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- FROM THE PUBLISHER, Page 4
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- To understand Bill Clinton better, TIME contributor Garry
- Wills decided to look past the Democratic presidential nominee's
- national persona and examine him in the context of the
- idiosyncratic state he has governed for 12 years. Wills, a
- distinguished historian and journalist, made two circuits of
- Arkansas, driving from Hope in the south through Hot Springs and
- Little Rock to Fayetteville in the north. He talked not only to
- Clinton but also to the candidate's friends, relatives and
- neighbors, and he soaked up the landscape that produced the man.
- "I think the rest of the country has trouble understanding
- Southerners," says Wills, "but since both sides of my family
- come from the South, I have always been fascinated by the region
- and respectful of things like its religiosity."
-
- The result of Wills' sojourns is this week's probing study
- of Clinton's roots. Wills, of course, is no stranger to the
- task of getting inside the mind of American politicians, having
- written six books on American Presidents as well as many
- in-depth articles on incumbents and would-bes. Since he profiled
- Ronald Reagan in 1987, Wills has written 15 articles for TIME
- about the forces and people that shape America's political soul.
- So prolific is this one-time Jesuit seminarian that he
- occasionally loses count of the number of his books. "Fourteen,
- or maybe 16" is his guess; but his publisher, Simon & Schuster,
- puts the total at 17.
-
- No. 17 is Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade
- America, which is winning enthusiastic reviews -- and putting
- Wills on the receiving end of some pointed questions. "Mrs.
- Clinton asked what Lincoln would be reading and saying today,"
- recalls Wills, but, ever the scrupulous historian, he demurred
- at venturing a guess. He does offer one comparison between
- Clinton and another President, fellow Southerner Jimmy Carter.
- "Carter was bright and impressed me, but he was completely bound
- by the South," he says. ``Clinton is an authentic Southerner but
- has a wide range of friends and contacts all over the world."
- Wills declines to push the comparison further, noting that the
- clamor for predictions is a "true evil in politics."
-
- It is hard to imagine that Wills has much time for
- relaxation, but he claims to be able to squeeze in trips to the
- opera and other cultural events. He tries to take particular
- advantage of his journalistic wanderings away from his home in
- Evanston, Ill. This week he hopes to see the Kirov Opera while
- in New York City for the Democratic Convention.
-
- -- Elizabeth P. Valk
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