FAYETTEVILLE -- Former U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers described Bill and Hillary Clinton as "the most manic obsessive people I have ever known in my life, and perhaps even the most insensitive to everybody else's feelings," according to papers on file at the University of Arkansas library.
Clintons
The comment was in Bumpers' diary from Sept. 16, 1982, when he was a U.S. senator. The diary is part of the Bumpers Papers in the UA library's special collections department. The collection contains "Dale Bumpers Diaries" from 1973 through 1993, with several years in between missing.
Bumpers' family members said they were unaware of the diary and had doubts about its authenticity.
Some of the comments in the neatly typed pages are sharply critical of the former president and first lady.
"Everything centers around them and their ambitions," Bumpers wrote of the Clintons on that day in 1982. "It is precisely the reason Bill got beat [when he ran for re-election as governor] in 1980. People felt, and correctly, that they were being manipulated."
Bumpers, 89, who lives in Little Rock with his wife, Betty, donated the papers to the university in 2000. The collection, which includes 1,142 boxes, has been open to the public since March 2014. Mother Jones magazine revealed some of the diary material in an article Tuesday.
Brent Bumpers, the son of Dale and Betty, said late Tuesday that no family members knew his father kept a diary and his father couldn't remember it.
"He has no recollection of this, but he's not able to recollect much these days," Brent Bumpers said of his father.
Brent Bumpers said the "phraseology" in pages that were emailed to him doesn't sound like his father.
"I say there's something bogus about this," he said. "There's no way he said this stuff. This is an extrapolation or an exaggeration by somebody on his staff that was stuck in his files. ... This is just bizarre to me. I'm just not buying it."
The diary appears to be dictated. On some pages, there's a reference to "Jo," who was apparently transcribing the dictation. Brent Bumpers confirmed that a Jo Nobles had worked for Sen. Bumpers. Nobles was the senator's Washington office secretary, according to the library's website.
"I've never heard him express any sentiments resembling these," said Brent Bumpers. "He has revered Bill Clinton his whole life. ... I'm shocked. Our whole family for 30 years has been sort of a Clinton admiration society to this very day."
Brent Bumpers said his father hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in 2008 when she was running for the Democratic nomination for president.
Dale Bumpers purportedly dictated the entry above -- on Sept. 16, 1982 -- the same day that he and former U.S. Sen. David Pryor, both Arkansas Democrats, hosted a campaign luncheon for Bill Clinton at the Hilton hotel in Little Rock. Pryor introduced Clinton to the standing-room-only crowd.
"Clinton ought to be most grateful to both of us, but he never is," wrote Bumpers, referring to himself and Pryor. "You can never do quite enough for him and Hillary. I know they blame David and me both at least partially for their defeat in 1980."
Clinton lost the 1980 governor's race to Republican Frank White, who held the office for two years before Clinton was elected again in 1982.
Clinton was governor of Arkansas from 1983 until 1992, when he was elected president of the United States. Clinton served two terms as president. Now, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is considering a race for the White House.
Bumpers' diary entry from that September day also notes that his wife Betty, after meeting Bill Clinton for the first time, kept insisting that Clinton "had no character" and was essentially a chauvinist.
Bumpers wrote that Clinton would win the 1982 election for governor "but in my opinion he won't be able to sustain the momentum once he takes office."
In an entry three months earlier, on June 11, 1982, Bumpers wrote that he'd had a long conversation that day with Bill Clinton and said he'd see Clinton that weekend at the Bradley County Pink Tomato Festival.
"Bill Clinton is a truly tragic figure," wrote Bumpers. "I doubt that I've ever known anybody as manicly [sic] ambitious for political office, but who simply doesn't have the judgment or character to deal with it once he gets it. I know of two or three exceedingly dirty tricks his campaign pulled in this [race] and they're things that if they ever came to light would simply further confirm the suspicion people in Arkansas have of him."
Bumpers didn't specify what those "dirty tricks" were.
"They like him, but they know he'll do anything to get the office," continued Bumpers, referring to Bill Clinton and Arkansas voters. "He's bright, his heart's in the right place, he's energetic, he really wants to make a difference, and he cares deeply about his state. He just simply cannot sort it all out when character is required to make the right decision."
Media contacts at the Clinton Foundation in New York City didn't return emails seeking comments.
Janine Parry, a political science professor at the UA in Fayetteville, said Bumpers' comments about Clinton might not be that unusual given the time and context.
"The Democrats in Arkansas mostly had each other to contest with and fear, so I suspect that at least early on there was an element of Bill Clinton being perceived as a young man in a hurry," said Parry. "I think that's more of the tone that you see here. ... I think you're seeing a senior statesman-vs.-whippersnapper game at play. I think rationally he could see Bill Clinton as a rival who was not yet seasoned."
Bumpers is known as one of Bill Clinton's most eloquent defenders. Bumpers gave an impassioned speech on the Senate floor during Clinton's presidential impeachment trial on Jan. 21, 1999.
Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on perjury and obstruction of justice charges, then was acquitted in the Senate on Feb. 12, 1999, three weeks after Bumpers' speech.
Bumpers, age 73 at the time, had retired at the beginning of January after 24 years in the U.S. Senate. But Clinton's defense team asked Bumpers to return to the Capitol and give a closing argument in the proceedings to bolster the president's case.
Bumpers twice considered running for president himself, in 1984 and 1988. During his career, Bumpers defeated some of the giants of Arkansas politics: Democrat Orval Faubus and Republican Winthrop Rockefeller for governor in 1970, and Sen. J. William Fulbright for the Senate in 1974.
The Fayetteville archive doesn't include Bumpers' gubernatorial papers, which are held at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's Center for Arkansas History and Culture.
The Bumpers Papers in the UA's special collections in Fayetteville include biographical materials, correspondence, legislative and committee materials, personal and office records, speeches, photographs, audiovisual materials and collected items.
The box that contained the typewritten 1982 diary pages also contained an anonymous insult, apparently aimed at Bumpers.
The unsigned, handwritten note on stationary from the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations. The inscription scrawled in blue ink read, "You're an old ugly s***." Then, in pencil underneath, were the words "Old? Old? 21 years younger than Strom. Can't argue the rest!"
There was no further explanation.
Born in 1902, former U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina was 23 years older than Bumpers. Thurmond died in 2003.