In mid-month, as Tony Blair and I continued to build support around the world for launching air strikes on Iraq in response to the expulsion of the UN inspectors, Kofi Annan secured a last-minute agreement from Saddam Hussein to resume the inspections. It seemed that Saddam never moved except when forced to do so.
当月中旬，我和托尼·布莱尔继续在全球寻求支持，赞同对伊拉克发动空中打击，以报复其驱逐联合国核查人员，科菲·安南在最后一刻取得了萨达姆·侯赛因的同意，重新开始核查。看起来，萨达姆非得吓一吓才会就范。
Besides plugging my new initiatives, I spent time working for the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, which the Senate Republicans killed at the end of the month; swearing in a new surgeon general, Dr. David Satcher, the director of the Centers for Disease Control; touring tornado damage in central Florida; announcing the first grants to help communities strengthen their efforts to prevent violence against women; and raising funds to help Democrats in the coming election.
除了推销我新的提案，我还投入时间支持麦凯恩-法因戈尔德竞选资金改革法案，不过这个月底，参议院共和党议员们枪毙了这个法案；促成疾病控制中心主任戴维·萨彻医生宣誓就任新的卫生局长；巡视佛罗里达州中部飓风受灾情况；宣布首批用于社区增强其预防对妇女施暴能力的补助金；为即将到来的选举帮民主党人筹款。
In late January and in February, several White House staffers were called before the grand jury. I felt terrible that they had been caught up in all this, especially Betty Currie, who had tried to befriend Monica Lewinsky and was now being punished for it. I also felt bad that Vernon Jordan had been caught up in the maelstrom. We had been close friends for so long, and time and again I had seen him help people who needed it. Now he was being targeted because of me. I knew he hadn’t done anything wrong and hoped someday he would be able to forgive me for the mess I had gotten him into.
1月末和2月，好几名白宫工作人员受到大陪审团传唤。让他们缠上这件事，我感到很难过，尤其是贝蒂·科里，她曾经是想善待莱温斯基，而现在却为此而受惩罚。我还感到后悔的是让弗农·乔丹搅到这个漩涡里。我们曾是多年的密友，我经常看到他帮助有困难的人。如今，他因为我成了被攻击的靶子。我知道他没做任何错事，希望有朝一日他能原谅我给他惹的这些麻烦。
Starr also subpoenaed Sidney Blumenthal, a journalist and old friend of Hillary’s and mine who had come to work in the White House in July 1997. According to the Washington Post, Starr was exploring whether Sid’s criticism of him amounted to an obstruction of justice. It was a chilling indication of how thin-skinned Starr was, and how willing to use the power of his office against anyone who criticized him. Starr also subpoenaed two private investigators who had been hired by the National Enquirer to run down a rumor that he had been having an affair with a woman in Little Rock. The rumor was false, apparently a case of mistaken identity, but again, it reflected a double standard. He was using FBI agents and private investigators to look into my life. When a tabloid looked at his, he went after them.
斯塔尔还传唤了西德尼·布卢门撤尔，西德尼是名新闻记者，也是我和希拉里的老朋友，他于1997年7月来到白宫工作。据《华盛顿邮报》报道，斯塔尔想查明的是，西德尼对他的抨击是否够得上阻挠司法公正的罪名。这个迹象真让人胆寒，表明斯塔尔多么敏感，多么爱利用手中的权力打击任何批评他的人。斯塔尔还传唤了两名私家侦探，《国民问询报》曾雇他们追查一则传闻——斯塔尔与一位小石城女人的绯闻。传闻有误，显然是把人认错了，但是这件事再一次反映出了一种双重标准。他动用联邦调查局特工和私家侦探窥视我的生活；一旦小报探究了他的生活，他就全力对付他们。
Starr’s tactics were beginning to draw the attention of the press. Newsweek published a two-page chart, Conspiracy or Coincidence, which traced the connections of more than twenty conservative activists and organizations that had promoted and financed the scandals Starr was investigating. The Washington Post ran a story in which a number of former federal prosecutors expressed discomfort not just with Starr’s new focus on my private conduct, but with the arsenal of weapons he has deployed to try to make his case against the president.
斯塔尔的策略渐渐引起媒体的注意力。《新闻周刊》发表了一张两页的图表，题为“阴谋，还是巧合”，追踪支持和资助斯塔尔调查“性丑闻”的20多个保守派活动分子和组织之间的关系。《华盛顿邮报》刊登了一篇文章，指出很多过去的联邦公诉人表示不安，不仅因为斯塔尔现在又开始关注我的私人行为了，而且，因为他所调动的针对总统的弹药之多。
Starr was particularly criticized for forcing Monica Lewinsky’s mother to testify against her will. Federal guidelines, which Starr was supposed to follow, said that family members should ordinarily not be forced to testify unless they were part of the criminal activity being investigated, or there were overriding prosecutorial concerns. By early February, according to an NBC News poll, only 26 percent of the American people thought Starr was conducting an impartial inquiry.
