Chapter 31 T he next year involved an amazing combination of major legislative achievements

Chapter 31
T he next year involved an amazing combination of major legislative achievements, frustrations and successes in foreign policy, unforeseen events, personal tragedy, honest errors, and clumsy violations of the Washington culture, which, when combined with compulsive leaking by a few staffers, ensured press coverage that often resembled what Id experienced during the New York primary.
On January 22, we announced that Zo Baird had withdrawn her name from consideration for attorney general. Since we had learned about her employment of illegal immigrant workers and her failure to pay Social Security taxes for them during the vetting process, I had to say that we had failed to evaluate the matter properly, and that I, not she, was responsible for the situation. Zo had not misled us in any way. When the household workers were hired, she had just gotten a new job, and her husband had the summer off from teaching. Apparently, each assumed the other had handled the tax matter. I believed her and kept working for her nomination for three weeks after she first offered to withdraw it. Later, I appointed Zo to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, where she made a real contribution to the work Admiral Crowes group did.
On the same day, the press became infuriated with the new White House when we denied them the privilege, which theyd had for years, of walking from the press room, located between the West Wing and the residence, up to the press secretarys office on the first floor near the Cabinet Room. This strolling allowed them to hang out in the halls and pepper whoever came by with questions. Apparently, a couple of people high up in the Bush administration had mentioned to their new counterparts that this arrangement impeded efficiency and increased leaks, and the decision was made to change it. I dont recall being consulted about it, but perhaps I was. The press raised the roof, but we stuck with the decision, figuring theyd get over it. Theres no question that the new policy contributed to freer movement and conversation among the staff, but its hard to say it was worth the animosity it engendered. And since, in the first few months, the White House leaked worse than a tar-paper shack with holes in the roof and gaps in the walls, its impossible to say that confining the press to quarters did much good.
That afternoon, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I issued executive orders ending the Reagan-Bush ban on fetal-tissue research; abolishing the so-called Mexico City rule, which prohibited federal aid to international planning agencies that were in any way involved in abortions; and reversing the Bush gag rule barring abortion counseling at family planning clinics that receive federal funds. I had pledged to take these actions in the campaign, and I believed in them. Fetal-tissue research was essential to finding better treatments for Parkinsons disease, diabetes, and other conditions. The Mexico City rule arguably led to more abortions, by reducing the availability of information on alternative family planning measures. And the gag rule used federal funds to prevent family planning clinics from telling pregnant womenoften frightened, young, and aloneabout an option the Supreme Court had declared a constitutional right. Federal funds still could not be used to fund abortions, at home or abroad.