Skeptical, Bumpers' son has UA pull Clinton-critical diary

FAYETTEVILLE -- The family of former U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers had a diary attributed to him "temporarily pulled" from the University of Arkansas library Wednesday after discovering that it contained comments critical of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The university withdrew public access to the diary the same day that the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette printed highlights from the document. Mother Jones magazine broke the story about the diary's existence Tuesday.

In 1982 diary entries, Bumpers purportedly said the Clintons were obsessed with political ambition and that Bill Clinton had problems "when character is required to make the right decision."

"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," the diary says about Bill Clinton in an entry on June 11, 1982.

Brent Bumpers of Little Rock, son of the former senator, has questioned the diary's origin and authenticity. Brent Bumpers said he wants to review the diary material, but he won't have the opportunity for several days because he'll be traveling out of state.

When asked if the diary would be permanently removed from the collection, Brent Bumpers said Wednesday that he didn't know.

Laura Jacobs, UA's associate vice chancellor for university relations, said the diary belongs to the university along with 1,142 boxes of material in the Dale Bumpers Papers, but the Bumpers family retains all copyright over the material during the former senator's lifetime. Dale Bumpers is 89 years old.

"Presently, the files with the diary entries have been pulled at the family's request to give them the opportunity to review those materials," said Jacobs. "Special collections remains sensitive to the wishes of this donor, and all donors, and will work with any donors to answer questions concerning their gifts."

Jacobs said copyright is primarily about publishing and broadcasting materials from the collection.

"It would be speculative to say whether [copyright] has any impact on the availability of the materials -- or what the donor might request after inspecting the materials," Jacobs said in an email. "The donor's family has questions about the material and we want to be sensitive and respectful of that."

On Tuesday, Brent Bumpers was adamant that the diary wasn't written or dictated by his father.

"There's no way under the sun," Brent Bumpers said Tuesday. "First, Dad doesn't type. There's no way he has even dictated a diary. Nobody has ever heard of him keeping anything close to a diary. ... This is just bizarre to me. I'm just not buying it."

Brent Bumpers said his father doesn't remember keeping a diary. He said Dale Bumpers always admired the Clintons and wouldn't have written the things the diary contains.

The diary appears to have been dictated. It contains references to "Jo," who apparently was transcribing tapes. Jo Nobles was a secretary in Bumpers' Washington, D.C., office. According to a Dec. 10, 1974, article in the Northwest Arkansas Times, Nobles was hired to manage Bumpers' Washington office.

A telephone call to Nobles' Little Rock home Wednesday was answered by a health-care worker who said Nobles is elderly and wouldn't be able to discuss her time working for Bumpers.

The diary is part of the Dale Bumpers Papers in the UA library's special collections department. The collection was donated to the university in 2000 and opened to the public in March 2014. The collection included biographical materials, correspondence, legislative and committee materials, personal and office records, speeches, photographs, audiovisual materials and collected items. It contains an online index labeled "Dale Bumpers Diaries" for parts of 1973, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1992 and 1993.

Brent Bumpers noted that it's not one book, like a typical journal. The "diary" consists of typewritten pages covering parts of seven "random" years from Dale Bumpers' 24 years in the Senate, he said.

In a Sept. 16, 1982, entry, the diary says Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton were "the most manic obsessive people I have ever known in my life, and perhaps even the most insensitive to everybody else's feelings."

"Everything centers around them and their ambitions," the entry continued. "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."

The comments were apparently dictated the same day that Bumpers and former U.S. Sen. David Pryor, both Democrats from Arkansas, 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," the diary says, apparently referring to Bumpers 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."

Bill 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 1983-92, when he was elected president. Clinton served two presidential terms. Now, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is considering a race for the White House.

A diary entry on June 11, 1982, refers to Bill Clinton as a "tragic figure" but says he was popular with Arkansas voters.

"They like him, but they know he'll do anything to get the office," the entry says. "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 comment.

Peter Hirtle, senior policy adviser at Cornell University Library, said whether the diary can be removed from UA's special collections depends on the agreement the university made with the donor.

"The donor can ask for whatever they want, and the repository can then determine what it wants to do," Hirtle said by email. "Technically, the deed of gift for the collection covers what is supposed to happen to the donation, but in practice repositories will often work closely with donors over the details of the donation even after it has been made. There are often good reasons for this. There may be material uncovered during processing that was not identified and hence not considered when the original gift was given, or the repository may wish to stay on the good side of the donor in order to encourage further donations of material, thus benefiting future historical research."

Jacobs didn't provide a copy of the agreement between UA and the Bumpers family to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Wednesday.

Bumpers is known as one of Bill Clinton's most eloquent defenders. He gave an impassioned speech on the Senate floor during Clinton's impeachment trial on Jan. 21, 1999.

Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, then was acquitted in the Senate on Feb. 12, 1999, three weeks after Bumpers' speech.

Bumpers, age 73 at the time, had retired early that 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 in Arkansas politics: Democrat Orval Faubus and Republican Winthrop Rockefeller for governor in 1970, and Democratic Sen. J. William Fulbright for the Senate in 1974.

This is the second time in the past year that the university has restricted media access to Clinton-related items in its archives.

In June, the Washington Free Beacon was denied access to UA's special collections after the publication copied and posted audio of a Hillary Clinton interview online without seeking permission to publish. Access was restored by August.

UA's policy requires a researcher to fill out a form asking for permission before publishing materials obtained from the library's special collections. The publication had refused to follow that policy.

The Free Beacon's lawyer, Kurt Wimmer, has called the suspension "a clear assault on the First Amendment principles that are fundamental to libraries and to journalism."

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.

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