By: Sannita Lam

My Life – Bill Clinton
MY LIFE by Bill Clinton
Biography & Autobiography — Presidents
Random House Audio
June 2004

Bill Clinton’s Childhood
 Bill Clinton was born
William Jefferson Blythe
IV on August 19, 1946 , in the small town of
Hope, Arkansas. He was named after his father, William Jefferson
Blythe III, who had been killed in a car accident just three months before his son was born

Bill Clinton’s Mother
 Bill's mother, Virginia
Cassidy Blythe, then trained to become a nurse-anesthetist in order to support her son. Bill lived with his maternal grandparents,
Eldridge and Edith
Grisham Cassidy at 117
South Hervey in Hope until age four.

Bill Clinton’s Step-father
 When Bill was four, his mother married Roger
Clinton, a Hope automobile dealer
 Bill's new step-father was an alcoholic, and could be abusive when he'd been drinking.

Bill Clinton and Politics
 Bill participated in many activities. In the summer of 1963 he was chosen to attend the American Legion Boys
State, a government and leadership conference, in Little Rock, Arkansas.
He was elected a senator and given the opportunity to go to Washington,
D.C. where he shook hands with
President John F. Kennedy . When
Bill returned to Arkansas, politics became a pursuit from which he never wavered.

Bill Clinton’s Journey

Bill Clinton’s Mentor
 Bill Clinton worked for
Democratic Senator
William Fulbright of
Arkansas, the chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, who became an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War.

Scholar Activities
 Clinton won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford
University
 In 1969 he enrolled in the Army Reserve
Officers Training Corps
(ROTC) at the
University of Arkansas
Law School.

Journey of Love
 Fall of 1970 Clinton entered Yale Law
School. While at Yale
Clinton met Hillary
Rodham, a Wellesley
College graduate from suburban Chicago.
Together they worked for George McGovern's presidential campaign in Texas during the summer and fall of
1972.

Candidate for Presidency
 On October 3, 1991,
Clinton announced that he was a candidate for the presidency. His campaign was nearly sunk by charges of marital infidelity, published in tabloid newspapers, and of unethical conduct in legally avoiding the draft during the Vietnam
War.

 On Tuesday, November 3, Clinton was elected president, and he took office on January 20, 1993. At the age of 46, he was one of the youngest men ever, and the first Democrat since the 1976 election, to be elected to the nation's highest office.

Presenter: Sannita Lam