斯塔尔特别受到指责的是，他强迫莱温斯基的母亲违心地作证。按照斯塔尔应该遵循的联邦法案的要求，通常不应强迫家庭成员作证，除非他们也参与了所调查的犯罪活动，或者“罪行利害关系最甚”。2月初，全国广播公司的新闻民意调查显示，只有26％的美国人认为斯塔尔的调查公正无私。
The saga continued into March. My deposition in the Jones case was leaked, obviously by someone on the Jones side. Although the judge had repeatedly warned the Rutherford Institute lawyers not to leak it, no one was ever sanctioned. On the eighth, Jim McDougal died in a federal prison in Texas, a sad and ironic end to his long downward slide. According to Susan McDougal, Jim had changed his story to suit Starr and Hick Ewing because he desperately wanted to avoid dying in jail.
3月，这个长篇故事还在继续。我为琼斯案所作的证词外泄，显然是琼斯那一方的某人干的。虽然法官一再警告卢瑟福协会的律师不得外泄，也没有人得到过外泄的许可。8日，吉姆·麦克道戈尔在德州的联邦监狱去世，为他漫长的每况愈下的生涯画上了一个悲伤且讽刺的句号。据苏珊·麦克道戈尔说，吉姆已经改变了口供迎合斯塔尔和希克·尤因，因为他死也不愿死在监狱里。
In mid-month, 60 Minutes ran an interview with a woman named Kathleen Willey, who claimed I had made an unwanted advance toward her while she was working in the White House. It wasn’t true. We had evidence that cast doubt on her story, including the affidavit of her friend Julie Hiatt Steele, who said Willey had asked her to lie by saying she had told Steele about the alleged episode shortly after it happened, when in fact she hadn’t.
这个月中旬，“60分钟”节目采访了一位叫凯瑟琳·韦利的妇女，她声称在白宫工作时，我曾在她不愿意的情况下对她作过不规矩的行为。这不是真的。我们有证据表明她的故事有疑点，包括她的朋友朱莉·希亚特·斯蒂尔所作的书面陈述，声称韦利曾让她撒谎，说韦利在所谓的事件发生后不久就告诉了斯蒂尔事件经过，事实上，韦利没有告诉她。
Willey’s husband had killed himself, leaving her responsible for more than $200,000 of outstanding debt. Within a week, news stories reported that after I called her to offer my condolences on her husbands death, she had told people I was coming to his funeral; this was after the alleged incident. Eventually we released about a dozen letters Willey had written to me, again after the alleged encounter, saying things like she was my number one fan and that she wanted to help me in any way that I can. After a report that she had sought $300,000 to tell her story to a tabloid or in a book, the story faded away.
韦利的丈夫已经自杀，留给她20万美元的未偿债务。一周内，新的报道说，在我打电话对她丈夫的死表示哀悼后，她告诉人们我要去参加他丈夫的葬礼；这是在所谓的事件之后发生的。最后，我们公开了10几封韦利写给我的信，也是在那次所谓的事件之后，她在信上说，她是头号克林顿迷，她想用我所能采取的任何方式来帮助我之类的话。接着有报道说她把自己的故事以30万美元的价格卖给一个小报或一本书，这则故事慢慢消失于无形。
I mention Willey’s sad tale here because of what Starr did with it. First, in a highly unusual move, he gave her transactional immunity—complete protection against any kind of criminal prosecution—provided she told him the truth. When she was caught being untruthful about some embarrassing details involving another man, Starr just gave her immunity again. By contrast, when Julie Hiatt Steele, a registered Republican, refused to change her story and lie for Starr, he indicted her. Even though she wasn’t convicted, it ruined her financially. Starr’s office even sought to challenge the legality of her adoption of a baby from Romania.
我提到韦利的令人伤感的谎言，是因为斯塔尔利用了这个谎言的行为。首先，他以极不寻常的举动，给了她“交易性质的罪行豁免”——完全保护她可免除任何犯罪起诉——只要她说出“事实真相”。当她被认为没有诚实地说出令人难堪的与另一位男子有染的细节时，斯塔尔再次给了她豁免权。相反，朱莉·希亚特·斯蒂尔，一位注册的共和党人，当她拒绝改变故事并为斯塔尔撒谎时，他却对她提起诉讼。虽然她没有被裁定有罪，她的财产却花得差不多了。斯塔尔办公室甚至对她收养一个罗马尼亚婴儿的合法性提出质询。
On St. Patrick’s Day, I met with the leaders of all of the political parties in Northern Ireland that were participating in the political process, and had extended visits with Gerry Adams and David Trimble. Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern wanted to reach an agreement. My role was basically to keep reassuring and pushing all the parties into the framework George Mitchell was constructing. There were hard compromises still ahead, but I thought we were getting there.
在圣帕特里克节，我会见了北爱尔兰所有参加政治进程的政党领导人，我还同格里·亚当斯和戴维·特林布尔一起进行了长时间访问。托尼·布莱尔和伯蒂·埃亨想达成一个共识。我的角色基本上就是确保并推动各方在乔治·米切尔构建的框架下合作。我们的前面还有艰难的妥协，但我认为，我们正在向那儿靠近。
【本文翻译仅为外语学习及阅读目的，原文作者个人观点与译者及译言网无关】
