By Ogova Ondego
Published April 2, 2024
Perhaps nothing raises mere questions about how far an aide should go in protecting her boss than the case of Betty Grace Currie, Personal Secretary of President Bill Clinton, who is said to have facilitated clandestine meetings between Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, and the President.
In The White House’s Secret Service log, Currie’s name is listed as the person Lewinsky said she was visiting during several after-hours visits. Currie always gave Lewinsky clearance to the Oval Office. Yet to friends, Currie is a private, honest woman of integrity.
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Sitting right outside the Oval Office, Currie answered Clinton’s phone, opened his mail, corrected his spelling and brought him news, both good and bad. As such, she just could not have failed to know about what Clinton would later describe as ‘inappropriate relationship’ between himself and
Lewinsky.
Although the gifts Clinton bought for Lewinsky were left with Currie for safe-keeping, she denied ever knowing of their 18-month affair. Currie, a wife, mother and regular worshipper at Community United Methodist Church, had no qualms about helping Monica Lewinsky gain entry into the Oval Office discreetly.
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Why did she do it?
While some people speculate she did it because she may have thought that not doing so could have been taken to mean insubordination, others point out that she may not even have been asked to cover up the affair but that she did so on the assumption that she was being respectful and loyal to her boss.
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According to the Washington Post’s interpretation of the Ken Starr Report to US Congress, Currie, 58, “is a furtive accomplice to Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, arranging the logistics of their rendezvous while taking pains to hide the relationship.”
The African American woman was described by those who knew her as the President’s mother whose infectious laughter not only sweetened the Clinton White House but that she had taken up the job out of loyalty to Clinton.
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Currie’s predicament isn’t unlike that of Rosemary Woods, President Richard Nixon’s secretary, who claimed to have accidentally erased a portion of an important Oval Office tape during the Watergate scandal investigation.
During the Ronald Regan Administration, Fawn Hall, another secretary, altered and shredded crucial US government documents for Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, a major player in the Iran-Contra scandal. She told investigators that she never asked questions and that she merely obeyed orders.
“I did what I was told,” she said in testimony given under grant of immunity.
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According to Washington Post Service, a 1995 survey by the International Association of Administrative Professionals found that 88 per cent of those polled had told a ‘little white lie’ for a supervisor.
An executive assistant, Beh Colloty, was once employed by an investor whom she suspected of being a cocaine addict. As the drug problem did not interfere with her and the boss was a good man, she chose to remain in his employ. She however resigned when a friend of the man asked her to mail to the boss the drug while he was abroad.
She left the job because she realised “that no matter how good a guy I thought he was, he was too far gone to realise how much jeopardy he was putting me in.”
But one wonders why a secretary should wait until this late before deciding to quit.
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A US corporate ethics consultant, Nan DeMars, is quoted as having said: “It is none of your business when the boss is having an affair. It becomes your business if he brings you into it by asking you to cover for him or lie to his wife. I tell these women they have to take care of themselves first, their company second and their boss third.”
A secretary who almost got into trouble for dealing with a boss who was involved in fraud was quoted as saying, “I have absolutely learned from that episode that it’s very easy to be taken advantage of. Now I make sure I develop a close enough relationship with my boss so I can say, “Let me understand exactly what it is you want me to do – or can’t do it.”
Another executive secretary says she obeys her but she documents everything for her own protection just in case she ever needs to defend herself.
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