Clinton's Wealth Of Support

An Arkansas Family Has Been A Backer,
And A Source Of Controversy.

By Barbara Demick
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER STAFF WRITER, January 17, 1993

EXCERPT...

Early in the game, the Stephenses raised $100,000 in Arkansas to get Clinton's candidacy up and running. Then last spring, when Clinton was trailing both George Bush and Ross Perot, Worthen Bank supplied the cash- starved campaign with a $3.5 million line of credit.

SNIP...

The centerpiece of the family's $1 billion empire is Stephens Inc., one of the largest investment banking firms off Wall Street. In addition to its 38 percent interest in Worthen Bank, the family owns stakes in oil and natural gas, utilities, nursing homes, waste management, diamond mining and hog farming.

SNIP...

The Stephens businesses are often represented by the Rose law firm, where Hillary Clinton has been a partner. Until the mid-1980s, they owned Arkla Inc., the Shreveport, La., natural-gas utility from which Clinton tapped chairman Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty as his White House chief of staff. Their investment firm serves as business manager to Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and Harry Thomason, the Hollywood couple who helped choreograph Clinton's public image.

SNIP...

In 1978, federal securities regulators alleged that Stephens, along with Lance, helped Middle Eastern investors linked to BCCI secretly buy up shares in a Washington bank. Stephens and the others settled the civil lawsuit by signing a consent decree in which they neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.

SNIP...

The Stephenses have extensive holdings in natural gas, a resource strongly supported by Clinton. They, along with Bradbury, have been vocal proponents of easing banking regulations - in particular the limits on interstate banking and the Glass-Steagal Act, which separates banks from brokerage firms.

CONTINUED...

http://articles.philly.com/1993-01-17/news/25959645_1_worthen-bank-stephens-family-bill-clinton

Clinton's Wealth Of Support An Arkansas Family Has Been A Backer, And A Source Of Controversy.

By Barbara Demick
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER STAFF WRITER, January 17, 1993

EXCERPT...

Worthen is partly owned by the Stephens family, one of the richest in America. And the Stephens family, headed by oilman and investment banker Jackson Stephens, and its businesses did more than anyone to bankroll Clinton's political ascendancy.

Early in the game, the Stephenses raised $100,000 in Arkansas to get Clinton's candidacy up and running. Then last spring, when Clinton was trailing both George Bush and Ross Perot, Worthen Bank supplied the cash- starved campaign with a $3.5 million line of credit.

Jim Wells, a vice president in Merrill Lynch & Co.'s Memphis office, evokes a revealing aphorism about money and politics.

"Money is like rain. It is not just getting the rain, but when you get it that counts. And (the Stephens money) was like rain from heaven," he said.

"Nobody knows how influential Mr. Stephens will be in the next administration, but I would be surprised if his counsel isn't called on from time to time."

CONTINUED...

http://articles.philly.com/1993-01-17/news/25959645_1_worthen-bank-stephens-family-bill-clinton

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

-- Ron Suskind in Faith, "Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush." The New York Times Magazine, Oct. 17, 2004.